"Hey, you're back! How was your time at the Eternal Flame?" Druwat asked as Eric walked into his office, noting how his smile was stress-free and how there was a glow of contentment & happiness around him as he floated up to his desk with ease.

"Far better than I was expecting. It opened my eyes a lot." He said before both Druwat & Flare blinked in surprise as the young mage leaned down & gave the red-haired mage a quick kiss on the cheek as he sat down on the extra chair next to her.

"W-W-What was that for?!" Flare stuttered/ exclaimed, glaring at Druwat as he snorted while Eric smirked & shrugged.

"An apology for earlier. I'm really sorry for not warning you." She glared at the smirking mage before sighing as she pouted & glared to the side.

"Fine…I forgive you, but! You fly at a normal pace now and we take the train when we're going back home."

"Sure, that's fine with me." Eric nodded in agreement and Flare gave a small smile as she nodded before turning bright red as Druwat cleared his throat with a teasing smirk.

"See, I told you he would come around. Ah, young love."

"I thought Giants were asexual?" Eric asked with a confused frown and Druwat snorted as Flare just went back to grumbling under her breath.

"We reproduce on our own, but we do have genders."

"Let me guess. Your gender is being a Giant."

"Hah! Knew you would understand!" Druwat exclaimed with a grin & a nod, making Eric chuckle before he turned to Flare who had stopped mumbling death threats under her breath.

"So, do you want to stay for the day or should we continue on to the Badlands?"

"I want to stay, rest and have more time to forgive you before we move on." Flare said as she stood up and Eric sighed as he stood up as well, picking the blushing woman in a bridal carry as they floated after Druwat while the giant made his way out of his office.

"I swear, you do something wrong once and all of a sudden, you're reminded of it for the rest of your life."

"As the humans I knew liked to say, 'Welcome to love, buddy.'"


"Okay, so this is a one on one. We're going until we either tire ourselves out or feint a blow that we both agree to be a detrimental/ knock out blow. Is that okay?" Eric asked as he stretched his body, Flare smiling as she nodded while taking out the hair ties that kept her hair in twin pigtails.

Eric had to admit that Flare's hair always stunned him with its beauty as she shook it loose, looking as if a curtain of blood was hanging around her shoulders & to the middle of her thighs as she gave him a smirk that twisted his stomach in a knot.

He really regretted that crush he had on Rias Gremory now.

Eric shook his head to clear away his horny thoughts as he focused on the battle, a violet glow covering his body as he lowered himself into his stance.

"Three…two…one…go!" In an instant, he reverted gravity behind him & pulled himself backwards just as three blunted spikes made out of crimson hair shot out from the ground & nearly smacked into him.

"Oi! I thought we were feinting heavy blows!" Eric exclaimed and he frowned as the girl gave a smirk & a giggle before he grinned.

Fine, then. If she wanted to play like that, then as an advocate of gender equality…

He must respond in kind.

'Attract.' With a lunge, a blue aura coated his body as he lunged forward and her eyes widened as his usual blistering pace was naught but a blur to her, appearing in front of her before she could even move back.

Crimson hair appeared in droves around her before wrapping in front of her like a shield, Eric grinning as a crimson glow coated his palm before he sent it flying forward.

A gasp escaped her lips as Flare was sent skidding backwards, her hair acting as a buffer as she rolled away before she wheezed as a blue aura covered her cocoon & pulled her towards him.

"You okay?" He asked and smirked as he was greeted by a glare as Flare's hair shifted back out of its cocoon form.

"I hate you."

"I was just responding in kind. Now, can we go back to our agreed arrangement of not going all out?" Eric asked and the redhead just grumbled as she moved back to her starting position while using her fingers to untangle the bigger knots on her hair.

"So, we go until we both tire, but! We don't use our deadly & more dangerous moves, okay?"

"Eh, you would have been fine." She grumbled and Eric rolled his eyes with a sigh before shaking his head as he lowered himself into his stance more.

"Now on three…two…one…begin!"


"Make sure you come through here when you're going back home. I'd like to see if the training had some merits."

"Sure thing. We were planning on doing so anyway." Eric agreed with a shrug, Druwat nodding with a smile before turning to Flare.

"Remember our talk, okay? Just do what you think is best."

"What talk is this?"

"N-N-Nothing to be concerned about." Flare stuttered out and Eric just smirked as Druwat chuckled.

"Well then, good luck to the both of you. You'll need it." Eric & Flare watched as Druwat turned & lumbered back into the village, waving at the few giants that waved at them before the mage turned to his redhead friend.

"So, you want to walk or…" He trailed off as she frowned in thought before letting out a soft sigh.

"We can fly, but! We're going slowly."

