You see, I have been wondering what would happen if I used the healing potion when the sword or whatever weapon is still stuck inside of me.
Will my injuries heal or will they not? Will the piece of metal remain inside of me or what?
I looked at the hand piercing my stomach.
'Well, I will know the answer now'
I bit on the low epic healing potion which I turned into a tablet a long time ago. Why a low epic and not the other one? Well, I just don't have a hand piercing my stomach, there's a hole inside my stomach! My organs are fucking gone! Not a simple injury! It's the same as having your limbs getting blasted!
And Low Epic is exactly the potion I need to heal an injury like this.
Sad, I will lose one of them leaving me with only 9 low epic potions but hey, I am getting an answer and getting healed, not a bad bargain I had to say.
The moment I consumed the potion in the form of a tablet, in the same instant the lady pulled herself back and my injury healed like it was never there ...but alas, my clothes have a hole in them now.
These were borrowed clothes you know! How could I return them now?
I looked towards the lady who had pierced my stomach, standing a bit away from me, on her guard.
'Guess, I have my answer'
Hehe, new ideas on how to use my potion started to form in my head.
"Hey, I don't think making a hole in someone's stomach is how you incapacitate them and why did you ask her that?" I looked towards the demon lord and asked.
"Oh, Liza don't attack or hurt him, tell everyone in the castle, he is my disciple from this moment on," the Demon lord said and then looked at me "I knew I would get to see something interesting again and I am glad I wasn't wrong. You didn't use healing magic or anything, so it must be some potion, your mouth moved for a bit as if biting something.. a solidified healing med? But to have it recover your stomach without even leaving a scar ...really, where do you get such stuff from?"
From places such as hidden dungeons.. basically this very place.
But I can't say that, oh here goes nothing.
"It's-"
"M-my lord! To have a human as your discip-" I was cut off by Liza, the maid who pierced my stomach and she got cut off by the demon lord
"Did you not hear what I said?"
At those words, Liza's whole body shivered, not only her but also the teenage girl.
They were both shivering.
Wow... just a few words and she made both of them shiver.
What kinda ninjitsu is this?
"Hm?" The demon lord looked at me and then smiled.
The teenage girl fell on her knees and started breathing heavily while the other one was struggling to stand.
This strangely reminds me of what happened in the council room.
Back then, I thought they were all on cracks or something.
!
I took a step back.
The demon lord peered into my eyes, her face was close enough for her breath to hit me.
It only took her an instant to appear in front of me, damn, SSS+ rankers really are scary.
For the record, her height is bigger than mine. I mean she is 669 years old adult while I am just a 16-year-old, a healthy growing teenager!
"Do you have some sort of artifact to neglect the effects?"
What effects?
"...What?" I asked clearly confused.
"You aren't afraid, usually when you exert pressure you can make those who are lower ranked than you feel fear, the larger the difference the more fear you can instill in them"
So, that's what happened back then.
"I see."
Fear is something one only feels when they don't know what might happen to them.
They feel fear if they are not sure whether their loved ones are in danger. They had to feel fear if they were in danger.
Fear is something people feel when they are unsure of their well-being, people who don't want something bad to happen to them indirectly or directly.
"Why don't you feel it? The difference in our rank is vast"
"Hey, you don't even know my rank.." I tried to retort
"What is your rank?"
Fu*k my teenage rebellious side! Why couldn't I have been honest?
"F-.."
I feel embarrassed.
"Hm? So then, the reason?" She tilted her head to the side, wanting to know the reason for it.
But I didn't know what to say.
I ...just don't feel it, you know.
There's no grand reasoning here, it's just at some point I became numb to it.
"I don't know"
How am I supposed to answer something I have no idea about?
I have long gone stopped feeling it.
Not when there was a gun pointed at my head, not when I jumped from the 20th floor, not when I was surrounded by wolves, not when people threw rocks at me, not when someone tried to dissect me-he almost succeeded.
"I understand" She withdrew herself as the teenage girl and the lady who were stiff moments ago seemed to breathe as if they remembered breathing was a thing.
She slowly started to walk towards her bed and sat down.
"When do you want to start the training?"
"As soon as you can"
I replied.
Learning from the best of the best. That's gonna be cool.
..Okay, fine that's a lie. Who likes to learn anything? I would rather enjoy myself back home and read manga or novels but what can I do? I have no choice but to work my ass off to keep myself safe.
"I see. Well, I would love to eat first, it is still early in the morning." She said looking at the teenage girl, the girl instantly stood up from her position while stumbling a bit and started walking towards the demon lord with the food trolley.
I looked towards the other lady and our eyes met. She clicked her tongue and looked towards the teenage girl.
On a side note, the teenage girl is a human while the other one is a demon.
How do I know? Well, there is a difference in the body structures of races.
Elves have long pointy ears.
Vampires have short pointy ears.
Dwarves have short, bulky muscular type builds.
Beastfolks have a tail and animal ears.
Humans and demons have the same appearance.
The only difference between them is, that demons have black sclera while humans have white sclera, and demons have a transformation phase too where they become extra strong or something, kinda like a final boss phase in games.
Anyways, I could feel my stomach growling.
I started walking towards the demon lord's food trolley.
"Um.. is it okay if I eat with you?"
I mean, let's be honest the amount of food in front of me is definitely not for a single person!
There's no way you can convince me it's not for more than 4 people!
It's absurd!
How much food are they wasting every day?
