Clotho looked at his sister, keeping his ears and senses attentive even within this dwelling the man who saved them had left them.
"You wish to claim Lord Drake?" Atropos asked.
"W-what?!" Charlotte stammered back.
Clotho let out a sigh that he hoped no one heard as his eyes surveyed the room.
She is taking our tradition too far. Mother and Father would never approve of this… Clotho thought, then felt as if someone had driven a nail into his heart as he remembered the fate of their parents.
During their tutorial, Clotho and his sister had been protected by their clansmen for the majority of it. A devilish trial sent by the Great Wolf Gods to strengthen the pack, but their clan was not prepared for such a trial.
Less than half. Less than half of the clan, friends, family, and loved ones they had entered that strange scorching hot expanse they had entered had survived.
Once the trial had begun and people heard the voice of the Wolf God in their heads, urging them forward and into conflict. The clan separated, splitting off into factions who moved in different directions. Some refused to hunt as they saw the trial as a false calling of the Great Wolf. Others only thinking of the next hunt, consuming one beast to the next only to grow their strength as the Great Wolf had devined.
But neither was able to avoid the newfound trials and monsters that inhabited the searing sands that surrounded them.
They were the proud wolves of the north, Frost Wolves. Hunters of the most fierce and difficult hunting ground. The icy plains both took and gave everything the clan needed.
But here?
Here in this land with scarcely even pools enough to be called laughable puddles of water, they were desperate and unaccustomed.
Not only the terrain, but the monsters that called this hellish wasteland home were at odds with the Frost Wolves.
Clotho's eyes closed as he remembered how they were on their last legs as a clan but their leader finally broke through the final trial of the Great Wolf and ascended to a True Hunter allowing for her to quell all in-fighting and monsters that dared to challenge her. But not before the fiery sands took most of the clan.
"- You can't be serious!" Charlotte yelled her face beat red, breaking Clotho out of his thoughts, "I-I don't want to c-c-claim him! He just saved me, saved us all! And I want to repay him!"
Clotho looked at his sister's expression, her face furrowing into a serious glare of determination.
"Lord Drake is kind I see. But as per our traditions a life for a life. He has saved my life and I intend to make sure he is repaid in kind," Atropos announced placing her hand over her chest.
Clotho's eyes widened. He knew what she was saying but it was too much. He couldn't allow his sister to do such a thing and for a man who was of the same race as the ones who had captured them? Absolutely not, their parents, he, would not allow it.
He placed his hand on his sister's shoulder, his scowl fierce.
Atropos turned, seeing her brother's scowl, but only smiled gently at him.
"I know what you want to say Clotho, but it is fate that we met him. I will repay him with a life debt and that is that."
Clotho's frown deepened as he felt the conflict of emotions in his being. The need to protect his sister, the ingrained teachings of their traditions demanding he repay the man regardless of his own prejudice. Such feelings tore at him like a wild beast.
But looking at how his sister smiled. A smile he had not seen in months since their parents had been taken by the monsters to run with the Great Wolves joining their pack for all eternity. Clotho knew that his sister's smile was no longer his. And for someone else.
Begrudgingly he nodded, knowing exactly what he must do as well to keep her safe.
Charlotte and Janey looked at the twins with confusion, the tense air dissipating as they went at their own pace.
"Hey… do you two mind? We're trying to finish the last level and this boss is hard…" Brodie mumbled from in front of the TV.
"Another one…" Cid frowned shaking his head, "At least my sister isn't so head over heels like an idiot…"
—-----------
It had been a whole week since Aono arrived at her knight's wondrous base filled with beauty, strength, and inspiration.
"Ohohohoho….." Aono laughed in a low rumble as her eyes darted around constantly, seeing one race after another that she had never encountered before coming here.
"Such inspiration… Everywhere I look there is just constant motivation calling to me!" she shouted then covered her mouth, pulling her hood over her head.
Aono had set up shop, spreading her work throughout the town at a frightening pace.
The world must know of my dazzling Knight's accomplishments! It is only right! His story must be told to all ages for all of the ages! She thought shedding a tear.
But like all great artists, there were fans of her work who were more than a little, well, fanatical.
The front she placed for her work. The little old-school manga shop that she started to spread not only the Dazzling Knight in the Forest, but all of her old work and whatever she could produce of the old world's work seemed to have backfired.
Once the works had begun to spread her shop was overrun with curious people from the other races as well as those from the old world looking for a semblance of the old world. And they would hound her day and night for the artist of the works.
She had tried to explain to the annoying pests that she was only a third party, reselling the works at the behest of the artist. But they would not let her go so easily.
Aono was at a point where she had to hire bodyguards and security for the store, not that anyone would steal under the ever-watchful eye of the Guardian Diety of Reunite, the tyrannical red-eared demoness, Natto.
