In a nighttime setting of Malluarea, a young girl walked into the area. A young Shokei is heading over to someone's house. She paused in her tracks to take a moment to breathe.

  Easy there...I'm going over to a friend's party. I don't know anybody, and Rei is not with me. Rex...just rex...

  Shokei knocks on the door. She waited patiently enough and within a few seconds the door swings open. There appears a figure wearing an elegant dress.

  "Oh! Shokei!" The person at the door greeted. "You made it! Come on in!"

  Shokei walks inside the friend's house. There, she can see all sorts of other people in the home of her friend. Many of them were near Shokei's age and a few of them were older. A Troubadour is seen pying a Lute as he is bringing positivity to the home. Some of the friend's guest are pying card games whereas two people are pying Chess. Conversation was heard as everyone is having a splendid time.

  Shokei finds herself guarded. She did not motivate herself to be engaged with the kinds of guests that are inside the house. Human and non-human alike, she feels shy and sat quietly on the couch. A nudge came on the side as she sees her friend coming for her.

  "Is everything all right?" Her friend asked. "You seemed...disturbed."

  "Oh! Oh no Vanessa." Shokei tells her. "I'm fine."

  "Hmm...you don't look fine to me." Vanessa said to her, noticing her behavior. "But I'll tell you what! Nobody here in my party should feel shy. Don't you want to have fun around here and get someone to know you?"

  "I...I guess..." Shokei said, looking down on the floor.

  "Believe me, you'll be all right." Vanessa said. "I promise that neither one of these people will scare you. Everyone is accepted here. Guaranteed."

  Thinking about this, Shokei looks directly at her friend.

  "You're right." Shokei agreed. "I'll do it."

  "That's the spirit." Vanessa said with a smile. "By the way, where's your other friend?"

  "You mean Rei?" Shokei asked.

  "Yeah," Vanessa said and asked. "What happened to her? How come she's not with you?"

  "Rei said that she's busy at the moment. She won't attend to your party." Shokei tells her.

  "Awww. I see." Vanessa said, understanding the reason.

  "Yeah..." Shokei said with a shrug.

  "Anyways, make yourself feel welcomed here." Vanessa said, getting up from the couch. "Hope you find someone worth seeing."

  With Vanessa going off to another room, Shokei gets up from the couch. She looks to see people grooving to the music as the troubadours are making the music entertaining. She sees that people in pairs are enjoying themselves to the folk music. The Lute is pleasing his audience as he brings energy into the music.

  Just then, Shokei caught the attention of someone on the other side on the dance floor. There, Shokei sees a guy with long red hair with a feminine style. His appearance is half-human as his appearance is the face of a deer. He wears a leather outfit that is modest and practical. One of his eyes has a birthmark, which is a shape of a star.

  Oh my...never would I imagine that I have found someone that is attractive to my eyes...

  Shokei looks at him as she examines his looks. The guy across the other side did not pay her attention as he spectates the dancing on the floor.

  Should I...really walk over there to talk to him...or...or say nothing and walk by? His looks attract me...I hope no one else get to him first...I should make my move from here...

  Shokei takes a breath. She makes her move to walk up and approach the attractive guy that she has her eyes on. As soon as she got close to him, the guy looks at her and sees her coming by.

  "Ummm..." Shokei paused for a second. Then she said, "I don't know...ummmm..."

  The red-haired waits patiently for the words to come out.

  "Is it...uhhh, you wouldn't mind if I dance with you?" Shokei asked.

  The guy blinks as he remained silent.

  "Y-you don't knave to accept my invitation to dance with me." Shokei said. "But..."

  "Say no more miss..." The guy speaks out, interrupted her.

  Shokei can see that the guy extends out his hand. She was in awe as she can tell that the invite for a dance has been approved. Taking his hand, Shokei escorts him to the dance floor. The tuning of the music is now downtempo as another troubadour has a violinist on the side with him. Shokei and the mysterious red-haired danced together in a steady pace. Shokei smiled gracefully as she was pleased to meet someone that she does not know.

  Later that evening, the party was over. Shokei was hanging with the red-haired guy as they are smiling with each other.

  "I had a nice night with you." Shokei tells him.

  "You know, I really do admire your company throughout the whole evening." The red-haired guy said. "I have noticed that you had your eyes on me the whole time."

  "I...well I just saw you and I thought you never noticed me." Shokei said to him.

  "I did." The red-haired guy said. "You came inside Vanessa's pce and there I saw you. I haven't found the courage to talk to you since I was feeling shy."

  "I see." Shokei said with a slight ugh. "I guess we both share the same feeling."

  "I really want to spend more time with you." The red-haired guy said. "Better yet, you look new to Malluraea."

  "I am." Shokei said. "I'm just getting accustomed to being in this town."

  "Understood." The red-haired guy said. Then, he asked. "Say, what's your name if I don't mind asking?"

  "I am Shokei." The light gold hair blonde responded. "What's yours?"

  "Jantara." The guy mentions his name.

  "Ohh, that's a nice name." Shokei said, liking the name. "It's cute."

  "Really?" Jantara asked, blushing a little.

  Shokei giggled and pyfully pats him on the chest. Jantara smiled as he felt pleased.

  "Anyways, I have to go now." Shokei tells him. "You have a nice night. I'll see you someday."

  "You too..."

