"Bleu."

"Blue."

"Vert."

"Vert? Is that a color like blue? Like what? "

"C’est une couleur… It’s color. "

Nia proceeded to point at the grass, almost falling off of Heon’s back.

"I see, You mean green, right?"

"Yes."

I journeyed further south, stranding beside me with Heon and Nia on her back,

Two weeks passed. Through this kind of process, Nia and I were regularly trying to understand each other's languages.

I wouldn't say it was fast-paced, but I wouldn't say it was slow-paced either.

After all, we've reached a level of understanding where we can, well, hold the same level of conversation as I held with a certain little girl.

There are some words which don't seem to have changed, or at least not so much throughout all those years separating the time she was still awake and today, like "bleu" and "bonjour," which have simply morphed into "blue" and "bonjour."

"Périple."

"Périple? Is that also a color? "

"No, périple means... humm... humm!"

"What are you doing? No need to force yourself. If it doesn’t-

"I know! Adventure, same as this, this is périple. Walking, discovering things. Voyager, seeing new things. "

"I’m not sure, but this sounds very similar to what I suppose would be a journey. I mean, you get from one place to another, discover unexpected things, fight unexpected monsters, is that what you meant? "

"Yes! Papa said we’re going on a journey, just Papa and I. "

"He did?"

"Yes,

While walking, and discussing with Nia, I also trained myself to reproduce the man bubble attacks. In theory, that attack should’ve been similar to my F.a.B intensity and power, so here I was trying to reproduce what he did against us. To be exact, what I was training myself to do was to spam attack like he did.

I don’t have space magic, so I couldn’t create a bubble compressing space like he did, but what I could do was control Aina.

To avoid things going south, I first trained with small bubbles with no destructive power behind them, just training to imitate the property of their bubble through aina while respecting reasonable security. After all, I’d rather avoid further injuries after that fight.

To produce its powerful effects, my F.a.B. combines three elements: the creation of a highly concentrated lightning tornado, instantaneous compression, and powerful unleashing toward a specific target.

When released, my F.A.B isn’t that different from his E.o.E. Both release a powerful blast. The only difference between our attacks would be how our blasts take form. Mine, because of how it is released, rampages in a straight line, whereas his spreads equally in all four directions, implying that mine is more concentrated while his is focused on the scattering of the blast, and it is primarily because of this that we are still alive and safe.

At first, I wanted to improve with my attack’s speed processing for it was its greatest weakness, but since I had yet to find out how to speed up my attack processing, I instead decided to focus on learning to spam my F.A.B.

I couldn’t help but let out a loud sigh. I knew what I wanted, but had no idea of what to do to achieve it, so I was trying things randomly.

"This isn’t it yet."

I created two bubbles the size of an adult head, which I then from within infused with winds that spun progressively to an extremely rapid speed.

Aina wielding, to my understanding, is the art of shaping things, or at least that's how it feels to me. Unlike magic, which is used to create and produce things, it allows one to master shapes, thus enhancing, hardening, and altering them. The logic behind the nature of the bubble I created is the same as the matter, allowing me to make something non-solid solid. It is made of the same material that comes coating aina-users when they enhance themselves. So the outer skin of this bubble was literally an incorporeal membrane computed through aina.

Within one of the bubbles, I turned the wind clockwise, while within the other, I turned it counter-clockwise.

I didn’t plan to make anything dangerous out of this, but the two bubbles had already, with the winds spinning within them, reached a dangerous state.

I wanted to try adding another wind turning in the opposite direction within one of the bubbles, all while maintaining the other bubble completely stable, but I knew that this could easily go south, and with Nia and Heon, I immediately put the idea down.

just as I was decelerating the speed at which the wind within the two bubbles was spinning. From behind us, I heard a sharp cry, along with several wings flapping.

In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even mind these kinds of wing flappings, but with Nia around, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

"Huh?"

It undoubtedly belonged to dragons, two small dragons chasing after a smaller wyvern-like one barely big enough to be considered a dragon. They were even, I could tell, spitting fire at it.

The monsters soon passed above us without minding us, which was, in my opinion, a very wise move on their part. Nobody bothers each other. No lizard dies in a horrible way.

Just as I thought of forgetting about these dragons and going back to minding my own business, I heard Nia.

"Hey, Hôn, help it!"

"What?"

"Le dragon, sauve le!"

From afar, I heard the sound of the smaller dragon falling from the sky with yet another sharp cry and crashing heavily on the ground.

"You want me to save that dragon?"

"Yes! Quick!"

"Sorry, but I don’t meddle in dragons' affairs. It would be- hey!"

She had already jumped off of Heon’s back and was proceeding to run toward the fighting dragon.

"Hey, what are you doing?

