I left the bickering couple to themselves and headed over to the Reception Hall. Starflake still hovered right over me, curiously looking around her vicinity. The face she made was really cute, and I'm never tired of thinking that. Upon reaching there, I was greeted by Ms. Chait, the Acmain Receptionist of the guild, as of the moment. I renewed my adventurer status… which brought up memories of the very first friend I made in this world. The receptionist lady and I had small talk, filled with short updates of my adventuring progress so far, her positively chatting and congratulating me. All that good stuff before registering the very first quest I'd have with my newly formed party.

"I'm a party leader now. Huh." I reminisced while I stuff my paperwork into my magical bag.

Ms. Chait looked happy for me which I returned by being chipper and positive about it. When that was done, we all went out of the Taverinn.

I breathed in the crisp morning air, which felt different because I wasn't alone this time. It was something new, but it felt rather nice. All that's left for me to do was to interact with each of them, to pass the time during the long walk from the Northern Gate all the waypoint on our map.

I chose to hang out with Aria first.

"Hey, Aria," I called her attention, gently tugging the cape of her outfit, which I got to admit- she looked great in.

A bit the same as her waitress uniform (though different material and leathery), like this outfit she wore, revealed a bit of cleavage of her cup size C chest.

Why mention such details? Reasons. It DOESN'T bother me and I would like to emphasize that I AM NOT JEALOUS. I am very much aware that mine is very small, but that doesn't necessarily mean I should really have to care for such. (“> .>)

"Yes?" She replied and faced me attentively, adding a smile.

"I just realized you still owe me a discussion for something, about what you said while we were there in that Blood Moon Kingdom."

"Oh that… ehehe-" She replied while letting out a declining nervous laugh. "Well… alright then."

I nodded with bright intent as I looked up at her.

"Okay…" She paused to think, and then breathed in and out. "Let me start over from way back in my academy days. A school for people gifted with magical talents. I am a ‘witch’. Insult to injury, it's both an honorable title and a disrespectful naming. The world still is on the fence of accepting the proper use of the term, I guess."

She shook her head a bunch of times. Probably to shake off thoughts she doesn't want to be thinking about?

"I should just mention that time I was getting impatient with the flow of the actual magic-using process. I deemed them as unnecessary because I could command my magic freely, effortlessly, even at a young age." Aria said, pointing her index finger to her chin in concentration. "I… still attended this school when I was little. Can't disobey Father and all that. It was okay, looking past how almost everyone there was afraid of me. At the end of all our lessons, we will have to participate in trials. Some of which involved battling each other using the spells we mastered. I was… let's just say too full of myself, all because of the fact that I knew that I had a [Pure Ice Orb] shard infused into me from birth. 'Far superior than the common man' my Father would chant at me more than once. But that got to my head… I never required a medium to use my magic. Staff or wands? Spellbooks, crystal balls? Nope. The pure magic fragment inside me did all the work. Simply waving my hand would call upon my inherited power… and all my life it's been a fact nudged to me that this power I had was too dangerous for my fellow students. 'It's enough to kill'. More to my father's lists of mandatory preachings. Looking back on how he was just suppressing me too much, controlling me by filling these things into my head at an early age… It does seem like a long time now."

It didn't take me a while to realize something. Aria had it hard from the moment she was born into the world. Her Father was a control freak. She had no friends… or at least people who she can feel comfy with and vice versa. It seemed so sensitive of a subject, but she just casually explained her life situation to me… it bothered me how casual she was about this. There's a lot I could be asking, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and let her keep doing the talking.

She paused and shook her head.

"Well anyway, I tested it further… tested myself… by sneaking out while everybody was sleeping. I had the intention to challenge a powerful beast. It was night, so, obviously, it wouldn't be so hard to find a challenging target right? To my surprise, I wasn't the one looking for it… because what came to me seemed to be the one looking for me."

She paused and faced ahead, clearing her throat. Her tone was tense and heavy.

