(Eris POV)
Since the dragon left with Ghislaine and Nina riding him, the rest of us have been following North God to the city of Sharia.
But we had to take a detour since Sword God's route would have guided us directly to a large monster gathering that the city was planning to attack soon.
On the way, Sword God and North God were discussing some things, mostly about the type of monster the city is dealing with, mostly insects.
"I think I understand this monster problem, especially after facing that gigantic centipede. These creatures are really abnormal for this place."
"Don't take this too lightly now, Gal. Some of them gave even me and another North Emperor acquaintance trouble when a bunch of them attacked the gates of Sharia. I estimate their strength to be between Saint and King class."
"How did you guys manage to defeat them? Don't tell me you used your sword's special attack."
"I didn't have the King Dragon Sword at that time. That damn dragon stole it from me after it bit my hand off."
North God sounded angry when he said that. What would a dragon want to do with a sword anyway? Did it think it could use it by itself by holding it with its mouth?
I mean, as it was strapped to North God's back, it does look like it could be of great use. But Rudeus's Touki is duling every sword he wields, so what did the dragon get him that one for?
"After we'd defeated half of them, Rudeus came in and finished the rest of them in mere seconds with some weapons he enhanced with his lightning-based technique."
"Are you saying he is the real deal?"
The Sword God seemed wary. His finger kept tapping on the hilt of his sword as the rest of his hand leaned on it.
"Just by seeing him go past me with that technique, I knew that he was like no Magician I've ever met. He might just be worthy of the title Magician Emperor."
Obviously. Rudeus is one of a kind. And I'm sure that.
"So, what's the kid like?"
"Honestly… he is a reasonable kid. He was thoughtful enough to hand over the King Dragon Sword back to me, fully healed my hand, and even spoke out to me about withholding any attempts to challenge him because of the insect colony because of prioritizing the safety of the city first."
"Not the type to pick a fight, huh?"
Listening to them repeat what I already know makes me feel so bored.
Jino here is getting impatient as well. But he is probably thinking about Nina. He even went as far as to aim his sword at Rudeus's dragon.
Maybe he felt the same thing I felt when Rudeus got killed.
Even the sword swings he did against the smaller bugs were surprisingly precise if I had ever seen it.
I'm not in the least bit jealous, though. With the right kind of training, I will surpass him anyway.
Suddenly, North God held out his hand to the side.
"He's here."
"Who's here?" I asked.
"Him, I guess?" Sword God answered, his hand pointing to the sky.
I looked up, and only some red dots. It must be Rudeus's dragon picking us up.
Steadily, it came close before landing with a crash.
The smoke cleared out fast, and I was surprised to see Rudeus sitting on top of the dragon's head.
It was a total representation that the dragon works under him.
I was upset that I couldn't ride the dragon with Ghislaine and Nina, but now that Rudeus is here to pick us up, I get a chance to ride that dragon too.
Rudeus then came down from the dragon's neck, and I ran up to him for a hug.
"Rudeus!"
I missed him. He left me without warning because of what I did to him, but it doesn't matter now.
But as I was about to wrap my arms around him, he just pushed me off.
I didn't understand what was happening, and when I looked at him, his eyes were giving off something odd. They looked... empty?
He walked towards the others, ignoring me and approaching Sword God.
Once he stopped, they both just looked at each other, Sword God looking him up and down.
"So... you're the kid who became the number five of the Seven Great World Powers. You certainly have unique looks, fitting for someone I heard so much about in such a short span of time."
"And you have the fitting aura of ferocity I imagined a master of the Sword God Style to have."
"Oho? A charmer, I see. Trying to avoid fighting me?"
"Hey! Get in line. I came to challenge them first."
North God argued with Sword about who would challenge Rudeus. Either way, I won't miss seeing both fights.
"What do you mean 'them'?"
"I'm including THAT thing"
The North God then pointed at Rudues's dragon as he glared at him. But the thing just snorted at him, reminding me of when my Gramps replied to people throwing insults at him as they left.
A strong and prideful creature. I already like him.
"Excuse me, but…" Jino nervously went to Rudeus, interrupting the others completely. "I-Is Nina all right?"
"The Healers in Sharia healed her wounds, and I used my Detoxification Magic to cure her from the venom she was exposed to."
