It had been roughly three months since Velzard and I left the care of Veldanava to start our journey. During that time I had a blast traveling together with Velzard.
We stopped by numerous small human villages and even stumbled upon a Dwarf settlement in the foothills north of the Continent's Central Woodlands. I'm sure in the future, that forest will be renamed Jura, however, as of right now it doesn't have that name at all.
We even met a young warrior and smith named Guran Dwargo who instantly fell for Velzard upon seeing her. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be welcome in any Dwarven Kingdoms in the future if leaving their last High Dwarf and Crown Prince near death was anything to go by. Thankfully though, before the whole fiasco, I was able to commission two magisteel rings for us to share.
Apparently, Velzard had never heard of engagement or wedding rings before, so when I got on one knee to propose, I was met with only a blank stare of confusion.
After explaining what they were about, Velzard showed a rare side of her that she doesn't show that often. It was intrigue. She took both of our rings for a while before eventually giving them back to me a few weeks later.
"They were made of some fragile material like Magisteel so I fixed that. Plus I put on some new features too so in case we get separated we can always communicate with each other." Velzard explained excitedly.
I didn't know that Velzard was so into making things and I endeavored to create more opportunities for her to show her stuff.
It was also this moment when I realized one of the functions of my new Unique Skill [Mystic Eye]. When I was staring at the golden ring with an icy blue sheen to it, wondering what it was that I was seeing, my mind was suddenly flooded with information about it. It was made of a material called Dragotite and was soaked in Velzard's aura, giving it extreme resistance to the cold. It also served a similar role to Rimuru's Anti-Magic Mask which would conceal our auras.
After seeing that, I ran around all day long analyzing stuff, while Velzard watched on with a questioning face. She then taught me all about how to use the eye to its fulest extent as her own [Dragon Eye] was similar to my own [Mystic Eye], though her's had more features, like being able to see anywhere in the world.
Of course, it wasn't all training and goofing off. i also made sure to help as many people as I could on my way. I'd use my powers to heal the sick and injured like I was some kind of travelling Saint while also gathering information on the dangerous monsters of the world.
Currently, there was only two real monsters roaming about. One was an armoured behemoth beast called the Tarrasque and the other was a group of demons who roamed the land in search of fun and fights.
As it turned out, the Tarrasque was actually really close by, according to one injured adventurer. The group of demons didn't really seem to have one territory they liked to stay in, but appeared and disappeared seemingly on a whim. There was even one report where the leader of the group, a demon with long red hair, was spotted dancing in a festival in a town not far away, but that was a year earlier, so the chances they were still nearby was slim to none.
"Shall we go hunt some monsters dear?" I asked as I stood up from my kneeling position over teh injured adventurer whom I had just finished healing.
"Why not? I wouldn't mind cutting lose every now and again." Velzard said before looking to the sky.
Her eyes glowed for a moment before she smirked and sauntered next to me. Velzard then fell backward and awaited me to catch her , which I did promptly and looked into her eyes. She smiled and I leaned in and kissed her forehead while she smiled happily.
"Its about three kilometers that way." She said, pointing towards a series of hills in the distance.
"Oh? Then how do you want to get there? Want to fly or do you want me to carry you?" I whispered while lifting her head up near mine and blowing into her ear.
"Stop it!" Velzard giggled while playfully hitting me. "I think you know what I want."
"Carried it is!" I said as I took off in the direction of our next quarry.
"What did I just witness..." The adventurer mumbled as he stood up and watched us go before shaking his head and taking off for the nearest town.
...
When we finally got to the area where the Tarrasque was supposed to be located, my jaw hit the floor. We arrived just in time to watch as a redhaired handsome young man gave the beaten and bloodied creature an uppercut to its already cracked jaw.
Flames poured out of his fists as they made contact and a flash of light could be seen from the cracks in teh creature's armor and from its eyes and nosteraqls while a subdued sound of an explosion went off inside of it. The three meter tall behemouth briefly coughed up smoke before wavering and collapsing onto the ground, very clearly dead.
"So much for fistfighting with an 'invincible' monster." He said while two gorgeous woman in maid costumes walked up to him. the one with Green Hair held out a piece of moistened fabric which the man quickly swipped and began rubbing the blood off of his fists.
"Guy-sama. What should we do now?" The green haired woman asked.
"I think you two should take care of our guests. I don't like the look in that one's eyes." he said as he pointed his thumb at the two of us.
"Right away Guy-sama!" The blue haired woman stated before turning to look at us and charging at full speed.
"She's pretty strong for a demon." Velzard commented as the blue haired deomn approached us.