Someone had tried to steal from her shop before in the early days and within a second of him leaving the shop the little world-class disaster in undeniably cute miko form appeared with a sucker in her mouth.
Within the blink of an eye, the man was on the floor drooling his arms and legs bent in awkward unnatural angles.
"Ah, it was a great piece…." Aono reminisced, thinking of the image of Natto standing triumphantly over the thief before dragging him away.
Shaking her head she refocused on her work.
"I must capture the sprawling city as it grows… I must not miss a moment! Hopefully, I will find my eluding knight today as well!" she said with enthusiasm.
Aono sat on a small bench erected on the main street of the town. Only a few buildings were sparsely erected at the moment, but it was clear that there would be many, many more soon as the single earth mage employed by Reunite worked alongside the many orcs carrying crudely cut lumber to the buildings.
Many people moved along the street despite the few buildings as the street connected the core system buildings in the town. The church, system center, and most importantly and most popular Spirit Fox Auction House.
Aono had seen a glimpse of the hostess of the Auction House and the memory made her drool in desire to paint her more thoroughly. But alas, she was not important enough to negotiate a meeting with the busy she-fox.
The sound of a scuffle breaking out pulled Aono's attention as she quickly packed up her mana paper and stylus, running as fast as her legs would carry her.
A few breaths later she leaned against the black stone gate.
Her eyes went wide in glee as she spotted the back of her quarry, her Dazzling Knight.
But he was not the same as she remembered only a few days ago, he was talking to a slave dealer with a smile.
"W-what? No… m-my knight… T-tell me it is not so…!" she said in a creaking restrained shout behind her mouth.
Pulling her mana paper and stylus out she steeled herself.
"I must still record it. Even if he has turned to the dark side I must keep a detailed story. Wait!" Aono said suddenly, the cogs of her mind turning as a small grin pulled at her lips sinisterly.
The sound of the slave merchant and Drake's conversation passed into her ears.
"I'd love to see your full inventory," Drake said turning his back to the merchant.
"Ohhhh!" the merchant replied with joyous interest.
Aono's neurons began to fire rapidly a bead of blood falling from her nose as she saw Drake turn, dropping a bag of endless mana coins and skill stones in front of the merchant.
"H-h-h-his villain arc?!?! It has begun! I was wrong to judge you so suddenly my Knight!" she screamed into her cupped hands before tracing the paper furiously, Drake's figure painted completely and utterly accurately.
Drake wore a cape in the darkest black, his eyes gleaming red as he dumped crystalline coins of mana to the floor a deep sinister smile on his face.
"Where? What is the name of the town?" Drake asked, forcing Aono to pause as she heard the smallest hint of change in his voice.
"Yes, of course! It's a town to the north, Sandal!"
Aono's body stiffened, her eyes going wide as the force of the world seemed to press down on her. Her drawing hand began to shake against her will as her mouth began to silently clatter against the cold of not the winter air, but the frigid aura that sent a soul-chilling shiver down her spine and into her passionate artist's soul.
"I see… Then, I'll have to give them a visit won't I?" Drake said.
Drake's voice was like a bell ringing out through the silence of the area, bringing life back into it. Aono's breath returned as her smile widened!
"My knight… No, my dazzling Knight! No! My Eminence! Truly the cruel villain arc has begun!" she beamed.
The sound of screeching metal being wrought entered her ears, and for the first time noticing the slaves in front of Drake. He had crumbling in his hands like sand through his fingertips were mana collars turned to dust.
Drake's aura had narrowed to a pinpoint, the man behind him dropping to his knees as the slaves and Aono looked on.
Aono inched forward from the gate, her hands never stopping now that they were free, sketching and tracing her paper at a pace that would make Mangaka eternally jealous.
Drake walked to the man, looking down at him with an expression Aono had never seen before.
"I-i-i'm in love… I think I might have awakened to something! P-please my lord, my Eminence! Look at me with such a face," she drooled, but quickly recovered, "Ikan Ikan! I must record properly! For the good of society! For science! For later- I mean for the world to know!"
"Don't go dying just yet… You've caught me in a very bad mood and well… I can't have you dying without suffering just as much as they have."
Drake's eyes turned to something beyond disgust, beyond anger. The true eyes of an emotionally void tyrant, crushing a worm under his boot. He saw this man as nothing more, no, less than an insect. And Aono could see every micro-expression and millisecond of all its glory.
The man screamed silently as Drake went to work on him, first taking his eyes, then his voice before putting his hands into his hoodie pocket, bending slightly to put his head next to the man's ear.
The next words put Aono into a fanatical seizure of euphoria. The words sounding nearly ethereal deep in her eardrums.
"Suffer in regret… But don't worry, It won't take long until I send your disgusting friends to meet you."
She reared forward, her legs giving out as her eyes swam, a line of ecstatic drool slipping from her mouth.
"Villain arc…. Saikyou..."