In the distance, Scarlet could see extensive dark storm clouds that were slowly approaching and threatening to cover the skies of an abandoned city, the lightning and the icy wind were just a confirmation of what was about to happen.

Scarlet was appreciating that view from the ledge of a window in one of the many abandoned buildings. Her gaze remained fixed on the horizon for a few seconds, before finally descending towards the streets below, they were empty and in a terrible state, abandoned of all life, as would be expected from a place like that.

They gave a false sense of tranquility, as if there was nothing there that was silently watching you, waiting for its opportunity to attack.

Scarlet knew that trusting something like that was the stupidest thing anyone could do, after all, the genesis attacked like that. When you least expect it, you simply think that you are saved when in reality you are in the clutches of the abyss.

She had experienced it firsthand on more than one occasion, whenever there is a feeling of tranquility in an area infested by genesis it was a bad sign. And the approaching storm only increased the danger she would be exposed to if she went outside.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eyes she caught a glimpse of something moving through the space between two buildings. It was quick and momentary, enough that someone could attribute it to something figment of mere imagination. But Scarlet knew it was real, and she didn't have to be a genius to figure out what it was. "Genesis..."

Her eyes remained fixed on that place, a genesis beast rarely moved alone, only the extremely powerful ones did so and whenever there is a genesis beast in a place, it is normal to expect there to be more. _"It seems like they are still looking for us"_

Scarlet felt a small tingle in her hands, it would be so easy to shoot from here and kill all those beasts, they were no more than 500 meters away, a distance that her precision could reach with great ease and it would be a small revenge for everything that they made her pass minutes before, forcing her to flee tirelessly throughout the city...

But, she wouldn't, it was stupid and unnecessary to reveal her position to be assaulted with the full force of the genesis. Facing so many genesis beasts again would undoubtedly push her to the limit... And there were things she didn't want to do in order to survive.

However, a sudden powerful gust of wind hit her head-on, wreaking havoc with her hair and knocking several objects across the room. Scarlet quickly had to close the window to prevent the place from being practically reduced to rubble, after all, this place was so old and fragile that a simple gust of wind could cause damage.

One of the objects affected was a photo frame, which was pushed off the nightstand and fell directly to the floor. Scarlet took a second to fix her hair before leaning down and gathering it up.

The glass broke, but the image below remained intact and pristine, even after almost 10 years abandoned in this place, someone had clearly put a lot of care into the quality of this photograph.

She was a young girl, maybe about twelve years old. She had black hair, blue eyes and a radiant smile typical of someone who did not yet know the dangers of the world. In the photo of her she was holding a small light brown teddy bear, from which she was hanging a small white tag.

Scarlet began to scan the room with her eyes, wondering if that bear was here, or if its owner had taken it when everything happened all those years ago.

To her surprise, she found it lying in the corner of the old bed that was in the room, the same color, although much dirtier and duller, and also the same tag.

Scarlet sat on the bed and picked up the teddy bear, putting it next to the photo and comparing them. They were exactly the same, even the same stitching on one of the legs, they clearly went to the trouble of repairing it when it was damaged at some point.

The white tag had degraded due to humidity and what was written on it became almost illegible and Scarlet could only collect a few random words without much meaning.

[A gift... From... Alone]

Memories destroyed by genesis...

Scarlet sighed as she put the photo back where was before, on the nightstand, but she placed the teddy bear right behind it, as if were holding the photo.

After that, Scarlet weakly fell onto the bed, her eyes remaining fixed on a random spot on the ceiling. In her mind, she wondered, How had things gotten out of control so quickly? How did a theoretically easy journey turn into a desperate fight for survival?

At first everything had gone normally, with some beasts showing up to try to kill her, something she already knew in advance and handled easily.

However, from one moment to the next, everything was chaos.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a huge number of genesis beasts approached it by surprise and apparently by mere chance, a coincidence that was too strange considering that this city should not be infested to that point, the amounts of genesis were too low to justify it.

Scarlet managed to take down a large number, but for every beast she killed, two more appeared to fill place, and inevitably she was going to be outnumbered. And before that happened, she intelligently decided to retreat from it, a task that might seem easy at first, but with the number of genesis beasts chasing her, it was a much more exhausting task than expected.

Hearing an explosion, immediately followed by a loud bang dangerously close by had only confirmed the strangeness of the events, what was happening was no coincidence.

There were other arcana in the city...

Unconsciously, Scarlet sighed again as a particular thought crossed her mind. 'Emilia is going to be furious when she finds out...'

"Are you sure you're okay?" A sudden feminine voice reminded Scarlet that she was not alone in the room. She turned her gaze from the ceiling to the other side of the room and found a girl sitting on an old wooden chair, calmly cleaning the blade of a Katana on her lap.