I gently put down Velzard, much to her annoyance as she whined, but she stopped when she noticed my face and immediately backed off. Blue was only a few meters away from me now when I unleashed the full might of my body and combined the Holy Energy from my [Argonat] and my |Aura|. I quickly summoned my sword and in a single swing, sent a shockwave that unbalanced the Blue Primordial and sent her flying.
She wasn't just any opponent, however, she was someone with eons of fighting experience, so as she was being blown away, she shot off a fist-full of magic energy at me which curved around my shot and barreled towards me.
I remained calm and simply reached forward and caught teh blast with my right hand, causing it to disapate. I heard the clicking of her tongue as she handed on the floor. A deep gnash in her mid-section. It took her a moment to realize that the wound she sustained wasn't healing at all, and when that thought passed through her mind, a shot of worry ran through her mind.
If it wasn't for the fact that the green Primordial intercepted it, I would have removed Blue's head from her body in that instant, however, my sword was suddenly blocked by Green's sword, though her's shattered on impact, she still had enough time to jump backwards and carry Blue with her.
the entire exchange happened in less than a second, but it was clear in that one clash that those two would be defeated in an instant if they didn't immediately take this fight more seriously. I didn't think too much of them at first either, to be honest. They were weaker than Dino and even some of the more casual strikes from Velzard whenever I made her bashful enough to run away, had more force behind them.
"That guy is strong Rain. If you let up you'll die." Green said.
"Shut up Misery! I just wasn't taking the fight seriously that's all! If we work together than we can crush him together!" Rain fired back.
"That's what you said when you convinced me to team up with you to fight Guy-sama in the underworld." Misery retorted.
"Mah! Whatever. Let's just get this over with. It'll be a pain otherwise." Rain said, sounding like she was already over our battle already.
"You two idiots don't have what it takes to defeat me." I said purposefully pompously to infuriate them.
The two didn't fly into a blind rage like they were 3rd rate cultivator villains like I was expecting, but they did glare at me with hatred and flared their auras. The two of them both instantly shot {Nucelar Canono} at me simultantiously while running to encircle either side of me to cast other spells as a followup attack. I simply waved my hand and deflected the two shots back at them. Rain threw up a barrier to defend herself while Misery jumped over the attack and gracefully landed on the other side.
Unfortunately for Misery, I had used a [Holy Burst] to close the distance while she was in the air and as she went for teh landing, she had to twist her body at an odd angle to avoid being impailed by my blade. her body's position, however, meant she wasn't able to notice my second attack with enough spare time to dodge completely.
Misery saw the coming blood red spear and grit her teeth to endure the stabbing motion while also attempting to dodge, however, she wasn't fast enough and the Origin Blood Spear pierced where her heart would be if she were a human.
Misery flinched and jumped away while holding her chest. As she glared at me, I twirlwed the sword in my other hand to block a stabbing attack by Rain from behind and shattered her weapon before elbowing her in the face and, in one smooth motion, twirling my sword a second time and giving her another deep slash from her right shoulder to her left hip.
Rain also backed away, standing side-by-side with Misery and glaring hatefully at me. Seeing as they were now hesitant, I thought I'd try the taunting strategy again, but this time, they weren't the target. I twirled my spear in one hand and readied my sword in the other. I smiled at the two of them and struck a pose. "Primordial or no, all Demons fall before my blade."
"Hoh?" Guy said, taking the bait as he walked in front of the two demonesses.
"Didn't think you'd step up to protect your underlings? I didn't peg you as that kind of... Guy." I couldn't help myself and made a pun.
"If you get one-shot after making such a horrible pun, then I'm leaving you." Velzard said from the sidelines.
I smiled at her words. She was basically giving me a warning about Guy's power in a subdued way, implying that it was possible for me to lose quickly against this opponent whereas I barely had to try against the two earlier.
The Crimsion demon smiled wickedly as he looked me in the eyes. "I'm not protecting these two idiots, but it'd be a shame if a human like you wore himself out fighting against them and wasn't in top shape for our battle, so I decided to take you on now." Guy said as he disappeared and reappeared directly in front of me.
"It wouldn't be fun otherwise!"
.~.~.~.
Lore Bit: Guy didn't gain his Unique Skill [Pride] until he lost so easily to Veldanava, so he isn't able to copy the MCs moves. He is also stated to not care about his subordinates at all and wouldn't care even if Misery or Rain died.
I'm only putting him around the level of Cararea when she fought Kondo in terms of how much energy he has (~7,000,000 Existance Value). Of course, he is probably stronger than this canonically, but this is still twice as strong as teh MC in terms of energy values if you don't count his weapons.