"Fine." He shrugged and she rolled her eyes before blushing slightly as he went on one knee.

"W-What are you doing?!"

"What? I'm just asking if you want to do a piggyback instead. What were you thinking ab-Oh! Oh, Flare. I'm flattered, but we're too young." Eric teased before chuckling as a strand of hair smacked him lightly on the back, the girl climbing onto his back before turning a bright red as Eric steadied her by her thighs.

Thank the gods she had the mind to change into a pair of crimson tracksuit pants and a black tank top before they sat off this morning because otherwise, she'd be giving a free show to anyone that looked up.

"Now then, next stop…the Deadman Badlands." Eric declared as a violet glow covered the both of them before he flew upwards, taking his time to fly in the direction of the Seven-Fiore border instead of rocketing away like he would have.


'She's cute when she's not trying to strangle me with her hair.' Eric thought with a soft smile as he watched Flare sleeping in their tent with a peaceful smile.

It was a stark contrast to her usual shy smiles, her blushing smirks or her excited/ awed smiles whenever he did something that impressed her or gave her a gift that made her happy.

Unfortunately, most of those are accompanied by her hair wrapping around him in a tight hug or a choke hold depending on the situation as her hair would usually try to touch whatever caused the shift in emotion.

'Bacchus would definitely regret hitting on her & making her angry.' Eric thought with a soft chuckle as he remembered the first time Bacchus had met the redhead.

He didn't know where she got that burst of abnormal strength, but if it wasn't for him and Guy holding her back along with keeping her hair in check, the pale man would have been ripped limb from limb & Quatro would have lost their Ace.

He would have thought the way the girl tried to kill the man that she liked to play for the same team, but he wasn't blind enough to miss the glances she gave him and how she smiled & giggled whenever he made a joke that even he knew was idiotic.

He might be stupid when it comes to emotion, but even he wasn't stupid or oblivious enough to miss the fact that she had a slight crush on him, but that made sense when you consider the fact that he was probably the first human she's met in her life.

However, he had to admit that he's come to feel…something for the girl as well.

He wouldn't say it's a crush nor would he say that it's love, but there's a sense of fulfillment that he gets whenever he's with her and how he wanted to make her smile whenever he could.

'…Shit, that's love, isn't it?' Eric thought with a sigh before shaking his head as he took a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of the ambient ethernano being pulled from the atmosphere & into his eyes before letting it out slowly.

With a pulse of ethernano, he smirked as his vision went from pitch black to black-&-white, seeing both himself & Flare as well as the hundreds of different monsters & beasts in the mountains around them.

'Being able to see things for hundreds of meters is quite the cheat code.' Eric thought with a shake of his head as he kept his technique active with his eyes closed while walking towards the tent, letting out a soft groan as he laid down next to Flare before making himself comfortable for sleep.

'Time to grind keeping it active while sleeping.'


Turns out, using a technique that puts strain on your eyes, your brain and your ethernano container simultaneously was not the brightest of ideas that he's came up with.

Then again, when did he ever come up with bright ideas?

"Is everything okay?" Eric heard Flare whisper in his ear as she was on his back, her hair wrapped around his waist as a secondary anchor with her arms around his neck & her legs around his waist.

"Yeah, just did some late training. Turns out training before going to sleep is not the best idea." He said with a sheepish grin and he was sure she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Turning back to smile at her, his eyes widened as he caught sight of a white blur diving towards them, a serious look flashing in his eyes as he gripped Flare's thighs tightly before he abruptly rocketed downwards.

Giving a mental apology to the squealing Flare on his back, he spun out of the way as the white blur flew past them before cursing at the sight of a Blizzard Wyvern spreading its wings wide & stopping its descent.

Watching as the beast turned back up to take off into the sky once more, a crimson glow covered his palm before he crashed into the ground while smacking his palm down onto it, watching as a massive dust cloud spread outwards & covered them from view.

"Flare! That's a Blizzard Wyvern! Do you have any ranged spells?" Eric asked her as he used his Heavenly Vision to follow the Wyvern's path & keep an eye on Flare, watching it circle above them as Flare shook her head.

"The only spell I know is shooting fireballs from my hair, but that takes a bit to charge up." Eric frowned at that as he watched the dust settling & the Wyvern tensing to dive down before he spoke.

"Okay then. I need you to take cover in the foliage. I'm going to rush out as fast as I could and then, I'm going to need you to charge the biggest & most concentrated fireball that you can. When I give you the chance, send it flying."

"Wait, what's this chance?" She asked and he smirked as an azure glow coated his body.

"You'll know." And with a thought, the world around him distorted as he shifted his gravity upwards by twenty, grinning as he appeared below the jaw of the surprised Wyvern before it could even blink.

