Kinzie

Kayn woke up when the first light of dawn peaked into the cave. His legs were pretty sore due to the hit he took from the tails and his arm hurt still, but otherwise he was fine.

Looking over his side he noticed that Kinzie was still fast asleep and he guessed she would probably require a bit more rest before she woke up. She was pushing her limits when he arrived and was probably only managing to continue fighting with sheer willpower and a strong drive to live.

'Well, I've never had wolf meat before and I've got plenty of it, might as well make some wolf bacon for breakfast.' Kayn thought as he realized he hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday.

Kayn quickly cut some belly meat from the worst looking E-class corpse and took some other food items from his bag as well. Once the smell of meat cooking began to drift through the cave, Kinzie finally stirred and her eyes slowly opened.

At first, she was stunned, then fear took over her as she tried to move to the wall of the cave, away from the stranger who was masked in front of her. However, she quickly discovered how much it hurt everywhere when she moved.

"Hello sleepyhead, I suggest not moving much, you're pretty banged up. I placed some herbal medicines in your wounds and wrapped you up, but you're going to require a healer if you don't want scars or permanent muscular damage, not to mention possible internal damage." Kayn said without too much emotion while he continued to cook.

Kinzie then looked down at her arms and legs as well as seeing her wrapped up abdomen. She couldn't help but shudder at her current condition. Not only had she almost died, but a stranger had touched her almost everywhere while she was unconscious! Who knows if he did anything indecent to her? She was horrified at just the thought of it.

Kayn decided to look up when she remained silent and noticed the fear in her eyes. He could understand what she was thinking. Rape and sexual abuse unfortunately happened on Earth more than he would care to admit. He could imagine that in a world ruled by power that those with power would abuse it as well.

Sighing, Kayn opened his mouth to ease her worries. "Don't worry, I didn't do anything indecent, nor did undress any areas other than those requiring medical attention."

'I wouldn't resort to foul means just to reach first base; with my face I'll probably draw in women without a problem when I'm older.' Kayn smirked behind his mask as he thought about his promising future.

Noticing Kinzie still didn't respond to him, but appeared to have settled down a bit, he went back to focusing on cooking.

"By the way, name's Shin. Pleasure to save you, no thanks required."

Realizing that she had been extremely rude to the one who not only saved her but also bandaged her wounds, she introduced herself.

"My name is Kinzie, thank you for saving me. Though seeing as how you bandaged me, I can guess you saw my adventurer's plate. Did you by chance grab Michael's plate from his body? I would like to turn it into the guild so they can alert anyone he may have listed as family."

Hearing this Kayn reached into his bag and threw the plate to her, momentarily forgetting she couldn't actually catch it in time as he was too focused on the food, so it landed on the ground near her.

"Sorry about your friend, by the time I arrived he was already dead. His body was too mangled for me to want to bring it along, so that's all I grabbed of his." That was all the condolence Kayn could give her.

He didn't know her or the dead teen, so he didn't have any particular feelings towards his death. Kayn noticed that he seemed particularly detached when it came to death, but didn't think too much of it since he could explain it due to the person being unfamiliar to him and witnessing death many times before in the hospital.

The only people he really even cared about were his family and Lydia, it didn't matter if even the old healer died. He realized after he thought about his previous parents and the man he killed from rage, that in a dangerous world such as this, attachments could become a vulnerability and he wanted as few as possible.

"He wasn't my friend." Kinzie spoke coldly as if the boy's death meant nothing to her. "He was just another D-rank who I teamed up with for the mission. Judging by your prowess, the guild must have allowed a C-ranker to take the mission since we had been out here for several days already."

Kayn raised an eyebrow to her appraisal of him, but still decided to be honest. "I'm actually only an E-rank adventurer, I only started up a little less than a week ago. This was my ranking mission which they allowed me to complete in conjunction with the rest of my gathering E-rank missions."

Kinzie was stunned at his revelation, she couldn't imagine someone with that much magical prowess being so low ranked, even if he was new.

"Wait, what? Normally they test new applicants to determine their initial standing, only the smaller hubs like the one in Myrem start everyone from the bottom unless someone higher ranked vouches for you."

Kinzie stated with a questioning tone, normally people would choose to get their license in a bigger city so they could start off at a rank that matched their prowess.

"Welp, guess I'm starting from the bottom and now I'm here. You guessed correct in that indeed I applied in Myrem. Now do you want some breakfast or will you remain huddled against the wall?"

Realizing how hungry she was, Kinzie made her way over to the fire where Kayn handed her a plate with some meat, bread, and cheese.

"Ah, sorry about this, but I prefer to eat in private due to some facial disfigurations." Kayn said as he raised a wall of earth in between them. He couldn't have her seeing his face, or else his whole identity as Shin would be pointless.

Kinzie didn't complain, there were a few people who were embarrassed by scars they carried or their looks, so she could understand.

…

Once Kayn had finished eating, he lowered the wall only to discover that Kinzie was equally already finished and it looked like she had been for a while.

'Poor girl must have been starving, I wonder how long she was actually fighting for?' Kayn couldn't help but admire her a little for her stamina and determination to survive.

Kayn quickly packed up the camping supplies and replaced all of the wolf corpses back onto the cart. He looked over at Kinzie who still hadn't tried to stand up and could only sigh before he asked her preference for travel.

"Do you prefer to ride on the cart with the wolves or on my back? I can't promise either option will be comfortable for you, but I'll try to make the trip as easy on you as I can."

"Your arm is broken; how do you intend to hold both me in place and bring the cart along?" Kinzie looked at him like he was stupid for forgetting about his own arm.

"Oh, right you are. Cart it is then, I apologize in advance if it's a little bumpy." Kayn almost slapped his own forehead for not remembering that his arm was supposed to be broken still. It was bruised and painful, but that couldn't stop its functioning after he healed it.

…

Kayn slowly made his way back to town as he didn't want to run with the cart since that would bounce Kinzie around too much and it seemed cruel to do that to her given her condition.

Once he neared the entrance to Myrem, he brought out his adventurer's plate to the open and also had Kinzie place hers in the open so that the guards would let them in without any issues.

Kayn pulled the cart to the guild hall and cut off a slab of the alpha wolf's leg meat because he wanted to see if there was a difference in the taste due to its class being higher.

He unloaded the cart of wolves into the guild storage area, where a storehouse employee examined each corpse and noted down how many wolves and their condition before passing a slip with the information to Kayn.

Kayn assisted Kinzie into the building by allowing her to use him as her support. He approached a table near the bar area and sat her on a chair.

"Thank you for saving me and bringing me back here, I can handle getting around from here." Kinzie said as she glanced at his masked face only to notice how red his eyes were. Kayn only nodded and said you're welcome before he turned around and walked towards the receptionist.

A few minutes later Kayn returned in front of her holding a new bronze plate and handed her 40 copper coins.

"25 coins for your three corpses as well as 15 coins for your part in completing the twin-tailed wolf mission. Good luck and I hope you recover quickly without lasting effects to your body."

After saying his piece, Kayn walked out of the guild hall only to find a secluded place to change to his normal clothing and remove his mask and hood. He was ready to take a few days rest and just work as a healer for a week or two.