I shall help with less wastage of food!
As a nice person, it is my duty!
And I am a very responsible person and responsible people always fulfill their duties.
"...Are you okay with it?" The demon lord asked with her fork stopped in midair as she gave me a weird look.
Why wouldn't I be okay with food? Who in the world would not want to eat food?
Besides, it's the demon lord's food, no one would mess with her food.
That's right.
I have no other way of getting food, look, Liza is glaring daggers at me.
You think she wouldn't put anything weird in my food!? I don't believe it.
I simply nodded my head as I took a bite of the steak that was in front of me and started eating.
'...Goodness me, the food is quite good. I guess, food made for a demon lord is really something else, huh but... who eats steak as breakfast? Oh well, anyways.'
I chewed on the food savoring the flavor.
"Um? How about you sit down here instead of standing and eating?" Demon lord said while patting the side of the bed.
I will take you up on that offer.
And so I ate the food and halfway through the process, demon lord simply stopped eating and just kept looking at me with her poker face.
I will just ignore her and enjoy myself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Alright, come at me, no need to use mana for now," Demon lord said as she suddenly threw a sword towards me, I caught the sword saving myself the embarrassment! My dignity has been saved!
Right now, we are on the training grounds if you want to call it one. I mean, have you ever been to watch a cricket match in a stadium? Yeah, that's the size of this place.
And we are the only people here.
'Sheesh, isn't it a bit extravagant?'
Shaking my head, I readied myself with the sword in my hand as I tried to copy the stance I had seen in a game.
'Alright, let's swing the sword!'
What else can I do?
I did my best and swung the sword, sometimes I swung it with all my strength, sometimes I tried to use my brain and make a maneuver-type attack, and sometimes I tried a surprise attack like letting go of my sword and grabbing it back fast enough with my other hand to swing it around and tried of fients and stuff.
I continued like this for some time after that she gave me a scythe and I repeated the process, then with daggers and finally, we had hand-to-hand combat.
A lot of time passed, and my whole body started screaming in pain, I felt thirsty and I of course was out of breath.
"Alright, I think I have a good idea about your level now," She said with not even a single sweat on her.
The world is so unfair, on a side note, the weather here is pretty good.
Demonic continent's one of the characteristic is not having sunlight, you know when there's bad weather with lots of dark clouds covering the whole sky? That's just how it is except there's no rain happening.
Honestly, it's such a good weather!
I have always loved when the dark clouds covered the whole sky making the whole area dark and ominous, I just loved the scenery that it creates but when it starts raining or raining hard I mean it becomes hard to be outside the room.
But in this place, I can just admire the beauty without having to worry about going back into the room because of the rain.
Still huffing for the air I slowly tried to stand up, the human maid brought a bottle of water to me. Both the maids have been with us the entire time. The other demon lady has given an orange-colored drink to the demon lord.
'Why am I having water while she is getting orange juice even though I am the one who is clearly more exhausted?'
It doesn't even make sense. What's the problem with Liza?
And it was weird that she was the only person whose name I knew here.
"You up?" The demon lord asked and I just nodded my head.
"Alright, let's begin your mana training then but before that what's your mana proficiency?"
"F+"
"That's okay. So, how does it feel like when you move mana inside your body"
How does it feel like?
Absolutely disgusting.
Ugh, I need to give a clear report for accurate guidance.
"It's like a murky substance crawling all over my body, hard to make it flow and control but I can manage it somehow by forcefully moving it. Kinda leaves me a bit creeped out after I am done with using it."
Just remembering the feeling made me shudder but I somehow managed to convey it.
"..."
The demon lord just stared at me, not only her but Liza was also staring at me and I didn't know why.
Um... hello! Earth to the demons!
"I should have expected it" Demon lord shook her head "Just for your information, Mana doesn't feel like that, not even a newborn with G- mana proficiency would feel anything like that and no, aura, doesn't feel like that either. What's your deal? You aren't using mana, not an aura, and definitely not demonic energy... you are doing something else entirely. That's the only answer. You sure are a bundle of surprises. Well, it's fun, so I am okay with it."
...
Did I just heard something reaaaaaaaaally concerning in the most casual of tones!?
Okay, calm down rather than questioning, let's take the piece of information. A 'something else entirely' puzzle piece.
Let's see, where does it fit in any information I have until now?
Gotta think, think fast.
Alright! Found the information.
A higher ranking potion used by light blue on me, a slight headache that didn't go away even after consuming the potion, the damage I incurred by trying to control my brain circuits, the unexpected D rank level stats that I acquired in my fight against Edward using the same method as my brain ...and now I learned I haven't been using mana to begin with!
Okay, definitely, this gotta be related to why I am always in danger of using it.
Not mana, aura, or demonic energy, then what could it be? Initially, I had thought it was because I am just too bad at controlling mana but no more do I think the same!
Listening to others is important.
Okay, I might still not have an answer but I can run some ideas in my head with this much information.
Looking at the demon lord I spoke up.
"So, can you figure anything about it?"
"Hm? Fight me. Hand-to-hand combat with whatever it is you use, I need to know what you can do with it. Oh, come with the intent to kill me, do whatever you can do with it, no hiding your trump cards, they are useless against me anyway. I will try to think about whatever it is you are using after seeing what it can do and don't try to overdo it since we don't know what side effects it might have"
I nodded at her as I slowly started to circulate my man-.. whatever this weird thing was inside my brain and all over my body, I dashed towards her.