'Attract. Repel.' Eric chanted as he pulled the Wyvern's head towards his fist while also repelling the air above his fist, a feral grin spreading across his face as he felt bones cracking under his fist & the wyvern's face distorting.

"Shoryuken!" Eric roared as he finished his attack, the wyvern only being in front of him for a moment before it was sent rocketing through the air head over heels.

Not done yet, a violet glow surrounded his form as he blasted after it, catching up with ease & stopped just as it righted itself in the air.

'Gravity Shift.' Eric chanted as he watched the beast turn with an icy blue glow in the back of its throat before its eyes widened as a black glow coated the underside of its jaw and it slammed shut.

According to the history books, wyverns are just the weaker & more primal cousins of dragons, but they can only use a breath attack & they aren't immune to their own attacks.

'So, an attack from their breath attack inside their mouths should be enough.' Eric thought with a frown before it turned into a grin as a boom came from the inside of its jaws, blood spraying into the air as icicles stabbed right through its maw.

'Now!' He sent out a message to Flare using the Archive aspect of his eyes as he flew around the Wyvern and wrapped in a headlock, the beast ignoring the pain from its maw as it tried to shake him off before both it & Eric looked down at the ground as a surge of ethernao rushed through the air.

'Gravity Shift x50!' Eric exclaimed in his mind as he made the gravity around the wyvern fifty times heavier than it should be, the sounds of bones cracking & muscles tearing rippling through the air before the mage dropped to the ground as the temperature around them skyrocketed.

The next instant, his eyes widened as a big beam of scarlet flames tore through the sky, the flames making the air hiss as the wyvern only had a momemt for its eyes to widen before the beam enveloped its head & continued onwards into the sky above.

'Damn, she must have been training that for a while now.' Eric thought with a smirk as he activated his flight & flew towards where he could see Flare huffing for air, a blast of his ethernano pushing gravity downwards onto the beasts rushing towards them & crushing them into the ground as he landed just a few paces from her.

However, he gave a whistle at the sight of her hair shaped into the form of a long-barrelled rifle, the end of it smouldering & letting out puffs of smoke as the girl herself took deep breaths to get air into her lungs.

"You can rest now. It's gone." He said with a proud smile as he placed a hand on her back, Flare giving a tired smile as she nodded before dropping into his arms.

It was a testament to how tired she was as her hair dropped from its gun form into a curtain that touched the scorched ground and she didn't even care for the fact that he picked her up in a bridal carry.

Rolling his eyes as the girl fell asleep the moment she made herself comfortable, a purple glow coated both the two of them and the headless corpse of the wyvern before Eric floated all three of them into the air.

Spreading his vision outwards in the direction they were flying as far as he could, he gave a silent sigh of relief as he barely caught a small ethernano signature at the edge of his vision before he turned & flew towards it while pulling the corpse with them.

'The grind for more power never stops.'


"What are Quatro Cerberus mages doing here?" A Rune Knight dressed in their usual armour asked with a frown as soon as Flare and Eric landed in front of him, Eric noting how the Knight's armour looked a bit better & more pristine compared to the others around him.

'He's probably the captain of this outpost.' Eric thought with a frown before quickly shifting his face into an inviting smile as he reached into his Requip dimension & pulled out a page.

"This is a signed permit which gives us permission to enter the Deadman Badlands for two months."

"I don't know why mages would be dumb enough to want to go in there nor am I going to ask, but I do have one question. …Why the fuck is the corpse of a Blizzard Wyvern floating behind you?" He asked while pointing with his spear at the headless wyvern corpse in the air behind them and Eric shrugged as Flare smirked.

"It attacked us on the way here and so, we killed it. We've already taken a few plates and meat, so you are more than welcome to take it since it would just weigh us down in there."

"You do know that one kilo of wyvern meat is at least 50,000 Jewels, right?"

'…Greed, I know. I know, but be patient. It's all for the cause of looking good.' Eric thought with a strained smile as he pushed the greed & envy to the far reaches in the back of his mind.

"Cool, you can still have it. Now can we enter?" He asked and the captain shrugged as he turned back.

"Open the barrier and let them through!" The guards at the top of the outpost's wall saluted as they clapped their hands together, Eric using both Archive & Heavenly Vision to record the sight of the hundreds of different Jutsu Shiki & magic crests appearing out of thin air in front of the outpost before the bottom section of it opened like a door.

"Shall we?" He asked as he stopped staring at the wall in awe, Flare snapping out of her shock as she nodded before the two made their way through the barrier.

"See you guys in two months if you survive until then…and thanks for the meat!" The captain waved and Eric smirked as he nodded before taking a deep breath as he took his first step into the Badlands with Flare right by him.

'Time to begin this new chapter of my life.'