"So she made it?" Sword God asked.
"Physically, yes. But that experience left a mark on her mentally. The moment she came back into consciousness, she screamed out in panic, saying she could still feel their tiny legs crawl all over her while taking bites on her flesh. Ghislaine had to hold her down from scratching off her own skin."
"T-That's terrible."
"Something like this happens everywhere. It will take more than just time to heal her."
I have to admit, her situation wasn't pleasant in the slightest. I don't know how I would have handled that if I were in her shoes.
"Now, if you three excuse me, I must talk with this hotheaded child."
Rudeus then turned around to look at me, his eyes set on me. He looked angry, but I don't know what it was.
He then grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away without disregard.
The way he grabbed onto me this tight reminded me of how my mother took me to another room to scold me for doing something wrong.
I was a little scared and confused. Rudeus wouldn't do the same to me, right?
Is this about how I kicked him between the legs? I think he deserved it for calling me weak when I struggled to take in what had happened at the mountain with Orsted.
We were walking away for more than a minute, finally stopping out in the woods.
Rudeus wasn't looking at me and took a few steps further away from me.
"Rudeus, I-"
"What's this I hear about you wanting to defeat Orsted?"
His question sounded… angered. It totally felt like I was speaking to my mother when I did something bad.
***
(Rudeus POV)
Okay. Breathe in, breathe out. You gotta stop her before ANYTHING stupid comes out of this.
Once I turned around, I looked at Eris, who seemed to have a sense of what was happening or at least that I was mad.
"What's this I hear about defeating Orsted?"
My voice was harsher than intended, but I couldn't get it soft enough, knowing how much of a musclehead she was.
"It's what you told me to do. I went somewhere where I could become stronger since I'm weak so that we could take revenge on Orsted."
I couldn't help but give in to the urge of face-palming myself.
Now, her tone indicated pure innocence, which resulted from a chain of misunderstandings I had already figured out from Ghislaine.
"I never wanted to fight Ortsed again. You are misunderstanding… everything."
Once my hand left my face, I saw her shocked face looking at me in disbelief.
This isn't going to end well.
"B-But you did so much work. You became a World Power. You called me weak!"
"Mentally! I called you mentally weak because of your loss. Because you lost your parents.
I didn't want to do it with you because I thought you were still processing everything that had happened like I was. If I had said yes that day, it would have been nothing but me longing for your body and disregarding your grievance.
But it seems that each of us misjudged the feelings of the other completely."
This is all my fault. I was trying so hard to process the events in the mountains that I neglected to pay attention to others.
Now Eris beats herself up about having been incapable of preventing my death at the hands of Orsted and thought that I was trying to prepare to fight him again
But in reality, I was trying to work myself to exhaustion, and most importantly, I was taking in that I myself destroyed the Holy Relic. Oh, of course, and my death as well.
Eris wasn't taking it in so easy and started to get angry herself.
"He killed you! While you were unable to move! You should be mad about THAT! All the amazing things you've done, they have to be for that reason."
I understand what is happening inside her mind. Many people like her make similar assumptions when combining all my accomplishments and forming a theory, but none of them care enough to listen to my actual goal.
So, after calming myself down enough from the inside, I gave Eris a short enough answer
"They are to signal for Zenith, my mother, to let her know that I'm here to look for her. Becoming one of the Seven Great World Powers was far from an option. And I only ever admit to being one. Not once have I addressed myself by my title and rank.
Meanwhile, you're belittling Sword God for being ranked lower than me, turning him into an enemy of mine and putting me through a harder time than I've already had."
"But you're stronger than him. You can beat him."
"No, not like this. I was in my Demon Dragon form when I fought Death God in the latter half of the fight, but I'm still not in control of it. Sword God AND North God could kill me right now, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Do you even remotely understand what kind of danger you are putting me here? I've already cleared the trouble with the other ones, including Orsted. And now you are dreading me to get into a fight against another one."
"W-What... what do you mean... cleared what with Orsted?"
I watched as Eris slowly backed away, her eyes fixed on me with a hint of caution mixed with disbelief.
Oh great. That one slipped out. I intended to keep that secret from her because of her resentment of him.
