Kaede Akamatsu is a bard who came from Harmony Kingdom, she used to be a noble, but after realising that she was constantly being pushed into arranged marriages from nobles and royalty from other kingdoms, she decided that life no longer fit her. She ran away from home with her trusty portable spinet in search of a new kingdom.

But the world was full of monsters, both humans and beasts. It was bad enough that the kingdoms were at war, but even wandering around a clearing or forest can prove to be dangerous. Which led to her almost becoming a griffin’s next meal, if it wasn’t for a monster slayer coming across the griffin at the last possible moment, Maki Harukawa.

Ever since then, Maki had been travelling around with Kaede, she might not even know why since Kaede isn’t able to help in combat or track down monsters that well, but it was for the company, it wouldn’t feel quite right with leaving Kaede to inevitably get into harm’s way again. Kaede herself was somewhat apprehensive at first from the talk of ruthless and inhuman monster slayers, but she wasn’t one to judge.

It was currently the evening and Kaede was in the middle of nowhere as far as she could tell, she was left at a shallow cave that she and Maki had triple checked to be free from any signs of monsters. Kaede had made herself useful to set up a small fire and move around some foliage before she sat down and waited apprehensively for Maki to return.

“Maki?” Kaede spoke very carefully when she noticed the subtle shifting of leaves nearby, she hoped it wasn’t a monster, she thought Maki was too stealthy for her own good.