What now?

For the next few hours, Koku would travel aimlessly in the dark of night. "I'm sure she's on her way… and if that's the case, uhmmm I need to find my location before anyone recognizes me," Koku told himself, pondering his next move.

Finding it hard to hide his appearance, Koku noticed that his cloak must have been left back at the compound he had been staying in for the month. "I wonder what happened to the people there…" he thought, suddenly remembering the dark, thin barrier which had spread across the place on the first night with the demon. This would remain on Koku's mind for a while as he walked in a direction he wasn't familiar with, unable to find his way due to the dense, dark clouds.

As Koku walked in the dead of night in a random location, he began to note that by this point, if the Void didn't expel the world's will, he might struggle in his next fight due to his control over the small portions of power in the Void being halved with the will of the world. "I won't be able to fight at my real strength until this is solved. Which means this by itself can be considered another test," he yawned at the thought of more work.

By the time the sun was rising, Koku was close to a city, although he wasn't aware of which one it was. So for the moment, he pondered on whether he should go inside and look for directions, or if he should wait for someone to come out eventually and then ask for directions. "Hmmm, I guess I'll stay here for a little while, and if no one comes out in that time, I'll go inside," Koku told himself as he sat underneath a tree, resting his body on the trunk while watching what looked like the main gates of the city.

As Koku waited for a while, his thoughts drifted somewhere else. "Recover what is yours," he heard in the distant background, causing him to jump, ready to fight.

His eyes darted around for a target but could not find anything, so he tried summoning a few Void monsters, only to find out that due to his control over the Void being half as good as in the past, he could not perform a Void summon.

"Was I just imagining stuff? And as for my current situation… this really sucks. I can't summon allies, and that means I really need to do more things by hand... That'll take more time." After these thoughts were taken care of, not sensing anything, Koku felt cautious as he glanced at the city once again, this time noticing something different about the place.

"Something important is in there…" Koku muttered, sensing the foul stench of aged, raw, untamed Void energy. "If I go in right now… and find this, I won't have to come back here in the case I need whatever that is. But if that's in there, this most likely means this is one of the main cities of Paladonia, which means powerful people are most likely present waiting for something big to erupt. Though most of Paladonia is in a war with Merfolk. I might just be overthinking this, and they aren't aware of whatever is there? Whatever, I'll come back another time then." Koku had been hinting to the fact that the war needed the presence of many, if not most powerful Knights and commanders at the front lines. This being said, it didn't mean to leave the cities undefended, especially bigger, more important ones, which is why he was a little hesitant about going into the city as well.

Choosing not to go inside the city, someone gave Koku a pat on the back, nearly making him jump, not sensing anyone approaching beforehand. With a swift look over his shoulder, he saw a girl with a bright, curious smile. Behind that smile filled with curiosity, Koku couldn't sense any ill intent.

"Ya lost?" she asked him, her hand still over his shoulder. Keeping his mind on a few things, he responded calmly, putting up a smile. "Hahaha~ I am just a little bit lost." Koku's little laugh came off as a nervous, silent laugh. On top of that, he was very lost, not just a little bit.

"Ohh, are you not from here? Hmm, kinda figures, I haven't seen you around these parts." She told Koku as she crossed her arms, with a hand under her chin, pondering about Koku's sudden appearance. "Hey, you know, you look familiar now that I think about it. Are you famous?" her questions hit Koku's heart in a shocking way and not romantic at all.

Flabbergasted, Koku decided to ask her a question before she remembered anything else about him, as he really needed to understand where he was instead of getting found out by anyone who might be hunting his whereabouts down, like the Knights or maybe even the mages of Eldoria because of Frostvale.

"Can you tell me where this place is?" Koku asked with a small, nervous smile, succeeding in snapping her focus on his remembrance. "Oh, yeah, sure, sorry it took me a while, you did say you were a little lost. Though if you are a little lost, you'd at least know the general area you're in. I assume you're pretty lost, eh?" she teased Koku, placing her hand over her mouth in a joking, teasing manner. She then followed that up by muttering under her breath, "Someone's got a horrible sense of direction." After this, Koku played along, scratching the back of his head with another nervous laugh, or more appropriately, a chuckle.