"Eris, calm down. What happened between Orsted and me has settled now. I'm in debt to him after he saved my family from an assassin attack back at the Holy Sword Highway. He even has a theory on how I got my curse."
Something must given her the wrong idea here because, in the next moment, she was overflowing with rage.
"I get it," she said with her eyes practically glowing with murderous lust. "He's holding your family hostage."
"Wait, that's not-"
"He is forcing you into this!"
"Eris, that's not what I said at all! How did you even come up with that solution?"
None of my words seemed to reach her, and she just stomped away from me, heading back toward where we had come from.
"Eris, wait!"
I was aiming to grab her by the hand and stop her, but she turned around and swung her fist at me, which I tried to block but instead got a taste of my own backhand getting pushed against my face.
I got out of balance and returned a few steps as I held my not broken nose.
"I don't understand you," Eris yelled at me with tear-filled eyes. "Why the hell would you forgive someone who killed you without mercy? This doesn't make any sense!"
"I already told you he saved my family from a bunch of assassins. You don't need to get stronger and then fight him at all, so you can stop reaching that goal of yours."
"I am trying to become stronger to stand beside you when we fight. I was trying to help you reach YOUR goal!"
She grabbed her head, closed her eyes, and screamed at me from the top of her lungs.
"Do you have any idea what I felt that day, what I went through after I had just to watch you get killed by him, how weak and useless I felt after he just defeated me in one single move?"
"Eris, you know that isn't true. You are not useless at all."
"Of course you would say that! You always protect me and take on everything on your own. You got captured by the Beastfolks, fought bandits in the Great Forest, fought that deadbeat father, let yourself get captured by that Shirone prince, and then had to save our party after you had died and healed yourself.
All this time, I couldn't do anything to help you because you handled everything on your own! And now, you straight up deny me wanting to help you.
Do you even know how cruel that is? How much it hurts seeing you suffer?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Is what she says true? Have I been ignoring her feelings beyond the incident with Orsted?
This is escalating too much. Because of her denial of her part of the misunderstanding we are having, she doesn't believe anything I'm saying.
And that is being shown by her charging at me with her fist aimed at my face again.
With Wind Magic and Gravity Magic, I dodged her attack and pushed us apart to get some distance from each other.
"Eris, please," I said, holding both my hands out. "It was a misunderstanding due to lack of communication. Let's head back to the city to talk it out."
I was scared like never before in my life. All the blame is on me for getting into that stupid tantrum back at Millishion.
But I didn't have time to contemplate that. An angry Mad Dog was heading towards me, clenching her fist to hit me again to relieve her anger.
I continued dodging her attacks just like before, not harming her just like she does by not using her sword.
It was getting painful to see her angered because I ignored her too much.
This reminded me of the times I lashed out at my parents for training to help me, but in this case, it was the one who lashed out and didn't get the appreciation for her attempts to help.
Panic arose within me, and in a moment of desperation, I did something that only worsened things and did not de-escalate the situation at all.
When she went for another punch directed at my face, I grabbed it and intended to redirect it to put her off balance, but she already saw through that and went for a kick at my nether regions.
I saw this coming and used my other hand to grab her lower leg, but even that didn't stop her, and she used her other fist to haul at me.
Another desperate attempt came from me that involved me bodyslamming her but ended up with my face slamming into her chest from getting carried up by me.
'Did she grow there since the- NOT THE TIME!'
When Eris became distracted from the embarrassment, I released her arm and leg and blew her away with a gust of wind, not harming her.
Forcing her to spread her with the help of [Specter Force], I pushed myself forward and then grabbed her around the waist and went through the electrically charged clouds.
A loud thunderstrike echoed in the air as I used my lightning technique against Eris while I charged myself. But I kept it at a minimum of half a second to ensure Eris only got knocked out.
We were both smoking from the electrocution, but I had one hand placed on her back and the other placed on my forearm, using the time to heal us both.
Because I circulated my mana flow correctly, I didn't pass out and was able to prevent Eris from fighting me further.
Taking a breather from all the reality checks I just received from someone important to me.
Eris, whose head lay on my lap now, had a face completely opposite from her outrage earlier.
I didn't feel like I had the right to get angry at anything at the moment, and I switched to tending to Eris's electrocution burns.
