It had been more than 30 minutes since he "arrived" in this part of Earth that he did not recognize, which the Awakened Collector found it very strange after he had dealt with the "little" affair between the humans and their youkai offshoot cousins earlier. Where Atala saved the young human boy named Daisuke from being eaten by three youkai cannibals in the forest. He then took care of his injuries and then carried the child out of the woods to return him back to his parents near the village.
After that, he followed both the human family and the odd-looking blue-haired woman from the dirt road to their village, far from behind them. When he heard of the word "village" that came from Daisuke's mouth, Atala thought it would be another small human settlement that had those pre-fabricated "drop-module" houses that he always saw during one of his team's rescue operations when Reaper forces landed on the developing human colony of Chasca.
He sprinted pass them through the woods beside the dirt road until he arrived at an open field with a wide paddy field before it.
From the field, the Awakened Collector observed the twinkled lights that brightened the walls of many structures of varying sizes and shapes in front of his eyes. But what Atala saw in front his eyes, however, completely surprised him.
He ran towards a thick bush at the edge of the paddy field and quickly hid behind it. From outside of the settlement, he discovered the Human Village and all of its structures before him appeared to be more ancient and significantly less advanced. Kind of pre-industrial or medieval in the buildings' designs as all of them were built entirely out of wood, while some of them were covered with stone and plaster.
Not even a single sign of modern technology was seen in the village. No solar panels, wind turbines or hydrogen power generators were seen from this settlement. Nor even a microwave power receiver tower. Moreover, Atala did not see a single street light in the village and the lights that came from the settlement were produced by candles and lanterns, not by LEDs. The Awakened Collector might be surprised a bit if they were using the obsolete incandescent light bulbs.
Most of the buildings were closed except for a few that were still opened at night for some of the inhabitants that were strolling in the village's streets. There were people in those streets conducting commercial activities and communicating with each other, possibly between merchants and buyers. But what he found among these strollers in the village just made things even weirder for him.
You... have GOT to be kidding me.
Atala saw that one of them, a blonde-haired woman, happened to have nine furry tails at her... buttocks, and she wore a blue and white dress with a blue print on the front, white sock-like shoes with blue frills at the ankles, along with a strange-looking hat that had a pair of long, pointy and vertical cones. She appeared to be smiling happily as she walked down the street of the village while carrying a small wooden box with her right hand, via a red string that was tied tightly around the box.
The Awakened Collector eyed upon the peculiar nine-tailed woman until he saw the young human boy Daisuke, his parents and the blue-haired woman, without their wooden torches, were at the village's street. After they had said each other's good night and the human family went back to their home located in the center of the village, the blue-haired woman saw the nine-tailed person walked by in front of her.
What Atala did not know was that the nine-tailed woman was actually well-known to the blue-haired lady and the villagers.
## ## ## ## ## ## ##
"Ah, Ran-san. Good evening. You came here shopping for tofu tonight?" Keine greeted the kitsune shikigami, Yakumo Ran.
Ran stopped and spuned around towards the Human Village guardian with a joyful grin. "Oh, Keine-sensei! Yes, I want to prepare fried tofu as one of the main dishes for everyone at the house for dinner." She then raised the small wooden box and showed it for Keine to see.
She saw the wooden box Ran lifted and Keine instantly made a slightly surprised expression. "Wow! Are you girls having a banquet tonight, Ran?"
The kitsune shikigami chuckled. "Don't be silly. It's just a simple dinner. There's nothing so grand about it."
Keine crossed her arms on her chest and smiled playfully at Ran. "And yet not everyone in Gensokyo thinks that's true, Ran. We all know how above normal her appetite is."
Ran slightly frowned and smiled weakly at the statement, as she knew what Keine meant. "Don't tell me you really buy everything what was written on that today's tengu newspaper?"
Keine shook her head a little in disagreement while smiling. "No, not really. But when it comes to Yakumo Yukari, however, almost everything about her being... peculiar had almost became common knowledge. Despite that she's an enigmatic and wise sage. And a little... seasoned, perhaps."
"Seasoned, huh?" Ran slowly wiped her forehead with her left free hand. "But not everything about her is bad. Not really. Yukari-sama does shows her good side, though. Even if not most of the time, and that she sometimes get on someone else's nerves."
The village guardian laughed a bit. "I know! But still..." At first, Keine put on an honest smiling face at Ran when she met her in the village and when they were talking about the youkai sage presently. Then, something came into existence in Keine's mind regarding of what happened earlier outside of the village.
