A day of traveling had passed by on this week-long locomotion. In that period of time, not a single word was spoken in the wagon Ryuji occupied.
'Am I that ugly, or is it that I'm too common to warrant speaking to?'
He was really hoping it was some other reason, so he didn't cry when he figured it out.
Ryuji sighed and stared out to the hills they were passing by. The northern part of Dengal was very rocky and mountainous. So it made for a pretty easy way to pass the time by just staring at the ever-evolving scenery.
'What the hell am I gonna do when we get further in and turns into plains as far as the eye can see? I'll be screwed.'
He turned around and looked at the source of his uneasiness. She was still seeing the sights, although it didn't look like this was new to her.
'She must travel through Dengal all the time on some important missions or something. I mean I've seen some high-ranking knights before, and even they don't have the kings brand on their armor. She must be super important.'
Ryuji bored out his mind, and not wanting to stare too much, turned his attention to something else. He took out his katana and began the process of repairing it. As Ryuji was a grandmaster of the power structure, he could learn just about any low ranking ability given enough time. So he went out of his to learn the skills necessary for basic upkeep on his weapon.
'Thank god I learned this. Katanas are sharp and all, but they chip so easily. This thing has got dinks and cracks everywhere.'
As he was working in silence, he could feel the presence of a gaze. He looked up out of the corner of his eye and saw the woman staring at him. She looked quite intrigued by what he was doing. But being the giant pussy that he was, Ryuji pretended like he didn't notice anything and carried on about his business.
'Huh? Has she literally never seen anyone use a blacksmithing skill? Is she that privileged?'
He dinked away at the blade and slowly removed the imperfections.
'Wait. Is this my ticket in? Ah, but what if it goes poorly?' Needlessly pessimistic thoughts flowed through Ryuji, but just then, he realized something. He's going to meet a lifelong friend. Who cares if he messes up with some random girl?
The old Ryuji would have never even thought about talking to this beautiful knight, but the new Ryuji had just adopted the philosophy of 'fuck it.'
He lifted his face and stopped working. He looked directly into those fiery eyes which, at the moment, held a look of confusion.
'Confidence! Gotta have Confidence!'
"Hey, I'm Ryuji what's your name?"
'Wow! Go get em, tiger!'
Now for most people, this is just common courtesy, but for the man named Ryuji, this was like going in for a kiss on the first date. This was him being daring like he's never been before!
The woman now looked down as if she had to hype herself up with some kind of inner monologue pep talk. Then she gave a nod of confirmation and looked at Ryuji with newfound vigor.
"Uhm...I-I'm Rhea, Rhea Aloisa"
Her shaky voice gave Ryuji an even bigger confidence boost! Not to mention her voice sounded oddly feminine for her strong physique. This made Ryuji's heartbeat rather loudly.
'We're in!'
"That's a nice name!-" As he praised her name in a light tone, he could see her shift around nervously.
From years of being a nervous wreck around people, he could tell that she probably wanted to know his last name since she gave hers but just didn't know how to just ask.
"-Do you want to know mine? Ryuji Koyanagi! Adventurer for hire. What do you do?" Ryuji's voice was stiff, but he didn't seem to notice.
Rhea had a look of pure perplexion as if Ryuji had asked the literal dumbest question ever posed. Then after a few seconds of checking whether or not he was playing a joke on her, she decided that he was being serious.
"You have a really... Uhm... weird name. Are you from North Kevic? Everyone up there has weird names too." She sounded as if she was trying to relate to him in some way but was massively failing.
"Nope, never been."
"Oh..."
Seeing that Ryuji was still awaiting her answer to his previous question, she fiddled with her gauntlet covered thumbs. A normal person would've noticed, but Ryuji right now was in a state of pure panic as he didn't know what to talk about next.
'God, was it always this hard to talk with a human?'
"I'm an adventurer too. I'm also a sanctioned knight of the king." She seemed embarrassed by her titles as she said them with little energy.
"Oh, you're an adventurer? That's a shock with the phoenix on you like that I thought you might've been some super important royal guard or something. Thank go- I mean the gods! I would've been way too stressed out if you were somebody that important."
