Prolog

 

3000 years ago, a comet collided with Earth.

The collision wiped out most of the human population but a large portion of their technology survived.

Although the comet collision wiped out most of the life on Earth, strangely, no species went extinct, even previously endangered species such as pandas somehow managed to survive the collision.

Not only that but soon after the collision hundreds of thousands of new species began to rapidly emerge.

Some of the new species that emerged were humanoid in appearance and had similar intelligence to humans.

The new humanoid species were classified into two main kinds, therianthropes, or therians for short, and elvenoids.

The reason behind the names was that the new species resembled ancient creatures that were described in ancient myths and legends.

Therians included numerous species but what they shared in common was that they all had animalistic features such as claws, tails, fur, or wings and they had sharper senses than humans and were stronger and more agile.

Elvenoids had fewer species and they also didn’t differ much from the human species but their most defining characteristic, besides their pointed ears, is their unique eyes which had the ability to see Aether.

Before the elves appeared, Aether was a forgotten field that humans thought didn’t exist.

Aether is a medium that permeates all throughout space and allows light and an energy called mana to travel through it.

Humanity had concluded in the early 1900s that Aether didn’t exist but with its rediscovery, a new field of science was established or rather it re-emerged, and that field was known as Magic.

The intelligent races became collectively called Sapiens and the comet collision became known as the Great Cataclysm among Sapiens.  

the knowledge about the cataclysm and the era before it is largely shrouded in mystery, as the collision whipped out most of the traces of civilization from that time and only a few records and relics survive.

 Now 3,000 years have passed.

Technology is much more advanced than before and together with magic they brought civilization to a new height, and thus, mankind entered the age of magic technology.

 

Chapter 1

a fate influenced encounter

Day: 13th of Jan year 5027

Location: Franklinstein forest

A therian girl from the silver cat tribe is enjoying a peaceful walk in the forest.

she had silver hair and sky blue eyes and wore a crimson red shirt, black jeans, and an elegant white coat.

the silver cat stops to take in the warm rays of sunlight falling on her skin and the beautiful songs that are being sung by the birds around her.

_ haaaa_

She takes in deep breath and releases it in a long sigh.

‘This place hasn’t changed at all’

She begins reminiscing on the old days when she used to walk this same road to the orphanage when she was still a child.

 She used to come out to the forest each day with the old man to hunt for food.

Due to their circumstances, they couldn’t buy anything and had to hunt for food and make their clothes from materials they gathered from the forest. However, that didn’t mean that their clothes were bad, the old man was strangely skilled at netting clothes…and everything else now that she thinks about it.

Before the silver cat is able to dwell on that thought, her peace is suddenly interrupted by the sound of fast heavy footsteps, crushed branches, and loud sirens.

she turns towards the source of the noise and is met with an unexpected sight.

a blonde human guy wearing a black shirt, black jeans, and glasses is running towards her with what looks like every police robot in the city chasing after him tearing down trees and breaking branches on their pass uncaring for the destruction they cause.   

~HI NICE TO MEET YOU, BYE~ the blonde guy shouts as he passes by the cat girl 

Confused and a little startled the silver cat girl sweeps the air in front of her with her right hand and a magic circle appears in front of her.

the magic circle emits light and forms a holographic screen that connects to the aethernet.

The aethernet is a network that utilizes the Aether field to transfer information, making it much faster and accessible from any place on the planet without the need for a physical device to be carried around.

The aethernet was developed by the famous magic scientist Diane, as were most of the early inventions after the cataclysm.

the silver cat opens the wanted list and looks for the picture of the guy, she soon finds the article about him and skims over it.

His name is Ken, a 21 year old male. According to the article he stole a newly discovered artifact while it was on its way to a famous archaeologist's lab for analysis.

The silver cat was fueled by anger toward the destroyed forest that she adored so much and her anger was further fueled by her strong sense of justice from knowing that the destruction was caused by a thief.

As such, on reading this and without even looking at the large bounty of 1000000 aether coins that was placed on Ken, she decides to chase after him thinking she would have a better chance of catching him than the police robots.

cat tribes are known to be the fastest among Therians and she knows this forest better than anyone, not to mention city robots are not designed for travel in the forest.

_ Just give up you know you will get caught eventually it's not like they will get tired _

The cat girl shouts to the guy named Ken in an effort to persuade him to surrender himself but that only makes the guy laugh 

 ~pffft There's no way I will get caught by such poorly made junk ~

The guy retorts then takes out a touch screen from his pocket and scrolls through several spells

The touch screen Ken pulled out also known as a digital grimoire is another invention of the magic scientist Diane.

 it allows the user to store spells and the mana required to manifest them allowing the user to use any spells they want not limited by the magic affinity they are born with nor the amount of mana they have so long as they have the money to buy the spell. 

Ken picks a spell and then jumps.

 the spell uses wind magic to manifest a gust of wind that makes Ken float in the air for a short distance. however, it was slower than his running speed.

Curious about why the thief would pick a spell to slow himself down and expecting trickery the silver cat decides to avoid the area of land he avoided with the spell.

she jumps to a tree at her side and then uses the tree trunk as a platform to jump off of.