"Still..." Keine's face slowly morphed into a worried and sad look for a second as she remembered the incident where the boy Saito Daisuke was almost killed by three youkai in the forest. Keine felt very sorry for the boy who had went through such a frightening, and possibly traumatic, experiences at such a young age.
Keine then remembered the bug "youkai" that had saved Daisuke, who healed the boy's wounds, carried him through the woods and brought him to his parents. She was relieved that the bug "youkai" itself (or himself, if she followed the boy's words) was not hostile, and probably a shy one as it did not made an attempt to reveal itself before her and the young boy's parents.
Yet Daisuke's description of his "youkai" rescuer's inhuman appearance surprised, and at the same time unnerved Keine to a small degree as such youkai like that was never heard of, encountered nor documented.
She was worried if there were many others like it in Gensokyo and the thought that some of its kind were probably not as friendly as the one Daisuke had met made Keine uneasy.
That was when Ran noticed the sudden change of Keine's expression; from being relaxed and amiable, to an almost grave and serious one. "Keine, what's wrong?"
Keine slowly turned her head left and right, in order to make sure no one else was on the street to hear the next and important topic of conversation between them. She then moved her head closer to Ran, inches away from the shikigami's face. "Ran, are all youkai in Gensokyo always appear almost like... humans?" She whispered to her.
Ran blinked her eyes and confused at such strange question for a moment. She nonetheless answered it honestly. "Well, yes we are and you knew that. But... why are you asking me that question?"
"Because half an hour ago, a young boy from this village, Saito Daisuke, was chased and was almost eaten by three carnivorous youkai in the forest outside of the Human Village. Somewhere beside the road leading straight to the Road of Liminality." Keine explained in a low voice.
Ran gasped in shock and simultaneously covered her mouth with her left hand when she heard such news from her. "My goodness! Is he alright?"
Keine nodded in respond. "He's fine. Just before they could eat him, a friendly bug youkai appeared from behind Daisuke and frightened the other youkai away. It... He then healed Daisuke's wounds and carried him through the forest to the dirt road. Afterwards, the bug youkai placed him on the road and released Daisuke to me and his parents while we were searching for the boy, just before he disappeared into the woods."
"Bug youkai? Friendly? Could that be Wriggle Nightbug, Keine? Because people sometimes could confused her for a boy because of her clothing." Ran pointed out.
Keine shook her head. "No, it wasn't Wriggle, Ran. I'm very sure of it."
Ran raised a brow in confusion at Keine's answer. "How can you be sure it's not her?" She then hit upon a realization regarding Keine's earlier query. "Wait. Is it got to do with the question you asked me just now?"
"Yes. From what Daisuke had told me and his parents, the bug youkai that saved him looked completely nothing of almost-human appearance." Ran had her eyes widen a little at the information the village guardian just told to her.
Keine continued to recall what she remembered earlier from the boy's story. "He described the youkai as being tall, stood and walked on two feet. His body was covered with exoskeletal scales, three fingers on each of his two arms, had six eyes and a big head that shaped like a mushroom. And that's not all, Daisuke also said the bug youkai had magic, which he used it to create green flames on his body to intimidate the three youkai and to heal the boy's injuries."
"I see." Ran nodded. She almost could not believe what Keine told her: A bug youkai that appeared entirely not human and had magical abilities. Keine's description of the youkai's appearance caused Ran to instantly imagined him as being both intimidating and should not be underestimated. Well, maybe. Until we've seen what he's capable of. It also piqued the interest and curiosity of the kitsune shikigami as it was the first time she heard something bizarre and unique like this.
However, Ran also noticed Keine's worried tone when she told her about the peculiar bug youkai. "Keine, you did mentioned this bug youkai was friendly. That's a good thing, right? And yet you sounded uneasy when you told me about him." Ran asked with a skeptical look.
Keine avoided making eye contact with Ran by looking to the ground and bowed her a bit with an upset expression, while her right hand grasped her left upper arm's. "It's just... I'm worried what if there's more of his kind out there... and if some of them aren't as friendly as he is."
Ran cocked her head at her and frowned a little. "Keine, have you ever thought that bug youkai probably the only one of his kind in Gensokyo? Unique like many others out there, like Kogasa, Kokoro or Nazrin?" she asked.
She placed her left hand at Keine's right shoulder to relieve her of anxiety. Keine lifted her face and saw the reassuring smile Ran was giving to her. "Look, you're worrying too much. If what you've said about the bug youkai being friendly is true, then there's nothing to be concern about. Isn't it? He probably wouldn't want to hurt anybody, humans and youkai, and would like to avoid hostilities as possible."
