Chapter 62: Who Exactly Are You?
Granted, that wasn’t inherently suspicious. She could easily be from some remote corner of the world he knew nothing about. But that was the thing, Uhtred couldn’t even place a finger on where she might be from, just from her features alone.
If there was such a thing as being ethnically ambiguous, then this girl was exactly that.
Her skin color was a very light shade of brown, light enough that he tried to mentally categorize her, cycling through Latin American or European complexions, but nothing quite fit. If pressed, he might have guessed she looked somewhat Egyptian, but even that felt like a wild guess.
And her complexion was only the beginning. Contrasting sharply with her skin was her hair, which was a stark, brilliant white, almost leaning toward platinum blonde.
It wasn’t some kind of dye job or artificial coloring either. Instead, it looked inherent, right from the very roots of her hair. Uhtred had seen it very clearly when he had pulled her out of the grey sludge on Floor 19.
Then, to top off the entire look, her eyes were a very bright shade of blue, the bluest eyes he had ever seen.
And then there was the language thing.
Finding her in a dungeon also didn’t help her case. There was a global quest that pitted modern humans against ancient variants. All kinds of things were possible in this new world, so Uhtred could not write off the possibility that this girl was not even human despite the fact she looked like one.
Reining in his hyperactive thoughts, Uhtred let out a slow breath. He was wary, but he forced himself to stay grounded. He could easily be wrong.
Everything about her, suspicions aside, pointed to her being human. Even the System displayed her level exactly the way it did for everyone else.
He let the silence stretch between them for several moments, studying her. Then, he finally spoke:
"What’s your name?"
"...Zara," she mumbled in response, her gaze still steady on him.
"Okay... Zara. As much as I’d like to begin questioning you, I think we need to get that fixed," his eyes moved down to her spasming side where he had shattered her ribs.
"And also..." Uhtred cleared his throat, his face flushing with some trace of embarrassment. "I think we need to get you some clothes."
Zara only tilted her head, staring at Uhtred with a confused expression. Then suddenly, Diya’s voice came from behind.
"He’s saying your tits are hanging out, missy."
Uhtred choked on his saliva, immediately bursting into a coughing fit at Diya’s raw choice of words.
Throughout the entire fight, especially at the beginning, Zara’s lack of clothing had been one of the main reasons why he’d simply wanted to calm her down instead.
"Diya. Language..."Uhtred’s voice turned scolding, but Diya only harrumphed in response.
Uhtred averted his gaze from Zara. But from the corner of his eyes he could see her finally looking down and taking in her appearance.
Yet, despite the fact that she was without any clothes on, she didn’t look the least bit embarrassed about it at all. She simply stretched her hand forth towards Uhtred.
"Do you have any clothes?"
Uhtred, now accustomed to Zara’s directness, immediately pulled up his multiversal store panel and browsed quickly for one of the cheapest clothing he could find, something a female human could wear.
As he did, the flush on his face started to subside, seeing as Zara herself was not particularly embarrassed about the situation.
But Diya wasn’t letting him go scot-free. She turned to Dennis and Minh Quan and started to speak as if Uhtred was not there.
"I don’t know why he’s acting all bashful now. He’s the one who carried her up from the lower floors and just spent the last minute fighting her. You’d think he’d have gotten over it by now."
Uhtred cleared his throat and leveled a gaze at Diya just as he purchased a simple garment for Zara to wear.
The attire arrived in a plain box that materialized out of nowhere, startling Diya and Minh Quan most especially. Dennis wasn’t as shocked. His eyes only widened slightly before settling into a flat, unmoved look.
He had quickly pieced together how Uhtred had been able to provide them with basic weapons like the dagger he currently used, and also the essence cores that they used for their cultivation.
He concluded that there had to be some sort of System-made store where Uhtred exchanged the essence cores they got from beasts and where new things could be bought. The fact it had not yet been opened to him simply meant he hadn’t met some requirement.
While he could quickly deduce this, Diya and Minh Quan didn’t realize the same immediately, and their shock was evident on their faces. They moved to voice out their shock, but Uhtred turned his gaze away from them casually and strode forward to the kneeling Zara, handing her the clothes.
"Diya, you up for another round of healing?"
Diya closed her mouth and swallowed the question she wanted to ask. Her short time with Uhtred had taught her when to ask certain questions and when not to. She simply shook her head to Uhtred’s question, responding to that instead:
"No way. I expended way too much cosmic essence healing her the first time. You literally shattered her ribs, that would take a lot of time and energy to heal, so she’ll have to wait for me to recover for a bit."
"Oh..." Uhtred’s expression turned a bit guilty, and he looked down at Zara, who simply took the response in stride. Her expression hadn’t changed in the slightest, and she didn’t look as though she was suffering from any pain at all.
Still, that didn’t do anything to alleviate Uhtred’s guilt. He simply couldn’t begin to question her when she was obviously in pain, even though she wasn’t showing it.
Diya sighed from behind, noticing Uhtred’s expression.
"If it makes you feel any better, I can go ahead and make her entire midsection numb for the meantime till I recover my energy," she said.
"But I don’t even think that’s necessary. I said it before, her build is somewhat like yours. Her body is very tough. She literally drained the cosmic essence I was feeding into her like an unending well the first time. I think she can handle more than some simple shattered ribs."
"You sure?" Uhtred began to ask, but he saw the dead stare Diya leveled at him the moment he started to ask. He tacitly chose to swallow the question instead, just as Diya strode forward and squatted next to Zara.
The blue-eyed mysterious girl was silent the whole time as Diya placed her hand on her fractured ribs and began to work on numbing the entire area for the meantime.
And after five minutes, Diya finally stood up, tiredness deeply etched into the creases on her forehead. She looked at Uhtred, "She’s all yours..."
Uhtred nodded curtly, then squatted right in front of Zara, looking her dead in the eyes.
Her expression had become slightly less robotic, with some life coming into her face. It seemed what Diya had done had significantly alleviated the pain she previously refused to show.
"Alright, Zara... Who exactly are you?" Uhtred asked. "And how the hell did you wind up on the 19th floor of a dungeon on your own...?"