"It was big, stood on two legs, and it really was scary at first glance, adding to the surreal darkness around. It made the creature look like a silhouette of a monster. After hearing it snarl, I didn't give it any chance to make the first move. I casted spells to impair its movement. I was caught off guard after realizing that my attempts didn't take effect. Cast after cast, I was doing nothing to it. I felt forced to let myself go all out until I felt… numb from the cold." She said while showing her open palm, letting out an icy aura. "I landed everything I had on the creature… but even through all that it stood and approached me menacingly as if I've done nothing at all."

Aria then dispersed the aura to give emphasis on what she implied.

"I just blinked and there it was… right at my face. An ominous shadow went on to grab me. It was so fast I couldn't escape or react. I was shaking in fear as its pitch black face went near mine. But all that fear suddenly turned into shock after hearing a woman's voice whispering mysterious dialects through all that. It slightly loosened her grip. It must've known that I was having a hard time breathing, both from mental fear and her strong grip. The voice I heard then finally spoke to me, and asked about my decision. 'What was I trying to accomplish?' I sucked up my fear and explained that I needed some way to know how far I could actually go. She grunted in anger, raised her voice at me. I remember her saying,

'If you satisfy your worthless goal, it will spawn another. Your fault may be small but at the endpoint it will be a great downfall. Value your life and the others you care about, by sticking to what you can do for them and yourself, and only reach what you can from the little that you know. Mixing pride into the mould of reaching for a bit of power only led to the creation of countless evil men… and women… consider all of these and eradicate all of your pride and indifference!'

After somehow collecting myself, I managed to ask who she was. She put me down and then she faded into the darkness for one moment, then stepped into the dim night star light and turned into a more feminine figure. It turns out I was being lectured by the Priestess of Darkness and Shadows herself! As soon as she introduced herself to me, she then immediately turned her back on me, uttering her final message before leaving me for good. I remembered her saying,

'I really tried to stick to what I'm good at and what I have to do, all for the sake of everyone and because I personally thought it was the right thing to do. Just… do me a favor and stop overestimating your illusioned potential and also do the right thing instead… About this darkness I feel from you, I'd say it can only be cleared once you detach yourself from its source."

I was confused at first so I asked about that last bit of course, to which she responded:

'… You'll understand it sooner than later… just think before you act! I must take my leave.'

Right after mentioning, she walked into the nearby woods disappearing into the night… and I never saw her again. I'm pretty sure she never left my mind. Not because I received the most intimidating lecturing of my life, but because she was right. I mean I remembered every single detail of that event. It's not so hard to admit that I understood everything she implied. It all came to me as soon as she left. That… darkness she vaguely told me about."

Aria exhaled deeply, then continued.

"But to keep everything I just said into concise context, I'd just say that I was too proud; more so, I believed I was too strong. I even considered testing myself, even if it was wrong to stick by that idea, I still went for it. But not because I wanted to, rather because I just… felt the need to do it. A life of having no friends nor any understanding family member to match me or relate to me really influenced that narcissistic love, huh?"

She laughed blandly, before turning to look back down at me. My gaze has never left its original focus.

"But don't worry… those days are long behind me… even though it haunts me still, I choose to ignore it and live to change as I move on. I mean- I already got this far!" She added.

"It slightly makes me feel good about myself now. At least, I now know that I can relate myself to you this way. That we've both been too proud. That I've been too proud, without me knowing that it was." I replied as an attempt to relate to that by a minimal level.

"Proud or afraid?" She said, staring at me with a furrowed eyebrow and a teasing smile.

"B-both? I don't know… it doesn't matter too much!" I replied before she thinks any less of me. "We both ended that thinking eventually anyway!"

"You could've died there… and also again, I would have died during that time of my past. So… I guess that shouldn’t really matter too much." She said while laughing it off and adding a shrug.

"You make it sound like it does matter… s-stop messing with me!" I replied with bitter worry.

She laughed at my comment.

"In any case, I hope I paid back the effort of your sharing from yesterday. It was… heartwarming to know you’ve worked really hard for yourself and only by yourself." She said, adding a giggle.

She was right about that, but wait-- I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that part to her. Again, we barely knew each other besides the present time… how could she have known that I was alone with my adventuring career?…

Before I could ask, she then pointed her gaze over to Clyde's back. "But as far as he's concerned-"

Aria pointed a finger at Clyde, who was either ignorant or just minding his own business. He led a distance in between us as he walked.

