I'm trying to catch up for the lost time as fast as I can while I still have some time off until I start my new job. So enjoy this slightly shorter chapter, typing 4k words every two days instead of a week can hurt my wrists hahaha.
To XaiGRS: I'm happy to confirm your request it's so great to be back. Because of your words there is a segment of Sylphy in this chapter. Hopefully I will pull a few more heartstrings.
To Uqihana: Glad to be back! Hopefully for many more chapters to come.
Edona's teaching methods were to the point but didn't delve beyond that. In other words she could only direct a person at a surface level, tell them what to do, and see them repeat the action. It was rather lousy because she didn't adapt to Eris's way of learning.
"You must do this." She would say to Eris while making an action only for Eris to trip over her feet, or widen her feet too much to be in a graceful looking stance.
"You must do that." Edona would point at Eris. What was more frustrating with the teacher in Rudeus's mind was that Edona continued down the same path of teaching even though she didn't see Eris improving, it was the very definition of insanity. If Rudeus had to make an analogy it would be Edona trying to hammer in a large wood screw into a piece of steel beams.
After the first day of watching Eris fail or having Rudeus thrown around the room Rudeus came to Edona.
"I might have a way to improve Eris when it comes to her balance. Some clans of the beast race used this technique to enhance their posture and form while going from tree branch to tree branch as they avoided the ground and the dangerous monsters below." Rudeus was of course making this statement up but it would allow Edona to agree with him instead of just rejecting the idea thinking it was coming from an cocky child.
"What method is that? It is true Eris's form is too broad and not graceful at all, she seems so solid going from one move to the next and not making it a fluid motion." Edona nodded, seemingly interested in what Rudeus had to propose.
"The method of teaching was called gymnastics, and the piece of equipment we will be using is called a balancing beam. Allow me to teach Eris one hour before your lessons begin and you shall see improvement, once her balance and form is engrained into her we will continue from there."
"Very well, I look forward to seeing if this works. Both our reputations as servants to the Boreas family depend on it." Edona dismissed herself with a bow in which Rudeus responded in kind.
The next morning Eris was called into the courtyard to find Rudeus standing next to a beam, a 2x4 with the short end facing up and the length was more than 10 feet long. It was also raised off of the ground by two support beams that were angled at a triangle to keep the beam level and maintain stability while a person tried to balance on the wooden surface.
"Good morning Eris." Rudeus said beaming at her.
"What is this Rudeus? Are you building something?" She asked with caution, she suspected Rudeus was going to assign her something to do.
"This is called a balancing beam, a clan of the beast race used this to get their children used to balance and posture in order to hop from tree to tree with ease. They were very deadly, I think that this exercise can help you with your dancing but more importantly with your sword fighting as well."
Her eyes gleamed with excitement at the prospect of improving her swordsmanship.
"Before we go on the beam we will practice balance."
"I thought this beam was supposed to help me with that."
"It is but these are warm ups first. I read allot on the forms that can we can perform to get you ready." Rudeus said smiling at her.
She looked at Rudeus and then back at the beam nodding hesitantly. Deep down Rudeus knew that Eris was worried about messing up in front of him but he patted her on the shoulder to reassure her that no matter what she did, he would be fine as long as he saw her try.
"Alright Rudeus, what's the first move."
Rudeus instead of saying anything he stood back and closed his eyes, he put both feet and hands together almost as if he was praying while standing up. Then he bent one leg at the knee lifting it off of the floor holding his leg upright in front of him with the right leg on the ground.
"Your eyes help you focus on your center of balance but when your eyes are closed your body has to compensate and pay attention to it's senses more." With that statement Rudeus tipped a little to his left but stretched out his arm on the opposing side to correct his center of gravity.
"This stance is called Heron, for beginners the duration should usually last between ten to twenty seconds. We will repeat this five times, after that we will move onto the other leg repeating the stance." Rudeus said, his eyes still closed.
Eris walked over to Rudeus, standing in front of him while she copied the stance. Closing her eyes she immediately noticed how unstable to world felt as she only stood on one foot. She only lasted five seconds the first time.
