Rita

It was late in the evening, and a chill wind was blowing around the area.

Lucian was sitting alone on a half-standing stone wall, contemplating the starry night sky.

"H-hey, Lucian... Here, it's for you." A woman's voice came from behind, then a hand reached out in front of him, handing Lucian bread and some cheese. "D-don't be reserved, you can eat them."

The person who approached him was none other than Rita.

"…" Lucian nodded curtly and accepted her offer. The bread was hard and cold, but it was probably Rita's share that she had given to Lucian.

Rita smiled and looked a little bit embarrassed. She probably thought that what she offered Lucian wasn't anything much.

But to her surprise, Lucian took two pieces of dried meat from inside his leather bag and gave them to Rita. This was his survival ration, prepared specially from meats of rare beasts and seasoned with rare spices. It was highly nutritional and extremely delicious.

Rita was a little bit taken aback. She had probably just decided to share her food with Lucian without thinking too much about anything else, seeing that he wasn't eating anything.

"Ah…Ah… Thank you," Rita said, accepting the meat and sitting nearby.

She wanted to say something, but when she saw that Lucian was looking at her, she ate the meat with an awkward smile, her face a bit red. Fortunately, it was dark, she thought.

After observing Rita for a whole day, Lucian could tell that she had a reserved personality but worked hard to change herself. She was the one who talked to Lucian first when they met, introducing herself and her friends. It took a lot of courage for someone with her character to do such a thing. Lucian could guess the reason why she wanted to change, but it was meaningless to do so.

Even now Rita tried to be assertive by initiating the conversation, Lucian observed. She stuttered a little while talking but she managed to do it, and her voice was soft and pleasant to hear.

"Are you voyaging by yourself? No, I mean… Are you alone? No…. Ah... Sorry." Rita wanted to continue the conversation when she saw that Lucian had gone quiet, but she thought that everything she was about to say sounded rude.

She was still under the impression that Lucian was blind, looking at the black fabric that covered his eyes. It was already hard for a blind person to travel alone so it was pretty rude to remind them of it, Rita thought. And it would be also rude to ask Lucian why he hid his eyes.

"I am not blind. My eyes are just very sensitive," Lucian said, knowing that Rita was trying to be considerate of him.

"Ah… So that's why…" Rita mumbled in a low voice.

She was always worried about the feelings of the party when talking to someone because she wasn't used to talking to people. That was why she was pretty comfortable talking to him who wasn't very talkative, Lucian thought.

Nonetheless, he concluded after spending a few hours observing Rita that was indeed an interesting specimen, and she was a good person, but she had a fatal flaw. She was too good-natured and that affected her ability to take rational decisions. Something pretty normal.

But to put it differently, Rita was just a normal human who was just beautiful and kind, nothing more and nothing less. And that was a flaw, at least from Lucian's point of view.

Under normal circumstances, she would make a good wife, and Lucian acknowledged her efforts to change herself for the better, but that was all. She possessed no other outstanding ability that could be cultivated. It would be hard for someone like her to reach the next level of human existence, he concluded. She didn't have that potential.

Still, what was that sensation he got when he saw her for the first time, Lucian wondered. Well, it was pointless to establish his evaluation on such a vague thing.

"D-do you—"

"Hey, Lucian, how about partying with us for the time being?" Someone interrupted Rita when she was about to ask Lucian something. It was Dustin. "Maybe you can wait and see for yourself when we arrive at the city before deciding about joining the raid or not. You are still young. You should think carefully. This is my advice as your elder. What do you think?"

His voice sounded sincere, like someone reaching their hand to the weak. The other three looked at Dustin with respect, seated around a campfire.

"Mr. Dustin…" Rita looked a little bit uneasy after he heard Dustin's words. She wanted to ask Lucian if he planned to become an adventurer, but Dustin took the initiative.

Dustin was supposed to be an adventurer, at least that was what he said to Rita and her friends. As such, he was the only one wearing a chest plate and other pieces of armor and possessed a proper sword.

However, Lucian immediately saw through him. He knew that Dustin wasn't pleased to see him talking to Rita.

After traveling for a day, they decided to camp in a place that looked like a ruin of a village for the night, as suggested by the farmer.

Everyone sat and discussed merrily around the campfire at first, apart from Lucian who distanced himself of course, but then Rita approached Lucian, and Dustin was displeased by this. It was clear that he had something in mind.

From the way Rita addressed Dustin with honorifics, it looked like she kept her distance from him.

Also, among her friends, she was the only one who appeared to be worried about the whole adventure story. But because of her nature, she decided to trust her friends who trusted Dustin.