"It'll be for the best if you kept all I said as our little secret, just us girls, okay?"

She then turned to face Starflake, who was just hovering above my shoulder. I didn't even know what she was doing nor what she was thinking about while we were talking, assuming she was listening to us at all. On my end, I was being attentive to my discussion with Aria.

She gave a gentle rub over Starflake's head.

"That also means you, Starflake." She said.

Starflake made a satisfied face with the cutest noise to match, deflated to a small size, and laid herself comfortably on my head.

I assumed her biggest size was for combat. But that whole "growing on will" thing was still just a quick theory.

"She seems comfortable. I'm just going to walk slowly and be extra careful with shaking my head." I added and held onto my staff tightly, looking up a bit.

"You both look so cute together!" She remarked with a bright face.

Then for some reason, Aria acted all nervous, and just chose to bail out on what she just said almost immediately.

"Oh! I mean… you really must be destined to meet her!" She added.

"I don't really know about that, but I guess that wouldn't be too far off. Needless to say, it's kind of nice to happen once in a while." I replied with a weak smile.

Then she giggled, looking at me with such caring eyes shortly after.

"Then you better make sure you can protect her…" She said, while looking at me with expectant eyes.

"Wait… aren't I the one who usually needs protection…?"

Not because I'm following tropes, but I literally am the weakest here, amongst these really powerful, experienced people, and non-people… things… I have yet to see Starflake and Clyde. Just my presence alone, they seem quite promising enough.

While I looked confused with myself, Aria smiled warmly at me… and at that moment she did it in a way as if she was expecting something from me.

By delayed processing, I just got what she meant.

What she actually meant that I should be good friends with Starflake. Even with the way this harsh world has treated her, she still stayed so sweet, calm and innocent. Though her lack of coherent words may just tell much that she was rather incapable of complaining. It seemed that way…

Despite the uncertainties, I’m not planning on letting those things disappear from her.

"I'll do my best!"

She heard me and giggled.

"That's really good to hear."

Then we both turned to face forward. Of course, that's where our conversation ended.

…

Several minutes later, I approached Clyde this time. I tapped his side and waited for him to look at me. As soon as he noticed, I waved my hand with a smile as a meek greeting.

"If ye're goin' to tell me off 'cause me an' Ms. Aria ova' there had fights like that before, I'll go ahead to say, I'm sorry!" Clyde admitted with a pensive look.

"Actually, I wasn't here for that… but since you brought it up, are you and Aria…?" I replied, twiddling

my pointers as I looked down at them.

"How did we know each other?" Clyde replied by asking immediately.

I looked back up at him after hearing. I wasn't going for that as well, but it technically ties to that anyway, so I guess I'll ask that in-depth part some other time. I wasn't sure if he intended to seamlessly dodge my question. But even if that wasn't the case, I gotta admit that was smooth on his end.

"Well, yeah-- s-something like that."

He patted the top of my head. I flinched a bit and felt slightly flustered- as per my usual reaction to direct affection.

"Ya' know- I can't really say no to that cute lil' face of yers, right?" He paused and blinked right before I found that line creepy, continuing shortly after. "Kay' then, sunshine. I can let ya' in on our lil' backstory." He said, adding a wink and a smile to match.

"Aria an' I- we actually go waaaaaay back, before we even ended up at that guild house… We grew up together from neighboring lands, connected by a long bridge. Just that said, an' I'm already sayin' we're practically the closest of pals." He smiled, looking up at the sunny sky, suggesting a look of reminiscence of the past.

I stared at him expectantly.

"So your recent fight last time was just because you were… messing with each other?" I replied, thinking up a conclusion by looking down and striking a thinking pose.

"Aye. But I didn't really know why she considered doin' it out of the blue." He paused and his smile dropped. "… it's been too long since I've even had her ''messin' with me''… All of it just stopped at some point… On that day, my ehrm- biggest blunder, with my former team… she chose to avoid me. I didn't even know why. I could've sworn I didn't tell her the news, so… that mustn't be the reason."