She tried to be as silent as possible on her fall so that way Rudeus wouldn't notice and he continued to keep his eyes shut. When she repeated the action she lasted six seconds this time. Once they were both done with the first set of the stance she averaged at about seven seconds.
"Now let's repeat the movement on the other side." Rudeus said taking in a deep breath and exhaling to relax himself. Eris repeated the action and then stance following the young boys lead.
Once they were both done they could do eleven seconds.
"Very good Eris! You have doubled your time!" Rudeus said clapping his hands together. She smirked up at him enjoying his praise.
"Now the next action will be on our tiptoes, both feet will be on the ground for this one while your hands are on your hips. The goal is twenty seconds." Rudeus said this while he showed her the movement.
When Eris repeated the action and closed her eyes she instantly fell forward. Since Rudeus also had his eyes closed he didn't notice the young girl falling towards him and he received a very harsh accidental headbutt to his nose causing blood to squirt everywhere. When he looked down he saw the young lady Eris had fallen into his arms as she laid above him while they were both on the ground.
'If this was a Love-Ru manga her panties would be in my face with her legs wrapped around my head.' Rudeus thought to himself, somehow that manga always defied physics while the main character in that manga cock blocked himself an infinite amount of times, Rito was a black belt in virginity.
Eris looked down at the boy while on top of Rudeus with blood pouring down his nose and he looked back up at her for a moment. In moments like this Rudeus was reminded about what made him fall in love with her in the first place, a real hard head with a soft side to her that would make any man faint. Before he could say anything to her she reached into a side pocket of her outfit and pulled out a small square towel that was used for wiping of sweat during their sword exercises.
"He…Here you go Rudeus, you're bleeding." She said while looking away from him embarrassed.
Rudeus felt his nose and noticed the blood at which he thanked her for the towel and wiped away the blood from his nose, healing the injury afterwards before any more blood came out. He was about to clean the towel with his magic to keep it from staining but Eris grabbed the towel and put the blood-soaked rag back into her pocket looking at him defiantly.
"Why does she want to keep a towel with my blood all over it?" Rudeus wondered. Shaking that thought from his mind they both got back up and continued to practice, Eris was extra careful not to fall on Rudeus this time, however it looked like she enjoyed the accident from before.
Once they were done standing on their tiptoes and working towards fifteen seconds they moved onto the third stance which Rudeus called Head Back. They would be on their toes in the same stance much like before but this time they would look up while arching their back. This one was one of the hardest moves to master and anytime they failed they had to put one of their feet back to stabilize, overtime Eris was able to get to ten seconds consistently.
"Alright and now the balancing beam."
"Finally." Eris sighed in relief, it would appear that the warm ups made her uncomfortable which made some sense considering that she was always cautious whenever her feet were not firmly planted into the ground. Ghislaine was to thank for engraining that into Eris.
Eris had the belief that as she put force against an object then that object would have a certain level of resistance that she would have to counter by pushing with her feet against the earth. Later on she would be able to change the resistance difficulty of an object using her touki but she didn't have the battle aura yet. For now if she didn't plant her feet then she could easily be tossed around if the enemy could keep up with her attacks. Now the circumstance was what to do when she couldn't firmly plant her feet on the ground but move with the flow like a leaf caught in a gentle breeze. Eventually her swordsmanship skills would be perfect both in balance and strength if she continued implementing the foundations of both talents into her craft. For her it would be a mix between sword and water god style. A truly terrifying opponent like a graceful lioness.
Eris got up on the beam and tried to walk forward but tilted to the side almost instantly, she corrected herself sticking out her hips, moving her legs, and stretching out the arms towards the other side of her body. It was a quick correction but she had to repeat the same correction on the other side. Ultimately after several clumsy mistakes she had to fall off, planting her feet on the ground. Without saying a word she got back on it.
Rudeus went on the other side of the beam and was allot better than Eris at his balance but he was having difficulty too after a while. Multiple trials and failures led way to improvement. If they continued this warm up and routine day after day Rudeus was positive that both of them could stay on the beam indefinitely. Once that point was reached they would move onto a steal circular rod instead of a wooden beam forcing them to develop a better balance but that would be in a few months at least well after the dance.
Once one hour was up they hopped off and got ready for dance lessons.