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Her figure was partially hidden by the dimness of the room, but by squinting a little, Scarlet could easily make out her. She had long white hair, very similar to Scarlet, although of a lighter tone, so much so that she almost seemed to glow in the dark.

Her eyes, on the other hand, were blue, a blue that reminded Scarlet of ice, and along with her calm and indifferent gaze, they gave her a strange but not unpleasant icy appearance.

However, what really caught Scarlet attention was neither her hair nor her eyes, but the pair of white fox ears that adorned the top of her head, and if she leaned to the side, Scarlet could even see a fox tail peek out from behind her.

At first, Scarlet had thought that they weren't real since there were some people who liked to wear fake ears like that, but after seeing how this girl's ears moved, she realized that they were completely real.

And that confused her. What was she doing here?

On her brief visit to the Mizukami Republic, a merchant nation that shared a border with Northland, a large country that separated Mizukami from Sourtech, the country where they were now. In Mizukami, Scarlet had met many people who shared characteristics with this girl, the only exception might be her hair color, but there are always exceptions everywhere. She was pretty sure that this girl was from there.

So what was she doing at Sourtech? Literally thousands and thousands of kilometer from her country.

"Hey, are you listening to me?" The girl frowned in her direction and Scarlet realized that she was caught up in her own thoughts and ignored her question completely. She put the katana on the floor, resting the hilt against the wall and approached Scarlet.

The first thing she did when she was in front of her was reach out with one of her hands and touched Scarlet's forehead, brushing away a few strands of hair in the process. "You don't seem good..."

Scarlet felt a shiver run down her spine as she jumped in surprise and her body tensed for a moment. Why are her hands so cold?

"Your hands..." Scarlet asked slowly. "Why are they so cold?"

"The ice" The girl responded as she removed her hand and reached for a backpack that was lying next to the nightstand. "When I create too much ice, my hands have this side effect"

That image was still fresh in Scarlet's memories. This girl was capable of creating ice when fighting, and the way she did it, it seemed like she had no limits, from piercing beasts with icicles to creating walls of ice to block the advance of the beasts.

She didn't expect her to have a side effect like that, other than the excessive spending of Arcanum. But made sense.

Side effects...

Scarlet briefly looked at her own hands that were covered by white gloves, both were still perfectly clean as always, she saved a small red stain from the thumb of the right glove. And after opening and closing her hands a few times, she Scarlet took off her gloves.

Both of her hands were spotless, just as they were before she put on the gloves, with no wounds or strange marks visible. She even checked her thumb, but there was no injury. The red spot on her probably came from another wound.

"Could you turn around?" After taking out some items from the backpack, the girl made that request, causing Scarlet to look at her strangely. "I'm going to treat your wound."

Scarlet tilted her head. "What wound?"

The girl just gave her a reproachful look. "Don't try to look strong, I know they broke through your shield out there and now you're hurt."

Scarlet was silent. Had she really seen? Or was she faking her?

"I thought you hadn't noticed" With those words Scarlet raised her legs on the bed to turn around, making sure to leave a space where the girl could sit.

"I really didn't," the girl replied, her lips forming a small smile, surprising Scarlet a little in the process. From what she had seen of this girl so far, she thought that she was the type that never smiled, but apparently she was wrong, rather she was the quiet type. "But I had my suspicions"

The girl carefully lifted Scarlet's clothes to reveal her back and Scarlet felt the dried blood momentarily stick to her clothes although the wound itself didn't hurt much. It was more of a nuisance than anything else.

"Good news" The girl announced after a few seconds of complete silence in which she had concentrated on cleaning the wound with some gauze and some water. At those words, Scarlet looked over her shoulder with some uncertainty. "You withstood the blow very well and received nothing more than a superficial cut. How much Arcanum did you lose?"

That was a difficult question to answer, not only because establishing an amount to the Arcanum she had was a much more complicated task than it seemed, but also because of the fact that although physically she felt tired, that would not necessarily have to be reflected in her Arcanum reserves. "Hmm, I think during our entire escape I lost... About a third of the total."

"Enough to heal you relatively quickly" The girl finished cleaning the wound and continued taking a small white bottle with a small spray. "This is going to sting a little"

"Sting? What do you mean? Ouch!!" Scarlet's confused question was surprisingly interrupted by an itchy, burning, and painful sensation at her wound. It was so sudden that she jumped in surprise and almost walked away from the girl. "What the hell was that?!"