The same flags just came to me. But I didn't realize if it was bad or good, so I had him keep going.

"In the past, we'd look for each other to hang out… but startin' from that point on, it was just hangin' on my end of the effort alone. Ev'ry time I managed to find her, even for just small talk… she would just dismissively throw me off; shakin' off her hand, signalin’ me to move away, and looked in the opposite direction… as if I wasn't there… and if I didn't leave, which of course I wouldn't… she would leave me without even mentionin' a single word." He lowered his voice while mentioning these.

He started frowning right after. Seeing that made me realize…

"Did I trigger yet another bad flag??"

"That day-- I lost both my adventuring team, and my closest friend… The hardest part of it all is that I couldn't ask why… B-but even so, I chose to stay close to her, fearin'- that encounter would've been our last. I followed through her personal space, with whatever she seemed to have been going through. I just… continued to look over her shoulder ya’ know?- while mindfully keeping my distance from the sidelines…"

He kicked a random pebble on the ground in front of him. My attention was split but went back towards the continuation of his heavy sharing.

"I remember this one time, this wee ass dared to catcall her while she was performin' her normal waitress duties… I just rushed in to intervene to make sure nothin' nasty starts. No questions and no hesitations. Just wanted to do it. She still acted the same after I did so… but I dismissed that and was the first to move away, back to my usual spot. I didn't understand a lot of the things going on, but if space or time is what she needed, I'd give it to her… whatever her reasons were. I didn't wait for her to speak or for her to chase me away, yet I showed that I cared about her, Lily… it's just sad to feel care only from my side… have I done somethin' wrong? Have I made her feel too much? Too little?" He added, sighing a deep one to let his despair out.

"I'll never know… but I'm as glad as hell we still even are together… Well, most of the time, even if we're like this. I do care for her… almost as if--" He paused at one thought. "… well, nevermind…" He said, before digging his hands into his pockets, while wearing a sad yet dejected face.

I was left feeling quite awful for him. Again… I was left speechless. And again… all these feelings and these conversations came from out of nowhere. I blame myself for my insensitive curiosity.

"I'm really sorry to hear these… I didn't think it was possible, but I made you sad because of my careless peering… again…", I replied, frowning at the thought.

"Now that I've went over it again, I was actually glad to get that one out of my system afta' a while. On the contrary, I should thank ya' for yankin' that shite outta me." He replied, taking one of his hands out of his pocket and reaching over to meet the top of my head yet again.

"Sure it wasn't something I like opening up with, but it was my choice to share… and-- I feel that I could trust ya'. The least I could, with ya' bein' kind'f a catalyst that brought us back together. But all these… all of what I just shared, would probably be too much for her and may ruin what remains of what we have… so ya' will keep it all between us, right?" He said, staring at me pleadingly, with pained eyes that were barely hidden.

I heard a clicking sound that came from the top of my head where Clyde was touching it. As soon as I sensed it was the hairpin I left with him, I flinched to realize I forgot that I even left it with him.

I then nodded. It was the only thing that I could think of doing. I knew I shouldn't add anything else, before I started triggering any more bad thoughts from him. Although that would shed a whole lot of light between the both of them, I chose to remain silent. Aria most likely wouldn't take things well, based on Clyde's explanation.

"Wait- what did he say? I'm a… catalyst?" I thought for a bit then immediately dismissed such thoughts.

I decided to queue that topic to bring up… some other time. I'm done with being a bother today.

...

I didn't really know how, but time had flown so quickly with our traveling and chatting. I didn't say we had none of those inevitable moments of silence though. Walking, a bit of rest and snack breaks, then more walking. At this time, I took the opportunity to scan over my newly expanded world map. There I saw eleven partitions to denote areas of responsibility of each Kingdom. One Kingdom in particular intrigued me just by its mark on the map. The Grand Forest. Its borders took up 30% of the whole pangaean landscape. I couldn't really imagine what that would be like up close… and what kind of Kingdom it would be by housing a terrifyingly massive territory. But considering how the literal Mother Nature (Priestess of Nature) lives there, wonder will be as numerous as its dangers.