"Thank you Eris for letting me show this to you, I hope we can do this everyday and you have improved allot already." Rudeus said complimenting her. He wanted to pat her head so bad but that would only work on women like Sylphy or Roxy, if he tried that on Eris she would feel insecure, that she was somehow smaller compared to Rudeus which is why he didn't pat her head.
"You were better at balancing than me." Eris mumbled quietly, gripping her arm trying not to look directly at the boy.
She then felt something fall softly on the top of her head. Rudeus had given her a hand chop.
"Baka, you shouldn't compare yourself to me, the only person you should compete against is yourself and see if you've grown in the past year or not. Look at yourself! You are on your way to be an advanced swordswoman and you know silent spellcasting, it's a skill I only know only three other people have, one of them is a freaking world power! The Dragon God Orsted. The other two are me and my childhood friend. You are the fourth and you are amazing! Don't you ever think you are weak."
Eris looked at Rudeus stunned. It felt like she was being shunned for being strong and not realizing it. Rudeus removed his hand from the top of her head and walked forward towards the mansion where they would receive their dance instructions.
"Are you coming or not?" Rudeus said, this time it was his turn to fold his arms and smirk at the completely shocked Eris, he was copying her attitude. After a moment she composed herself.
"Yes!" She said excitedly as she walked alongside Rudeus.
The wind blew peacefully as Sylphy continued to look over her study notes. Rudeus was practically smuggling them to her where she would continue to read and practice. Every month she found a new book in the hiding spot that Hollow would deliver under Rudeus's and Sylphy's favorite tree which overlooked the countryside. They were research notes that both Paul and Zenith were completely unfamiliar with but they believed that it was from the Boreas family library or something like that.
"Let's see." Sylphy said going through the research notes. Rudeus had written in allot of his own input for Sylphy to look into and it made her blush that Rudeus was thinking so much about her and her education. Someday they would go to the university of magic together in the future, maybe even address their feelings towards each other there and spend the rest of their life together…
Sylphy shook her head as her fantasies went wild again so to remain focused she continued to read the book.
It was titled "Chemistry 101" A word that Sylphy was not familiar with but the book explained that chemistry was a branch of study that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed, matter being the building blocks that composed the world and the stars themselves. To Sylphy this seemed like a hard idea to grasp. But she would try her best to impress Rudeus.
She continued on to understand the fundamentals behind gas, liquid, and solids that they were states that the matter could form. From them they could form things like water or earth. She was more surprised to learn that fire and wind was not an element but a state of chemical reaction or temperature differences.
"This dramatically changes the way the world would perceive magic." She whispered. Then a letter fell out of the book from the binder.
She looked at the letter and found that it was addressed to her from Rudeus. Quickly opening it she examined the contents.
"To Sylphy. This book goes against the teachings of this world and how they view magic. I'm giving you this book to help you to grow but please do not share this knowledge with anyone outside of my family. This knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands and I am worried that dangerous people would seek to harm you if you challenged their way of life. I plan to introduce these lessons to the rest of the world in the future but that will be many years from now.
This gift is for you and you alone because I believe you have the strength and intelligence to use this book to your benefit. Use it to learn and grow, protecting those that can shape the world alongside you.
Until then, love Rudeus."
The note ended there and she looked back at the book. It was clear she could use this knowledge to protect people and at the same time use it to her benefit however what was more concerning was the danger she could be in. Namely the Millis Religion. If what this book said was true then it would heavily go against their religion and viewpoints about what magic actually was.
For now she would delve into the rabbit whole a little more, knowledge was power but power needed to be wielded by the strong and kind. Paul kept telling her that whenever they had sword practice together. After a few hours of studying she went to the Greyrat household, they had been kind enough to invite her for dinner.
When she entered the household she snuck upstairs into Rudeus's room and stuffed her face into his pillow, it still smelled like Rudeus even after years of being unslept on. When she was done she went back down to see Lilia cooking up beef stew while Aisha rested in her cradle.
"Good afternoon Sylphy, I have brought down several manuals as a maid on manners for Royalty should you every come across nobility, this information might come in handy so you don't offend them." Lilia said pointing to the table, a stack of papers lay in the nearest corner to the kitchen. Sylphy didn't really see herself dealing with nobles that much because of the condition of her hair however she didn't want to be rude to the maid for trying to educate her. So she skimmed through the notes.
