Zelsys was very much content to continue leaning against the transport’s pleasantly cool metal, but she wasn’t one to eavesdrop. When she heard Spliteye mumbling something about a foreigner in her unconscious state, she decided to join Makhus and Sigmund around the firepit. She was curious, but she wasn’t disrespectful of one’s privacy. Even so, she still caught muttered descriptors like “tall” and “brown” as she walked away from the transport.

Neither of the men said anything at her approach, though she almost tangibly felt Makhus’s gaze. It wasn’t tracing her skin or traveling to undue places, but rather jumping between her gun and the cleaver. The three of them sat there in silence as the two men slowly ate while Zelsys periodically switched between watching the fire and what little of the night sky could be seen through the tree canopy.

“Alright, fine. The cleaver’s yours,” Makhus suddenly piped up with annoyed resignation.

Zelsys gave him a look, one eyebrow raised. She knew he had more to say. “So it is. You want to take a look?” she offered, reaching for the handle, for she knew what his answer would be. A deliberate, controlled nod. The veneer of a self-controlled soldier broke almost immediately when Zelsys put the cleaver in her lap. Staring at the push-saw side with a furrowed brow, the swordsman muttered “The fuck’s this shit, that looks utterly impractical….”

“It sure saws through bears pretty good,” she laughed.

The sudden flash of two words in her head dragged her into the realm of the waking.

DELETION SUCCESSFUL

She woke with a stream of drool running down her cheek and her right arm numb up to the bicep, and after a few blinks to clear her eye, she immediately lifted the Tablet to take a look. Much to her relief, it seemed the process had worked, if the projection she was seeing was the one Makhus had seen. “Should’ve asked him what it showed when he woke up before I did it,” she chastised herself.

RECORD OVERWRITE PLEASE ENTER NAME

Much like Makhus, she chose a name other than her given one. Unlike him, hers was an entirely arbitrary choice. It wasn’t the name of anyone she had looked up to, or anyone who had played a significant role in her earlier life - it was just the name of a girl who she had met perhaps once or twice, a name which she liked and which stuck with her, unlike anything else about the girl.

“Zefaris.”

NAME ZEFARIS SEX FEMALE SPECIES HUMAN (IKESIAN) FORCE D PRECISION C+ HARDNESS C AETHER D+ TRAITS>

Not a flicker of surprise crossed her mind at the change in her attributes. “Helping him with that alchemic moonshine setup did improve my aether,” she thought, satisfied by the accuracy of her self-knowledge. The increase of her Hardness was only to be expected considering her circumstances, and she was all too confident in her own marksmanship to be surprised by the Tablet’s judgment of her Precision.