"No!" Rikter shouted.

Dylan and Keith both drew their staves out of their robes, and started chanting.

"How c-could you!" Sarah exclaimed, "You might have suffered, but that doesn't mean you had to kill him! Why did you do it?"

"Why?" Sirus repeated, "Because I wanted to, that's why."

Creating a barrier of flames in front of him, blocking them, he turned around and looked at Riria, who was standing a meter or two behind him, with her arms crossed under her chest.

"This is that man that you said you loved," He smiled bitterly, "A maniac, a murderer, a sicko, heartless."

He lifted his hand and lifted an evaporating tear off of his right cheek and continued, "A monster, a demon, a sinner, broken." He paused and asked sadly, "Still love me now?"

Riria stood there, her expression unchanging.

Sirus sighed and began to turn around, when Riria spoke.

"Of course I still love you!" Riria said, whilst running at him, "You think some small thing like being a mass murderer or being slightly crazy is going to change that?"

Sirus gave her a faint smile, "It's not just slightly, I think."

"I don't care," She said, wrapping her arms around his neck and placing her mouth next to his ear, whispering, "If you're heartless, I'll have enough heart for the both of us. If you're broken, I'll just fix you. As for a monster..." She giggled in his ear, "Well I'm one too, aren't I?"

"But don't get me wrong. To me you're as perfect as can be."

He pulled away from her embrace and stared at her face with a complex expression.

"So you still love me?" He asked.

"Without a doubt-"

Cutting her off at the last moment, Sirus pulled her head in close and pressed his lips against hers with force, causing them to both fall over and into the soft grass.

Reluctant and not understanding what was going on for a moment, Riria laid across the grass motionless, but soon wrapped her hands around his head and went along with him.

A few moments later, Riria pulled away from him and gestured to the wall of flames that still stood tall: "You should probably take care of those other children," She gave him a lecherous smile, "We can continue this later."

Sirus nodded his head, now slightly annoyed at the heroes group again.

He waved his hand downwards in the direction of the wall, causing it to slowly dissipate into nothingness.

Eyeing the others still waiting for him on the other side, he said: "Mind leaving now? You've kind of interrupted something." He tilted his head in Riria's direction.

"Why would we leave!" Rikter shouted, "You just killed one of our friends!"

"That guy?" He pointed to the black and ashen remains in the center of the crater, "He was kind of rude, what did you want me to do? Keep him alive?"

"We'll kill you, just like you killed him!" Lana and Lucia shouted as they also pulled out their staves, "It's still six against one! You can't beat us!"

"Oh yeah?" Sirus said as the surrounding area suddenly became scorching hot and wisps of flame started appearing in the air, "You want to bet on that?"

Suddenly, Riria pushed her bosom against his back and wrapped her arms around his neck again, "I'm kinda already hot, mind toning it down a bit?" She asked him inconspicuously.

"Of course," He replied, the temperature instantly returning back to normal.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But as soon as the stifling heat went back to normal, the group started shooting spells at his back.

Noticing the spells, the flames in his eye burst out in accordance with his anger, again heating up the area.

"My, my," Riria said, fanning her face with her hand, "It's getting quite hot again."

And again, the head dropped back down, forcing Sirus to dodge and deflect the oncoming spells with only his basic swordsmanship and his footwork.

He turned to her while the group began chanting again.

"What is it?" He said in an exasperated tone, "Do you not want me to incinerate them?"

"You never know," She said, shrugging, "They could come in useful someday."

He sighed, and again dodged the oncoming spells: "I severely doubt that, dodging their spells is more like playing a game than actually being in a fight."

"Well people can grow," She said as she walked to his side and spoke to the heroes group, "We're giving you guys one chance to run away before Sirus kills all of you."

"Why should we listen to you?" One of them said,

"I literally just told you why! You will die!" She shouted at them with annoyance, "The only reason you guys aren't already dead is because Sirus hasn't actually done anything!"

They looked to be about to start attacking again, not heeding her words, but before they could, Sarah spoke: "She's probably right guys, I hate to admit it, but we're no match for right now!"

"What?" Rikter said, "We're pushing him back! We've almost got him!"

"Are you dumb?" Sarah replied with heat, "He hasn't attacked! What if he uses that meteor move from before again? You think we can survive something like that, when our entire advance force was instantly annihilated!?"

Understanding that she was probably right, the rest of the group member's hesitated in attacking, and started to retreat back onto their hover vehicles.

But before they left, Keith shouted at Sirus: "We'll get you for this someday!"

"Sure." Sirus replied while enthusiastically waving his arm, "Oh and don't forget to tell your king that he was right! Turns out I was a demon or devil or whatever it was that he called me."

Seeing them pass the horizon on their vehicles and take the reinforcements with them, he turned back to Riria and started walking with her back to the fortress.

"Y'know, you really made me worry earlier, I think I'm going to have to extend your punishment." Riria said while leaning towards him.

Seeing the bright grin that overcame his face at her words, she giggled and ruffled his hair, "Quite a naughty boy aren't you?"

"Mmm," Sirus deigned to respond to her, instead choosing to continue walking and enjoying the sunlight on his face.

Interrupting their peaceful walk, the commander of the fortress' troops sprinted up to them from the entrance arch and instantly engaged Sirus in conversation.

"That was amazing Sir! I had no idea an adventurer of your caliber was coming here to support us! Really nobody but newbie adventurer's usually accept missions to assist the royal army." Catching his breath, the commander continued speaking, "Most likely, if you hadn't been here, we would have been overtaken, the Magic Kingdom sent a lot more than the usual skirmishing forces."

Pausing, he again continued: "Oh yes, could I have your name and adventurer rank? I just need to quickly file them down in the report and send it over to the capital."

SIrus nodded his head and pulled the probationary tablet necklace out of his shirt and showed it to him, "Sirus, Probationary Adventurer."

The commander who was staring at his notepad quickly started scribbling his words down, only to pause and look back up at him.

"Um, Sir?" He said, "Probationary Adventurer?"

"That's right," Sirus replied, briskly walking away with Riria and striding back out of the Sword Kingdom-side entrance of the fortress.

"So, where are we supposed to be going again?" Sirus asked.

Riria laughed, "We need to head back to the Sword Kingdom's capital to turn in the army mission we just completed. I expect we did manage to kill some of the more elite troops of the Magic Kingdom in this battle, which was your goal in picking this mission, right?" She asked with a knowing gaze.

"Not really, I kind of just chose it because it looked like the hardest one on the board." He replied earnestly.

She gave him a flat look.

"Anyways," He said, "How are we going to get back to the capital? Are there carriages coming out all the way back here?"

She tapped her chin, "I don't know, can't you just blast us over there with your flames, like you did to launch yourself into the air there?"

"Hey," He complained, "I'll have you know I can get tired too! I can't just blast us into the air a thousand times until we get all the way over there. Didn't you say it was like 30 leagues or whatever?"

"25 leagues, actually, and yeah I'm just joking, obviously," She said with a suspicious look.

"Uh huh," He said while giving her a flat look.

"Damn," He muttered, "I should have taken one of those hover cars from the reinforcement Magic Soldier troops!"

"No use complaining about it now," Riria said, "We have no choice but to somehow find a carriage heading to the capital and spend another uncomfortable few days riding in it.

"Hah!" He exclaimed, "So you do admit it was uncomfortable!"

"Of course it was," She said, "It felt like my butt was being dragged over an unpaved road... Actually, Why don't I just sit in your lap next time! Great idea, me!"

Sirus groaned.