Sylphy looked over to Aisha that was laying across the table from her while she still slept in the cradle, she liked the baby redhead the most so far in the family, Aisha was a very quick learner and was being treated equally in the family despite her holding the same family standing as a bastard son would. Sylphy read the notes about bastard sons when studying political standing and roles within nobility. She then asked a question she didn't mean to be sensitive to Lilia.
"What is a bastard son Lilia?" Sylphy looked at the maid innocently.
The maid stopped for a second, her eyes seemed to be completely frozen while her hands trembled. She then smiled, coming up with what she believed to be her best response.
"A bastard son, or bastard child, is a baby born out of wedlock between the lord of the house and another woman. Usually the bastard child can have no royal position or authority within the family, they are an outcast in their own home." Lilia looked over to her baby Aisha and picked her up, cradling the young babe in her arms.
"But Aisha isn't treated like that. Paul must be a very kind person to allow that." Sylphy said smiling down along with the maid at the baby, she reached forward and tickled the soft cheek of the child wrapped in fine linen, at the feeling the baby laughed from the sensation. Pure innocence radiated the atmosphere.
"No. It was Rudeus that made me promise to raise this child not as a maid or an outcast but as an equal in this family. I was initially planning on serving the Greyrat household for the rest of my life as payment for Zenith allowing me to stay, and Rudeus convincing her that that was the best option. After my life ended I wanted to transfer the debt onto this child. I thought of all this when the meeting was excused but Rudeus stayed by me until I ceased crying when I learned I could stay. He made me promise to not transfer the debt onto Aisha but to allow her a normal life, and he's right, the sins and punishments of a traitor should not be given to their children." Lilia whispered those last notes from her tender lips as rain started to trickle down… no… not rain, tears from a sorrowful mother onto her child.
Sylphy was going to comfort Lilia or at the very least try to stop her from crying, but Aisha seemed to sense her mothers pain and tightly grasped Lilia's thumb using her little hand. It was a sweet moment.
After Lilia was done crying she departed back to the kitchen, there was still allot of work in preparation for dinner. Zenith and Paul came in at that moment, turns out it really was raining outside and they had made it back just in time, evading the downpour.
"Paul sir, what do you think about your son?" Sylphy asked. She wanted to know more about who Rudeus was when it wasn't just the two of them. Rudeus was always kind to Sylphy but she wanted to know if he was good with family as well.
"Well…." Paul said scratching the back of his head. "He is very smart and understanding. I think he get's that from his mother." The compliment was clearly an attempt to earn him brownie points and get Zenith to open her legs tonight but Paul didn't even need to earn that, the married pair was horny on a nightly basis.
"But more than that, if I'm being honest, I always feel small around him. I hate to admit it but I wanted to take this feeling off of my chest for a while now. Rudy has bested me in knowledge, swordsmanship, hell even morals as far as I can tell."
"Don't you think you should focus less on comparing yourself to him and more on supporting him?" Sylphy asked.
"Why do you say that Sylphy?" Zenith interjected while hugging her husbands arm.
"Rudi once told me the most powerful people in the world can be the loneliest. I don't want to claim Rudeus is the most powerful person in the world but he is strong. I think even he might be lonely sometimes and it is our job to support him, its your job as a father, and it's my job as his friend." Sylphy said beaming. Little did she know Rudeus was referring to a certain Dragon God, but this case also applied to the young mage as well.
"Promise me you will come to Rudeus's 10th birthday." Sylphy said pointing directly at Paul.
'How many children in my life are going to talk down to me!?' Paul thought to himself chuckling, shaking his head. Still she was right. No matter how outstanding Rudeus was he still had needs and wants like the rest of them and it was his duty as a father to address them.
"I will need to talk to your father to see if he can manage hunting monsters without me while we go to Roa. And Sylphy….." Paul began.
"Yes sir?" She asked.
"You do know that this family has no problem with your hair color being green, you are not a Superd, but the people in the city might be worried or scared of you." Paul then began to propose that they somehow paint or dye Sylphy's hair but the young girl rejected the idea.
