With a light flick of his blade, Kanin flings off the blood stuck to his sword. Letting out a tired sigh, Kanin looks over at Sadari to see her laughing wildly at an orc as it madly swings at her nimble form. Each miss seemed to only make the orc even angrier.
"Oh! You almost got me that time big guy, just a little more you got this!" She shouted up at the orc as she duck and weaved throughout the foggy 11th floor.
A sly glint appeared in her eyes after she ran by a particular root. "Ahhhh! Oh no! I fell!" Sadari yells in "fear" as she "tripped". The orc seeing his prey now vulnerable, charges in like a bull. Wanting nothing more than to kill this annoying elf. Because of this blind charge, the orc didn't see the root sticking out and tripped over it.
Seeing this Sadari's scared face twists up into an impish smile. *Splurt!* Because The orc fell face first directly onto an extra pointy rock, splitting it's skull wide open and instantly killing it. Getting up Sadari pats off the dust on her legs and smiles apologetically at the orcs corpse. "Oops, sorry big guy! Maybe next time."
Kanin walks over while shaking his head, "I can never understand you sometimes." He walked up to the still warm orc's body and began to carve out its magic core.
Sadari walks over with a cute pout on her face, like she didn't just cause an orc to trip and kill itself on a rock. "Oh come onnnn! I was just having a little fun?"
Ripping out the magic core, the orc's body starts to turn to ash. Kanin looks over at Sadari flatly, "Your definition of 'fun' and mine are much different". He stands up while sliding the core into a pouch on his back left hip.
"Says the guy that doesn't even know how to have fun…" Sadari mutters out while crossing her arms over her now above average chest.
Kanin freezes for a second then shrugs, "Touche. Anyway wanna head back up now? I'm getting slightly tired and I don't want to push it with just us two."
Sadari walks to Kanin and wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a quick peck on the lips. "Oh? You finished so quickly, is that all you got?" She purrs in a silky tone.
Raising an eyebrow, Kanin wraps both arms around her waist and pulls her in forcefully, "Don't worry…" he leans in next to her ear and whispers "I'm just saving myself for tonight".
Sadari's face goes bright red as she immediately pushes away and hurriedly says, "Ye-yeah let's go back up." And she turns around and starts heading towards the stairs to the 10th floor. Seeing Sadari's ears turn red and start twitching he chuckled slightly then started following behind.
It's been about 5 months since Freyr had been sent back to heaven. Nothing much has changed between Kanin and Sadari, the most they've done is still just sleeping next to one another. They are both content with how things are and don't really want to progress their relationship. But of course this doesn't stop Sadari from trying to embarrass Kanin only for it to backfire on her. Every…Single…Time.
They both had decided to get Loki's Blessing, but that didn't necessarily mean they were part of the Familia. The only people the two interacted with from the Familia were Riveria, Aiz and of course Loki herself. They did this mainly because they didn't want any elf in the Familia to recognize who Sadari actually was.
They had bought a small house for themselves near the old Freyr Familia home. Their old party members Magnus and Jessica are still on their break from adventuring, but they still occasionally come down with Kanin and Sadari when they only do shallow dives. Both Magnus and Jessica had managed to reach level 2 and they leveled up without a second thought. They both realized they weren't cut out for the top and didn't care about being as strong as possible for their level.
"I'm going to get my falna updated once we get back up, want to come as well?" Kanin asked once they had reached the 5th floor. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on the way up. But they have had too many bad experiences to let down their guard fully. Only once they had reached a floor where they could very comfortably handle the monsters did they start talking freely.
"Hmm. Yeah that sounds good." She hums. She then looked over at Kanin with narrowed predatory eyes and a smirk playing on her face. " Hehe, I bet I gained more stats than you. Hmm how about this, whoever gained less stats overall has to do whatever the winner says." Kanin only raised an eyebrow at her but didn't say anything.
Getting no response, Sadari steps in front of Kanin, making him stop. "Oh? Are you scared perhaps? Afraid of a frail little girl like me?" Sadari leans forward slightly while wrapping her arms around herself and closing her eyes, playing the part of the helpless maiden.
Rolling his eyes, Kanin walks around Sadari while saying, " No, but I know that when ever we make a 'bet' I always lose"
"You're no fun!" Sadari stomps her foot and huffs." Fine, how about this, The loser has to pay for dinner."
