Popp has some opinions about Dark Magic; even if his association with Gaia has softened those considerably. It's easy to get past one or two personal experiences with Dark Aura Puppetry, but hard to erase a lifetime's worth of assumptions, even a relatively short lifetime. Case in point, he's craned his neck around to double check that Barnabas doesn't have pointed ears, or maybe a patch of scales or something. He looks human.

"You look just like a human, and you also look a lot like a guy who could be a legendary warrior king... I'd say it's the last one, nobody's invincible, but who'd set himself up to brag about a fight he lost? I lose fights all the time and I wouldn't do that!"

Not that he gets into many one-on-one fights. Certainly very few that he has not had to be subsequently rescued from! The people who do are more like... ah, okay, he's got it. He's a genius.

"...I think it's the third one. You lost a fight but it gave you some kind of amazing life-changing epiphany and that's why you don't mind talking about it!"