She looked at the girl with annoyance, demanding an explanation with just her look. At that, the girl simply showed her the label of the container "Disinfectant" written in large letters so that it was easy to read. Scarlet just narrowed her eyes at her trying to look threatening. "Next time, let me know"

"I'm sorry" The girl murmured with the same slight smile as before, which made Scarlet wonder if she was really sorry, or if she was just making fun of her. Before doing anything else, the girl made sure to put the next object she was going to use, a bandage, in front of Scarlet eyes and she waited to receive her approval before beginning to apply it.

The process was slow and careful, the girl was careful not to unintentionally cause pain, so the entire process lasted just over a minute, but finally Scarlet felt how she stopped and her clothes were returned to their original position.

"I'm done," the girl said, picking up everything she had taken out of the backpack and returning it to her place. "You should be fine in a few hours."

Scarlet got out of bed and began to move her body, checking to see if the bandage would stay in place. It would be an annoying little problem for her to let go when she's in the middle of combat, although she didn't think it would make much of a difference. "Thank you"

"You know..." The girl began to speak, a complicated mix of emotions in her voice. "You were too reckless out there."

Scarlet stopped and gave the girl a strange look. "So... Would you have preferred to take the hit?"

"I didn't say that." She quickly shook her head. "Really, I appreciate that you protected me. But you can't be jumping into danger like that, it's too reckless."

A few seconds passed in complete silence, but finally Scarlet nodded. "I guess I'll be more careful."

The girl smiled at that, but her eyes widened slightly, as if she had just remembered something important. "By the way, how are your genesis corruption levels?"

Corruption by genesis... The worst fate to which a person can be subjected, in itself it is not very dangerous, how arcana they have a natural resistance. But if they are careless and allow corruption to rise too high, once they exceed a certain level, they will be condemned to a slow and agonizing death.

Fortunately, that was not the case for Scarlet. One of the first symptoms that announced high corruption was muscle pain. When an arcana felt that, it meant it was time to leave a genesis-infested area.

"I'm fine," Scarlet responded, stretching her arms and making sure of the complete absence of pain. "They're still stable, how about you?"

With a thoughtful expression, the girl made a few simple arm movements, before nodding. "I'm fine too"

Immediately, an uncomfortable silence formed between them. For Scarlet, this girl was nothing more than a stranger whom she had met just a few hours ago. In the middle of her escape she had encountered she and her friend, who were also being attacked by the genesis beasts. Naturally they teamed up and ran away together, but other than that, this would only be the second interaction she had with this girl.

I didn't even know her name...

Her name...

“So…” Scarlet broke the awkward silence by speaking in an awkward tone. "We've been talking for a while, but I still don't know what your name is."

"Oh." The girl's reaction was initially one of confusion, but it immediately turned to understanding and she burst into a small laugh. "I guess with all the chaos I forgot that. You can call me Luna. What about you?"

Scarlet looked at Luna for a moment, she looked much friendlier than before and her icy gaze had completely disappeared, replaced with a calm and kind smile gracing her face. "I'm Scarlet..."

"I see" Luna's smile became even more genuine than before. "It's a pleasure to meet you Scarlet, even if the circumstances are not the most appropriate"

"There is something I want to ask" Scarlet spoke suddenly as she looked around the room, Luna was not the only person she had encountered during her escape, but now there was only her "Where is your friend?"

"She..." Luna's words were cut off completely as she suppressed a small sigh at the thought of what she was going to say, and instead, she decided to keep it simple. "She left without warning, she's probably looking for our teacher."

"Shouldn't we go look for her?" Scarlet asked. The idea of going out again with the storm out there was not very pleasant, but leaving Luna's friend to her fate was not an option either.

Luna thought about it for a second, but quickly dismissed it with a simple wave of her hands. "She is not stupid and knows that she should stay hidden. But when she comes back, I will have a word with her"

Before Scarlet responded and as if she had been on cue. The door to the room slammed open, causing both Scarlet and Luna to almost attack out of instinct. But when they saw what it was about, they both visibly relaxed and Scarlet even dropped onto the bed, subtly hiding a small red crystal with projectile potential that she almost used.

The one who had entered was a girl who looked to be Luna's age, with completely black hair that had been cut to shoulder length, and silver eyes. She stood at the open door, with a look of utter confusion, until she slowly turned towards the door, and an awkward smile appeared on her face. "I'm sorry?"

"See? Nothing happened to her." Luna covered her face with one hand as she suppressed a sigh, and when she lowered her hand, her expression was plastered with a smile... Strangely cheerful. "Shizu, let's talk."

The nervous smile of the girl at the door only grew larger as she raised her hands trying to appease Luna and she unconsciously took a few steps back. "Luna... I can explain..."

"I know," Luna said calmly. "You're going to have to explain it... Very good"

Shizu looked at Scarlet with a look that could only be described as a desperate plea for help, however, Scarlet simply looked away and let Luna deal with her.