Reading while walking, I almost tripped and fell face first to the floor because of a random rock. Clyde was able to tug onto my cape and prevented my fall.

"Watch yer footin', sunshine!"

"Speaking of… look over there." I heard Aria say and saw her pointing somewhere, just beyond the darkening orange hue of the sky.

Just with my incident we had an excuse to stop for a bit and enjoy a really beautiful sunset.

"Wooooow…!"

"Seems like someone hasn't been away from the walled Kingdom for so long." Aria said, giggling at my exclamation.

Clyde inhaled deeply and let it out.

"It is a beautiful sunset after all." Clyde followed.

After seeing the sun drop from the horizon, we continued our journey. With all that travelling and having pit stops in between, nightfall finally came. Under normal instances, I would've been freaking out that it was night. Thankfully the night sky had stars in it, enabling it to be a dim but serviceable light source. That said, Starflake acted as our main torch to light the path.

I stared up at the night sky again. I got to reflect a bit on how every night had to be a moonless night.

"Priestess of the Moon…"

After giving that some thinking, I carried forward and dismissed that thought for now. Several more minutes of walking and we entered what it looks like to be a field of tall, thick, dead trees. Walking the distance for so long really winded me out. I just realized that as soon as I thought about it. At one point in our path, I just signalled to them that I'd stop to catch my breath and give my wobbly legs some rest. I leaned on one large-looking dead tree and took a break to catch my breath.

I looked around, only to see that we came upon a really eerie and horrifyingly quiet atmosphere. The trees themselves had no leaves. It was a place barren of life. None were able to break the untainted silence these parts seem to have. Just thick, dead branches everywhere. It was night at that time- all the more made the feel of the area spooky and scary. Readying myself for any skeletons (dunno why I've targeted those creatures in thought specifically) that might pop out from the ground, I’ve gotten myself paranoid. Not that I had any actual experience of that happening before. I still think those kinds of things were bound to happen. After supplying my brain with my breaths of air, I eventually asked what the place was called.

"This place is called [The Clearing of Tall Graves]…" Aria said the moment I asked. "… recognized for the biggest and most infamous battle in the world's history. It was said to be originally just a wide and empty plains. No trees, No signs of life. Apart from war-tainted grass, there was nothing at all. But after that gruesome battle… these ridiculously large trees sprouted. All the large trees that stood here were said to have come from every single dead that rested… and rotted- on its tainted grounds." Aria remarked, smirking at me with her hands raised, readying a “boo” gesture.

That explanation gave a literal chill down my spine. I am really jumpy when it comes to things that deal with the words: death, graves, war, and the like. I felt unnecessarily bothered and kept my distance from the trees that seemed so fixed by set ranges.

"I-I’m not scared. Trees of the undead? They’re not going to be moving around chasing people!… will they??" With that last part, I bailed on acting tough.

Aria simply shrugged in response, still staring at me with the same teasing look.

"Whatever! Hmph!" I responded bitterly, giving her the cold shoulder for trying to scare me-- though, the fear factor of this place did work.

We already traveled this far, so I tried to hold in my wimpish thoughts and just continued walking as if I wasn't feeling that something… anything would jump out of the shadows, or from the ground in that matter.

"…N-n-nothing at- all…"

. . .

Several minutes later, we finally arrived at the actual marker on the map. It seemed to be an abandoned underground tunnel. But it was sealed with a heavy blockade of wood. I stood right by the left side and poked it with the lower end of my staff.

"It's blocked? Hmmm. Perhaps if I-"

Before I could've even finished a sentence and readied an offensive spell in my head, Clyde grunted before following with swinging his big sword against the massive planks. It was so strong that the entrance blew up and broke open with a lot of dust going in all sorts of directions.

After the dust had cleared, Clyde was in front and had his back turned. He re-sheathed his greatsword, and after the click of its lock he turned his head back cockily saying,

"Ya' guys comin' or what?~"

"Pff, show-off." Aria muttered, smiling weakly and rolling her eyes in response.

I laughed it off and replied cheerily.