"The only opinion I care about is Rudeus's. As long as he is fine with my hair color, I am fine." Sylphy said bravely, it would seem she had truly accepted who she was.
Paul leaned back in his chair looking up at the ceiling. 'Kids these days.'
Instantly after that there was a knock at the door. Zenith opened it to see the tall figure of Hollow as he stood outside.
"Good afternoon everyone." Hollow said smiling. It was a creepy smile no matter how nice he tried to look.
"Hello Hollow." Zenith said trying to put on a friendly smile. The creature was protective of them and it continued to do work that aided the family in remaining safe from outside forces so the least the family could do was try to be nice to the monster.
"I have an update from Rudeus and Philip. They took Philips butler Narum to trial in the capital of Ars for kidnapping Eris and Rudeus, using this trial to their advantage they exposed Darius for his crimes, he is not in jail but his movements will be severely constricted from now on, your family is safe. Right now no one in politics trusts him after he blackmailed everyone to let him go free, but more so in the fact of his sexual preferences.
Not only that Rudeus was able to talk to your brother." Hollow said looking at Paul. "Philemon is willing to catch up with you and amend brotherly relations, at the pressure from Rudeus. More than that there are no more hostilities between the Notos and the Boreas branches."
And once again Paul felt baffled by his sons actions, he had no idea his son had a knack for politics, Paul stayed the hell away from the subject as much as possible only wanting a simple life of adventuring. Yet Rudeus had accomplished what most in the political career would take years to accomplish.
"Thank you Hollow for the news, is there anything else you needed to mention?" Paul said, the information was allot to process, ultimately his son was the one doing the protecting for this family, he felt like a failure as a father.
"Yes there is one more thing." Hollow said.
"And that would be?"
Hollow then walked over to Paul towering over the man, the creature grabbed both of the mans shoulders lifting him off of the chair completely. Zenith was about to interject in an effort to protect her husband but Hollow hugged the swordsman tightly.
"Rudeus said he can't wait to see you at his birthday party two years from now. He loves you and Zenith very much, along with Lilia and the rest of the children, he is really looking forward to seeing how his sisters have grown up so much. Rudeus told me to do this in his absence." Hollow patted the mans back and then put the man down, once that was done he went over to Sylphy.
Unlike the rest of them she showed no hostility or concern towards the creature. She knew what it was like to be judged just because of how someone looked. Hollow outstretched his boney hand and patted the young girl on the head.
"Rudeus told me to do that too." The creature chuckled, then he stood up and departed from the household. Before he left the monster said one last thing. "I will be taking care of the local monsters for the month of Rudeus's 10th birthday so don't worry about the village, it will be under my protection. All you need to worry about is making it to Roa safely." And with that the creature flew off into the night.
The family didn't know it but up in the sky was Rudeus sitting on a cloud of condensed air and water. Slurping some noodles he began to sing along with the song that was playing on his dvd player he summoned.
"And the cat's in the cradle and silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon, when you coming home dad? I don't know when. But we'll get together then, you know we will have a good time then." The song faded, dying down but Rudeus repeated the last line, whispering it trying to hold back tears. "You know we will have a good time then."
Putting away the ramen and dvd player he flew off back to Roa.
In his first reincarnation when Paul died he had felt so empty, it was Rudeus's fault that Paul died to that Labyrinth boss, the Hydra. For days Rudeus didn't eat much at all, he just woke up depressed and went back to sleep depressed, in the end he was weak, not strong enough to move on. And then Roxy saved him a second time in his life, he would have to thank her.
He wanted to visit her so much, hell he even set up a underground base outside of the city she was occupying with a teleportation circle and everything. But at the end of the day he was too shy to see her until the timing was right. For now he didn't have a good excuse to suddenly pop up and say hello out of nowhere to her, he needed a good reason to visit the blue haired beauty. Once the teleportation incident was taken care of Rudeus would go on vacation to visit her, yeah, that would be nice to catch up with her.
In the mean time there was still allot of work to do, but tomorrow was an exception.
