"You should have let him die for not listening to you." A man says to Aqua and Wolbach.
Kazuma quickly turns but he doesn't see anyone and his enemy detection skill isn't alerting him of any danger, he looks up but doesn't see anyone, he continues to look around but only finds one of the dogs looking at him.
"Were you the one that said that?" he asks the dog.
'Of course, I did, and I'll say it again you should have let him die." the dog answers him.
Kazuma can only watch as the animal walks up to him before it uses its front leg to tap him on his left leg.
"You and your women smell of the old days, days that only a few of us remember."
"So why are you acting as if you don't know how things are done?" the dog says to him.
"World walk." Wolbach immediately answers the dog who quickly turns and looks at her with wide eyes.
"Impossible, the gods are gone, the soul king is nothing more than a shell, and the few worlds that make contact are nothing more than wastelands." the dog says to Wolbach before it turns and glares at Kazuma.
"But that would explain him and it would explain the three of you. I have to tell the elder." he says to himself before it looks up and stares into Kazumas eyes.
"Boy do you know what's the difference between the power that you just used and spiritual energy?" the dog asks Kazuma but Kazuma doesn't answer.
"Let me guess you had abilities before you came here and you were able to easily use spiritual energy." the dog says to Kazuma and Kazuma just nods.
"That's not normal it takes years of training or days of hellish training to get a person to both be able to sense spiritual energy and control it."
"Your experience with those other abilities granted you the skills and mental training that you needed to use spiritual energy."
"That power you just used needed something completely different, it needed Will."
"You needed the will to not only use it but maintain it. Now, look at you."
The dog begins to grow in size until it towers over both Kazuma and Aqua its gold eyes look deep into Kazumas eyes before it both growls and at the same time asks him a simple yet hard question.
"How long have you been digging?"
Kazuma can't help but turn to look at the building, the wall that surrounds it, and the field that he had to dig out with his bare hands, there was no way that he could have ever dug it out in a few days.
"Three days outside fifteen years inside." the giant dog grows at him.
"I was watching you from the moment you first put your hands into the dirt to the moment that you were rewarded for your hard work and I don't like you."
"You don't deserve these women, you don't deserve your pack, you don't deserve your family."
"You stand at the edge of the land of beasts."
The giant dog begins to move its head closer to Kazuma and while it is a scary sight, none of Kazuma's skills are activating, so he knows that the monster isn't a threat.
"I can see it in your eyes, your feelings of betrayal."
"You can't even wrap your head around the fact that they are trying to keep you alive, you can only think about the pain that you experienced and the time that you spent here."
"Kazuma I challenge you for your women and your children"
"When I return, I'll kill you and present them to the elder and they will become mine."
The giant dog turns and walks away, Kazuma can't help but watch it leave silently, but at the same time, he's still having trouble understanding that he has spent years digging with his bare hands and he can't remember any of it.
He feels Aqua's grip tighten around him and he just smiles as he looks at Aqua's blue hair he knows what he has to do, he slowly lifts his hand and pats her on the head.
"At least I was doing something, I mean it's better than being locked inside my room." he says to her.
He can feel his anger and resentment leave him, fifteen years are nothing compared to the weight that he felt back on his earth, back when he locked himself inside his room and was always alone.
Aqua slowly lifts her head and they both smile at each other.
"Alright Wolbach, I already did this long let's see what you got planned for me." he says to Wolbach who's looking at him and Aqua with eyes that are filled with envy.
"No." Wolbach says to him as she undoes the barrier that she created.
'We said that we would train you, not that we would immediately switch places."
"Now let's go home so we can bring everyone and show them what you found." Wolbach says to him as she walks away.
"Let's go." he says to Aqua who just nods at him before she finally let's go.
As the three of them walk back to the house they fail to notice that someone in the distance is writing down everything that just happened.
][][][
Yuki was in a good mood lady Eris had been teaching him and everyone else how to use the talismans to fight or just use them for everyday things.
Unlike Shino who was always good with Kido, he wasn't good at all, and now his day had gotten even better Kazuma had just come back from wherever he and his two spirits had gone to train and were now taking everyone somewhere.
He would have normally felt worried about leaving the safety of the Rukongai because the further one got from it the more dangerous things one ran into.
He smiled at that, how could he be worried about leaving the rukongai behind when all of them were living outside of it this entire time?
Out of pure instinct, he and the rest of the kids including Shino stopped walking when they saw what Kazuma wanted to show them, it was a palace.
The palace was made of some sort of white stone that glittered when the sun's light touched it, it was surrounded by a white wall that must have been made of the same stone because it was glittering too.
He couldn't help but say wow along with everyone as lady Eris began to lead them towards the massive building.
He couldn't help but feel tiny as he approached the massive building, each pillar was so thick that if he and the kids played hide and seek near the entrance they could spend all day just using the pillars to hide.
As they entered the massive building he couldn't believe just how small he felt, if he had to compare himself to something he would say that he was an ant because of big everything around him was.
While they walked deeper into the palace Miss Wolbach used her fire abilities to create spheres of light so they could see what was inside and didn't have to walk in the dark.
'This room's mine!" Aqua declares as orbs of blue light fly out of her sleeves along with banners and carpets that cover the walls and floor of the giant room.
The group walks a little further down and Lady Eris says "I'll take this one" before she begins to spin and just like Aqua banners, lights and carpets fly out of her sleeves.
As they neared the other end of the palace Miss Wolbach announces that she will take the last room and again the same thing happens as before, now that everyone managed to walk outside again they found themselves stepping into a giant field but it was empty and it was covered in mud.
"Ready!" Aqua says before Lady Eris and Miss Wolbach say "Ready!"
Yuki can't help but feel like something is wrong because the three women are covering the white walls surrounding the yard with green banners, and there's only one person among them who uses the color green.
That was the reason that he didn't know how to feel about Kazumas colors being outside because it meant that Kazuma didn't have a room his place was outside.