"Let's go!"

Starflake and I went in first, then Aria followed, and last was Clyde.

The passageway to the area of interest was pretty narrow and pretty dark. It was part hallway, part staircase. Good thing that Starflake was brighter than a torch. Adding to its narrowness is the fact that it gathered annoyingly thick cobwebs. I had to push through all of them to pass by; I literally had to push with two hands, which caused me to embarrassingly flop over at least one of them. Before anyone would've noticed that event, I quickly stood up and continued walking like nothing happened.

We finally reached the actual area that we were supposed to explore. It had dull gray bricks for its walls and flooring. Some of the bricks were either weathered or completely missing. Immediately made sense to me when the quest paper suggested the place would be undiscovered ruins. I sat down on a nearby large flat rock lying around, to have some space and start clearing off the pieces of the spider silk that clung to me.

"Hey guys? Come over and check this out." Aria called our attention to check something out.

I stood back up and walked over to what she saw. It seemed like this tunnel wasn't the only one. The room we were in was a junction to three more tunnels, all of which were shaped with different sizes.

"This is where our quest starts!" I attentively replied and immediately grabbed a notepad and a pen from my inventory. "We'll have to split up. I will take the smallest one- in the middle of course. Clyde goes to the left, and Aria goes to the right."

"Just be careful… we still don't know if this place has any nasty surprises hidden somewhere." Clyde said, looking at all of us with general concern.

"I'll have Starflake with me. We'll be careful regardless. Thanks for the warning. " I replied with a nod.

Then Starflake emitted two light sigils, by making a face as if she was to fart. One of which hovered over Aria, and the other to Clyde.

"Thanks Starflake-- and… I a-appreciate the warning too… umm…" Awkward pausing came in courtesy of Aria. "I'll get going!"

Looking as if she wanted to bail out on what she just said, she rushed into her designated tunnel.

"Huh…" Clyde replied with a bewildered expression, shortly after she had moved away. The last I saw him before he was gone from my sight, was with an incidental smile on his face.

He then entered his side of the tunnel. I blinked once and dismissed the awkwardness that they left. It was just me and Starflake who remained there.

"You ready?" I asked.

"Rurururuuu!" She uttered with a cheerful tone.

Her voice definitely echoed a lot through the room.

"Let's… also keep it quiet." I whispered.

Starflake just blinked twice. Without anything to add, she proceeded on top of my head again and this time she was the one balancing herself. I dropped down to find the right position and crawled inside that small tunnel. The size of the tunnel made it seem like the architects were expecting someone as small as me to fit inside it. It was quite a long tunnel though. I could already tell after crawling on all fours for several minutes. I eventually made it through without much problems, since gravel and cobwebs don't count. I and Starflake eventually exited a small opening, stood upright and dusted myself off before reassessing where we were currently staying.

I drew a minimap with my findings and then I scanned my surroundings a bit more. The area had freshly lit torches hanging on the walls. The area itself was well lit, except for one or two awkward corners where the light doesn't seem to reach. I started thinking we weren't the only ones investigating the place. There were long tables on each side of the room. Nothing of interest on top of them. Just clumps of dust and weathered rock. I would also like to mention that there was a treasure chest, suspiciously located at the exact center of the room. Without much sense of caution in my being, I approached it and examined it. Upon closer inspection, the lid was already unlocked. A smashed lock dangling in front of it was proof of that.

Half-sure if it was a harmless chest, a booby-trapped one, or possibly even a [Treasure Mimic]… I carefully lifted its lid using the lower end of my staff to wedge it open.

A sigh of relief escapes my mouth at the immediate sight of an ancient relic. It was comparable to artifacts one can only see in museums. For that reason, it looked really wrinkly, circular, and had a great deal of magic. Just a visible glow of essence seeping through the glowing, silver-grey jewel in its center was enough proof of that. It was generally a nice find!

But suddenly, in just a lapse of a split second, a dagger came flying towards me. It wasn't aimed at me (fortunately), but the thrown blade struck the relic.

"B-bwaa!!" I squealed after flinching terribly from the event, with the newly obtained relic falling off my hands.