Today was the weekend and a day of rest for Eris. Rudeus decided to go into the city to have a nice pleasant walk, but what he didn't expect to see was Eris and Ghislaine at the door.
"Where do you think you are going?" Eris asked like a lioness that just caught her cub trying to sneak away from her
Then Rudeus remembered during his first reincarnation that this exact thing happened before when Eris wanted to visit the city. She simply used the boy as an excuse to spend time with him.
"Roa marketplace, I would like to sightsee a little bit."
"You are going to sightsee? So you planned on going alone hmmm!?" She gave him an interrogating eye like he had done something bad.
'I want my lawyer officer Eris, Sheriff Ghislaine please get this bad cop off of my back. I didn't do anything unlawful honest.' Rudeus pleaded within his own inner thoughts.
"Do you see anyone else?" Rudeus chose to talk back to the young lady a little bit.
"You're too mean, I have never gone out alone before, why should you get the luxury to go alone?"
"You are someone far more precious than myself. If I am on the streets I am like a piece of garbage, if you are on the streets you are like a shining Ruby, people from every corner would want to snatch you up and keep you to themselves." What Rudeus said was the truth if not a little flattering, in terms of political standing Eris was far more valuable and anyone that had the balls to go against the Boreas family could easily snatch the young lady if she was alone so long as they had a few experienced warriors, keeping her contained was a much harder thing though.
Once she became a sword king she could go wherever she wanted to with only a handful of people in the world being a challenge for her. But for now, she still had allot of experience and strength to obtain.
Rudeus quickly earned himself a hand chop to the head which was no-where near as soft as the one he had given her the day before. He was surprised his head didn't split in two.
"You are far more valuable that you believe yourself to be Rudeus. Take me too!" She said folding her arms in her traditional stance.
"Then, let's move out. I take it you will be accompanying us too Ghislaine?" Rudeus said rubbing the top of his now incredibly swore forehead looking at the sword king.
"Yes, my duty is to protect Eris."
Rudeus sighed, it would seem Ghislaine still doesn't understand the concept of relaxing for a day or two, such a shame. People really needed to take it easy now and again in this world.
"Wait a minute for me to get ready." Eris said running off screaming for the head butler Alphonse.
While Rudeus and Ghislaine were alone for the moment the two of them looked at each other. To Rudeus she was still a towering giant of a woman, almost two meters tall and full of muscle. He remembered that even when he was a fully fledged adult she still stood taller than him. Maybe he could change his height with alteration magic to match hers. Rudeus could get carried away with that level of change though, like those horrific plastic surgery cases in Hollywood where women take things too far in the image as to what they perceive as beautiful. If Eris became an adult and was taller than Rudeus he probably would have wanted to change his height a little bit but they were both equal when it came to height. Men were insecure about height back on earth after all viewing one point nine meters as the perfect medium between tall and too tall, a perfect model height.
Here in this world height wasn't viewed as critically as it was on earth. Since there were so many intelligent species it made a comparison of height equivalent to discrimination or racism like calling a short human a dwarf or a small elf an imp.
Rudeus looked back up at Ghislaine, the beast woman didn't seem to have anything to talk about right now and he didn't mind that. Sometimes it was nice having a little peace and quiet between friends. He also had no doubt that if Ghislaine inquired into Rudeus's research projects Rudeus would go over nerdy level 9000 and just confuse the beast woman, he wouldn't be able to help himself when it came to his passions. Speaking of passions he did have one thing to talk about with the beast woman.
"Your statues are selling very well, thank you for being such an incredible model." It was an awkward attempt to start conversation but the silence was getting to Rudeus.
"Yes I saw your work it was quite incredible, you got the proportions right and everything. I wanted to ask you something though. You are making more money with the statue's compared to teaching Eris right?" Ghislaine asked. It seemed she was trying to get to the root of why Rudeus was teaching the young lady, he had the option to leave if he wanted to.
"Yes, you are right, I do make allot more. I'm almost at four gold coins a month now." Rudeus said looking down.
"Then why do you continue?" Ghislaine was really pressing the point and Rudeus had to come up with a good reason otherwise she would see right through a lie using her sense of smell.
"Because…. Because I like Eris okay." Rudeus said confessing to the woman.