"*Sigh* Fine, just don't go somewhere that will break my wallet alright." Kanin agreed with a small smile.
—
"Well kid, I gotta admit you are growing at a pretty fast pace." Loki stood up and walked over to her desk.
Kanin half-heartedly acknowledged Loki's words and looked down at his status sheet Loki handed him.
—
Name: Kanin Yuki
Age:17
Level 1*
Str 668C-709B
End 661C-706B
Dex 553E-594D
Agi 578D-615C
Mag 68I-111H
Development abilities
Magic
Blizzard(new)
Chant- White Out
Effect Summons a blizzard around the caster. The caster can control how big or small the blizzard is. Mind usage will exponentially increase based on how large and dense the spell is.
Skill
The Child of Winter
Effect- the colder the surroundings the more powerful you become, you are also able to move on ice with increased proficiency.
—
Kanin didn't show any expression on his face as he read his status. It wasn't nearly as big as some of his other jumps, even with the strange shared execlia with Sadari. But that made sense, as he wasn't put in nearly as many challenging situations. In fact he hadn't really been pushed recently.
Despite him not changing his facial expression at all, Loki could still read him like a book. "Oy brat, I can read it all over your face. This is a massive jump for normal adventures at your stats! Don't look like you expected more!" Loki took a "calming" swig of her choice bottle of booze and started grumbling to herself.
Looking up, Kanin raised an eyebrow at the trickster goddess. "Don't look at me like that! I'm just annoyed that you treat something like trash when any other child would be celebrating over it. And seriously, how is it fair that you and mama's sister share execlia…" Loki started off yelling, but slowly died down to a mumble at the end.
"Anyway when you are actually leveling up? You've been able to for a while now and you keep getting me excited everytime you come in but you just leave me hanging every time." The Goddess whines.
Shaking his head he explains," I don't want to stunt my growth, Loki, you of all people should know that I should get my stats as high as possible before I level up."
" I know, I know but you've been able to do it for months now!" She cried in frustration.
Kanin simply shrugged and said, "Thank you Goddess, for updating my falna. I shall leave you alone now." Kanin did an overly formal bow and then walked towards the door.
"You always know how to push my buttons, don't ya!" Loki snaps at the departing back of the demi-spirit.
—
Outside the door, Kanin finds Sadari waiting for him. But it's not what he expects, Sadari's eyes are constantly flickering around. Also she is fidgeting slightly. She is acting incredibly nervous.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" Kanin asks with a serious tone in his voice.
Sadari looks like she got struck by a lighting bolt, as she goes ram-rod straight. Kanin keeps staring at her with seriousness until Sadari deflates with her back hunching and her ears drooping down.
"No. I just…" she deflates even further. She then sighs then looks up at Kanin with a little worry in her gaze. "Riveria told me that, an emissary of my father has come to Orario. And I don't wanna push our luck. They're definitely going to come here to talk to Riveria, because apparently the first 50 'I'm not coming back' weren't enough. So the longer we're here the more likely I'm to be seen." She ends her little rant with a sigh and stares at Kanin with a tired face.
"Hmm, well let's talk on our way home then. I think we need a few things from the store anyway." Kanin takes Sadari's hand and starts walking out of the twilight manor.
On their way out, they see a few members running around yelling for healers and potions. And a few seconds later. The pair sees two people on stretchers being rushed there the halls, towards the infirmary.
Kanin frowns seeing the injured people, Because… "Those aren't monster wounds." Sadari finished his thought out loud.
The wounds that the adventures had suffered were far too clean and straight to be the claws or fangs of a monster. Which means that they had been attacked by other people.
"Tch! damn Evilus are back at it again!" Sadari clicked her tongue as she hissed next to Kanin while he just stared at the wounded adventurers with an unreadable expression on his face. They two watch the people run by, then turn back towards the entrance and start walking again.
Getting outside. They walk for a while longer with Sadari having a grumpy face the whole time before she suddenly bursts out "Why are those guys so annoying? I have enough to deal with, why do some self-destructive idiots have to go around making things even worse? Tch, bastards!" Kanin gave Sadari a sidelong glance and only raised an eyebrow at her rant.
Seeing his look, Sadari takes a deep breath before looking at him with defeat. "Sorry, I'm just annoyed at the whole Alf emissary thing. I'm finally happy and suddenly something comes along that can ruin everything, no matter how small the chance, I still hate it." She let out a long sigh that immediately condensed in the cold winter night air. Making her look like an angry steam engine blowing out steam.
