Kynos was finding it difficult to ask the overly shy Elise to go delving into a forest with him.

In the first place, he wasn't sure were to go. Incanta was relatively large for a city, and he had never left the magic college campus alone in his time there. His school uniform was also no good as equipment, and while he understood that he needed to have supplies for the wild, he had no idea where to get them and what to get.

Kynos sat in the shade and stared at the crabshell dagger in his hand, now more of a keepsake than anything useful, wondering where to begin.

“um...uuu...h-hi Kynos,” a quiet voice whispered from behind him.

Suppressing the urge to jump out of his skin, Kynos turned around and came face-to-face with Elise, whose pale, almost grayish complexion ghoulishly contrasted with his pasty white. He had gotten so used to the constant hum of magic during the month they trained together that he was forgetting whose presence it signified.

“Hi Elise.”

“t-that's really interesting...c-can I...look?”

Kynos handed over the dagger.

“Here, be careful.”

“this...what is this? A shell?”

“From a giant crab.”

“that's really cool...”

Despite barely being audible, Elise was still sounding very excited. Kynos wondered why she thought a simple, crude piece of shell was of any interest.

“...you know...I al-always wanted to see what outside is like...”

Kynos was surprised, “you've never been?”

“n-no...I've never left here, since birth...because my body is...weird...”

Kynos wasn't one to let a gift horse slip away. “Well, do you want to go?”

Elise furrowed her brow and scrunched her face up.

“what? b-b-but mother will...i-i-I can't leave...”

“We'll go together, it'll be a secret.”

The faintest twinge of color settled in her cheeks.

“b-b-but...” “Come with me, please.” “o-okay...”

And so, Kynos bagged his first ever date, hunting monsters with a shy nine-year-old necromancer. Now he merely had to figure out the logistics of getting geared, getting supplies, and finding out where to go and a how to get there.

The next day, Kynos popped a piece of hard candy in his mouth and set out on foot to the mage's guild.