"Well that went as well as a surprise colonoscopy" he thought to himself as he made himself decent and and tried to sit back up by leaning up against a small boulder.

  He stared at the duo and tried to make sense of this situation. Could they understand him if were to speak? Should he risk his safety by taking off his helmet so doesn't seem like an alien? Well maybe they know he's a man considering the first skin they saw of him was circumcised.

  Then he heard his stomach growl, almost caving in on itself and thought, "Fuck it, I'll eat first and see where this goes." So he crawled back to his crevice a few minutes away not giving any attention to the couple, perched up against the inside as he slid off his helmet and looked back at them.

  They still stood in the same place where he had seen them first. Frozen, staring at him like some sort of godly anomaly. Ignoring their vacant stares, he got out his ration pouch, mixing water in it, waiting for it to heat up, then slurping it down like a soup through the built-in straw in it. Then he ate another and another until finally he was satisfied.

  This had given him enough strength that he could start to set his back bones back into the correct positions before he tried to heal them by circulating his mana. This time he focused on the specific parts, imagining hard on the parts he wanted to heal and he could feel the process speed up significantly.

  One by one he fixed all his bones and then tried to do the same with internal wounds. He looked back at the dou and realised that they had come closer and sat down while blatantly observing him. He felt like a freakshow that was being advertised at a circus, the old footage of those carnies going through his head.

  He gathered his belongings leaving low his knives and set his backpack back in its place. The knives were attached to a custom port located at his lower back. He took a deep breath and stood up. It still hurt a lot and he almost stumbled and fell back down. Catching himself, he steadied his breath again and stood up, helmet in hand, he slowly made his way to the peanut gallery.

  Trying to give his best smile and waving his hand to seem as friendly as he could he spoke, "He-" before he could even complete his first sentence he coughed up blood almost choking on the sheer quantity of it. Looks like the healing was working and getting rid of all the internal bleeding. Though did it really have to embarrass him some more like this. Spitting out the remnants and clearing his throat a couple of times he spoke again.

  "Sorry about that. Hey, my name is Khan, and I seem to be a bit lost. Can you tell me where I am and if there is a settlement nearby?" Yes, even if they didn't understand him maybe his tone came off as genuine and non threatening.

  However he saw the astonished look on the child's eyes and the distrust in the old lady's. They started talking among themselves in a language he had not heard before and he stood there awkwardly seeing them converse. For a moment he thought talking to them might be useless and was debating on wether or not to find his own way when they stopped talking and the lady looked at him.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He stood there smiling awkwardly while the old lady squinted at him, looking him up and down like she was appraising grocery, just then on instinct his went to his knife as he drew it and threw it one fluid motion so fast that the couple could not react. The knife went flying over their heads and right between the eyes of a snow imp that was about to pounce on them.

  With horrified looks they backed off before turning around and seeing why he had acted so rashly. Still shocked by the sudden development and frozen in their place when our soldier, now named Khan, went around them slowly while drawing his other blade and behading the little monster before drawing out his first blade. He stood up, looking around the field for more enemies. Snow imps always hunted in packs.

  Then as if their ambush had failed, a dozen more popped out of the snow while charging at the three walking talking meals they had spotted. Even with his insides churning up and screaming in pain he suddenly closed the gap, coming closed to the lady and the child to protect them while fending the imps off.

  Besieged in every direction, it was hard to get a sure kill as the imps were fast and agile, attacking from multiple fronts so most of the times he could either smack them away by kicking them or they would done his blades leaving shallow wounds. As time went by he could feel his internal injuries getting worse by the moment as blood surged up his throat and started flowing out his mouth.

  These imps were not tough enemies for him but considering they went for the weaker two while ignoring him, this fight looked it would be drawn out to a war of attrition. He would eventually win, given he didn't attract more of them.

  Just then the old lady started mumbling real fast and in a few seconds a magic shield enveloped her and the child. Khan instinctively knew he had about maybe 10 seconds before that sheild gave out, more than enough to end this fight. Without hesitation his speed exploded and a head was lopped off, then a torso bisected, a forehead punctured. Before the imps could really recognise the turn of the situation, they all lay dead with a single attack each.

  Khan fell to his knees, vomiting blood as he felt light-headed. His injuries were not kind to him and now he was on the verge of passing out in the snow. As his world rocked unsteadily and the light started to dim, he heard a faint mumble, the voice slowly getting closer as he crashed face first into the cold embrace of the white hell once again and in his faining vision he saw the old lady bend down and whisper to him, "Don't worry ye laddie, we's take good care of ya." Then his world went blank again.

  -----

  The old lady got up and looked back at her granddaughter. What had started out a routine trip to teach the village shaman's successor had turned into something completely bizarre.

  A strange man with strange armour. Strong but injured heavily. A good man but also a pervert. She didn't know how to judge this foreigner but considering how he selflessly tried to protect them, as part of the Ma-Yat tribe she could not overlook this debt.

  Her people were a proud people, who repaid what was owed ten times, whether that be kindness or vegence. She could not let this man die out here. She turned to her grand daughter who was still frozen in shock, "Enough staring, I'll put him on an ice shield. Tiea rope around his shoulders and pull him back to the village."

  "But grandmother, he-"

  "Don't question me little girl, do as you're told. Did you forget who we are? How we repay others?"

  "But he looks so heavy." She said with a sigh as she took out some rope from under her heavy clothes and got to work.