Settlement & none lethal approach?

After three hours had passed, Koku was talking to himself while the girls conversed amongst themselves. "First, we'll find a place to rest, go to the adventurers guild and register. After that, we'll take on a few missions and gather some info afterwards," Koku told himself as he looked right ahead, still leading the way for the girls to follow. "Now… that brings up the question… where to after this?" Koku thought long and hard about this and would eventually leave it to time for him to decide while he began to speak to the already entertained sisters, Yoru and Kurai.

"Koku… I wonder how he'd look in a knight's armor," Yoru whispered to Kurai, who spoke loudly in response to Yoru's curiosity, "Oh, truly your prince charming," Kurai said in a teasing way while Yoru's face flushed bright pink. Hearing Yoru's spoken thoughts, which caused Kurai to say what she said, Koku gave them both a weird look. "Ew. I would never wear anything like that… it doesn't suit my style," Koku smiled, looking up with his eyes closed as he rushed his thumb up against his chest.

"Wow, you seem pretty happy about looking like a villain and not changing up your style," Yoru murmured off to the side, somewhat pouting. "Wait, you've had the same clothing on for the time you've known each other?" Kurai asked, confused and curious. Yoru looked at her and spoke up, "Yup… he doesn't look it, but he's not the best at keeping a pair of other clothing around, sooo… about every two days while we're on the move, we'll stop to wash them, and if possible, bathe," Yoru told Kurai.

"Kinda makes sense that you can't clean yourselves every day while on the road. But don't you think you should at least have a spare set of- uhh, clothing?" Kurai asked both Yoru and Koku while looking at them nervously with a singular sweat drop dropping from her forehead. "Eh? Why should we… it's not like we're naked or anything," Koku pointed out as he then went on to say that underneath his clothing, he still had some other clothing, such as a shirt and pants; that and the essentials…

Kurai then said something to which Yoru responded, and this continued for just about 20 minutes until everything was cleared. "So you basically do have 2 sets of clothing, just one underneath your current one, and when you wash them; you wash one at a time, same thing with you too," Kurai looked at Yoru, who gave her an annoyed look.

About 10-15 minutes later, the group had stumbled across a dirt road. "Look, a road Koku!" Yoru yelled, surprised. After pointing the road out, Koku gave her a pat on the head, mumbling the word "Fluffy," even though they had all found it at the same time.

Deciding to follow the road in the direction they were headed and not the opposite direction, they eventually came across a few traveling merchants who had adventurers guarding them. After approaching them, the adventurers told them where they were headed if they followed the road and where to find the adventurers guild. Once hearing this, the group rushed to the city that they'd find just a few miles ahead of their current location.

Upon arriving there, Kurai looked up in awe as she could see the massive vegetation-overran stone walls which stood just shy over 15 meters tall and 3 meters thick. "Pretty tall wall right?" Yoru asked both Koku and Kurai; Kurai agreed, and Koku just looked at the wall and mentioned Paladonia's walls being much much bigger than this, and then finally agreed with them.

After entering the city, Koku found himself looking at a few poorly equipped guards harassing people for money in exchange for "protection." But as soon as they got the money from the harassed individuals in front of Koku and the girls, they began moving towards them, and Koku simply told them not to look at them and just walk past them.

So when they reached Koku and the girls, they began doing the same but not only wanted money this time… but they also wanted Koku to leave the girls with them for the night. Seeing Koku stop, Yoru and Kurai did as well.

"Strike a nerve now, did we?" one of the guards laughed as he held his weapon in a hostile manner. Another guard then spoke up, "Leave the girls with us and we'll let you go… as for them, we'll show them a good time." Right as that guard finished what he had to say, his tongue fell off, causing the man's mouth to start spewing blood.

Seeing this confusing situation, the men rushed at Koku, and Koku simply looked at them with a death gaze. "I was going to let you all live… but I change my mind," Koku said calmly with a trace of a cold attitude behind his words. Right after this, the men's weapons fell apart as Koku had sliced them incredibly fast. After this, Koku smiled even more as he changed his mind on killing them and instead sliced their arms off, leaving them alive in the process.

Koku's smile soon faded when Yoru whispered to Koku, "I think we're either gonna have to run, go to jail, or kill everyone here to get out of this…" When Yoru told him this, Koku slapped his face, "I'm so stupid… I let my lust for blood run wild… though they deserved it." Koku really didn't like it when people talked like that about Yoru, and as of that moment, the same with Kurai.

Yoru always felt happy that Koku stood up for her, but she also didn't always approve of killing them in broad daylight where everyone could see and report them. Soon after lethally hurting these guards, more guards had shown up after the people around were in a panic due to Koku's actions.

"Well… let's go with the fourth option," Koku muttered, allowing Yoru and Kurai only to hear. "What fourth option?" Kurai asked as she heard Yoru only say three options. That's when Yoru and Koku both spoke up responding to her, "We lie!" Koku whispered pretty loudly as Yoru responded with a pretty loud whisper of herself, "We blame someone else!" When they both said this, Kurai thought for a moment on how "not intelligent" these two were.

After many city guards surrounded Koku and the girls, they decided not to use lethal force on them, so they were just going to go for the knockout instead of kill. "Well, Yoru and Kurai, let's see what's changed and how stronger you might've become." When saying this, Koku smirked as he watched the girls start.

Yoru walked in front of Kurai and seemed to take an aggressive yet defensive posture while she waited for Kurai to summon her skeleton knights. But little did Yoru know that because she had the ability Reaper's Vessel, she'd be waiting a little less than a single second. When she summoned her skeleton knights, it was as if they had teleported there since the summoning was basically almost instant.

When Yoru felt the presence and newly casted shadows of the skeleton knights behind her, she was ready to rush, and right as the guards began pushing towards Yoru, Kurai had summoned 2 other skeleton knights making sure they covered her in the incoming group of guards. Koku simply stood there in the middle of the whole altercation and watched how Yoru quickly outmaneuvered the weakling guards and how Kurai completely overpowered them as well.

As they overpowered them easily, Yoru used a new ability that Koku had no knowledge of, an ability that she herself didn't know she had. (Shadow Binding), this new ability that she had been using wasn't something she could train as it was completely based on her emotions, feeling, and acting on the urge to hold or pull shadows towards herself.

When Koku had seen this, he smirked. "You two have improved lots. See Kurai, you can use necromancy without any issues now. As for you Yoru, you've learned something incredible, something you could've beaten me with if we were sparring." Koku complimented them, ignoring the immobilized guards. "Oh, you can let them go now, girls." Koku stated as he let out pure bloodlust to make sure they understood not to mess with them again.

"All of you here, let's make something very clear… if you talk about what happened here, I'll make sure to hunt you all down. After that, I'll slowly… and make it as painful as possible." After this, Koku made it clear to anyone and everyone in this city. It also didn't help them that the guild couldn't intervene since it wasn't monster-related and the guild wasn't attacked. So when Koku said these things, the guards really took those words to heart, so they took the wounded and left.

Koku sighed straight after this and asked the girls why they couldn't go a single day without violence. Hearing their responses didn't help at all; "It's because wherever you go, you pick a fight, or someone picks a fight with us," Yoru responded to Koku's question as Kurai began teasing the two of them, "Maybe it's because they get jealous when they see the two of you together." When she teased them about this, Koku looked away trying to hide his slightly colored pink expression, and Yoru just hushed her and asked Koku if they were going for an inn or to register at the adventurers guild.

"Let's register first at the adventurers guild; then, we'll book an inn room and go out for some proper lunch," Koku told the girls as they began to make their way to the adventurers guild once getting the directions.