Thanks to the high agility of the silver cat tribe, she is able to cover multiple feet with her jump and safely cross the area that the thief avoided.

SPLASH

As soon as the girl’s feet touch the ground, she hears splashing sounds behind her.

She looks behind to see the robots falling into a large hole filled with water that was covered by grass making it indistinguishable from the land around it.

The silver cat knows this hole didn’t exist before today. Furthermore, the water in the hole seemed to have many floating strings in it that entangled the robots when they fell in making them unable to get out.

Ken had used spider silk ropes, which are now common thanks to spider silk producing goats created by genetic engineering.

Ken tied the lower end of the silk to rocks at the bottom of the hole and the upper ends to grass that floated on top of the water.

This made the grass stand upright and made the silk ropes stand straight up in the water ready to stick to and entangle whatever falls in.

anger swells more inside the silver cat as the destruction to her beloved forest increases along with the list of crimes this thief is willing to commit.

The silver cat runs faster and then begins to jump from one tree to another to close the distance before she launches herself towards the thief tackling him to the ground.

But to her surprise, the thief turns around to face her and grabs her by the collar of her coat then falls backward with her, and uses his legs like a spring to catch and then launch her back in the air away from him.

 He gets back up and faces in the direction he threw. 

~Why are you chasing me ~ ken questions the cat girl 

'That's one agile thief … for a human anyway '

the silver cat thinks to herself.

she is a little surprised by the movements of the guy but it’s not something she couldn’t deal with if she had expected.

She twists her body in the air effortlessly and gracefully lands on her feet as a cat should.

she flicks her hair to return it to its place, before sweeping the air with her hand to access the aethernet.

the holographic screen appears with his wanted poster displayed on it

_You are a wanted criminal isn't that obvious _

as she is displaying the wanted poster, the site updates.

Ken looks at the site for a moment then his lips curl up into a smile as he tries to keep in his laughter 

_ What's so funny _ the confused cat girl asks 

 Ken points at the poster ~You just became a wanted criminal as well ~

the cat girl flips the screen to look at the poster to find it has just changed and now shows her name and picture beside his and says she works with Ken.

The cat girl's expression turns to shock before changing to one of extreme anger

_ Why would they do that? you...... It's your fault _ She points at Ken   _ You, you will turn yourself in right now and explain I have nothing to do with this _

~ Sorry for dragging you into this but I won't and you are the one who chased me~

 Ken shrugs with an uncaring expression 

the silver cat walks to him looking pissed off and punches him in the face making him fall to the ground then turns around and walks away.

~I deserved that, where are you going?  ~ Ken sits up and caresses his cheek from the pain

_to the police station to correct this misunderstanding _

Ken thinks to himself for a moment considering how this unexpected event would affect his plan, He then gets up quickly and grabs her arm stopping her

~no, you can't, there is no misunderstanding they don't want anyone to know about this they will torture you to get all the information you have and then probably kill you anyway~

She looks at him confused _You are a wanted criminal why would you care _

~ I don't. To be honest, helping you will probably just hurt me but it's at least true you have nothing to do with it ~

He responds. However, in truth, he doesn’t want her to report in and ends up lowering the time the world government needs to find his destination.

 _ How can I know you are not lying _ The cat girl looks at him skeptically her face still full of anger 

~ Because I don't have a reason to lie by the time you get to the police station, I will be gone you have to trust me ~

the anger the silver has been keeping down finally erupts _Trust you, you have ruined my life and made me a wanted criminal WHY WOULD I TRUST YOU _ she glares at him 

Although he doesn't feel it's his fault nor does he care, Ken decides to take the blame to cool the silver cat down

~ That is true and I am very sorry for it but right now I am the only one you can trust because I am wanted like you and I am going out of my way to help you as much as I can. I know it won't make up for ruining your life like this but I at least don't want you to die ~

the cat girl takes in a deep breath then sighs and looks at him while collecting her thoughts 

_ Fine I guess but you better believe if I find you doing anything that I don't like I will be taking your life_

Ken Smiles looking at her then stands straight and salutes her like a military solider saluting his superior but with a smug look on his face

~ Sir, yes sir, now let's leave before they send more robots ~ he begins to run but stops after a few steps and turns around and looks at her with a smile 

~ By the way what's your name? ~ he asks 

She looks at him intrigued and thinks to herself ' What an interesting guy ' Her lips curl up slightly into a smile before she answers 

-  My name is Saiko -

***********

Location: World capital city town square 

  
A guy wearing a brown leather coat and hoodie with a green scarf wrapped around his neck is walking in the streets of the town square, when suddenly, all the hologram ads in the sky of the city are interrupted by what seems to be an emergency announcement.

the pictures of Ken and Saiko are displayed next to a reporter

- Human male Kaneko Ken 21 years of age and therian female Izanau Saiko 20 years of age have stolen a historical artifact on its way to a lab for analysis. A bounty of 100,000 aether coins has been placed by the government on the two criminals and we urge anyone that has information on them to contact the authorities immediately - the reporter explains 

The hooded guy listens to the emergency report and his lips curl up 

 -oh, it looks like someone stole the key how interesting –