Starflake grew larger and glowed with vigilance. After repsyching myself, I readied my mental list of chants and prepared my staff for what unknown that could have attacked from nowhere.

Stepping out of the shadows, a vague figure of a woman who looked more like a genuine ninja, appeared. The relic came rolling all the way towards that person. Upon getting within their range, that person picked it up and slowly walked towards us… with such intimidating, dramatic effect. I mean… I could feel it working.

But that part was just the opening act. I didn't realize that until it was all too late. I bought the distraction and got myself ignorant of my surroundings. Just then, two bandits, who both looked a whole lot like the woman's figure, suddenly fell from the ceiling, ambushing us, disarmed me of my staff, and retrained both of my hands. With swift movements, both synchronized a forceful sweep against my legs that made me stumble up my front and threw me to the floor.

The woman with the relic followed up and swiftly threw a small loose bag of sand over Starflake's eyes. That made Starflake fall beside me. There we were as I laid down defenselessly against the cold, dusty stone brick floor

Two bandits were pushing down my arms, adding two more to push down my legs. With no other views as an option, my gaze was only allowed to face this woman. She was smiling a sadistic expression as she made sure that I saw that she was seriously intent on killing me.

That woman approached and bent down to face me.

"My, my!… my lovely decoy quest attracted such a… young, innocent, and pretty face." She smirked close to my face. "Toooo bad I can't keep such a sweet and harmless darling such as you, all to myself."

She laughed sinisterly near my face, holding my chin up with her one cold hand.

"Please don't bother screaming for your cute, pathetic life just so that your friends would come to your rescue. I'm pretty sure they'll be too preoccupied to attend to you at all~" She added with a creepy widening grin. "Now, now, how exactly should I deal with you? Should I… sell you as a slave? I don't usually go that route, but I know a lot of people wou'd kill to get their dirty and filthy hands on a cutie like you! Oh I know~ I should just-" She paused to bring out a very sharp, serrated dagger.

With my current position, I felt so helpless and frozen, apart from the fact that I was forcibly held down.

"… kill you right here? Not unless… you beg for me to take you in. Mmm~ Oh how I looove it when my prey begs to save themselves~!" She said as she rested a palm over her right cheek and giggled mischievously, treating this scene as a joke.

My neck was at the mercy of her serrated dagger. She bit her lip and looked down at me, jokingly yet anxiously awaiting for my reply. I already thought it was the end for me.

Just as I was about to lift my lips to attempt a weak verbal response, I just came to see Starflake, suddenly tackling the evil female ninja hard on the face. Then she grew in size and pressed her back onto my eyes.

"W-w-what're you doing?!" I abruptly panicked at Starflake.

After a few seconds, she moved away from my face and she hovered over me. I also felt that no one was holding my arms and legs down anymore. So I searched for my staff, then immediately stood up.

I looked around and saw the ninja was alone and was stunned by light. How did I know about this? Her eyes were glowing so bright that even if she covered it with both hands, they still emitted powerful light. Then she fell to the floor, blindly searching for something as it seemed, while screaming from the searing pain brought by the bright light that impaired her eyes.

"YOU LITTLE BRAT! I SHOULD'VE KILLED YOU FIRST!"

She knelt down and summoned multiple clones of herself, making a series of swift hand signals. Only distracted for a moment, with how familiar those hand signals she made to make her gesture possible, I used the time to cast [Light Barrier] on me and Starflake. I can't be too sure if attacking her directly would work.

Those clones laid their eyes on us then immediately started running with their arms extended backwards. We readied ourselves and focused on the clones. I readied chants in my head. At a moment's notice, I would be able to fire off my light magic.

Unexpectedly, we immediately heard the same woman's shriek of pain. Seconds after, the clones stumbled on their journey. Then one by one they instantly exploded into clouds of thin smoke. Silence set in.

The smoke cleared eventually and I found myself before a black hooded person; the one who killed the ninja while I was collecting myself. A corpse laid there with her neck cleanly slit in the middle.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" I thought to myself as I stayed wary of the situation, as Starflake and I were left in a room with yet another shady character.