X-97 straightened slowly, fingers loosening as the last threads of memory slipped away from her grasp.
"Now… I have enough to see the full picture," she sighed.
The clearing around her no longer resembled a battlefield so much as a crime scene.
"I will admit," X-97 continued, gaze unfocused as she sorted through what she had stolen, "I was skeptical of Young Master's plan."
"But with this knowledge…" she went on with a tint of admiration in her voice, "…it is clear now. What he constructed with so little information was just brilliant. It was intuition refined by genius."
With a flick of her wrist, mana surged, and a spiral of water bloomed around her, rising from the air itself and washing over her body in a controlled torrent.
Blood that smeared her entire frame slid away in seconds until there was nothing left but clean skin and damp fabric.
And a heartbeat later, flames rolled across her frame, drying her instantly without leaving so much as a scorch mark.
Only then did she reach into her robes and retrieve the enchanted stone Nico had given her.
She turned it once in her fingers before feeding a single pulse of mana into it, signifying the message that -
I have what we came for. Converge.
X-97 lowered her hand and turned back toward the corpse at her feet, or what remained of it.
She began stripping it of valuables. Weapons first, then armor pieces worth salvaging, then coin pouches, and rings.
Anything useful she found, she stripped it off the dead.
X-97 worked through the rest of the fallen men the same way, until nothing of value remained.
And by the time she was done, a large bag filled to the brim with her spoils sat at her feet, the bag she took from the dead, too.
Hoisting it over her shoulder, she unfurled her wings of flames and, without another glance at the clearing, launched herself into the sky, towards the direction she came from to intercept the others mid-way.
After all, she'd rather they didn't find out how she got the information they needed.
While away from the clearing, by the other end of the endless green, Nico had just felled a giant bat that came out of nowhere and took three Fragmentation Ice Pebbles in the face before going down.
Its body crashed through the branches before vanishing into the forest below with a wet, distant thud.
-Ding!
{Tier 2, Mid-Stage, Monster: Ahool killed.
700 EXP received!}
"…Finally." He wheezed, before descending toward the corpse and vanishing it into his Inventory with a touch.
"System, I wanna sell its body."
-Ding!
{Ahool corpse sold.
10 Credits received.}
"Ten credits, huh?" he muttered. "Love how murder pays less than six boxes of large pizzas."
He had just taken off when -
-Ding!
{Single Ping received from the stone given to X-97.}
Nico froze.
His stomach dropped, yet at the same time, excitement flickered in his chest.
This was it, the moment where the mysterious variable either proved him brilliant or exposed him as the idiot he absolutely was.
"Alright. Calm down," he told himself as he took a deep breath, "This is not the end of the world. Worst case scenario… I panic, improvise, and creatively lie again."
Immediately, he reached out through the Familiar Bond.
"Nom," he said, trying to sound composed. "X-97 found something. Check the map and follow me… I'm heading her way."
Her response came instantly.
"Wha? Now? Do I have to come?"
"Nom…"
"Fine." She grumbled.
Sighing, Nico shot toward X-97's position, already mentally shredding his original plan and stitching together a replacement made of hope, denial, and mental duct tape.
"Screw it," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair mid-flight. "We'll bulldoze through whatever it is. I'll just have to focus on getting stronger…But there is absolutely no universe where Nom hides who she is."
He flew so deep in thought... spiralling really, that he didn't notice the presence behind him until his instincts screamed.
Something was right there.
Nico yelped, nearly short-circuiting as he tried to jerk sideways.
But he was too late.
Weight suddenly slammed onto his back, knocking the air out of him as he wobbled violently in the air.
"WHAT THE -!"
"Master!"
Nom-Nom's voice rang out bright and delighted right next to his ear.
A split second later, the shockwaves hit as twin sonic booms cracked the air behind them while she latched onto him like this was the most normal thing in the world.
"Nom.."
"Yes?"
"WARN ME NEXT TIME!"
Nom-Nom laughed, completely unbothered by the near-death experience she'd just gifted him.
"But then it wouldn't be a surprise!"
Nico groaned, fighting to steady his flight as the world wobbled beneath them, while once again, Nico's dragon rode on his back.
And somehow, they survived the next few hours like that, flying, bickering, Nom-Nom making commentary on clouds, and Nico threatening to revoke piggyback privileges if she didn't stop wiggling on his back, until at last -
"There," Nico muttered, spotting a familiar silhouette in the distance.
X-97 hovered above a clearing. Nico angled downward and touched down in a small open stretch of forest.
X-97 followed right behind, her wings of fire vanishing into embers as her boots touched the ground before she placed the large bag slung over her shoulder onto the ground with the blades of both the spear and the naginata sticking out at awkward angles.
Nom-Nom's eyes lit up at the sight.
"You found treasure!"
She bolted forward before Nico could say a word, dropping to her knees and immediately rummaging through the bag like a raccoon.
X-97 allowed herself a small smile as she said, "Yes… something to that effect."
And as Nico stepped closer, Nom-Nom paused before scrunching up her nose and began sniffing the air.
Then leaned closer to X-97 and sniffed again. Aggressively.
"You smell like blood," Nom-Nom said, head tilting. "… Human blood?"
The smile on X-97's face faded.
She turned toward Nico as he approached and spoke calmly, "I found the corpses of several humans… along with a monster."
Nico stopped in front of her, one eyebrow lifting.
While X-97 continued without missing a beat.
"I used my Darkness Affinity to extract memories from the bodies. However, my control over my magic… particularly Darkness, is… primitive."
She inclined her head slightly, as if acknowledging a flaw.
"By the end of the spell, the skulls exploded as a side effect. And since they were already dead, the memory extraction was incomplete."
"…Damn," Nico said after a second. "That's gnarly."
"Indeed," X-97 replied, letting out a quiet sigh. "I was forced to repeat the process across multiple corpses to reconstruct a usable picture. As a result, I was… covered in blood."
Gesturing at herself, she continued, "Hence the scent... Even after thorough cleaning."
Nodding slowly, Nico replied, "I get it. Did you at least… y'know. Give them a funeral? Burn the bodies, maybe?"
"No," she answered after a pause. "…Looking back, perhaps I should have."
"Yeah," he said softly. "Well. It's done now."
He then met her gaze before finally addressing the elephant in the room, "So. What did you find?"
X-97 took a measured breath before she began to speak
And as she did, she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, Nom-Nom silently watching her with an unreadable expression.