Neither of them paid much mind to Verbum on the ground and as concerning as whatever had happened out there was, it at least eased Ben’s worries. Not knowing what had caused such an intense level of death and destruction had been worrying but finding out it was just something his girlfriend did made the entire area a lot more easy to deal with.

“Sooo, should I be calling you my lovely evil goddess now?” He teased. “I’ll convert away from Myriad in a heartbeat for you, don’t worry about that.”

“Ben, this is embarrassing enough.”

“Ha, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. So will you tell me what all of this is then so we can give this guy some peace of mind whenever he wakes up?”

He hoisted Verbum to his back as he said it, carrying the other man and gesturing for them to go back to the cart, letting Thera take a couple minutes to get her thoughts together.

“Look, I was just having a really bad time and needed to distract myself a while ago,” She tried to explain but largely failed, her embarrassment over the whole situation combined with Ben seeing what she’d done making it harder to think straight.

“I think Verbum is going to need a bit more than that by the time he comes to,” He told her, leaning over to give her a light peck on the cheek. “But take your time to get your thoughts in order. No rush.”

“Um, do you not, I mean, feel weird?”

“Not going to lie, it freaked me out when we got there, but knowing it was you means it’s fine so don’t worry about what I think. As a treat, I won’t even tease you about it if you’re really that uncomfortable.”

He gave her a gentle smile and patted her head, just enough reassurance for her to calm down.

“Look, it’s not like I did anything bad,” She began. “It’s just, while you were stuck in the dead god’s trial I was having a bit of a rough time handling things emotionally so I threw myself into training my magics and I didn’t really think about how it looked but in hindsight it obviously looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? But that was really all it was and I would really appreciate it if we didn’t focus on it because like I said, it was a pretty emotional time.”

The golden glow of her face wasn’t fading, even as she explained herself and saw no judgment from Ben. Looking back on things, she couldn’t deny that she’d gone overboard in her grief. It was easy enough to ignore at the time, she’d needed to lose herself in something just to handle the fact that everyone thought Ben was going to die, and immediately after she’d been too busy with other things. Even if they were at different scales, entering a relationship and witnessing the invasion points being marked didn’t give her much leeway to reflect on the past. Being confronted with it again so suddenly changed things in a big way as she was forced to remember everything she’d done.

Ben took her hand, placing the unconscious Verbum into a precarious situation as he moved to reassure her. “I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to ensure I’m never kidnapped again though so there’s not going to be anything to stress you out in the future.”

At least, it was meant to be reassuring when he said it, but what it did instead was leave her laughing.

“You really are the last person on the planet that should be promising these things,” She told him, finally looking a bit more comfortable. “You’re tempting fate.”

“There’s no such thing as fate in this universe. Myriad keeps promising me as much.”

“Then you brought some of it with you from your old one.”

…That’s not possible, is it? No way, there was no fate back in my old reality either, right?

It was something he made a mental note to question Quilith on the next time he spoke with the grey as they made it back to the cart and buckled Verbum in before moving to go to their next destination.

The sudden scream from behind them told the two that Verbum had finally woken up and the forethought to properly secure him this time kept him from nearly throwing himself from the cart again, even if they were left with a different problem. Clearly on the edge of a panic attack, Verbum was regarding Thera with naked fear as he tried to move himself as far from her as possible in that small cart hanging in the sky.

"Verbum, chill."

"How the fuck do you expect me to chill after that!" He screamed, leaving Thera embarrassed all over again. "I'm trapped with someone who left an entire region of forest uninhabited!"

Wow, was it really to that extent? Well, what's done is done.

"Listen man, I get it looks bad but I know you've already looked at Thera's soul, you know how much mana she has. That's just a side effect of her training her magic to the best of her abilities. She did it out in the middle of nowhere specifically to keep anyone else from getting involved and if either of us realized that that's what we were investigating then we would have told you. It was a simple mistake is all, no need to make mountains out of molehills."

When Verbum didn't respond, Ben connected to him, wanting to see what he was thinking and finding him using his skill to the best of his abilities to try and verify what he'd just been told. It was obvious he didn't trust a thing but he was on the edge of panic and it was all he could do to distract himself so Ben left him to it, knowing he would come to the answer he was given eventually on his own.

“Well, while you’re deciding if you want to try and make a run for it, do me a favour and tell us what we should be looking out for in the next place,” Ben called back. “What are we keeping an eye out for this time?”

“A village,” He said eventually, not giving away too much attention as he rushed to figure out if they were telling the truth or if he should jump from the sky and run, hoping that his high attributes would be enough to survive the landing. “It’s only a rumour so we don’t even have a set location, but some people are saying that there’s a community deep in the untamed lands so people want answers on if it’s a group that’s moved out there for some reason or if it's something worse. Also, this is absolutely a you guys’ problem, I’ll just confirm whether they’re telling the truth or not.”

He was so focused on the skill going through his mind that Verbum didn’t notice the change his explanation brought to Ben and Thera, both of them silently looking at each other with neither knowing who would speak first.

“You don’t think…” Thera whispered hesitantly, not wanting to believe she was right in what she was thinking.

“Or course not,” Ben was quick to shut down, equally as quiet to keep Verbum from panicking again. “There’s no way. It would be ridiculous after how these first two have turned out.”

“Well, things are already ridiculous because of that, who’s to say it can’t get worse.”

“Me. I’m telling you, we are not about to end up in the demidemon village.”

“Ben, Thera, so good to see you both again!” Toltho cheered as the villagers gathered around them. “And, you’ve brought a friend! Who doesn’t seem to be looking too good I might add, is this perhaps not a friendly visit?”

Saying Verbum didn’t look too good was an understatement. He was freaked out enough the moment they were swarmed by the villagers, it only took Ben and Thera being called out by name to push him over the edge, making him pass out yet again.