Still charging at the dragons, I didn’t even receive an answer, but rather just a "Humph!" *

She was running, but it wasn’t particularly fast, so,"Please be reasonable."

"She’s angry, so what are you going to do, Hon?"

"... I guess, I have no other choice. Heon! "

"Hey!"

Grabbing her by the collar, I threw her backward, and she was immediately caught in midair by Heon.

"Fine, I’ll take care of these dragons."

The dragons in question were on the ground, even the true dragon. They had landed on the ground and were mauling the small wyvern-like one who was desperately fighting back.

"That’s a tough little lizard that we have here."

"Quite commendable given the size disparity between the two different dragons."

The wyvern-like dragon was the size of a small horse, while the two true dragons, which I believe were quite young, were the size of a medium-sized house.

Needless to say, these two were literally just cannon fodder for me, but they would make perfect subject tests for my bubble.

I reduced the bubble to the size of a fist and kept it tightly compressed while increasing the pressure produced by the ever-ending spinning wind within the bubble, but there was one big difference: this time I added both bubbles and the other wind spin at completely opposite directions, naturally, just like with my F.a.B. The bubble immediately began to become densely teemed with tightly compressed and thus hyper concentrated lightning bolts.

They seemed to have noticed what I was up to, so before I unleashed my attacks, they started to fly away in two opposite directions, leaving their prey on the ground, but it was too late to run away.

The sound was similar to a hundred thunderbolts unleashed simultaneously. The two dragons were blasted away from the wyvern-like one, who seemed, though not immediately killed, to be still knocked up by my attack. After all, these three weren’t so far away from each other.

One of the dragons died on the spot, while the other seemed to have somehow survived the attack. That being said, it was still heavily injured and dying anyway.

I approached the dragon to put an end to its misery, but then something appeared that took me slightly aback.

A sly-blue spherical barrier appeared out of nowhere to protect the dragon.

It was similar to the one we saw, but it couldn’t be made by that person anymore since he was no longer in this world, leaving us with only one possibility.

I knew she could already use magic, but the only thing she has displayed with that magic so far was creating small bubbles.

I mean, she was Solomon’s daughter, that monster daughter, so, one day, I knew she, with time, would also be capable of using that power to an extent similar to his, if not superior to his.

After having learned a bit about her father's story, we come to realize that that man's magic, Solomon's magic, wasn't space magic. Nia herself doesn't seem to know how it works, but his magic has more to do with sealing a space within a spherical container, over which he has almost complete control and which also always takes the form of a sphere. It was a strange magic, but once you realize the infinite possibilities of its use, you realize how monstrous that magic really is.

He was, as he did with Nia, capable of stopping the influence of time in a confined space. He was able to freely teleport within his barrier and create and spam that super powerful attack of his.

Who knows what else he could do with his magic? I could only imagine. The possibilities are endless.

Right in front of me, shielding the injured dragon, was just a small barrier. I have never seen Solomon directly using his barrier in this way to make a comparison, but still, this barrier; coming from a debutant, isn't that bad at all.

"Nia, what-"

She somehow was no longer with Heon but rather at my side, kicking at my feet like a spoiled child, "Why do you do that?!"

"Why did I do what?"

"Why hurt the dragons?!"

"Huh? Isn’t this what you asked."

"I say to save the dragon, not to hurt dragons…" She then proceeded to say words which I believed were mean words, while also continuing to kick my legs.

"It seems there was a malentendu."

"It seems."

"I think what she wanted you to do was to scare away the dragons, and nothing else."

She should’ve said it clearly then. How was I supposed to know?

Fair enough, but in any case, it’s too late already.

"Nia, sorry. My bad, I didn’t understand what you meant... but the dragon, is dying already. " Still kicking me obstinately, she stopped after hearing my words,

Pitiful shrieks could be heard from the dragon that had survived.

One of the dragons was completely carbonized by the attack, while the other was, well, also carbonized on an important part of its body, making it impossible for it to even try to fly away. All it could do was bear the pain and remain still, limply on the ground.

It was too far gone.

"Don’t you think it would be better if I ended its suffering already." She glanced toward the dragon but immediately averted her eyes to the quite gory sight, "so can, you remove that barrier of yours."

She herself didn’t seem to know how she did it, so when asked to deactivate her barrier, she had to make numerous attempts before finally being able to do it.

I retrieved Nia’s father’s sword and approached the dying beast, Nia, on the other hand, withdrew in the background, not bearing to watch what I was about to do.

What a shame, I had nothing against that dragon, but because of that simple misunderstanding, this creature's life has to end here. I was partly at fault for wanting to try my experiment on them, but regardless, what a shame.

"Nia, come here."

"..." She completely shunned me.

Sigh.