But what Eris said doesn't just have to apply to herself.[Counter Arrow] and [Stepped Leader]. Are their views of me similar to hers? And especially Sara.
I already know from Timothy that she has been desperate to bring our relationship a step further, but I have been so distracted by this whole insect ordeal that it completely slipped my mind.
"Geez... I'm so dense."
My self-pity ended, however. Hiryū and the others came here, rushing to see what the commotion was all about, only to see that no monster attacked us, only me holding the unconscious Eris.
Before North God reached for my shoulder, I stood up and hauled Eris over my shoulder as I carried her towards Hiryū, who was already aware of my intention of mounting him and lowered his head.
But then he growled at the other three before I jumped up. It seems that he was still displeased with letting others mount him because of his prideful nature.
Using my Magic to jump up to his eye level, I furrowed my brows and glared at him.
"Swallow up your pride and do what I ordered you."
He understood the message instantly and allowed the others to mount him as well.
I carefully held Eris in one arm so that I could use the other to cast Wind Magic during the flight.
The young boy who came along with Sword God had trouble getting on Hiryū, so I helped him with [Specter Force], wrapping a mana arm around his waist and pulling him up.
"So, are we just supposed to hold on to these?" North God asked as he pulled on some of Hiryū's feathers.
"I will use Wind Magic to lessen the wind resistance and ensure no one falls down."
Turning one of the [Specter Force] hands visible, North God was intrigued.
"This is a different form of Barrier Magic. With this, I can grab onto objects. I will ensure that each of you gets hold of one or at least two of them, but it will need to keep them invisible for better control.
"Can I ask something?" the boy raised his hand, almost a bit blushing.
"No, I don't have a sense of touch on them."
And with that instant answer, he lowered his hand.
I proceeded to wrap my mana arms around each of them, but when it came to Sword God, something inside of me wanted to end his life.
The mana hand went up before his neck, each finger individually curling as if longing to choke him to death.
He supported Eris in her goal of defeating Orsted because he himself dreamed of defeating him.
Because of their intertwining goals, he accepted her as his student, which he doesn't do often. But recently, Eris's attitude because of the news of my rank had made him slightly irritated with her.
It would be easy to kill him right now. Just one firm grip on his open and vulnerable neck, and Eris has no other choice but to give up.
"Hey Kid! What's taking so long?"
North God snapped me out of the trance in which I was captivated.
That was close. I nearly would have been myself during the [Tri-Daggers] incident. But that doesn't change my decision to keep Eris away from Sword God. And since he was already annoyed by her, the chances of succeeding in that were high.
Without further ado, I fastened the last of them to Hiryū, and we took off into the sky.
Everyone was astonished at how high we were over the ground; North God was even awed in amazement, and Sword God exclaimed how it was possible for a Red Dragon to take off on flat terrain.
And the boy was keeping his eyes shut and holding on to dear life the way he clenches on those feathers. Why is he here in the first place?
Eris would have been as erratic to experience this as much as she did when we were sailing over to the Millis continent from the Demon continent. Well, minus the seasickness she experienced most of that time.
But now she is out cold because I couldn't get through to her, so I did that stupid stunt of pushing her into a thundercloud with me. Just perfect, me! Just... perfect.
'How am I supposed to explain this to Ghislaine? She is going to be furious. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I can't hurt her. It felt almost like she acted like the first day we met and then hunted me after I slapped her back. Oh god, I can't see what Zenith will say about this once she hears. I will get an earful for-... why are we turning?!'
Being caught up in my thoughts so much made me unaware of Hiryū's sudden turn to the right. Did I accidentally mutter an order or something?
"Rudeus! Why are we turning?"
North God seems panicked about something. And he is not the only one. Hiryū is exuding signals of distress himself.
It took me only a second to realize what it was, and I was distressed now, too.
Opening my pocket dimension, I got the ring with Randolph in it out and put it on.
'Hey, kid. Finished with your reunion? What did I miss?'
'We have worse things to deal with.'
'What do you mean? Whoah! Yeah, I see it now.'
Through my own eyes, Randolph saw exactly the level of doom we have now.
Below were now the remnants of the insect colony, abandoned and nothing but a huge crater with a trail of an army marching over it, going directly towards the city.
The insects started their attack before us.
///