"Oooh?" All of a sudden the beast woman turned into someone like a older teasing sister because her brother had a crush on the top high school cheerleader.
'Oni-chan? Don't tell me you are in love with cheerleader Eris? She is the alpha of the females in the school! You don't possibly stand a chance against her bwahahaha baka.' The imaginary sister Ghislaine said slapping her younger brother Rudeus across the back several times while laughing.
Outside of Rudeus weird imagination all he felt was utter embarrassment. He more than liked Eris, he loved her and he was falling for her all over again just like he did with Roxy and Sylphy in this timeline. Still he had to keep that to himself for now.
Just before Ghislaine can say another word Eris comes into view from around a corner. She was dressed relatively fancy, with a nicely trimmed Victorian style bonnet of black and white with draped edges to give the indication that it was expensive, it framed her cute face well and kept the sun out of her eyes.
She wore a coat that went down halfway, with a fur lining around the neck along with gold lines in an otherwise dark red color that complimented her hair and eyes. Other than that it was her usual attire underneath but with a slightly longer skirt. Since it was the fall the temperature was gradually dropping which allowed for more options of attire.
The final piece was a red rose that hooked the coat together at the neck. It was very evident that she had taken a bit of time to go through judging the look and appeal of the dress, Alphonse probably had a headache to put all the clothes she tore through in order to match her requests. That being said Eris wasn't really known to have much of a fashion sense to begin with, but at least in this case it was clear she wanted to feel special.
"There is a saying that fine feather make a fine bird." Rudeus said outload. Any attempt at poetry or even a compliment that wasn't direct flew right over both Eris's and Ghislaine's heads. When both of them cocked their heads to the side in confusion Rudeus was forced to give detail to his compliment.
"You are wearing very fine clothes which makes you look pretty Eris." Rudeus explained.
She blushed for a second and turned around swiftly to avoid looking at the boy.
"….Let's get going." She mumbled, still in a state of embarrassment at the boys compliments.
The marketplace was particularly bustling this time of year as it was the last opportunity for people to stock up on food before the winter time. The rice that Rudeus had helped grow along with Philips aid was added into the market place and was selling abundantly well. It was marketed to the people that it had a long shelf life and was a very filling meal so naturally the people in the city alongside many villages in the surrounding countryside bought the rice, the average was one bag per household.
As Rudeus explored he said hello to the trader he had regularly given his sculptures to for distribution and income. After handing the trader the next batch of dolls he had created he continued to explore.
In particular he was eying the aphrodisiac that was worth ten gold pieces, which was two and a half months of doll selling that Rudeus had saved up for. This aphrodisiac was an incredible rarity after the teleportation incident. The recipe for making the pink liquid was destroyed and the people who new how to make it were apart of the casualties from the catastrophe. Rudeus handed ten gold coins to the seller and he seemed surprised when a small child handed the man the equivalent of ten thousand U.S dollars but he wasn't complaining as he could now feed his family with the money. Rudeus quickly stored the wooden case containing his bottle into the messenger bag he carried with him. He didn't want Eris to enquire about what an aphrodisiac was and he certainly didn't want to accidentally brake it like last time. He would store it for safe keeping at his Ars base for the time being.
All of a sudden, a bright flash whirled around him, the sound it made was like a loud static as the world became blurry only to reform like nothing was untouched in the first place. There was a difference though. All of the noise from the marketplace was gone, there wasn't even the chirping of birds, just a dead silence.
"Hmmm, so you are Rudeus huh, the one he is so interested in?" A female voice said behind him.
Rudeus jumped and the bottle flew out of the bag, falling harshly against the cobblestone.
"NOOO my aphrodisiac!" Rudeus cried out opening up the case to find the bottle was poring out its contents
He then looked around to find the streets were completely empty, there was no one around at all. The only person that stood in front of him was a woman with black hair cut to shoulder length, red scarlet lips with azure blue eyes. She had a white button up shirt with black collar and cuffs. She had a pendant around her neck, it was a bird pointed down. Other than that she just had a long black skirt on and black high heels.
One thing was clear to Rudeus, she didn't belong to this world, the language she spoke was English.
What do you guys think? Review and comment and I will see you all soon.