Kanin frowned slightly and stepped in front of Sadari, blocking her from view. At the same moment Sadari heard the sound of horse hooves hitting the road and the tumbling of a carriage's wheels.
Lowering her head back down she saw a beautiful carriage made of polished dark wood. With marble and gold accents on the edges framing the windows which were currently masked by dark green curtains.
The carriage was being drawn by two pairs of graceful stallions each with an unblemished white coat that glistened in the moonlight. The driver didn't even spare a glance for anything or anyone around him, as if this city was too disgusting to even pay attention to. His long and pointy ears showing oof his proud elven heritage
When Sadari saw this carriage she followed Kanin's lead without another sound and hid her figure behind him. For the next minute as the carriage passed them by, neither one talked. They just moved past the carriage. With it doing the same. But unfortunately for them, the carriage stopped.
Neither Sadari nor Kanin stopped moving though, but they started to whisper. "Guild or twilight manor, which is closer?" Kanin said in a small enough voice whereas Sadari could only hear him because of her status, despite being right next to him.
Taking only a second to think she responds, "The manor is closer, but the guild would be faster." hearing her words Kanin nods.
If they had recognized Sadari then they could only flee. And these would be the only two locations where they would truly be safe. Sure they might be able to overpower whoever's in the carriage as the elf from the forest don't take blessings very often, but killing, injuring or even attempting such a thing against a royal dignitary would only bring them even more trouble.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kanin sees the flap on one of the windows rustling and the voice of a feminine voice speaking out in an annoyed tone. "Why are we stopping? This does not seem to be the twilight manor?" Despite the higher pitched voice, Kanin could tell that the speaker was in fact male.
The driver's impassive face finally broke as he heard this voice. And he hurriedly answered back, " sorry sir, one of the horses seems to have injured its leg." The only response he got from the carriage was a huff. Making the diver hurriedly get down from the carriage and walk over to said injured horse in easy to see aggravation.
Seeing that they hadn't stopped for them, the duo relaxed and let the tension leave their body as they no longer had to run away. The encounter ended just like that as they finally got out of sight of the carriage with them none the wiser that their missing princess was right next to them.
—
Arriving at their home. They dropped off the groceries that they had bought as they started their dinner.
"So what are we having? You dragged me through the market but didn't say anything." Sadari drawled out while giving him an unamused look.
Being broken out of his musings, Kanin just shakes his head calmly and answers "I was thinking some chicken parm with some pasta on the side?" Throwing out his opinion, Kanin looked over at his elven companion just to see her narrowing her eyes. Which in turn got a roll out of his own.
"Yes, yes, I'll clean up the mess afterwards, it is my turn to do the dishes after all." Kanin just smiles wryly as Sadari smirks at him.
Walking over to help him cook, Sadari seemingly asked offhandedly. "Do you want to go down to the next floor tomorrow? I think we've got a good grasp on the 11th and we aren't even getting pushed much. And we have a decent understanding of the 12th when we go with Jessica and Magnus."
Kanin didn't even break his motion as he responded. "Hmm, I was thinking the same, but we should probably get a supporter if we start going that deep. If we get into an actual big fight then we cant be bothered by all the excessive stuff, we'd need to be entirely focused on fighting. Plus a little extra manpower in a sticky situation wouldn't be awful."
Sadari nods along as she makes the sauce in the pan and 'secretly' adds a few extra hot spices. "Ok, but do you have anyone in mind? I don't really trust my back to anyone that I don't know." Kanin looked at her little sleight of hand trick unamused but responded nonetheless.
"We could ask Loki for someone-" *DING DONG*" Kanin was cut off by the sound of their doorbell.
Wiping his hands off, Kanin walked over to the door and opened it. *Thud* "OOF" Kanin felt a weight hit his lower half with an oddly head shaped object slamming into his gut, knocking the wind out of him.
Looking down Kanin saw a mop of golden hair clinging tightly to his waist. "What's wrong Aiz?" Kanin asked in genuine confusion, as this had never happened before.
Aiz has come over before and dragged either Kanin, Sadari or even both down into the dungeon. But this time seems to be different.
Getting no response from the girl, Kanin just frowned slightly and tried to peel the girl off. But she was clinging on too tightly. He stood there for a while waiting for her to get off, but she never did.
