Kimmi-Ka sat in the middle of a white void, the ground giving off a reflective golden crystalline effect as ripples of energy waved across the void's base. She gazed up to the sky, staring at the uncountable amount of pale golden bubbles in it, each filled to the brim with books of various categories and a few storybooks thrown in. Kimmi-Ka exhaustedly sighed as she let go of the storybook in her hands. The storybook with six different coloured spheres on its cover (a green one, a teal/lime one, a yellow one, a purple one, a pink one, and a red one) floated upwards surrounding itself in a pale golden bubble before it returned to the rest of the books above Kimmi-Ka.
"Kimmi-Ka, Kimmi-Ka... come on, wake up!" Mya's distant disembodied voice whined. Kimmi-ka sighed, making the floating bubbles swirl around into a whirlpool. Kimmi-Ka closed her eyes, holding them short for a moment before she opened them once Mya's whining appeared right by her ear. Mya stared down at Kimmi-Ka while sitting next to her, a pout on her face as she eyed Kimmi-Ka.
"Come on, Sleepy Head, get up. Something crazy is happening outside," Mya exclaimed excitedly as she bounced on the spot and pointed towards the window. Kimmi-Ka emotionlessly sighed and sat up as Mya handed her some clothes, similar to the ones Mya was wearing herself. Mya placed the clothes on Kimmi-Ka's head before she hurried out of the room, leaving Kimmi-Ka to get dressed.
A little later, the two walked through the village of Zavioka with Kimmi-Ka following Mya towards the small crowd of villagers ahead. The duo found their way through the crowd, manoeuvring through them with ease until they reached the gap at the centre of the murmuring crowd. The sight was slightly interesting to Kimmi-Ka, and she placed a hand on her chin as she and Mya stared at the two halves of the dark grey wolf monster alongside the other villagers.
"What's the verdict, Lord Valeous?" the village head asked worriedly, looking at the crouched guy beside him. With purple particles fluttering out his eye, Valeous removed his hand from the wolf monster and rose to his feet. Valeous eyes shifted, flickering from their purple colouration to their base colour as the purple particles fizzled out.
(Valeous is a tall young adult male: he has shoulder-low bronze-coloured hair tied into a hair bun behind his neck, yellow eyes, and fair skin)
(Valeous is wearing a noble-styled silver kimono with colour-contrasting trousers and a hooded yellow cloak)
"Other than confirming it is indeed the monster from the reports, I'm unable to ascertain what killed it," Valeous stated, eliciting even more muttering from the crowd.
"Lord Valeous, are you saying there is something capable of defeating a silver-ranked monster in a single blow?" the village head asked concernedly. Placing a hand on his chin, Valeous silently sighed as he pondered something.
"From the kind of damage the monster received, I can only conclude it was done by some form of blade and given how clean the slice is it most likely wasn't from a monster at the very least," Valeous explained. The villagers muttered at hearing Valeous' explanation.
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"So... you're saying that a roaming adventurer just slayed it during the night?" the village head asked. Valeous nodded before groaning in frustration, rubbing the back of his head as he mulled things over.
"And given they simply left the silver-ranked monster, spectra core included, the adventurer could very much been gold-ranked," Valeous explained as he glanced back at the monster before raising an eyebrow.
Valeous stared at the two girls crouched by the wolf monsters, suspicion festering in the man as Kimmi-Ka brazenly poked the monster; however, the poking itself wasn't the cause of his suspicion but how combined with the way Kimmi-Ka strained her eyes, giving Valeous the impression Kimmi-Ka wasn't simply mimicking his action. Unlike Mya who playfully messed with the wolf's tail, Kimmi-Ka traced the cauterized section of the wolf, her eyes astute and focused, intriguing Valeous with how unchildlike she was acting.
"Please excuse them, Lord Valeous, it's not every day they see an above-iron-ranked monster," the village head said slightly nervously, requesting Valeous to allow them to have their fun for a bit. Keeping a keen eye on her action, Valeous watched Kimmi-Ka, reserved and mild interest on his face. He debated something, his two choices running rampant through his mind, as he wondered what he should do. After some further debate, Valeous removed his focus from the wolf situation before turning towards the village head.
"It's an expected occurrence from Mya, but who's the other one?" Valeous asked calmly.
"Oh, Kimmi-Ka, I'm not entirely sure where she came from, but Feina told me Aliceia and Mya found her on the side of the path outside the village," the village head explained, slightly shaky. The guy's worry stemmed from his lord's prior silence, causing him to fear that Valeous was wondering if Kimmi-Ka was the child of nobility or just a child who was abandoned; either way, the village head knew if he remained silent then his lord would divert attention from his important work and waste his time on uncovering Kimmi-Ka's origins.
"Don't give me that look, Vance, I won't be doing any detective nonsense this time," Valeous stated as some of his soldiers approached. The group's captain carried a sack-like bag bearing an engraving, catching Kimmi-Ka's eye as she recognised it matched the embroidery on Feina's kotatsu. The soldiers surrounded the monster half, forcing the two kids to back up, much to Kimmi-Ka's disdain as she narrowed her glare at the bag.
"Lord Valous, your magic bag," the captain said studiously as he handed the bag to Valeous. Valeous took the magic bag and pointed it at the monster corpse, the engraving of the bag shimmering a cyan with colour-matching particles seeping out of it. Droves of cyan particles encased the monster's pieces, obscuring them from view and shrinking their outline into marble-sized circles before shooting into the magic bag.
Before he could even hand the bag back to the captain, Valeous mentally sighed in amusement, catching Kimmi-Ka's googly eye looking at the magic bag through the lens of TEoR. Valeous slowly blinked at her, finding the intensity of her stare and the sudden appearance of such an exquisite tool a mild shock. He moved his arm around, intentionally waving it around in deliberate patterns, and watched with unsurprised amusement as Kimmi-Ka perfectly kept her focus dead on the magic bag, completely oblivious or disinterested in Valeous' intentions of testing her.
"My lord, you're doing it again," the captain of the soldiers stated, snapping Valeous' attention away from Kimmi-Ka. With a quick cough, Vale handed the magic bag back to the captain and took one last curious glance at Kimmi-Ka, the girl still focusing firmly on the magic bag, before he walked off, whispering something to the captain as he went. The captain slumped his shoulder, the order from his lord filling him with exhausted defeat as he signalled the other soldiers to move out.