"so are hungry or not?"

"hiii! what? please don't hurt me!"

finally snapping Alice out of her daze by poking her cheek and asking if she has hungry, Dax only got fear in return, staring only back at him with terror in her eyes while hyperventilating. seeing the same frightful look he had seen a thousand times before, Dax showed a bitter smile.

"so it's like this again, nevermind that, do you believe i'm not a demon now?"

"no you're not a demon, you're something worse! how many did you kill!? what kind of monster are you Dax!?"

"do you prefer a honest answer to that, or just a lie? and i'm a Qiton we were made for war, stronger, faster and tougher than even the highest cla.s.s of autonomous drones, even if i did choose any other profession i would've just been have discriminated against. 'a killing machine teaching my kids i don't want that what if it snaps and kills them!?' so i became a soldier, and a good one at that"

"don't try and doge the subject! how many!?"

"i can't remember"

"wh"

"i lost my about 718 years of memory my memory due to injuries in the battle that made me to crash me on this planet. ICI do you know?"

[INFORMATION WITHHELD.]

"why? is it cla.s.sified?"

[NEGATIVE, BUT IT WOULD NEGATIVELY IMPACT THE ABILITY TO FORM A COOPERATIVE RELATIONs.h.i.+P WITH THE SUBJECT.]

"oh well there you have it, i will do my best to answer anything else that'll make you trust me"

now wearing a innocent smile, Alice felt she still couldn't trust Dax but she was a bit confident that he wouldn't outright kill her, but she was still paralysed and Viktor was laying down unconscious behind Dax. she had to learn something, could he be a ally? what did he want? and if he was hostile she needed to escape alive and warn the kingdom.

"so what's your objektive? why are you here?"

"i want to return to my world, for that i need to recover parts of my derelict s.h.i.+p that's shattered all over the place, the most important one being the reactor, and make a new s.h.i.+p to leave this world"

"okay, that makes sense, but how long would that take? i don't imagine that's a feat you could complete in a single lifetime"

"that's not important, even if it takes a few hundred years i won't die as long as i have enough nan.o.bots to restore and repair me, besides Qitons don't age after reaching maturity, what's the point of having a perfectly engineered army if they wither and die after a few thousand years?"

"so you're saying that you're immortal? that's impossible!"

"in your world maybe, but in my world you could live forever, as long as you have the right amount of money or connections of course"

"there's no way i would believe that"

"of course you wouldn't, ICI can i?"

[CONFIRMED. ENTERING LIMITED COMBAT MODE, RELEASING LIMITERS.]

"wait what are you doing? that thing.. ICI? what is it doing?"

"as it said, releasing my some of my limitters"

standing up, Dax walked over and picked up Alice's short sword, and before admiring it for a second he flipped it around to a reverse grip and stabbed himself in the arm.

"what are you doing!?"

"this is really a nice blade, well just watch"

further piercing his own arm, he started to cave out his own ulnaris muscle (lower arm muscle), only stopping when about a centimeter remained attached to the bone, and dark red blood flowed freely down his arm.

"well this should be good enough, ICI engae auto repair"

[CONFIRMED. STARTING AUTO REPAIR… LOADING SUBROUTINES… COMPLETE]

as if betraying her eyes, Dax's muscle started to reattach itself on his arm, and the blood that was dripping down his arm solidified, and as if i had a mind of its own flowed back up and into Dax's body. not even a second after the healing started, Dax's arm had returned to normal, except for a small amount of blood on the floor. Alice had seen healing magic before, and even experienced it a few times, but it was nothing compared to that, no maybe some of the high bishops could do that, but that didn't matter, Dax could do it, and easily. as Alice thought that, she started to believe that he might actually be immortal.

"what… was that?"

"auto repair. Qitons are tough to begin with, but with the help of a extreme mix of nanites and a couple biomechanical and cybernetic implants, stuff like this is possible, well even if you don't believe that, the same thing is happening in your and that kid's body at the moment, although at a much slower pace"

"you're healing us, but why? we tried to kill you"

"that you did, but after realizing that this world contained intelligent life i decided that i need a guide, and as i did you guys showed up at the perfect time, but sadly i had to break you guys to stop you from trying to kill me so we could talk. regretfully i had to go too far when that kid surprised me with that 'magic' stuff against me. i'm sorry i had to break your spine and that kid's neck so i'm repairing the damage i did, that's why you're paralyzed and the kid is sleeping, it would be extremely painful if you could feel the nan.o.bots currently fixing your spine, trust me i tried it before"

"okay i'll believe for now that you're not out to hurt us for now, how long until me and Viktor are healed?"

"oh so his name is Viktor? he didn't mention that earlier when we talked"

"wait, what? you talked, how?"

"the same thing a used on you, i established a direct neural connection through ICI"

"you what?"

"i 'talked' with him through in his mind, he was very cooperative and believed that i didn't wanna hurt you, and wouldn't stop asking questions about my world so it took a while. anyway i found your provisions, so are you hungry? it'll take a while before you can move so i'll help you"

it took a bit to understand what Dax meant by 'help', but once she did her whole face turned bright red.

"wh! no! i'm fine, so stay away, please!!"

"come on i'm monitoring your vitals so i can tell your blood sugar levels are low, don't be embarra.s.sed i won't tell a soul about this so don't worry, kay?"

wearing a childish smile, Dax took out a bead ration and started walking towards Alice, as her face turned even more red.

"wait stop ple"

before she could utter a refusal, her body betrayed her and a loud rumbling sounded from her stomach, turning her whole face completely beet red.

"....please just kill me."

"nope~"