*Grr!*
"G-Go away!" Morrigan, the little girl, screamed at the approaching coyote.
Before it approached her, it lost the feeling of its whole body and fell to the ground. On its neck was a deep gash.
"Thanks, S-Skully." The little girl, seeing that it had been saved, hugged the bird, which was cleaning the coyote's blood off. When it was hugged, it only looked at her with curiosity and tilted its head to the side.
Just as she was about to relax, she felt something grab her shoulder. This immediately made her remember when she was getting kidnapped, and she was about to scream. Another hand quickly covered her mouth.
"What a disappointing reaction, little Morg. You're not in a civilized environment, so no one would hear you, even less do anything."
Dante slowly made her turn toward him. Even if he said he was disappointed, he was still amused, and a smile hung on his face.
"Yo-ou're mean…"
"Thank you for the compliment."
With that, he patted her head and then took her hand.
"I've found you a home, but know that you will have to work hard to stay in that home. Got it?"
"Yeah, I will work hard!" Her eyes were filled with determination and relief. She had been alone all this time, feeding on crap, and when she finally met someone she thought would help her, she was left alone in some random cave.
This, of course, made her have difficulties sleeping, and the hard, wet, and bloodied ground didn't help either.
It wouldn't be inaccurate to say she had literally just closed her eyes.
"What kind of home have you found for me...?"
"Hmm, somewhere where there are a lot of kids slightly older than you, they all practice magic and swordsmanship; they're a bunch of weirdoes."
"Morg, tell me what I am to you." Dante stopped and looked her in the eyes.
This made her even shier than she already was.
"You're my savior." Her cheeks slightly blushed out of embarrassment.
"That's right; what does that also mean?"
"What do you mean?"
"I saved your life. Meaning that I had to fight those bad guys who wanted to hurt you. What do you think I have gained?"
"E-euh… nothing…" She was just a kid, so she thought saving her was something anyone capable of it should do.
"Know that someone would never save someone else if they didn't gain anything. Those who do perish quickly. If someone were to save you but he doesn't ask for rewards, he's either a stupid hero or you can offer him something he wants."
"Are you the dumb hero?"
"Ha, no, of course not."
"Then, what do you want from me?"
"Guess."
"Euh. Hmm, to be my family?" Her guess made Dante's facial muscles slightly twitch out of embarrassment; she was way too innocent.
"I mean, that's not the principal goal... "Have you never felt your body become stronger or lighter at some moments in your daily life?"
"Oh, now that I think about it, yeah, sometimes I can hold and pull potato sacks that I couldn't at certain times."
"You have something rare in you, a blessing. That means that you have extremely good mana.
I saved your life, but I didn't get anything, so your life is the only thing you can give me."
"Oh, yeah, you're right." After he said that, the little girl looked kind of depressed—more than she already was.
"Ooh, but does that mean I can become like those powerful wizards in stories?"
"Easily."
"Wooah, then why are we walking so slowly?" Let's go!"
Her depressed mood instantly disappeared as she started running.
…
"So you're Morrigan." The principal put his hand on her head. An invisible energy entered her body as Marcel, the vice principal, was waiting for results.
"She does indeed have that talent. Marcel." His last word was said with a colder voice than usual.
The vice principal almost bowed at ninety-nine degrees.
"I-I'm sorry!"
"They've really pissed me off this time. Here I am scolding my own." The aura from before didn't appear, maybe because of the little girl. But the light in the huge office diminished, as if something was absorbing all the light.
He then put his hand on the kid's belly as an extremely complex purple magic circle appeared.
"I'm going to seal off your mana for now; most blessed never know they are and don't train their bodies. They all die of lower vessels compared to their great mana. Children are even worse, as they have humongous mana but a weak vessel."
The little girl looked concerned at first but saw that nothing happened and shrugged it off.
"E-erh, what's a vessel?" She timidly asked.
"It's your body and mana core. They contain your mana; if you have too much mana or it is of too high quality, your body starts to slowly fall apart and crumble.
Think of it as a sponge; if you put too much water in it, it spills out; if you put lava in it, it just melts and burns."
As if trying to repent for his sin, the vice principal made the decision to answer in a simple manner so as to make someone her age easily understand.
"You're, however, going to take care of her until she is of age to attend school."
"Of course."
"We're going to give you the room next to yours to make things easier."
The dorms were mixed at first; they, of course, didn't worry about kids or making them familiarize themselves with each other. They were, however, separated next year just in case.
When Dante and Morrigan left the office, they headed toward his room as the doors opened on their own. She had been given her student plate, so she was recognized as the owner.
Just as he was about to enter his own apartment, he heard slight sobs next to him. When he looked at her, he could see two streams of tears falling down her cheeks.
"Why are you crying? Are you unhappy?"
"N-no, *hic*, it's nothing..."
"If you need anything, just enter the room; I'm a heavy sleeper." He never locked his door; Skull would always be on guard just in case.
With that, they both entered their homes, one directly heading to bed as he had made plans all night on what to do if she wasn't accepted. They were unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, not needed as a variable, so the principal helped them.
He also had another hunch that something was making him go to sleep. A call from beyond just his body...
Slowly, his eyes closed, and slowly, his body succumbed to the exhaustion and, more particularly, the call.
…
Like before, he woke up while standing in the darkness, and behind him was the small white flame still burning as if it weren't part of reality.
He wasn't woken up every time by an unexpected variable like before. Now he could finally observe this environment.
The first thing he did was get closer to the white flame to examine it. When he got closer, the white flame slightly flickered, which made him back off. When he backed up, the small flame returned to its original stillness.
"Hmm, so if I get closer, I get sent back to reality."
Dante then started looking around, looking for the shadow person from before, but found nothing.
Before he could make any movements, everything started shaking violently. Not just the ground but even reality...
Dante tried his best to stay up but unfortunately lost balance and fell on his knee, bruising it.
When things eventually came to a stop, he tried to heal his wound but discovered that the healing process was extremely slow.
If he were to estimate the time he could have taken to heal this, then it meant that his ability had been slowed by two folds.
"Fuck, why am I getting nerfed?"
When he stood up, he almost fell back in shock. All the darkness around him had been replaced by gothic and absurdly illogical structures.
It was extremely weird; it was as if a map-generating game had been corrupted. Castle-like structures that were supposed to be upright were hanging from the sky.
There were old houses, alien-like structures, and even modern apartments growing out of each other.
What shocked him more was the sky; it wasn't a sky but more like another world hanging inside.
This all seemed as if something like a god had mixed multiple eras with different aliens and other worldly temples. There wasn't a spot he could call a road; everything was full of things.
Dante had never suffered from any phobias, but now he seemed to have discovered one, megalophobia.
*Shrieeek!*
Just as he was about to breathe, he heard a loud monster's shriek. When he tried to locate the source of this terrifying sound, he fell to the ground.
Shocked, he looked to the ground, where his lower body was supposed to be, and was only met with his protruding intestines and organs.
Still alive, he looked toward the source of chewing and saw a spider-like giant monster. It looked like a chimera between a spider, a dragonfly, and a scorpion. In its mandibles was his lower body...
It was looking at him like he was nothing more than an ant, which of course he was.
"Y-you piece of shi- *splash!*" Before he could mutter his last sentence, his head got cut in two by one of the spider's extremely sharp legs.