Kalina tilted her head. "A few actually."
He turned to look at her and she had that expression. The one where her analytical brain was three steps ahead and she was deciding how extre it can be.
Her dangerous but excited face was very alluring and Eren tried really hard to stop his libido go insane on this street.
"Exactly how strong are you?" Kalina muttered and smiled a bit.
She pulled her pen out and held it over a clean page. "And those skills you keep ntioning. How effective are they really? I need specifics Eren. Not vague elf-magic handwaving when wood bending or my strong but uncontrolled flas..
I an your actual war capabilities or how capable of your skill for certain situations and even potential side effects." Her face looked so serious right now.
If she is asking about the side effects, this is going to be like an action movie.
The way she said it made the hairs on his neck stand up. Not because she sounded threatening. Because she was already three steps ahead and identifying resources nobody else was accounting for.
Eren looked at her eyes and saw calculations running behind them. Plans forming in real ti. Routes he couldn’t see yet but she could.
She was really made for this half magical but exciting life style. Even if she still talked about how stable her life was and how Eren destroyed her world view etc..she was already more into this spy-war situation for more than two hundred Ids.
He started from the top to bottom in his skill list and started explaining everything. He wasn’t sure about their effects on Earth but tried to be objective.
It started with Door Master, the portal skill. Sa-universe travel at one mana per second, inter-dinsional at a hundred per second. His 770 mana pool. The Dungeon Heart Fragnt with its thousand-point battery. Invisibility, rare quality, not yet tested at higher levels. Observe skill clone gave him which could read the stats and level of any creature or person within range. Advanced Language Learning at Evolution League 3 with Beastin which already considered like a skill of it’s own for so strange reason. His Elvish made it possible for him to contact with any elf and made him co this far and so many other skills and their effects...
Kalina was writing fast as her handwriting was small and tight and she underlined certain words twice.
"The portal." She tapped her pen on that word. "You can open a door to any location you’ve been before and it is very cheap within the sa universe when you think about it but actually doesn’t matter because the ti portal stay open changes. The number of uses are still one which sucks for my plans."
"Within one second per mana. So twelve minutes and change on a full pool for second usage but yeah. It sucks."
"And no one can see the other side unless they’re looking at the portal directly or so weird angles works too?"
"No from sidelines it looks like a door-shaped shimr from the front. From behind or the sides you can’t see it at all."
She wrote sothing and circled it. Then she looked up. "What about the Charisma. You said it’s over 290 with your passive?"
"293 total. The passive adds 233 on top of my base 60. I’ve been suppressing it down to about ninety-five percent but even at that level it affects people who get too close."
Kalina was interested in this topic and talked about it more than the other things for so reason. Eren could guess why but her feelings for him started way before he went to Evon.
So too bad girl. You liked first at my lowest. So you are mine..!"
"Charisma affects people- ahem won right. How exactly?"
Eren grinned and talked a bit vague. "Makes them.. want to be around . Even makes things trust more. And sotis do what I suggest." He scratched his jaw when Kalina slapped him at his words but figured he was over-exaggerating. "At full power in a room full of strangers I could probably convince every person in there that I’m a potantial best friend, business partner or lover within thirty seconds. Charisma stat makes everyone weird actually and needs more experint."
Kalina stopped hitting him and considered so scenarios for experintation but canceled them all in an instant. She looked at him with an expression that was half-fascinated and half-terrified.
"Eren." She capped her pen. "Do you understand what you just described?"
"A weird superpower that mostly gets in trouble with won?" He smiled but wasn’t as humored as before.
"You just described a person who can teleport to any previously visited location, turn invisible, read anyone’s stats and capabilities and convince a room full of strangers to do anything he says." She was speaking slowly now. "That’s not a farm boy’s toolkit. That’s an legendary thief, serial killer, assassin or a potential country conqueror’s dream skill-set."
He opened his mouth to argue but nothing ca out because she wasn’t wrong.
Yeah..
"Those alternative routes I ntioned for the identity papers." She picked up the pen again. "So of them involve walking into governnt offices."
Oh no. I couldn’t figure it from the look on your pretty face..
What does she think of - dumb..?*
"Kalina."
"Just listen." She held up one finger.
"A person who can teleport past security, go invisible to avoid caras, read the na and position of every official in a building and then walk into the right office and convince the person behind the desk that processing two hundred ergency refugee applications is a completely normal thing they should do right now."
"That sounds incredibly illegal."