  Both of them departed ways as they left. Shokei heads back to her house, in which she and Rei reside in by a caretaker. She was by herself as Malluraea is quiet with barely anyone outside.

  "Hey you!"

  Shokei hears a someone calling out to her. She did not pay attention as the sound coming from the mysterious figure was not enough.

  "Yoooo! Hey there sweetness!!"

  Shokei pipes up and turns around. There she sees a mysterious man following behind her. She is confronted by two others that are with him.

  "Wow, get a load of this hotness." One of the guys said. "She looks mighty fine."

  Shokei became surprised. She did not respond as she froze in pce.

  "Hehehehe," Another guy said, licking his lips. "Seems that we found some hot buxom to py with."

  Shokei gasped.

  "You miss, come over here and let's do some py." The lead of the guys ordered.

  Shokei can see that the three men are approaching her. Without hesitation, she turns to make a run for it.

  "Eh?! She's running!" One of the guys pointed out.

  "Get her!!"

  Shokei ran as fast as she can as the three men chased after her. She tried to get away from them as she runs into the forest. She continued running but then she fell down by tripping on a rock. From her fall, Shokei quickly gets up from the ground. However, she backs up as the three men caught up to her. She gets behind a big tree as she felt cornered.

  "Now toots," The lead of the group said to her. "We don't wanna hurt ya. We just simply want to speak with you..."

  "N-no...N-no!!" Shokei said as she shakes her head in fear.

  "Nowhere to run now..." The guy said as he and his men moved in. "Let us py..."

  "That's enough!"

  "Huh?!"

  Shokei looks up to see that there was a figure that stands on top of a tree branch. She looks carefully and noticed that it was Jantara, watching down below.

  "W-who's that?!" One of the guys asked.

  "Who the hell are you?" The leader asked.

  Jantara swoops down and gets into battle against the three men. The men get themselves in position as they surround him. Shokei calms herself as she witnessed the person that she met is now saving her.

  Jantara takes care of the first guy. Using his fists, he immediately delivers a three-hit blow on his body and then turns him around in a hold to batter his chest. The guy fell as he colpsed on the ground. The second guy charged right at him. Jantara takes out an Iron staff that he brought with him and used it to strike him in the face. Stunning the guy, he takes him up and hurls him right to the tree. The st one got enraged and went right after Jantara. Seeing the enemy coming, Jantara quickly block his punch and then swiftly uppercuts him by the chin. The guy is sent in the air and the husky deer humanoid grabs his body and sms him down to the ground.

  Shokei is amazed to see what Jantara can do. She sees that all three men have been destroyed by the hands of a powerful monster. Jantara turns his attention on Shokei and goes up to her.

  "Are you ok?" Jantara asked.

  Shokei blinked. Then, she looks down on herself to where she feels the scrape on her knee.

  "It's ok." Jantara said to her. "I've taken care of these foul men that would dare come near you."

  Shokei looks up to Jantara. The humanoid deer is unharmed as he is fwless. She smiled and went over to hug him.

  "Y-you...saved me." Shokei said with gdness. "Thank you."

  Jantara sees Shokei embracing him. He returned the favor by holding her close.

  "It's ok." Jantara tells her. "I'm here for you."

  Shokei did not say anything and takes the moment to look at Jantara in the eyes. The strong humanoid deer looks at the girl that he was holding her in the arms. Both the human and the Omikyr stared at each other for a minute. Everything went white as the vision ends before their lips are connected.

  ".... Jan...J-Jantara...Jantaraaaa..."

  Mariko can see that Shokei's head twisting and turning. She felt disturbed in her sleep as she mentions the name of someone out of her mouth. Mariko got confused to see Shokei acting like this. She tugged her to have her snap out of it.

  "Shokei? Shokei, wake up!!"

  From tugging, Shokei wakes up from her deep sleep and she jolts up from the bed. She blinked a few times and shakes her head to stimute her thoughts.

  "Shokei..." Mariko said to her.

  Shokei hears her ally calling out to her. She turns to see Mariko standing there.

  "I came to see how you are doing. Are you feeling all right?" The young witch asked her.

  Shokei remained quiet for a minute and looks at Mariko. The witch feels concerned and felt nervous if something was wrong with her.

  "I...I'm ok..." Shokei tells her.

  "Whew!" Mariko sighed with relief. "I thought you were having a bad dream. I was so worried about you."

  "Not exactly..." Shokei said to her.

  "I see." Mariko said. "You keep mentioning about someone named Jantara."

  "Oh that! Don't worry about it." Shokei said.

  "Aww! It's almost as if you had a partner in your life." Mariko said.

  "Well...I rather not talk about it." Shokei said to her.

  "Ahh...ok." Mariko said.

  "Say, did you find that book by any chance?" Shokei asked.

  "Nope." Mariko shakes her head. "It's nowhere here in this mansion."

  "I see." Shokei said. "But...I must thank you for rescuing me from those nasty critters when I was prisoner inside that casket."

  "You're welcome." Mariko nodded.

  "I don't know how you did it, but you were brave enough to get rid of those horrific things that crawled on me." Shokei said.

  "Yeah...I also hate bugs." Mariko said.

  "Speaking of that, we need to find Rei and Lei." Shokei said. "Let's leave here and head for the factory."

  "Right." Mariko said. "Then again, I wonder what's taking them so long in there?"

  "We'll have to just find out." Shokei said.

  The pair heads out of the bedroom and are leaving the mansion.