Ryuji closed his eyes and smiled his generic anime MC smile. At that moment, if he had kept his eyes open, he would've seen a flash of worry come across Rhea's face.
"Soooooo, what are you traveling down here for?"
"I-I'm going to meet a f-friend." The last part of her sentence was almost inaudible. "What about you?" She quickly covered it up with her own question.
"Well, funnily enough, I'm going to meet a friend too."
"Really!? What's their name?" Rhea seemed excited at the premise of going to meet a friend even though she had just claimed to be doing the same thing.
"Don't know yet."
"----------------"
Silence filled the wagon as Rhea processed the absurd statement.
"How does that make any sense?"
"Would you believe me if I said a god told me so?" Ryuji leaned forward and talked in a joking manner.
"Pffffft- And you... you just listened?" She slapped her knee, and a metal clunk echoed throughout the wagon. A single tear of joy clung to her left eye as she continued to laugh.
'Oh, no. Am I the butt of a joke again? Just like high school all over again.'
"I can't tell if you're brave, stupid, or just plain ignorant." Rhea's comment hurt Ryuji's fragile soul.
'Yep, yet again was Ryuji Koyanagi the butt of a joke. Well, it's not like I didn't know that when I started this conversation.'
She reached out her hand and placed it in front of Ryuji.
"You're an interesting guy! I hope you'll do me the pleasure of continuing this talk later." The brilliance of her shy smile and slight blush sent shivers down his spine and made his hairs stand up. The beautiful eyes, which usually looked so stern, softened into a sweet and cheerful gaze.
He shook her hand and felt a giant weight in his chest. It was as if breathing had now become a chore for him. She turned around and stepped out of the wagon. Only now did Ryuji realize that the caravan had stopped for dinner. He hopped out and quickly got some grub.
He tried to focus on his dinner, but his gaze kept wandering to Rhea. Apparently, everyone else had the same problem as he saw multiple men and women staring at her as well.
He heard rumors as he ate. Something about a saint or something like that. Ryuji didn't consider himself much of a churchgoer, so he stopped paying attention to them and started paying attention to his stomach.
After they arrived back in the wagon, the caravan began its travel once more. They talked the days away. Remarkably he had not passed out a single time from the social pressure of having to keep a convo going with a literal goddess of beauty. His only saving grace is that she was just as nervous as him.
He had almost forgotten his newly discovered curse until the fourth day of travel came.
"Monster horde!"
"Get the damn guards out here, stat!"
As they sat in the stalled wagon, Ryuji noticed Rhea was keeping her hand tightly wound around her blade.
"Shouldn't you just let the guards do it?" Ryuji tried to sound as polite as possible. Rhea ignored him and continued to stay on guard.
But as the monsters approached, she saw that the guards wouldn't be in trouble. After all, it was just a pack of some goblins. Newbies could take those out.
With the threat of danger gone as the guards held their conclusive battle with the monsters, Rhea, for the first time since meeting, got brave.
"You have quite the unique sword. I've never seen anything like it. Can you please, please, please! show me some of your skills? I really want to see how you use this blade!" Her cuteness went up five notches. She was directly in his face jumping up and down in anticipation.
Ryuji was sure he could see literal stars in her eyes as she asked the question. This was his time to shine. Every guy, no matter how old and no matter what walk of life they're from, eagerly awaits the day they can show off in front of a cute girl.
"I can't say no if you act so excited to see it, now can I?" As such. Ryuji accepted with no hesitation.
He walked out of the wagon and positioned himself on the side of the road. Across his way was a tree line. Behind him was Rhea practically bouncing in anticipation.
'God, I thought she was cute already, but it appears she can get even cuter!'
He drew mana in from his internal supply and injected it straight into his blade and his muscles. He entered his stance and prepared his strike.
"Void style: vorpal cut."
By drawing at an intense speed and channeling the power of momentum through mana currents, Ryuji managed to leave a vacuum of space.
The vacuum flew in a straight line, and the force of mana traveled through it. In the next moment, the tree directly in front of the blade that was standing some 300 feet about fell over.
