Her new charge was rather… erratic.

He had explained it to her in clipped fataram and rather crude magical drawings that he was not really a fighter but a student, and although she doubted he'd explained the whole truth, it wasn't too far-fetched that he had been separated from his family by the summoning.

Normally that'd be an easy way to make any man become unstable, but spirits were rather individualistic in most cases, so it could very well not matter at all to him and it was all a play from his part or it could be an excuse to not explain his actual reason for wanting to go back and this was what he feat or any other combination of reasons.

Really, she'd be a lot less intent on finding out if they weren't going to be around each other so much, both in the near and the far future, as she interacted with quite few operatives in her day to day and on missions.

It also wasn't everyday that she dealt with either an omnimage or a battle maniac, but he was most certainly both those things and rather dangerous even without a wall to hide on.

Although his mana pool had pretty much not grown ever since the siege, it was indeed obvious that he was growing stronger. Through the use of varied spells that encompassed all the basic elements, she'd watched him plow through even magic resistant beasts on their path, and considering the usage of death, lightning and vital force that she'd previously witnessed, it was doubtful whether there was any element Aki was unable to use.

Despite his prowess however, his rate of injury and dodging made it rather obvious that he was lacking in close quarters combat. He also didn’t seem to be improving very fast in that department despite the ridiculous increase in mastery over the simple spells he kept using.

Really, she had never seen someone create firewalls that stuck to the air they were created in like a bug sticking to a wall, or dirt spikes that sucked blood, or even shadow attacks that small, though admittedly the last one shouldn’t be as useful as they seemed to actually be, but she wasn’t going to ask about it to him.

Kirian could probably tell, but he was vague as always when explaining and she gained very little from that interaction.

It seemed rather unfair, really. Sure, she could directly overpower him, but so could over a third of the beasts he had already hunted, nevermind the colonies and swarm types which would have overwhelmed her as a magic knight, mostly due to sheer numbers, but she wasn't delusional enough to think herself invulnerable to the dirty tactics of goblins or the accumulation of poison in her body due to small wounds from bee warriors.

In fact, she had said as much to Aki before he went into his killing spree and he had agreed with her before getting a far off look in his face, eventually snapping out of it and proceeding to methodically eliminate every goblinoid in the small village that'd been reported.

There was even a young woman in this one, who they respectfully buried under an old tree as she'd chosen to not keep going. An experience that would have likely left her rather angry about how things went if she hadn't just seen how miserable the girl's tormentors had been moments before dying. As it stood the whole situation just left her raw. She seemed to be the only one, but it was hard to tell whether her new companion really didn’t care as he was the one doing most of the work and giving all of it a rather ceremonious air.

It did however fall to the only speaking member of their group to explain such an episode to the bereaved villagers that'd originally reported the goblins, which was even less fun.

….Anyways, their trip was proceeding well, but she couldn't help but feel that she was underperforming due to the simple fact that not only was her training going nowhere compared to her new companion and his own improvement, but no matter what she did, it seemed that Aki simply did not want to have anything to do with her outside of a strict business setting unless it looked like it'd become 'his problem' later on.

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Which was a first, not only because she was a princess but also his only social guarantor. She had no fantasies about their actual relationship or the possible interpretations of his contract though. Someone like him could very well seclude themselves on the wild and become some kind of unseen guardian to a remote region of the empire, it'd pretty much free him from his current drafted military position and was a sustainable state of affairs so long as he interfered in their favor in some way every so often.

Yet he was unable to sleep without casting a spell on himself every night, couldn't cook, was triggered by every little sound of the forest, blared with mana at all times to compensate for his lacking survival skills, couldn't track to save his life…

Considering the fact that he had yet to even attempt to run away despite any perceived chances, it was rather safe to say that Aki intended to follow her into civilization. And yet he didn't want to deepen their relationship or curry favor.

There were only a few explanations for this. The most plausible one being that he intended to fully commit to his hatred for the humans, directly joining the war efforts, and wasn't even thinking of the long term implications of any political moves he could make as of now.

She, at the very least, wasn't going to just let him go back to the front lines unprepared however. Nevermind that even now he was visibly getting stronger, there was no way that the news of his victory over the saints wouldn't have spread by the time he got there, so the moment he stepped foot in the battlefield he'd be marked for death and focused upon like fish before seagulls.

Rather, if this was how it was going to be then she knew what she had to do. They were only a day away from the next town, so she’d approach him there for a better atmosphere where Kirian wouldn’t interfere.

……………….

Aki was currently both rather sad and happy with his efforts.

The happiness came from the fact that after almost a month of working his emotions and magic, he was pretty much in top shape and had gained a lot of gold and experience by killing and harvesting so many monsters. So much so in fact, that he decided to take his new monster harvesting skill, gained through many failed attempts at taking materials and ingredients from his kills, and directly shove it up to level 10 with XP, something he had known could be done, but had avoided due to wanting to stock.

Doing so had directly granted him not only a talent point, but also a preternatural sense on how to best remove valuables from bodies that no longer needed then, with a minor sense of how they could be useful to ritual casting that he wasn’t too sure was correct or even expected. Whether or not this could help him disrobe the corpse of a humanoid was irrelevant, but he did like the new bonuses.

He’d even consider leveling more skills like this were it not for the fact that doing so slightly decreased his efficiency in feeding general XP to other skills. The explaining notification in question had been a surprise, but not completely unexpected, though luckily the efficiency could apparently not go any lower than 1%, Not that he believed there’d not be some further restriction when he reached such a point.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing that had him down.

[Race: Human/carbon based fae (Life level 0)]

Life level 0. Something that he had soon found out after he started battling the beasts and monsters on their way, was that nothing at level 10 and above had a life level of 0. Rather, plenty of goblin and hobgoblin infants had one digit levels but possessed higher life levels, so power was clearly not the only way to raise it.

Perhaps it was possible to cause some kind of pseudo-rebirth to reforge his body into a superior and custom made version, increasing his life level. Perhaps all he needed to do was to reach an arbitrary amount in some number in his stat screen and complete a quest and the system would evolve him without any such hassle.

Either way would need him to concentrate on grinding so as to grow stronger to even be able to contend for a chance at it. So he was slightly pissed at being summoned away from his spell experimentation, which he kept at despite them reaching a town. Despite his strong conviction of gaining a better trait, it wasn't like he could just slap together useful para-elemental spells on a whim, that kind of thing took time and failures to build up…

On the open porch of a far too humble hotel, there stood an image worthy of true divinity. Marble skin accenting rosy lips practically begging to be kissed, amethyst eyes revealing an entrance to the womb like depths of the abyss, and a perfectly sculpted nose and chin that united rosy cheeks, a lean neck and so much more that her offending garbs hid despite the somehow indecent amount of cleavage and skin that it's perch in her lean shoulders revealed. And there, in the hands of Princess Seramarvil'Thesamen, lay an apple.

She smiled at him, the afternoon sun failing to properly uphold her beauty despite it's best efforts, becoming him closer with her free hand as he happily obliged her whim.