The Human Village guardian sighed a bit as she reflected the words Ran had said to her. She's right. I need to be optimistic about this. There's no way there could be more of this bug youkai out there. And besides, he's good. He saved Daisuke. That should've proved something about him. After that moment of thought, Keine spoke up. "You're correct, Ran. I maybe have been overthinking of it without considering other possibilities. Especially the good ones. Thanks."
"The pleasure is mine, Keine-sensei." Ran nodded with a soft grin.
As soon as after Ran acknowledged her thanks, Keine had her eyes focused on the wooden box that contained the tofu Ran wanted to serve for dinner. "Ran-san, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should head back home before Yukari starts to complain about why the dinner being late served," she reminded the kitsune shikigami with a smile.
Ran politely waved her hand dismissively, "Oh, don't worry about it. It's not like Yukari-sama will face starvation just because the dinner is served a few minutes late. Besides, if she starts cranky, Chen will try to cheer Yukari up to get the hungry thought off her mind." She grinned convincingly at the village guardian.
-0-0-0-
At the same time...
"Ran-chaaaaan! Where are you? I'm starving heeeeere." The youkai sage Yakumo Yukari groaned weakly in hunger as she rested the left side of her head on her left elbow, which she placed it on a table.
Chen, who was Ran's nekomata shikigami, sat at the opposite table facing Yukari with a bored look with her chin rested on her interlocked fingers. "Please be patient, Yukari-sama. The tofu shop probably has a long line of customers now, and Ran-sama may have to queue to get one since the tofu sold there is very yummy. She'll be here in a few minutes," she calmly tried to assure the whining youkai sage.
"But I don't wanna wait a few minutes! I'm so hungry that my tummy starts to growl so loud that it can be heard outside of the mansion," Yukari complained while she held her abdomen with both of her hands as her stomach let out an audible growl. "I bet she's engrossed in a lengthy chat with someone else in the village to the point she totally forgets our dinner," she accused with a pouty face.
"Don't say that, Yukari-sama! I'm sure Ran-sama is trying to come home quickly as possible," Chen said, trying to restore confidence to her master's master. "Why won't just use your gap ability to see what is she doing now?" she suggested.
"Cheeeeen! When I'm this hungry and have very little energy, I can't even lift myself off this table. Let alone using my ability to manipulate boundaries now." Yukari pointed out as she began to bury her head onto her crossed arms on the table.
"Hmm." The nekomata shikigami was in deep thought, trying to find a way to bury the hungry thought from Yukari, to keep her preoccupied while waiting for Ran to come home. And possibly to suppress Yukari-sama's hungry feeling. It could be done if she... is busy with... Chen's suddenly had a bright, merry grin illuminated her face. "I know! We can play games while we wait for Ran-sama!" she exclaimed.
"Ehhh!?" Yukari quickly lifted her face that buried within her crossed arms, revealing her incredulous expression to the happy-looking nekomata shikigami. "Chen... you-you're not serious, aren't ya?"
Chen quickly rose from her cushion seat and stood up confidently. "Of course I am! I know one or two games that can be played with little energy and you don't have to move around much. The games I know of are dajare*, shogi* and hanafuda*!" she called out ecstatically.
"N-n-no, Chen! Not now! I..."
"Just stay here, Yukari-sama, I'll get the shogi set and the cards now. It won't be long!" Chen immediately went to open the dining room's sliding shoji door and ran excitedly in the corridor of the mansion, leaving the youkai sage alone and sat frozen in the room in complete disbelief with her mouth gaped.
Yukari slumped over the table as she rested her chin on her crossed arms that she placed on the table, with a glum and exhausted face. "Uwaaaaa! Ran, you faulty program! Where are youuuu!?"
-0-0-0-
"Anyway, I should head home now, Keine-sensei. I think Yukari would be interested to hear about this bug youkai." Ran bowed to the Human Village guardian.
"Yes, I think she would." Keine returned the bow.
After both of them had said each other's good night, Ran walked out from the Human Village's center while Keine went to her home located in the middle of the village.
As Ran walked out of the village, she suddenly stopped in her track and spun her head to a certain thick bush at the edge of the paddy field, located outside of the village's center. The kitsune shikigami narrowed her eyes a bit to the particular bush for a few seconds, before she began to walk a few steps, floated in the air and flied away to her home.
