"Speak" Krota's mother crossed her arms as she watched him seriously, but the tail jerked from side to side as it showed her mood which is nothing positive.
"I have been watching him almost since we learned of his existence and from what I have discovered is that he shows no animosity towards children or non-adults, since when he interacted with adults from the Mipra village, Giknus was very alert to his actions, it seems that he distrusts only adults because he relates them to the renegades and therefore agree to take Krima to make it easier to deal with him" Krota swallow saliva at not seeing any change in his mother. Fearful, he decided to take out his notebook to show Alex's drawings and notes during these days.
"Grrr ... you don't convince me at all, but I know that I raised a good child and I don't think now that child lies to me... apart from my ability not detecting any lies towards me" Mother Krota uncrossed her arms to continue to accommodate the pieces of meat, but there was still a trace of animosity in the way she treated the meat.
"Yosh!" Krima clenched her little fist in victory while whispering in victory.
Soon the other children arrived and began to make chaos that they wanted to go to see the Giknus up close, obviously a lot of mothers came to scold their children for disturbing the others, but there was an intelligent child who noticed that Krima was preparing to leave too, which caused the children to start another chaos about how unfair it is that they cannot go and Krima can.
In the end Krota was a little traumatized when treating the mothers of the children when they asked him why would Krima go with him, maybe if they asked him the same question at another time he would not have been scared, but all the mothers are warriors and were showing a bit of bad intentions before Krota so that he would say it was dangerous and not send the children with Alex, but Krima made the situation worse by snatching Krota's notebook and saying the same words Krota said to his mother.
The children were super happy with this while the mothers simply showed more animosity towards Krota by putting them in a complicated situation where they can become the villains of the history if they deny that their children go.
Luckily for Krota, his mother interrupted the whole problem by inviting the other mothers who had now obtained free time by leaving their children in Krota's care, this caused a 180-degree change in the mother's attitude when they walked away while gossiping about the gossip of other women from other villages.
"Thanks?... I don't know why I felt that I prefer to face the third floor of the dungeon than to enter into a debate with my mother or the other mothers" Krota dropped to his knees while catching his breath and being stretched by others children to go to see the Giknus.
...
[Returning with Alex]
...
<Aaaannnd with this, I finish cleaning myself> Alex straightens up when he finally manages to clean all the dirt in his body.
<What should I do now... Magic research or select hunting targets for tomorrow?> He meditated as he began to stretch his rigid body.
<I will continue investigating my magic and obtaining more familiarity points with my second element> He decided while he nods his head.
Alex found out on the ground and began to control his mana to extract a sphere of darkness from his shadow while also taking an iron ingot out of his inventory.
<Darkness absorbs, a black hole is a force of attraction so powerful that it absorbs everything and deforms it... but I just want it to absorb and not destroy the ingot... come on, I know I can> Alex focused totally on his sphere of darkness and the iron ingot in front of him.
Alex had already managed to absorb air and mana within the sphere, although he doesn't know where these things are going, but he continues trying to improve the ability to absorb until he manages to absorb the body of the monsters, because that way he will have more space to store meat if he can store it.
<To the count of three... . . . . three!>
Alex pushed the iron ingot into the sphere of darkness with his tail.
<I did it !! ... my tail!> From the emotion Alex forgot to drop the ingot and also put his tail into the sphere of darkness, he almost began hyperventilating by the fright, but when he felt the ingot still being held by his tail. He removed his tail from the sphere slowly.
Once he completely removed his tail from the sphere, he released the ingot and began inspecting his tail for any anomaly.
"Ufff ~" Alex pulled his tail away from his face shortly after releasing the air he held in his lungs in fright.
[And if we put our head in!] Shouted excitedly a little kitten with bat wings while showing a mad smile on his cat face.
[What?! Are you crazy?! We should do first tests to see if it's safe] Another scream rang in Alex's mind, but it sounded alarmed by the idea of the other voice.
But while Alex has an argument with his conscience, a voice rang out behind him while at the same time he realized the presence of other living things near him.
"Hi Gi-" Alex opened his eyes when he realized what happened.
He had turned to see who those green dots were on his mini-map, but when he turned, he controlled his sphere of darkness that he had made the size of his head unintentionally, moved it to defend against an invading entity of his personal space, but he was pleasantly surprised to see a little Kobold in a purple dress being swallowed by his sphere of darkness.
The other children looked with the same face what happened while the only adult Kobold remained frozen in his place.
"" ... "" Everyone in the place took half a second to react to what just happened.
<I killed her?... I don't have time to reason!> Alex shook his head from all unnecessary thoughts and put his head into his sphere of darkness.
Just to find a pleasant surprise, the girl was fine and the first thing she did when they both looked at each other, she held him in her whiskers.
<...> Alex looked puzzled at the girl who only watches him carefully while holding him by his whiskers, Alex could also see the pieces of grass and earth that he had previously introduced into his sphere.
But while Alex was having a duel of looks with Krima, out there, the children began to scream in terror.
"HE ATE KRIMA!!" "WE NEXT" "WUAAH!" All the children began to cry in fright when they saw Krima disappear from nowhere, but while they were all scared, the only child who did not cry watched in detail what Alex was doing and noticed Krima's hands coming out of the sphere and clinging to Alex.
"WAIT!!... LOOK!" The boy pointed to Krima's hands, thus causing everyone to shut up and watch closely.
Everyone watched as Krima emerged from the sphere while clinging to Alex's neck and whiskers.
"Wah!" Krima fell to the floor on her back when she let go of Alex, but before she could touch the ground, Krota caught her and began to examine her.
"Are you okay?! Are you not injured?! Where does it hurt?! Where did you go?!... DAMNY BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SISTER?!" Krota bombarded a lot of questions to Krima who was silent for a moment when processing everything that happened, but this was taken as something bad happened to her and only fed his anger, so he turned angry at Alex and started yelling at him.
But in response to all the screaming of Krota, Alex simply cleaned his fur and whiskers that was grabbed by the girl and struck Krota in the face with his tail to shut him up.
*Paf!* <Don't yell at me in the ear!>
Krota was silenced by the slap that Alex gave him, although that blow was simple, it was powerful and it took Krota back one step, but when he was about to throw himself at Alex.
"Krota, I'm fine, I don't feel any pain and I don't know where I went, the place was completely black and I couldn't breathe like when we got underwater" Krima answered his older brother's questions at her own pace while ignoring everything that happened.
"Oh! And I could hug Giknus is very soft and warm!" Suddenly Krima was excited to remember the feeling of hugging Alex as she closed and opened her small fists to remember the feeling.
""He didn't eat her"" The other children looked shocked at how Krima is okay, but unable to understand what happened a few seconds ago.
"..." Alex stared boredom at everyone as he undoes his magic so as not to suffer more frights today.
Seeing that Alex did nothing but lie in his place while watching them, all the children slowly approached Alex, all the children made a ball where everyone squeezed so as not to scare Alex.
"Who dares to touch him?" Someone on the ball asked curiously.
While the children tried to get close to Alex.
Krota devoted himself to checking Krima's health status and only stopped when he felt sure that Krima is fine.
"Roel risk for us!" A little chubby Kobold shouted while pushing the only child who hadn't cried a few moments ago.
Roel was pushed by all until he fell on top of Alex as he closed his eyes with a little fear of some negative reaction from Alex