Ranking Up! (3)

PREVIOUSLY

I patted the sturdy, thick trunk of the tree. "Cut this down."

Raegis held up her branch. "With this?"

"Yup," I nodded, and saw the look on her face. "Why do you doubt yourself so? If I'm telling you to cut something down, it means I know you can cut it down."

"You do believe me right?"

Raeigs only nodded her head, standing before the imposing tree. In her mind, she wondered why a simple, immobile tree looked more daunting than being alive by a hundred slimes.

"You can do it!" I cheered her on from the sidelines.

Raegis just sighed. If anyone other than the beautiful maiden had asked her, she would have sliced them apart for mocking her. But then again, the beautiful maiden must know something about her that she or Fluffy didn't know. After all, Raeigs had never felt so right holding a branch doused in her aura after all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxx

Raegis tried to practice what Fluffy told her, trying to remember the feeling of that cold, sharp aura inside and around her body. According to Fluffy, as long as she was alive, that feeling/aura thing would always be with her, a constant that would never, ever change. So believing in Fluffy, she closed her eyes and searched for the cold aura.

It didn't even take a second for her to grasp it. She was surprised at how easy it was, not to mention utterly surprised at this side of the world, a side she had never seen. In the underworld, it was so dark, so cold and harsh that she never even had the time to relax and think, since it was just fight, kill and survive over there.

Now, she wanted to slap herself. It was instinctual for her to not only touch, but to manipulate the silver aura around her. With this aura, her life would have been so much easier to the point that she might even have been able to defeat that person.

"Imm."

It felt right. She felt complete, like this was always something supposed to happen, and she was only mad that it took this long to realize this.

With this, she should be able to do it.

Taking a deep breath, she took a look at the tree. It didn't look so imposing anymore. Fueled by her aura, she focused the silver aura onto the little branch, pouring in enough aura for even the untrained eye to see the little bubble of silver wrapped around the branch.

Feet positioned sideways, Raegis held the branch with one hand to her side, like she was going to unsheathe a katana to separate the trunk of the tree from it's roots. She could see it in her mind, of how the tree was sliced cleanly in half as it fell dead to the side.

This was it. She was meant to do this.

"Hmph!"

SHING!

Before she could see, Raegis knew that she had succeeded just from the sound her branch-sword made in contact with the tree. It felt like she was cutting butter. It was so easy to the point Raegis had to hold herself back so that she didn't cut the other trees beside it.

The tree instantly fell backwards with a groan, just like how she visualized it. Well even if it did fall forward onto Raegis and me, I knew that Raegis would have just sliced it up more so that we weren't hurt. Or, I could just simply douse her and me in chi so that we were immune to the little thump to the head the big tree would have given us.

Raegis didn't even look shocked. I watched her observing what she had done, probably talking it out with her inner wolf over her new powers.

Meanwhile, a grin spread across my face. But it wasn't a happy grin, it was a grin that told of how I had done it. I had officially manipulated the events of the game. This was an aura skill that Raegis was only supposed to learn many years later, and yet, now she had obtained the skill. On one hand, I was happy that my little attack dog was getting stronger, and on the other, I wondered what would happen now that she had obtained a few years worth of power in just a few days of meeting me.

"Good?"

Raegis looked up at me, and again, I could imagine her little doggy tail wagging for approval. The image was enough to quell my worries over the future for a while.

I gave her head a good rubbing. "I can't believe you actually managed to learn it. You did good, so, so good."

"With this ability, who knows what's going to happen from now on?"

Raegis held my hand with both of hers, moving it away before looking me straight in the eyes. An inferno burned within hers.

"I'll protect you."

It must look comical seeing such a young girl comfort me, but that wasn't what I saw. In my eyes, I saw an adult version of her, with a divine sword in her hand and a demonic spear hitched on her back, telling me that she was going to protect me.

I gave Raegis a big smile, before ruffling her hair up. "Don't be so cocky. You're only a little grunt yet."

"Mm."

"That aura skill of yours," I stopped petting her. "Do you know the name yet?"

"Mm." Raegis nudged against my hand, her way of asking why I'd stopped. "[Connect]."

"You understand what the skill grants you?"

"Mm," Raegis threw the branch away, as the aura surrounding it faded into the air. "Any material I hold shall be imbued with the powers of a weapon of steel."

I nodded. "That's right. But, you're misunderstanding something if you think that's all your skill grants you."

Raegis tilted her head quizzically. I chuckled at her naivety. How could the origin skill of someone who would later be known as 'The God-Killing Steel' be so simple?

"Well, don't worry so much about it yet," I told her. I had already manipulated events by a months. I didn't want to find out what would happen if I tampered with it even more.

"For now, just be happy that you managed to learn your first aura skill," I told her. "Not many can boast learning their first aura skill at the ripe age of. . ."

Then, came a problem. I didn't know Raegis's age. Since the game showed and focused more on Raegis's older form and her events, players didn't really know much about Raegis's childhood except her tragic origin and the Underworld.

"How old are you now?"

"Hm?" Raegis tilted her head again, then understood my question. "Oh. I am 10 moons old."

"So, you're ten years old."

"Shit," I muttered under my breath. I hadn't just accelerated her progress by a couple months, I had done it by a few freaking years. Before I could have a full-blown panic attack though, I remembered the words Raegis had promised to me and it was like a bucket of ice water had been splashed at my head.

It should be alright. A few years wasn't really anything much if you considered the timescale the gods and higher level beings operated under. Yeah, there shouldn't be anything wrong with what I had just done, right?

Snap!

Of fucking course.

Raegis immediately hopped in front of me, picking up her poorly-maintained sword before dousing it in potent steel aura. I also prepared myself, channeling chi into my arms and legs, which was the most area I could cover at my current stage of martial arts right now.

"A Black. . .Slime?"

Shit.