As for the peculiar thick bush, however, there was nothing strange nor special behind it, because the Awakened Collector Atala was long gone before both Keine and Ran finished their earlier conversation in the village's center.
## ## ## ## ## ## ##
Okay, so it must've been some kind of a strange human counterculture which involves body modification, genetic engineering and absolute rejection of their own species' identity. Which it was established by a group of bodily-modified humans complete with their own unique, though somewhat very bizarre, subculture and mindset. A significantly different society, completely separated and opposite from the baseline humans and their mainstream norms and mores.
Atala was contemplating in regards to the possible and best theory of the origin of "youkai" offshoots on Earth prior to the discovery of Prothean ruins by human explorers on the neighboring Red Planet, while traversing through the thick forest in order to find a suitable spot to stay to make camp. Except without a campfire, a tent, nor a sleeping bag.
As a synthetic being, he did not need the warmth from the heat of the fire, and feel tired and comfort to the softness of a sleeping bag's blanket and ground pad like any organics; although Atala could "sleep" if he chose to for conserving energy, and to gather up, organize and optimize all the information he learned.
Thus, a separate, offshoot subspecies of humankind was created after their numbers had grown from hundreds of thousands to a few millions within several decades. And possibly after much of the human society on Earth acknowledged and classified them as a subspecies of humankind, and eventually led to the entire subspecies to be known as "youkai". Yes, that's probably it. Atala nodded at that thought, completely agreed to himself of the youkai origin theory he just made.
However, he could not rule out another theory he made earlier which was related to the time where Prothean scientists and researchers on Mars from the last cycle had probably tampered with some of the prehistoric humans' DNA using advanced genetic engineering and modification.
If so, for what purpose? Was it purely for their insatiable and unfathomable scientific curiosity? Or as some kind of an uplifting strategy, to be a tool or weapon for the Empire's military against the Reapers? Or when it was too late for them, it was then used as a way for the Protheans to exact vengeance on the Reapers in the next cycle if total extinction of his entire race was inevitable?
Now, I just need to find out why there's a small, isolated and horribly backward human settlement located in the middle of fucking nowhere on Earth that's completely has no trace of radio signals of any kind, untouched by modern development, undamaged by war, and unnoticed by the Reap-
SPLASH!
The Awakened Collector looked down and saw that his right foot had stepped into a watery mud puddle. Guess I should also look down the ground besides looking up front while walking AND overthinking simultaneously.
Atala swung his right foot back and forth in the air to get rid of the mud on it before moving on. After a few minutes of walking, he came out of the woods and found himself upon the side of a straight forest road before him. He turned his head to the right and saw nothing but trees at the end of a curved road far away from him.
The moment after the Awakened Collector turned his head to the right, he heard a faint melodic voice that came from his left. Like someone was singing.
He turned around and saw a dim yellow light along with a small glowing red orb located 30 meters or so from him right across the forest road. He could also smell the faint characteristic aroma of grilled meat that came from the same direction as the faint singing voice and the lights. Out of curiosity, Atala walked towards that place.
As the Awakened Collector walked closer to it, and the singing suddenly stopped, what he saw seemed to be some sort of a parked, disassembled wooden vehicle with a roof and two wheels. To Atala, it looked like some kind of a cart. It had a plain wooden bench, a pair of long U-shaped handles in front, and a 4-piece red fabric hung from the edge of the roof across the side of the cart with three written symbols and an illustration of a serpentine fish.
There was also a red lantern that was lit and hung beside the roof, which was also had the same three written symbols on it, albeit vertically from top to bottom than the ones on the fabrics that went from left to right.
Still, after he reached the spot and stood in front of the cart, Atala took this opportunity to scan the writings on the banner with his omni-tool for a linguistic translation algorithm to find similarity, accuracy and correlation of words and grammar used between the pronunciation and writing of human Japanese language. But three symbols on a cloth were not enough, far away from close. He would need to scan and collect more Japanese writings for his translation algorithm to complete.
Because he was a few inches taller than the cart itself, Atala had to bent his body forward with his large head went through the fabric, which he then took a look around the cart's interior.
There was a simple rectangular-shaped charcoal grill with some of the charcoals in it were still smoldering. Beside the grill was a rectangular-shaped metal pot with six small containers; each of those containers possessed six different ingredients immersed in broth*. Each of them differed in their shape; such as where one of them was shaped like a tube, while another resembled a rectangular-shaped cake.
