A week after their first time seeing each other, the relationship between Eric and Rubra had transformed.
In the beginning, she was scared of him and was ready to kill him, if he would reveal himself as dangerous as the humans her uncle had told her about.
Similarly, he was also scared, but mainly because of the annoyance it would be to die another time.
His view about the fear of death, the value of life, and other philosophical questions had changed drastically.
If on Earth, he had adopted a mentality similar to that of stoicism, where he didn't worry about death as it was a human life's constant and was out of his control, everything slowly changed after his experience living in Ouroboros.
He started thinking of his life as that of a videogame character.
He just wanted to have fun without having to restart, a lot of times, from the checkpoint.
This idea wasn't usual in the least, for normal humans, but he never associated with the average now as during his life on Earth.
Now their interaction was in the continuous process of changing without any conscious effort.
The main drivers of it were their previous social experiences(or the lack of genuine ones, to be more precise) and the copious amount of time they spent together.
Everything started because of the initial story(lie) of Eric and the enemy(inexistent) he has to defeat and the will of Rubra to help him because of both her pure heart and the manipulation ability of our protagonist.
Even though the beginning wasn't the best, they started trusting each other through hunting and speaking during their break time.
They started to know each other better and slowly shared more intimate stories about one another.
In this way, now Rubra knew that Eric's family experience wasn't much better than hers:
he actually, never saw the face of his father, who presumably is still searching for his way back home.
His mother didn't manage to forget him, and she never smiled in front of him, treating him with clear coldness since childhood.
Finally, even his death was unfortunate: before reincarnating in the body of his brother, he was betrayed and killed by people he would have probably described in the past as friends.
The morning after the dinner, during which she told him about her past experiences, she decided as he would be there for her, similarly, she would do the same for him.
In a similar unconscious way, Eric had forgotten when he stopped using his past persuasion tricks with her.
The only exception was information about his past lives.
He didn't want to ruin the first mostly-honest relationship he ever had.
Even though he knew this situation wasn't sustainable, he was already worried about his survival possibilities in the forest because of the monsters, so he didn't want to add the possible risk of being burned to death while sleeping.
I will definitely take care of it at the right time (after strong enough to manage to resist Rubra's anger-filled attacks)...definitely!
Now the most serious problem is regarding her story…it's definitely fishy.
The same Red Dragon who had fought against her parents to gain the forest's control.
After her parents conveniently die in an accident, decide to give her protection from the dangerous outer world?!
Did the dragon become a saint?!
Jokes aside, I'll have to talk about it to Rubra or at least guide her safely away from the suspicious dragon.
From what he knew and Rubra confirmed to him, long-lived races, like phoenixes and dragons, have the common practice of raising around one level every year as a countermeasure to the almost instinctual ability to procrastinate that their lengthy lifespan causes most people.
All of this isn't a rule, and Rubra is an example of that, being over level 400 before her 300 years, but in her case, it intervened her childhood trauma.
That afflicted her with loneliness and powerlessness.
The tutelage of her adoptive uncle was also a main factor in that.
He always remembered the importance of power and always spurred her into action, telling her that once an adult(when creating a power core), she would be able to avenge her parents by finding the instigator of the past lich's attack.
Her dragon uncle Cain though didn't know that she developed her power core years ago when reaching level 300.
Probably she thinks she has to wait years yet, but this misunderstanding was caused by taking advice as a rule.
In this way, the power of Rubra was unexpectedly almost comparable to that of her 500 years old uncle.
Knowing, thanks to his past experience, the conditions she had to achieve to be considered an adult phoenix and cross-referencing with her past experiences, Eric had guessed something that would probably hurt Rubra, so he tried solving the problem in the most painless, but in a way less satisfying way.
For this reason, one morning, while having breakfast together, he started this way talk with her:'' We should leave the forest.''
Rubra definitely wasn't expecting these words.
She almost spits the food she was eating.
Raising herself from the felled trunk where she was eating, started speaking with an insecure tone while getting closer to him.
''What do you mean don't you think it's too soon?''
Then continuing while grabbing his hand between hers.
''You are barely at level 200.
You can't manage to beat the Minotaur of the moving Daedalus labyrinth, which is at least a level 500 mythical beast!''
Eric was astonished by her reaction: she wasn't opposed to leaving the forest with him but seemed still worried about his power level with respect to his enemy.
*I guess that's my karma for inventing the story about the Minotaur. *
On the other hand, Rubra was worried her heartbeat was too loud, so she tried turning on the place in order to regain her calm, but her mind didn't quiet down.
*Did he just propose to me?!
Mother always told me the story about the confession of Father, after which they flew together, finding a new nest where to settle down and eventually…
No way, he's going too fast! *
While her thoughts were straying in a direction that would leave Eric himself speechless, a third entity, after hearing the conversation was encompassed in a sphere of white flames, his mind's anger fed the exterior appearance.
*You dare take her away from me after all this time?! *