The girl, who still didn't introduce herself, pulled a map out of her abnormally large bag that reeked of medicines. "Here we are!" she said somewhat loudly after rummaging through her mess of a bag for the map. Bringing the map close to Koku, she pointed out where they were. "So we're here in Arunte. It's nothing too special, just another big city that holds its values through agriculture. You said you were lost, where did you intend on going to?" she asked with a curious look in her eyes.

"Uhh, I needed to get to Amag~ to…" Koku looked at the map for a very quick moment and said the name of a random place southwest in Paladonia. "Valoria, and I apologize for that moment… I'm a little nervous when… talking to others," this was clearly a lie, or maybe not, since Koku didn't actually talk to many people for long periods of time. However, for the moment, Koku wasn't nervous when talking to people at all, even now. He was just on guard due to earlier when she appeared out of nowhere.

After hearing his reply, she chuckled as her cheeks flushed a slight hint of pink. "With how lost you were, you'd need a string tied around your waist to get all the way to Valoria. That's the border city of Paladonia, and on the complete polar opposite side of here in Arunte."

"Ah, I'm sorry, stranger, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Airi Yamato, what's your name?" she asked, coming closer to Koku's face by a little. Needing to make up a name, Koku began to think of a name, despite her face being a few inches away from his. "I think... you're a little too close... and as for my name, it's… Toshiro," Koku asserted, with Airi then backing up apologetically.

"Hey, you know what, You should come over to my shop. It's not far away, and it's on the outskirts of the city." Airi held onto Koku's hand, or as she knew him 'Toshiro,' after grabbing ahold of his hand, she ran off with him towards the city. Leading Toshiro (Koku) there, she mentioned quite a few things about her shop alongside the fact she knew most of the people in Arunte and this, of course, meant the guards and locals. She then reassured him that they were amazing people and that the crime rate was next to zero, if any at all.

After they arrived at the gates of the city, the guards looked at her with a smile, and when seeing Koku… or for the moment known as Toshiro, their smiles turned into awkward smiles. So as they approached the two, the three guards began to ask a few questions, "S-so Airi. Umm, who's this young man here with you?" one of the guards asked as the other then asked a question of his own. "Eh? Boyfriend of yours?" This other guard asked teasingly and curiously. Then the third, and final guard, looked at the two of them and simply stated "Airi, I've never seen him in this city, so I'll assume he's not from here. Although I think I might've seen him somewhere before." this third guard being the oldest of the three sighed after a few seconds, "Nevermind, Airi, guys like him dump and go. Use protection if you plan to do anything…and you brat. If you try jumping out after doing anything to Airi, you'll pay dearly," he stated with a cold, annoyed look to him.

Airi, hearing this all, blushed very slightly and denied all of those things they asked and or said, "He's not anything like that, and darn he's not my boyfriend… and gramps don't feel worried, I'm just going to show him my shop, since he… helped me out a little bit earlier." After reassuring the three that he wasn't her boyfriend or anything like that, the guards let Koku and her pass by without any kind of inspection.

"Sorry about that," she spoke up, apologizing for what they had said in that interaction. "They just tend to be a little overprotective over me, since everyone here thinks of me as a daughter." Koku (Toshiro) asked her why they considered her family, wondering about it and trying to understand her just a little more, since as of now she was still a mystery. "Well, it all started nine years ago when my father died in the frontlines because of an ambush from the Demi-humans. Lots of people died, and my father was one of them. It just so happens that my mother would end up dying 3 years later to a sickness called Eldritch Withering, she got it from a group that appeared one day covered in hoods. They didn't do much apart from knock her out unconscious, and when she woke up, she felt weird and bad from that day. So we think that they did this to her, lots of guards and people investigated but couldn't find anything so the people in Arunte adopted me as one of their own when she died to the incurable sickness. But yes, they just felt pity and I guess along the way, I they started loving me as their own kid," Airi didn't seem bothered all too much about the question, though she did seem bothered by something.

"So why do you have an herbal shop?" he asked further, wanting to know something about her that had his interest at large. "Oh, I just want to cure people, and to one day find a cure to all those illnesses and sicknesses that are told to be incurable." After telling Koku (Toshiro) this, she smiled, and Koku dropped his questions as she proceeded to bring him into her shop...