He activated his omni-tool and made a sweeping motion over the hot pot from right to left to scan the ingredients. A few seconds later, the results came in: Each of the ingredients were made entirely of fungi stuffed in leaf vegetables*, root vegetables*, starches*, wheat*, fish* and legumes*. All of them were edible for human consumption.
To the left of him was an open cabinet full of ceramic and glass cups, along with two different plates made of ceramic and wood that were stacked neatly. On the ground beside the cart and in front of his left, was a wooden bucket full of water with several serpentine fish inside.
I've to guess that the serpent-like fishes over there are this food stand's main dish.
However, what was strange about the food cart was that the owner was no where to be found in the vendor. Then his ears caught the drifting sound of a young girl humming like the melody of a song that came from behind the cart.
When Atala began to motion his head forward a bit, his inadvertently moved his left leg until Atala's left shin bumped into the bench. The collision made the Awakened Collector slightly off balanced, which instantly caused him to straighten his body on reflex, and led to the middle ridge of the top of his thick, layered carapace head knocked against the vendor's foldable hinged roof.
THUD-TAK!
## ## ## ## ## ## ##
The operator of the grilled lamprey vendor, the night sparrow youkai Mystia Lorelei, was humming a sweet tune to herself while busy washing the dirty dishes at a large wooden basin filled with water, located not too far behind her food cart. Even though the temperature at night was always cool, Mystia could still sweating just by doing such simple, menial work.
Mystia blew out a tired breath and wiped a layer of sweat off her forehead with her right forearm, as both of her white sleeves were rolled up to her elbows so they do not get wet while washing the dishes. There was a white towel placed at the nape of her neck to absorb droplets of sweat forming around the neck.
"Ara, so many customers came to my stall. I've got a lot of profit tonight!" she said joyfully as she arranged the washed plates on top of the other next to the basin.
That was when she caught the sound of something or someone collided with the wooden pieces of her cart. Mystia turned her head back to her food stand and saw a vague figure standing in front of the cart's table.
"Oooh! Another customer! Wait just a moment, please!" she called out to her would-be customer.
After Mystia emptied the remaining washed plates and placed them next to the wooden basin and the stacked dishes, she stood up, bent her back a little and went towards her cart. She grabbed the towel around her neck and swiping it over her sweat-streaked face while walking slowly. Although her eyes were closed as she was swiping her face with her towel, she instinctively knew which direction to aim for.
The night sparrow youkai stopped right in front of the outdoor kitchen and she quickly lowered the towel from her face, revealing Mystia's cheerful expression and closed eyes. "Hello! Welcome to my lamprey eel sta-"
When she opened her eyes to look at her "customer", Mystia's words stopped there as she gazed upon the figure in front with her eyes widen in extreme surprise and silent.
For a split second, her mind went blank with shock because she was completely did not expect something as startling and abnormal like what Mystia saw before her eyes. The "person" before Mystia looked entirely nothing like any human or any youkai she had seen in all her life.
To be honest, she had never seen such a creature like this. Its entire body was covered with pale brown insect scales, had broad shoulders, distinctively big mushroom-shaped head with no mouth and nose, six glowing pupil-less eyes and two pairs of rudimentary limbs sticking out from the side of its chest.
Basically, the thing's appearance was absolutely unnatural, monstrous and very disconcerting.
As for Atala, before him was a small human female child, or an almost-human female child, with grey eyes, pink hair, pointed feathery ears and a pair of light pink bird-like wings with purple highlights at her back. The girl was dressed in white and brown clothing with a brown cap. What's more, both her hat and dress contained numerous bird-shaped ornaments. Judging by certain unusual physical characteristics of the young girl, the Awakened Collector was sure that girl before him was most certainly a youkai.
"KYAAA!" Mystia screamed with a fearful expression. She impulsively turned around and scampered off towards the woods ahead of her. Shortly afterwards, Mystia tripped her foot and fell to the grassy ground face-first. When she quickly got up and turned around, the night sparrow youkai saw that the monstrous figure left the table and it was walking to the rear side of her cart.
"N-n-no!" Frightened, she started to walk backwards slowly until her right heel stumbled over the edge of the wooden basin she put earlier. Mystia lost her balance, flailed and fell backwards into the water-filled basin, soaking herself and her dress wet.
Yet that did not ease off her fearfulness from the terrifying creature as she saw it stood beside her food cart. The bipedal insect-like monstrosity was easily towering over herself and her cart in height. Mystia could also able to see clearly from the vendor's light just how freakishly looking the illuminated full-plated bug creature was when she gazed upon its entire grotesque appearance.