"How about-" Ryuji was just about to truly start showing off when he got brutally interrupted.
"Oh my! Please let me see your blade! I wish to try it as well! please, please, please?!" With each please, her eager face got closer and closer to his.
"Um, sure." Ryuji caved in and handed her his prized weapon while shyly averting his gaze from hers.
'Wait, how the hell is she planning to do that after just seeing it once? I don't care how good you are, you just can't-' His thoughts were interrupted by the intense flow of mana beside him.
"Vorpal cut."
Ryuji's mouth lay agape, and his hopes and dreams dashed. Any thought of impressing this girl flew away, and so did his fragile masculinity.
Not one, not two, but twelve trees lay on their sides after what can only be described as a shockwave was sent out into this semi-peaceful valley.
"That skill was super cool! Do you have any other ones?" Her face quickly turned from deadly serious to childhood wonder as she faced Ryuji smiling.
"Huh? Uhm... yeah, oh, I know! I'll show you Flash-" For the third time, Ryuji was interrupted and was kinda getting sick of it.
"Dragon!"
All thoughts disappeared. Ryuji was panicking. He had never seen a dragon and thought that if he never did, he could die a happy man.
"I thought goblins were too cute to be the work of my curse but a goddamn dragon! This is way too unfair!" Ryuji lamented his bad luck out loud, which cause Rhea to look at him with a suspicious glare.
"Curse?" Rhea walked forward with her hand on her hilt.
"Watch out! It's coming your way!" The guardsman attempted to warn Rhea of the danger, but she ignored him.
"I knew it was after me! FUUUUCK THAT'S HUGE" A flying lizard the size of three semis could be seen descending towards them. It was a crimson red and had flames billowing out its mouth.
It was about 1000 feet away at most, but it was gaining fast.
"What did you mean when you said curse!?" The soft and excitable woman was gone. She was now replaced by a knight who had an important duty.
"Don't you think the 5-ton lizard is a little more important right now?!" Ryuji pointed towards the approaching doom that she was ignoring.
"Stop dodging the question! As for that drake, it's already gone."
"Gone? The hell do you-" The lizard was still falling towards the caravan, but now Ryuji could see that it had been cleanly sliced in two.
As it fell, the two halves distanced from each other before crashing in the ground a few hundred feet up the road from the caravan.
"Who are you?" Ryuji asked his question in full awe at the strength of this knight.
"I've already told you, now answer the question!"
"I apparently bring bad luck onto myself, okay?! Hey, why are you grabbing me?" Rhea held firmly onto his arm and refused to let go.
"We're going...NOW."
"But why?"
With a pained look on her face, Rhea turned away and started stroking the top of her sinister sheathe.
"Because we'll only cause trouble for the others. I'll personally escort you to wherever it is you're going. I'll keep you safe, don't worry." She flashed him a small smile that comforted Ryuji.
"Well, I do feel a little bad, plus this is just what a good person would do! Not to mention I get some one on one time with you!"
Maybe it was the adrenaline from seeing a dragon, or maybe Ryuji had fried a vital part of his brain, but either way, the formidable crimson knight now had a new layer of crimson on her cheeks.
"O-okay hold on."
"Hu-aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!"
With a yank and a jump, Ryuji now knew what is like to be a bird soaring through the skies. He deduced that he didn't like it one bit.
"Down! Down! I want down!!!"
Hearing his pleas, Rhea descended and stopped her mad hulk jumping. They landed in an opening that sprawled into a field.
"So I guess we're gonna have to make it there the normal way and just walk, huh?" Rhea sounded extremely disappointed as she looked at the fish on land known as Ryuji.
"I-huff-need-huff-a whew sec."
Ryuji, laying on the ground, realized that thanks to the amazing knight, they didn't have any way to camp. He decided to put that thought on hold as he remembered what she had said before they jumped.
"Hey, I get me, but why do you need to be away from them?"
With a pained look, Rhea faced Ryuji and said "I wasn't very truthful the other day. I am a knight and an adventurer. but first and foremost, I am the Sword Saint."