Two months elapsed since his reincarnation in the body of Alec and his training process was still going strong.
''I guess that's the effect of telling a traumatized, hikikomori phoenix that I'm her family before proposing her to go travel together…''
From the day Rubra had given him her travel ultimatum, she started changing: she became more eager of seeing him become stronger, and she started trying to cook some meals and tried shortening the physical distance between them, for example during meals.
That was all well in theory but: even though he was stronger than he was during his past life he wasn't accustomed to being surrounded by monsters lured by a phoenix's taunt.
Even though thanks to his new ability his vitality was greatly improved, he wasn't ready to be trained to obtain poison resistance through the experimental recipes of Rubra and finally, maybe for a cultural difference, he didn't expect phoenix family members would take bath together or sleep together.
This new routine was both physically and mentally challenging for Eric during the first three weeks but slowly but surely things improved.
He acquired a close combat skill to survive the monsters' encirclement and acquired passive poison resistance thanks to the vast and dangerous forest's plant life that Rubra knew like the back of her hands.
The only problem that remained was the mentally straining closeness of that little fire eagle.
He didn't get any mental resistance skills after all this time, this situation was troublesome.
He pledged to himself that he would protect her peace of mind and purity so he more than anyone didn't want to be the one to make her sad, because of the different meaning physical proximity had on Earth, but he couldn't reject her affection either because that would probably obtain the same result.
Then he stayed a couple of minutes with his eyes closed, thinking about the problems he had to solve to achieve the enjoyable life he wanted.
He first enumerated them and ordered them for time urgency, importance, and possible causal interrelationships between the possible solutions and a change in the other problems.
This kind of mental exercise helped him with mental clarity and creating plans, in fact after opening his eyes again he knew what was the optimal course of action for him.
Luckily, or not, the main center of his thoughts was easy to reach, in a literal way.
When he opened his eyes his and Rubra's noses were separated by just a couple of centimeters and she was watching him with dreamy eyes.
Cough…after that sound her eyes became focused again as the light of reason returned in them and suddenly she shrieked with a cute voice while turning to give him her shoulders with an unmistakable flushed face.
He laughed while cold sweat was on his forehead, in the meantime, his mind was in disarray.
I was almost…way too close!
What was I thinking about my little sister?
How could I not get Mental resistance yet, do I have to go crazy?!
That's right, Eric thought of Rubra as his little sister.
Useless was the logical thought about her multi-centennial age or the fact that his 'little sister' was way stronger than him, but he still felt he had the obligation to protect her.
Obviously, in the mind of the embarrassed Rubra, there was something way different.
This event was the last drop that Eric's willpower could take so he enacted his plan.
The main ingredient was that he reached lv. 300, so, at this point, he probably could not defeat her but surely could survive a couple of good hits, or, in the worst case, he was able to escape from the forest if their relationship came to a breaking point.
Sad about that last possible outcome Eric started thinking, looking for the most carefully chosen words that could help Rubra relax before the bitter truth.
At this point the only obstacle between him and complete honesty with Rubra wasn't even his scruple or distrust gained for social interactions: it was the certainty of unwanted ears listening to them.
After his first meeting with Rubra, his suspicion became a certainty: all mythical creatures over lv. 400 have a perception radius that encompasses the entire Cinder Forest.
For this reason, his topics of choice during his talks with Rubra were limited or when some worrying arguments were brought up he would adlib straight up playing as an actor on the stage or he told the truth with words impossible to comprehend from someone that didn't already know it.
An example of the last method was his introduction to Rubra.
When he came to know about the existence of Cain these slightly distorted truths became even more important in his mind.
All of this was the best possible because even gods might have been observing him as Nemesis told him in the past.
Hopefully, the solution for this was talking through their souls that couldn't be read if 'covered' by their bodies, something he couldn't do now but would be able to do in the future.
While thinking about all of that he chose his words and started speaking.
''Rubra, I want you to know that I care deeply about you.''
His rhythm was slow as if giving importance to every word.
Surprised by the sudden words Rubra turned around without thinking, watching him with eyes wide open as if expressing her expectancy.
''Just a week after our first time seeing each other, I thought of you as my little sister, as my new family!''
Eric wasn't used to expressing his affection in such an open way.
The last time, after hearing about her trauma, he was aided by the darkness of the night, so now he felt as if something was stuck in his throat giving him difficulty speaking or breathing for that matter.
A similar feeling was shared by Rubra but the reason was simpler, a unique word chosen from Eric: sister!
She started crying, leaving him unsure of what to do.
After some deliberation he decided to hug her, thinking that maybe she was crying out of happiness about having a family after so much time alone.
Eric didn't know he would be trying to not become a barbecue steak in just a couple of minutes…