The night sparrow youkai was scared witless and trembled with fear as the tall demonic insectoid being was still staring intently at her with those six soulless, glowing eyes. Mystia did not know what would it do to her or what it was capable of, but she was sure it must be very unsightly and terrifying to look at.
"Ple... Please! Whatever you are, I beg you! Please spare my life!" Mystia begged the creature in front of her for mercy as her eyes were swelled up in tears.
While Mystia was begging at Atala, due to his thought process was much quicker than regular organic races except the salarians, the geth, and some of the human Systems Alliance's Alliance Infiltration Unit AIs, he was contemplating over the variety of dishes served on the food cart, and the young youkai girl who was sitting in the large basin in fear.
She was serving dishes that are organic-based and fishes for human customers and possibly other non-cannibal youkai in this place. What's more, the nine-tailed woman I saw earlier in the village was a youkai and she seemed quite friendly with that blue-haired lady. Atala reasonably thought about the cultural discrepancy among general youkai population.
Atala concluded that there was a possibility not all youkai were hostile towards humans and committing cannibalism. That there were some who wanted to live peacefully among their human cousins. The nine-tailed woman and the winged little girl before him were testaments of his own assessment.
The moment after Mystia pleaded the intimidating living being for mercy, the tall insect creature began to raise his right arm and extended it right at her. It then opened its three-fingered hand and aimed its palm at Mystia. In an instant, her entire body was covered with green semitransparent aura.
"Eeek!" Mystia exclaimed as she was shrouded by the strange green aura. She then felt the weight of her body decreased dramatically until it became as light as a feather.
She was lifted slowly into the air with water dripping down from her wet clothes. Mystia was then brought away towards the creature steadily from the wooden basin.
After a very short distance from the basin, the night sparrow youkai was lowered down gently until her feet touched the ground, and her weight instantly returned to normal right after the green aura that surround her body disappeared.
Mystia was left speechless and truly bewildered by the demonic bug creature's act of magically helping her get off from the basin, as well as assisted her to stood upright on the ground.
Next, it walked towards a tree next to it and grabbed a low tree branch with its right hand. Then she saw a bright, malevolent reddish light instantly surrounded its left arm, and a blade of glaring red fire instantaneously materialized over its left hand. The creature used the blade to slice off the branch at its base in a single swing, and then cut it into several pieces of woods.
Mystia was amazed by the sight before her as the demonic insect-like being was able to create a finely controlled flame from its arm and shaped it into the form of a blade. She assumed that the creature must be very powerful, and quite possibly lethal, either in the magical arts or its inherent supernatural abilities.
The creature picked up all of the woods he had chopped and dropped them in a pile, on a wide, flat and unvegetated ground located more than 10 feet from Mystia's cart. It then arranged the woods into cone-shaped pyramid. Once it was finished, the creature took a few steps back and its left arm was again surrounded by the same unique radiant light, only this time it was of warm orange-yellow color.
It then extended its left arm toward the wood pile and released a fireball at them. Mystia jumped to her feet in startle as the wooden pyramid burst into flame.
As she stared down at the flaming pile of woods, the first thought that came into Mystia's mind was, Did it... Did it just light a fire for me? She could not believe what had just happened to her.
First, it lifted me up from the basin using magic. Then it went to cut a branch with his blade of fire, and the next it shot a fireball at the woods to create fire for myself. Mystia did not expect that the terrifying monstrous creature with magical abilities was actually benign and it did not really seem to want to hurt her.
She changed her sight from the fire to the creature, and saw that it had fixed its gaze at the night sparrow youkai. Mystia became nervous at the pupil-less stare it gave at her but despite that, she mustered up her courage to express her gratitude to the creature.
"A-ah... um, th-thank you," she nervously said.
The demonic bipedal insect creature responded her with a trill, which made Mystia jumped a bit. It then turned its back on Mystia and started walking pass her food cart.
The creature went across the forest road, walked into the woods and disappeared in the darkness, leaving the wet night sparrow youkai standing dumbfounded.
Author's Notes:
Dajare*, shogi* and hanafuda* are actually traditional Japanese games; dajare is a type of word play game, shogi is a strategy board game similar to Western chess, while hanafuda is a type of card game.
As for the (oden) hot pot Atala had scanned, the ingredients in it were: Cabbage rolls stuffed with shiitake mushrooms*, sliced daikon radishes*, chikuwabu*, konnyaku*, kamaboko fish cakes*, and tofu*.
Ah crap. Now I'm getting hungry just by writing these (mouthwatering) foods.