"Everything about your situation is already illegal. You have two hundred undocunted people living on a farm."
He couldn’t argue with that either and honestly things were going in a fun direction.
"I’m not saying do it tomorrow or day after." She put the pen and her notebook filled with neat hand writing down and her voice got softer.
"I’m saying we have options that don’t cost eight hundred thousand dollars. And we should at least map them out."
Eren looked at her for a long mont. She was probably thinking of him as a soft person who wouldn’t break the law and needed so encouragent. But there was no need.
She doesn’t have to know..
Then he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She stiffened for half a second the way she always did when physical contact caught her off guard and then she relaxed into it and leaned back against his chest.
"You’re terrifying when you plan serious things, did ypu know that." He spoke into her hair.
"You married an elf warrior and you think I’m the scary one?" She turned her head and her nose brushed his jaw.
"Emily is scary in a sword-in-your-face way. You’re scary in a move governnts or countries around like chess pieces behind the scenes way... Also I never said you didn’t look sexy in this way."
Kalina laughed and mumbled so small words like "stupid playboy.."
It was a real laugh and made the scene so warm in a few seconds. Her body shook against his chest and she turned further until they were face to face and close enough that he could see the small freckles across the bridge of her nose that she hid with makeup during business or important days.
"We should finish the list." She was looking at his mouth.
"We should." He was looking at hers.
Neither of them moved toward the folder.
He kissed her, slow at first because Kalina always needed a mont to switch from business-brain to personal-brain and then deeper when she grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer.
She tasted like the Turkish coffee she’d been drinking and sothing sweet, maybe the chocolate cookies Rosa kept in the kitchen all the ti.
His childhood ca back for a second. His mother’s kitchen in Zekeriyakoy. The sa kind of morning light, the sa neighborhood sounds outside the walls. Dogs barking, a car starting.
Normal human stuff happening while he stood in a garden kissing a woman with a portal to another continent shimring behind them.
He could see it from this angle actually. The portal was still open and through it the farmhouse hallway was visible. The Aegean coast on one side of a magic door and a suburban Istanbul garden on the other. If any of Kalina’s neighbors looked over their garden wall right now they’d have questions that no amount of Charisma stats could answer.
But the hedge was tall and the back of the house wasn’t visible from the street and Kalina’s parents were at work and..
Twelve minutes. It is a long ti actually and I am a fast finisher in outdoor experiences.
He checked his mana without breaking the kiss. About 380 left. Just over six minutes.
Kalina’s hands moved from his collar to his chest and her breathing had changed and his brain started making suggestions his better judgnt couldn’t endorse on a ti limit.
He pulled her closer and kissed her neck. She made a sound that was barely above a whisper and tilted her head to give him better access.
"We still have the permit discuss-.." Her voice had gone soft and breathy and her fingers were pressing into his shoulders.
"Later." His hand moved down her back and past her waist and under the edge of her blazer. She was warm underneath and her body curved against his and suddenly the portal’s mana drain felt incredibly inconvenient.
His hand found the waistband of her jeans and her breath caught. She didn’t stop him. His fingers slipped past the fabric and her skin was hot and she shifted her weight closer-
Her phone rang.
They both flinched. Kalina’s hand shot to her back pocket so fast she almost knocked the folder off the bench. The screen showed "PAPA" with a small flag emoji next to it.
Her eyes went wide and she looked at Eren with the exact expression of a teenager caught doing sothing she shouldn’t be doing which was funny because Kalina was twenty-eight years old probaby and ran a legitimate import business.
Eren never learned how old she reall was. Kalina would answer different answers in different places and people. For example she even tried to convince him like how she was twenty five few days ago and it made every elf in the room laugh which wasn’t fun for her.
Maybe she is over thirty
Kalina answered the phone and her voice switched to casual Turkish so fast that Eren almost got whiplash from the transition. "Hey dad. No I’m ho. Just having breakfast. Yeah the early eting got cancelled so I’m-"
Eren leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers while she was mid-sentence. Just enough to make her lose her train of thought for a full second and scramble to recover.
She hit his fore head and looked so scary for a second.
"-finishing so paperwork for the new account. Yeah. I’ll be at the office by eleven."
He grinned at her, waved goodbye with his fingers and stepped backward through the portal.
The last thing he saw was Kalina’s face going red while she nodded along to whatever her father was saying and made a gesture at Eren that was either "I’ll kill you later" or "co back soon."
Possibly both.
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