Another Student?

I handed in my Fire Drake scales and officially completed the collection job. Once I made my way back to our Inn, I found Eris and Ruijerd eating at a table by the bar.

"Rudeus! You're back!", Eris shouted.

"How did your slaying job go?"

Eris folded her arms, puffed out her chest, and stuck her chin up.

"It was easy. I took care of the whole pack all by myself!"

"Very Impressive!", I said as I clapped for her.

"Did you manage to find what you were looking for?", Ruijerd asked.

"I did! You're gonna love this!"

I opened my sack of Fire Drake meat and pulled out a nice looking slab. The meat was still frozen solid as I had devised a magic circle on the sack to keep the contents frozen so long as I supplied it with mana.

"Some sort of meat?", Eris asked.

"Yeah. I'm sure you've noticed that I'm not the biggest fan of the Great Tortoise meat we've been eating constantly. This is meat from a Fire Drake. It's one of the few monsters in this region, that when cooked properly, tastes similar to the cuisine we ate back home in Roa."

"You've eaten Fire Drake meat before?", Ruijerd asked, a little surprised.

"It was a long time ago, before I even met Eris, but yes."

"You mean it was food your Mom and Dad made for you in Buena Village?" Eris seemed quite interested now.

"Haha. Yeah, something like that", I answered as I scratched the side of my head a little.

In order to cook the meat, I conjured several stone plates with earth magic and then thawed out the slab of meat using fire magic. After the meat had thawed, I placed it on one of the stone plates and heated up the plate until the meat started sizzling. Once the meat was thoroughly browned on both sides, I cut it up into three pieces and placed one each on the other plates.

Everyone tried a bite.

"This is pretty good", Eris said.

"Yeah, it's not bad", Ruijerd agreed.

Meanwhile, I was almost in tears. I couldn't stand the pungent, extremely gamey taste of the monster meats we had been eating. In contrast, Fire Drake meat was much milder, similar to that of beef. I guess Eris and Ruijerd simply don't have the delicate taste that I do.

We decided to continue our journey south the next morning, but as we were leaving the city, a woman called out for us to stop.

"You're leaving already? You never even stopped by the guild to say goodbye."

"Rudeus, who is this?", Eris asked.

"Ah, she is an adventurer I happened across as I was gathering the Fire Drake meat."

"You must be the other members of Dead End. I am Seren, the Leader of Black Blades. It is an honor to meet you." Seren bowed slightly.

"I am Ruijerd", he smiled and returned the gesture with a bow of his own.

"Hmmf!" Eris just scoffed at her and turned away. While she's beginning to pick up on certain keywords, Eris still doesn't speak or understand the Demon God language.

"Ah, this is Eris. You'll have to forgive her, she doesn't speak Demon God."

"Rudeus. I was hoping to catch you before you left town. I have something I need to ask you."

I nodded and waited for her to go on.

"Please take me with you and teach me magic. I've been thinking about what you told me, and I want to learn more. I'm not content to continue idling by with the magic I have learned."

"Huh!? Aren't you the leader of an 'S' ranked party? You have responsibilities here."

"I've made up my mind. I'm tired of the adventuring life. What I really crave is knowledge. As far as the Black Blades, Stefan is more than capable of stepping up as the new leader."

"Hmm...", I rubbed my chin in thought as Seren waited expectantly for a reply.

'I can respect her thirst for knowledge and ambition to improve herself, but do I really want another person tagging along on our journey? There is also the possibility that she is an apostle of the Man-God. I am woefully unequipped to confront him just yet. I need to get my Demon Eyes and find some way to prevent Hitogami from spying on me. Hopefully Orsted can help with that; the problem is finding him. I think it is best to follow the same path as closely as possible until I meet up with Kishirika and Orsted.'

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with my answer.

"No. I'm sorry, but I don't think we can take you with us", I could see despair welling up on Seren's face as I spoke. "However, I don't have any issue with helping you learn and improve your magic."

Immediately, Seren's face brightened up again.

"We are on a journey back to our homeland in the Asura Kingdom. Once we find our family members, I intend to enroll in the Ranoa Magic University in the city of Sharia. If you are intent on improving your magic, I suggest you head there as well. Perhaps we may see each other again as fellow students."

"Hmm... Very well. If that is the case, then I shall carve out my own journey to Sharia", Seren answered with determination.

"Glad to hear it", I smiled.

With that, we parted ways. Seren went back to town so she could officially leave her party and promote Stefan to leader. Eris, Ruijerd, and I left town and continued southward.

We continued taking jobs when we could as we hopped from town to town all the way down to Wind Port. Whenever I would start running low on my precious Fire Drake meat, I made it a point to find an excuse to separate myself from the party and teleport to Sharia where I had my stockpile stored away in the cooler I had made.

By the time we reached the port city, it had been a little over a year since we arrived in the Demon Continent. At this point I was eleven years old, and Eris was thirteen.

The first thing we did after reaching Wind Port was to stop by the docks to find out when ships left and how much our fare would cost. The fare was five iron coins for Eris and I, but it would cost 2,000 green ore coins to transport Ruijerd legally.

Even with the Asura Gold Coins I had brought with me, we still wouldn't have enough to pay for Ruijerd's transport. I wasn't bothered by it, as I knew someone who would be more than happy to smuggle us into the Millis Continent.

We headed to a nearby Inn and rented a room. We discussed our options considering the enormous fare they wanted to charge Ruijerd. In the end, we all decided to take some time and scout out our options in town.

That night, I had some trouble falling asleep as I was hopeful that next morning I could finally meet the Great Demon Empress, Kishirika Kishirisu.