Not wanting to hurt the girl by ripping her off, Kanin sighed before waddling back into the kitchen with Aiz still attached to him. Sadari thought this made for a hilarious sight and she made that known by laughing her ass off the moment she saw them, almost dropping the plate she was about to set on the table.
Finally getting the little golden girl detached, Kanin rubs her head while Sadari walks back into the kitchen while asking over her shoulder, "You eat yet, golden bug?"
The "golden bug" just shook her head
"Ya know, I can't see you, but something tells me that you're just sitting there shaking your head. Am I right?" At the end of the sentence Sadari turned around with a playful yet knowing smirk on her face.
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds until the rumble of a furious beast roar came from… Aiz's stomach. making her face turn a few shades more crimson.
"Sigh, well there goes the leftovers for tomorrow" Sadari mopes in apparent disappointment.
Suddenly Sadari perks back up and looks towards Aiz with a smile of a predator looking at a prey "I know! In exchange for my fabulous cooking…" She maintained the silence for a bit to get Aiz nervous. And it seemed to work as the little girl's eyes were glued to the grinning elf
" You must accompany us to the dungeon tomorrow," Aiz's hopes lit up…"As our supporter" only to get curb stomped.
"Ok." she whined as she dropped her head.
Watching the exchange with a smile on his face, Kanin adds in, "we're gonna to be going to the 12th floor so we'll probably need your help."
Ais looks back up towards Kanin with clear interest in her eyes. Getting Kanin to chuckle.
"What's the furthest you've been down?" Kanin asked before anything else.
"Riveria only lets me go down to the 7th by myself and the 8th if I'm with someone." she says with a clear frown of disappointment on her face.
The answer causes Kanin to frown himself as he leans his head back and says to no one in particular, "This seems like a disaster waiting to happen, especially with what happened when you first went into the dungeon."
His comment made the whole house quiet. With Kanin in thought, Aiz frowning at the thought of Kanin's injury because she wasn't strong enough to protect herself. And Sadari not adding anything and still preparing the food.
Kanin breaks the silence with a light chuckle and asks, "Well this trip is going to be fun."
Sadari also comes over from the kitchen with Aiz's plate, placing it in front of the girl, Sadari then sits down in her own chair. "Well we can talk after, let's eat now."
—-
Kanin tilted his left hand and dragged it down, using Aiz's own swing against her and forcefully making her over extend as her sword followed the path of least resistance sliding down his sword and off to his left. He then used the momentum pulling him to the left to swing his right hand in a rising diagonal slash.
Unable to block with her sword Aiz follows her sword and jumps to Kanin's left, dodging the sword but leaving her off balance.
Pressing his advantage, Kanin sends slash after slash at the young girl, some of them looking weak before violently picking up speed, the power behind the swings almost knocking the sword from her hands.
Some swings look overpowering but they taper off right at the end and allow Kanin to quickly transition into his next movement with no effort.
Each hit brought Aiz closer and closer to defeat. But instead of satisfaction a Kanin's face only betrayed bitterness.
Kanin let up slightly so as to not end the battle too quickly and slipped into thought.
'She's only been training for about 6 months but she can already start to fight back against someone with higher stats and a more developed body.' Kanin couldn't help but sigh to himself internally.
With Kanin and Sadari not going into the dungeon as much nor training nearly as hard, even with their weird excella sharing, Aiz has made noticeable gains on them with her status.
'Her stats are probably similar to Sadari in build, except for magic of course.' This made another thought run through his head, A memory of Loki talking to the two of them one day a few months ago.
But in the end they had stopped the goddess before she could tell them anything as they already knew a majority and wanted Aiz to tell them the rest only if she wanted to.
'I give her a few more months, maybe a year tops before she's an even better sword wielder than I am.' A small grin forms on his normally blank face before he decides to finally put an end to the duel.
With a loud shriek of metal on metal, Aiz's blade flew from her hands after making contact with Kanin's own, while his other training blade rested right off of the side of her chest, stopping before the dulled edge could bite deep into her side.
'against monsters that is, she's gonna need a little more work against intelligent enemies that know how to counter.' and it wasn't like Kanin was just gonna stay stagnant as well, so he'll be fine for a while still.
Aiz's shoulders slumped in defeat. Wondering what she could have done better. While she huffed and puffed for more air. Each breath condensed right in front of her in the cool night air.
