After defeating the beast, Grey was seen falling down in exhaustion but before he could hit the ground, he was caught by the short man who gently laid him on the ground while Grey's chest was heaving in and out.
The good thing was that he was conscious, he was just tired after exerting all his mana in the fight. After getting a little bit of rest, he sat back up and crossed his legs in order to meditate so he could regain his lost mana back.
Meanwhile, the short man was seen carving and extracting the crystal cores from the dead beasts while occasionally glancing back at Grey who was still meditating with his eyes closed.
'This human, why does he have similar powers to those people?' The man thought as he kept on extracting crystals while staring at Grey with the corner of his eyes.
'Is it starting again? Will history repeat itself again? Is he one of them? If so, I need to keep an eye on him for the well being of our race. And if I deem him a threat, I will wipe him out of existence.' the man thought with resolve as he was finally done extracting the crystals.
Then he walked towards Grey with the crystals in his hand. When he was in front of him, the man tossed one of the crystals towards Grey and it landed on his lap causing him to open his eyes to see a shining core in his lap.
"Here, that's yours." The man said.
Standing up, Grey took the crystal and hid it away in his pants pocket while looking at the short man strangely mainly because of his rabbit like ears.
"Quit staring at me like that you human!" The short man shouted.
"Human?" Grey raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you also a human? Well, I think."
"Do I look human to you?" The short man asked angrily.
"Certainly not, not with that height and ears you don't." Grey chuckled while the short man was seen clenching his hands in anger and a visible vein was seen popping out of his head.
Seeing the man's reaction, Grey quickly regained his composure.
"I'm so sorry for making jest of you. I didn't know you don't like jokes." He apologized while the man was seen calming down.
"Humans and their stupid nature." The man shook his head.
'Again with the human statement, looking at him, I know he isn't a human. So what race is he? Have I been thrown into an alien planet?' Grey thought worriedly while clenching his fist in and out.
'I have managed to gather a little bit of portion of mana back to cast at least three small spells. In case of a fight, I could just distract him with a fireball then I will quickly fly off to the cave and activate the magic circle so I can go back home.' He smiled at this plan that formed in his mind.
"Looking at that smile of yours, I can guess you have just formulated a plan that will facilitate your escape." The man said which caused the smile on Grey's face to freeze as he looked at the man strangely.
"I guess my guess was right. Anyway, I don't think you would need that plan yet as I'm not in the mood for a fight, I just want to talk. So how about we head somewhere private and more friendly?" The man asked with a friendly smile on his face.
"And why should I trust you? I don't even know who you are or what your motives are." Grey said with a raised brow.
"Right, good point. Fine let me introduce myself, I'm Randin. I will explain who I am and what race I'm from when we go somewhere else. This place is filled with beasts and not safe if we don't leave here soon. I can see you are even weak to even hunt a level 1 beast not to talk of a level 3."
'He is right, I can't even cast more than three spells, there's no way I can fight right now in case of trouble. So I just have to trust him right now.' Grey thought clenching his fist in and out.
"Fine, let's go." Grey said and Randin went away from the forest area and headed towards the direction of the caves where Grey came from.
"Why aren't we heading the other way?" Grey asked.
"If you wanna be beast food, then be my guest." Randin replied.
"Isn't that where you came out from?" Grey asked again.
"I chased the beast of earlier in that direction when we were fighting." Randin replied.
"So where we are headed, that's where you live? Coz I can only see mountains and caves around here. Where are the rest of you?"
"They are all dead. Only a few of us are left and we are scattered all around the bronze continent." Randin replied.
'What!!??! How can a whole race be almost wiped out like that?' Grey thought worriedly.
They walked some more and after a few turns, climbs, jumps and scaling, they now stood in front of a big cave that went about 20 metres deep and about 10 metres wide allowing for a lot of space.
Grey could see different types of equipment scattered around with some tools laying around and then a small bed made out of wood and some soft materials was kept in a corner.
"Welcome to my humble abode where I live alone now." Randin said as he lay on his bed while a small chair was produced for Grey to sit on.
"So now, before I begin my story, I need to know what a young human like you is doing here." Randin said.
With a sigh, Grey decided to say the truth.
"I'm Grey dawn, and guessing by how this place used to be inhabited by a different race, then I'm guessing this is a different planet. So I come from the planet Earth and where I come from, I'm quite poor and I needed a way to survive so I drew a magic teleporting circle that brought me here.
So I could hunt beasts and sell their cores back on my planet so I can earn a bit of money to survive." Grey said.
"Hmm." Randin said as he stroked his small beard.
"That's quite plausible. Anyway, since you have answered my question, let me also answer yours."
"I'm Randin and no, we aren't humans. We are our own species or race whatever you call it. This planet is called Bronze land. And we are a race known as Dwarves."
"Dwarves!?!!?" Grey asked surprised.