An Hour Later, At Seolo Forest
At the north, just outside of the village is the Seolo Forest, and at the cliff overlooking the little village is Van, currently sitting at the edge of the cliff as he gazes blankly at the village.
Along with him is Alfia. Just a few meters behind Van, she's currently sitting below a tree as she leans her back to it with her eyes closed. Neither of the two is talking, nor do they have any plans to, so only silence remains enveloping both of them.
After all, if there's any thing they have in common, it's that they prefer a quiet environment and not a talkative type, so this type of silence is not awkward for both of them; rather, it's comfortable, which they really needed a lot, so that they can contemplate a lot of stuff in peace due to the things that just recently happened that impacted their mind, making them weary, and the journey to the village didn't help either, making it even worse.
So they used this rare chance to relax in a quiet and peaceful environment, a thing that is currently impossible to find in the Orario due to the chaos caused by the Dark Factions and the Loki and Freya Familias, who're snooping around for the remaining traces of the Zeus and Hera Familias.
A few minutes have passed when suddenly heavy footsteps can be heard walking towards them, breaking them out on their quiet and peaceful rest as they both look at their sides, to which Zald, with his heavy armor still on, can be seen walking towards them.
*Tsk*
A small tsk can be heard behind Van, making him look at Alfia, who's making an annoyed face while looking away from Zald with her arms crossed below her breasts. Van can only sigh in silent agreement as he too still wanted to stay and relax, but with Zald here, it means that the talk with Artemis was finished, and he's right after hearing what Zald will tell them as he arrives close to them.
"The talk's over; let's go back as we still need to escort Zeus-sama and Bell, Alfia," Zald, with his deep voice, told Alfia. He then looked over at Van, who's currently brushing his pants from the dirt, while Van was thinking that Artemis Familia must have agreed to train him as Zald didn't include his name along with Zeus and Bell.
"Van, as you may have noticed from my words, they agreed to let you stay with them and train you.
They also said that they are going to leave an hour later after they finished eating breakfast and packing up their things, so get yourself ready." Zald then turns around after urging the two of them to follow him in order to go back to the village, making Alfia huff in annoyance and with Van, who can't really complain much as he's already asking a lot to Zeus and the Artemis family.
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An Hour Later, At Loa Village
In front of the Brownes Inn is Artemis, along with 8 members of her familia, currently getting their stuff checked.
Among them is the group of Zeus getting ready to leave as they said their goodbyes to Van with the exception of Alfia and Bell, who obviously still can't and are incapable of uttering any words.
After a few minutes of saying their goodbyes to Van and with Zeus saying a few words to Artemis, who approached their group, they then entered the carriage as Zeus, with a huge smile on his face while carrying Bell, waved his hand to both Van and Artemis from the inside. The two then watched the carriage gain distance and quickly disappeared from their sight after turning to another road connected to the entrance of the village.
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Inside the carriage
After waving at Van and Artemis, the smile on Zeus's face quickly disappeared as worries instantly crept to his face. He didn't really want to part ways with Van and wanted to take care of him along with Bell, but he simply had no choice as Van had already made a decision.
It'll only be detrimental to Van's growth and future if he really stops him; rather, he's afraid that he won't have enough power to protect him, after all, unlike Bell, who's already destined for greatness and fated to be a hero, so he'll naturally become powerful and have the power to protect himself using his enormous potential. He's uncertain about Van's future, so he can only let him gain strength as soon as possible. After all, the worst fear of Zeus is the One-Eyed Black Dragon, who's obviously going to retaliate to humanity soon after recovering from the injuries caused by his and Hera's Familias.
With both of their main forces and majority of children gone and the only remaining members leaving and getting hunted, there's nothing that can stop the OEBD. Freya and Loki Familia's simply don't have enough power to defend against the OEBD's attack and have no time to raise the strength of their children, so Zeus has no choice and can only rely on Bell, who's also the only one to have the power to rally the current era's strongest and the reincarnated powerful figures of the past to defeat the OEBD.
In order to survive both the Dark Period of Orario and the OEBD, he needed Van to have the minimum strength to protect himself.
While worries continued to plague his mind, his gaze landed on Alfia. Truthfully, he's scared of her due to her violent tendencies toward people she hates, noisy people, and perverts, so he always needed to be careful with his words when she's around and even stay quiet in order to avoid annoying her, but this time he couldn't help but ask due to his curiosity. "Alfia-cha-...san? Why didn't you say anything to Van? Not even saying a small goodbye? Aren't you worried about your nephew?"
Without answering, Alfia only frowned a little at Zeus and even let out a bit of a killing intent, making him shiver and instantly avoiding looking at her as cold sweat formed at his body. Fuck! As expected of Hera's child, they're the same!
"I'm also curious about the same thing, Alfia."
Zald quickly followed up some words in order to give his God some face, though he's also a bit curious. Alfia gave him an annoyed look before looking away after saying some words. "I hated saying goodbyes."
With a hint of realization, Zeus and Zald can only give a knowing nod, understanding what she's been through; it's only natural that she'll hate saying those words; after all, to her, it became akin to a synonym of permanently parting ways.
*Waaaaahhh! * (Baby cry)
The somber silence was soon broken by the cries of Bell, which quickly prompted Zeus to calm him down and play with him.
Alfia subconsciously scowled in disdain as she looked at the baby's ruby-like eyes, which reminded her of the baby's disgusting and cowardly father, who took advantage of her younger twin sister's weak body and, in her inexperience or exposure to the outside world, he then used some sweet words and tainted her sister's pure body. The only reason she hasn't killed him is because he's close to Zeus and he has come to love her sister after getting pregnant.
Alfia, tightly quenching her pale hand as she looked at the baby's ruby-eyes, which made her want to gouge it, quickly shook her head as she looked away and reminded herself that it's still her sister's baby, and along with his face that reminds her of her sister, she stopped her dangerous thoughts.
Fortunately, Van, the firstborn, inherited her sister's blue eyes, coupled with her sister's face. She quickly got attached to Van, even sparing some of her time to train him after learning he's talented like her, which made her love him more.
As for Zeus's question earlier? Of course she's worried about him and even thinking of massacring Artemis's Familia if he got hurt even a little bit, but she won't do that as it is something necessary for Van's future; if not for the things like the Dark Factions in Orario and the OEBD, she would gladly take him away and train him, but for the sake of the next generation, she could only regrettably part ways with him, as staying with her will only endanger him, though if it ever comes to that, then she will even sacrifice her few remaining years for him without hesitation.
Though I do want to spend my remaining time taking care of Meteria's kids.
But for the sake of their future, she needed to part ways from them, and she would gladly lay down her life to make a better world for them to live in.
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OEBD - One-Eyed Black Dragon
[English is not my native language so please do forgive me if there's a grammatical errors]