Dustin knew this, and he also knew that Rita was kind and she would be quite upset if he tried to force her to stop talking to Lucian. Thus, he thought about another tactic to keep him away from her.

"No," Lucian replied in a flat voice, not elaborating any further, causing Rita's friends to show various expressions on their faces.

At that moment,

Dustin thought in the back of his mind that his plan was working. He sold himself as someone kind in front of Rita.

Moreover, Rita's friends didn't like Lucian's attitude, and Dustin took advantage of that. He pretended to be understanding and acted as if he was mature and kind, in contrast to Lucian who was just a pretentious kid.

He emphasized the fact that Lucian had a young appearance to assert his superiority as if to imply that everything he said was words of wisdom.

"There should be a limit to stupidity," said someone who thought that he was more knowledgeable than everyone else present there. He was one of Rita's friends, of course. Harry, a blue-haired young man wearing glasses.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. "Are you that confident in your ability? Or is it because you possess a relic?"

"Relics doesn't make you an adventurer!" Fil shouted. He was also one of Rita's friends. "Stop taking this lightly! Adventuring is not that easy, it's a serious job for the strong-willed, and requires devotion and determination! I can't see any of that from you. If you continue thinking like this, you will certainly regret it."

"Hahaha!" The farmer laughed at the ruckus happening behind him while he tended to the horses. "That was some passionate speech!"

Both Harry and Fil trained under Dustin to become adventurers. From what they said, they were heading to the capital because they were now ready to challenge the Abyss. They just needed to obtain relics.

Dustin had asked Lucian various questions when they met, probably to gauge his abilities and extract information about him. Something like, 'You are young; are you going to the city? Are you going to become an adventurer? Do you have a relic? Are you going to participate in the next raid?'

Lucian just nodded his head at all of his questions, but Dustin's attitude changed when he learned that Lucian had a relic. And when he noticed that Lucian wasn't talkative, he tried to control the whole conversation to make it look like Lucian was trying to be arrogant just because he possessed a relic.

He probably thought that he was skilled at manipulating people, so he didn't even notice that it was Lucian who was extracting information by answering his questions with ambiguous answers.

In the end, Rita and her friends ended up thinking that Lucian intended to become an adventurer like them too. In other words, a rookie.

As such, their reactions were predictable after Lucian refused Dustin's offer. Their voices were especially irritating, but Lucian didn't let any expression show on his face. He had absolute control over his body and emotions.

"Yeah, someone as strong as Dustin wants to train you. You should be grateful and stop being so arrogant," a plain-looking woman said. Her name was Vicky, and she attempted to draw Dustin's attention by showering him with a compliment while criticizing Lucian.

Dustin eyed Lucian suspiciously but then lost interest in him. He probably thought that Lucian was not a threat anymore and would probably die quickly, so they would not meet again.

Rita looked at Lucian silently, feeling concerned by the others' comments. Nonetheless, she also thought that Lucian should be careful.

"…" But Lucian didn't feel the need to continue the conversation any longer and remained quiet, not answering their questions and not even looking at them.

"Tch, what a pretentious guy!" Fil spat out, seeing that Lucian ignored all of them. After seeing his attitude, the others ignored him too. They couldn't even tell if he was asleep or not because they couldn't see his eyes.

"Come here Rita," Vicky said, forcefully pulling Rita away from Lucian.

While he walked away, Dustin grinned silently when no one was watching.

What he didn't know was that Lucian didn't even care in the least about him, or his opinion, and even less about his existence. The same with Rita. Whatever she decided, whatever she chose, it had nothing to do with him.

In the first place, Lucian distanced himself from the others and contemplated the night sky in silence because after traveling with them for a day, he understood none of them was worth his time.

He didn't think of himself as superior to them because of simple arrogance or ego. Their evolution had stagnated but they weren't even aware of it and continued to live in ignorance, which made him superior to them in all aspects. It was just a fact.

But it wasn't completely their fault so Lucian could only pity them for not knowing anything.

He expected that his meeting with humans after 800 years wouldn't be an exceptional event, but he still felt a little bit disappointed thinking about it.

After just a few days of interacting with them, he concluded that humans were the only species that did not change that much despite everything that happened.

And even Rita didn't appear to meet the requirements, so Lucian scrapped every plan he had in mind for her. He couldn't leave things to luck.

After this reflection, Lucian continued to sit there, contemplating the stars in the sky, thinking about what he would do next.

But when everyone had already dozed off or completely asleep, like the farmer and Fil who snoozed loudly, something happened.

"ROAAAAAAARRR!"

It was close to midnight. Lucian felt something approaching, as a violent roar reached his ears.