"I guess I have no other choice, Heon."

"Hey, Heon, what are you doing? Leave me alone! "

As if understanding what I meant, she was brought and dropped at my side by Heon.

"Nia, listen close, and observe well, that dragon is dying and that is our fault, I won’t deny that, which is why, as those who brought this fate upon it, we must at least not dishonor its death by looking away, so don’t avert your eyes."

It seems that she understood what I said, since, though reluctantly, she fixated on the dragon.

Let’s just hope that this won’t traumatize her.

With that, I swung the blade at its head, severing the dragon's head clean. Blood was gushing out, squirting in every corner.

"You did well Nia, I’m sur- Nia?"

With a thud, something fell flat on the ground.

It seemed someone couldn’t handle the sight and completely passed out.

***

Later in the night, I was sitting next to the bonfire we started, as always, training myself with aina control.

With one of our travelers unconscious, we couldn’t advance, so we instead decided to make a bonfire, not so far away from the place where I killed the dragon.

From not so far away, I could hear the noise of two loud mastication and flesh-tearing noises, one very familiar, and the other not so familiar.

"Maybe it was too much,"

"What?"

"Forcing her to behold my beheading action."

"I don’t know, you tell me."

"Do you think she would’ve understood without that?"

"Well, I do believe that the message, whatever it was, came across, rather violently. But on the other hand, I don’t think there is anything bad about enjoying this journey, but one needs to look at things with a realistic gaze. Monsters kill to eat, to get stronger, and so are we, I think what happened this morning gave her a glimpse at the realistic side of this journey. Her father won’t be here for her forever; it isn’t like I would also be there. If she wants to go to the human continent on her own, as you proposed to her, she has to learn how to survive on her own. "

"I see. That’s a decent way to approach things. "

"Yeah, but I'm done talking about this."

"Okay... Anyway, Han, that day you said you had a way to mimic one of Solomon's techniques, don’t you think it’s time to talk about it.``

"Ah, that well, for a time, I thought about giving up on the idea, but after what I’ve seen today, I think it is still feasible."

"So what is it?"

"Ahahaha, you don’t need to know yet, I’ll tell you when it's ready."

"Is that so?"

"Yes... So how is it going? What you’re doing."

"Well, I won’t say it is advancing at the pace I expected it would, but it is advancing."

"Slowly but steadily."

"Yes."

From Nia, I heard a sound. It seemed she was waking up.

As expected, the first thing she noticed upon waking up was the two loud mastications and flesh tearing from earlier.

Those noises came from Heon and the wyvern-like little dragon, shamelessly scavenging the corpses of the two true dragons, which were phenomenally big, especially for a small-sized wyvern like him.

He's got guts, I’ll give him that.

She sat in silence in her corner, clearly avoiding eye contact with me or even starting a discussion.

"Are you still blaming me for what I did?" I asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she simply shook her head.

With that, a long silence took place. To put an end to it, I stood up, grabbed some cooked meat from the dragon and brought it to her.

"Nia, … let it go. That’s how it is, around here. The big eat the small, and the strong prey on the weak. Today, I was strong. They lacked the strength to protect themselves, which is why I was able to take away their lives so easily. "

I held out the cooked dragon’s meat to her.

"If you want to protect every flying lizard starting from today, feel free to do so, but do it yourself. I’m not involved in this anymore. But let me tell you something. To do so, if you want to do that grotesque thing over there, "as if recognizing itself being pointed at, the dragon let out a snake-like hiss," you’ll need strength, and trust me strength, is something you acquire from others, whether they are weaker or stronger than you, so eat. You don't want that poor creature's meat to go to waste, don’t you? "

Though with reluctance and teary eyes, she accepted the meat I offered her and gnashed on it.

"From tomorrow, we will do what I should’ve done sooner. I will teach you how to fight and how to survive. You will train yourself with your magic and Aina. "

Did I do it right?

I don’t know, I felt like bullying, with what I did earlier, but didn’t particularly feel bad about it, I felt like educating someone with common sense.

The only thing that bothered me about the situation was how I was supposed to "educate" her.

As some sort of big brother? teacher?

I couldn’t tell. I took her in, but I still have zero clue in what direction I should be interacting with her.

"Hey, Hon?"

"Hum?"

"Wanna hear my thoughts?"

"Please."

"Just stop wasting your time thinking about it and remember the reason you took her in. Because you thought she wouldn’t survive on her own around here. Isn’t it? "

"Yes."

"Or is there another reason besides that one?"

"There is none."

"Then, stop overthinking. She’s lucky to not have a DeathSeeker on her ass the moment she wakes up. Just do whatever you think you need to do and let whatever happens happen. At this point, this isn't advice, but an order. Understood?!"

"Yessir."