While it was cold out, Aiz actually felt rather warm at the moment, with her status granting her resistance to the elements and her having just done an extensive exercise, Aiz felt her clothes growing sticky from the sweat.
Kanin's own breathing was sped up at the exertion but he was able to keep it under control, so he gave a light sigh and opened his mouth, "You're improving insanely fast Aiz, don't make a face like that."
The little half spirit rose her head up with a frown marring her adorable face, " But it's not good enough! I can't kill that evil beast like this and… and I can never save mother being this weak." Aiz looked back down with her fists clenched at her side, and her shoulders trembling in anger.
Kanin didn't really know what to say to the girl, the only person he lost that he truly considered close to him would be Freyr, but he was a god, so it wasn't like was actually killed, just sent back to Tenkai.
The older half spirit shook his head and sat down on a bench nearby. "To be blunt, yeah you don't really have a good chance of killing that thing."
The remark made Aiz shoot him a piercing glare. And that made him chuckle slightly, which made her glare even harder.
Kanin's face morphed into a wry grin as he spoke to the girl, "I'm not trying to say that your weak or anything Aiz, but that thing is just… a bit to big for any one person, I mean look at the, Zeus and Hera familias, even their overwhelming power fell short of that living disaster."
Kanin saw Aiz face turn what could only be described as constipated and he sighed, "Sorry Aiz I don't really know how you feel so I can't really give you good advice, but the one piece I can give you is that, you need to just enjoy yourself." he kept talking as he walked over and started to put away the equipment.
"Do at least one thing a day that makes you happy. Whether it be something as big as a level up. Or something as small as eating a tasty snack." Walking back over, Kanin handed Aiz a cup of water and kept one for himself.
"Although getting stronger is good and all, becoming a husk of ourselves to do so is just not worth it to me. Because what will you have left when you're done?" The water chilled by the late night air felt just right to Kanin as it went down his throat
Kanin opened his mouth to continue speaking but closed it again after not finding the right words.
They both sat in silence for a bit, Aiz seeming to struggle finding the right words, but finally spoke up.
"Mama said that my hero would help me whenever I needed help, that he would always come and save me no matter what stood in his way. Can… Can you be my hero?" Aiz asked with all the puppy dog eyes she could muster.
Kanin took a deep breath in and let it out, then with a teasing smile he spoke "Sorry Aiz but I already got my own damsel in distress in need of saving."
Aiz hung her head low in defeat, but Kanin wouldn't let her stay that way so he ruffled her hair and opened his mouth to speak once again but was cut off.
"O-HoHo, A damsel in distress you say? Hmph!" Kanin and Aiz both turned to see Sadari standing in the doorway to the courtyard with her arms crossed over her chest and her head tossed to the side in a scoff.
"You dare refer to this princess as such!" The confused look from Aiz and the quirked eyebrow with the twitching lip from Kanin did nothing to stop her highness' anger.
"Hmph I will have to teach a lowly peasant like you his place." Sadari harrumphed as she walked over to the weapon rack and picked out her and Kanin's weapons.
Kanin sighed as he knew this was going to end poorly for him. Catching both of the swords Sadari tossed at him, Kanin didn't even have time to ready himself as Sadari charged at him with a predatory gleam in her eye.
—
Kanin groaned as he picked his sorry ass off the ground, while trying his best to keep his erratic breathing under control.
"Huff Huff- That'll teach- Huff Huff- you, Peasant!" Sadari gasped out as she walked over and collapsed onto the bench Aiz was sitting on.
She smiled as Aiz handed her a large cup of water, then downed the entire thing in one go.
Kanin came over as well a moment later and Aiz also handed him a cup of water. While he sat down between the two.
"Bow before me." Sadari moaned out as she rested her tired body against his sturdy frame.
"I could've beaten you with my magic…" he grumbled out at her behavior.
"And I could have blasted a hole in your chest with mine." she shot back.
"I could've taken it" he again grumbled.
An un-lady-like snort was her only response to his stubbornness.
Kanin then turned his head to Aiz and asked, "So are you heading back tonight, or are you still upset and whatever happened earlier.
The question made Aiz's face contort while she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
"Riveria is a big meanie hag." Aiz spat out.
Sadari chimed in "You know our guest room is always open, golden bug."
Aiz just nodded while they sat there in silence.
A good half hour or so later they finally turned in for the night, for some much needed showers and sleep.