Green Daisy

All three immediately tensed up after hearing her story.

"She's annoying but she's brave.", Iono thought.

Anna hugged the little girl, while she was crying. "Don't worry honey, ", she said, "We'll help you!"

Both father and son looked at Anna with wide eyes. Their expression was the perfect representation of "Why would we do something so bothersome!?".

But it only took one glare to convince them otherwise.

Anna separated from the little girl and told her, "How about, you go with Iono to pick up the herbs, and then return here so we brew them into medicine together?"

"Mm", Clarissa nodded, while wiping her cheeks.

Iono looked at his mother, who glared at him and then looked at his father who shrugged his shoulders.

With a big sigh, he said,

"Alright, Clarissa, get ready. We're going to leave in a moment."

"OK!", she replied, sounding a bit excited.

She then run to get her basket while Iono waited at the door.

"Make sure to take care of Clarissa!", his mother said while glaring at him, smiling lovingly at Clarissa, and waving at them goodbye.

Iono sighed once more and took off with Clarissa.

Since they were travelling together, he couldn't move fast because he had to match her pace, so it took them a while to reach deep in the forest.

The whole way there, Clarissa was skipping with a happy expression on her face.

It only changed once, because they met another Green Wolf.

Iono took care of it swiftly, but Clarissa still got scared.

"I have been meeting a lot of them this past few days. I think a dungeon might be breeding somewhere around here. I should take care of that too.", Iono thought.

Dungeons, were places where monsters would gather. They would populate the place, and have it as their territory. Only one, or two types of monster could exist in every dungeon. Among all the monster's present, a king would be selected, by various trials, and he would reign over the colony. People usually referred to those kings, as Dungeon Bosses.

After taking care of the wolf, Clarissa wasn't skipping anymore, she wouldn't even lift her head.

"Youn-... Iono. You are very strong, aren't you? You're not afraid of anything in the forest.", she asked him out of nowhere. Her tone was sad.

Iono glanced at her.

He dismissed the formality thing, since he was the one who asked for her to act normal. After all she was just a little girl.

"Yeah, I guess I am. But, I have been through some tough training to get where I am. It's not an easy path.", he said.

"I-I see.", she replied.

Silence resumed for a moment and then Clarissa once again opened her little mouth to say,

"Do you think I can become that strong?"

Iono stopped in his tracks and turned to stare into her eyes.

Clarissa was caught off guard and blushed a bit.

"Listen well, Clarissa.", he said with a domineering aura.

"Strength is everything in this world. If you have strength you have authority. Authority means you can bend people's will to match yours.", he said.

Clarissa nodded, indicating she understood.

"But... There is always someone stronger. No matter how strong you think you are, there will always be a higher mountain, and that means that your beliefs will be bend to match theirs.

Therefore the question is, would you rather be at the bottom of the food chain and live a short, relatively happy life, or enter this unending cycle of seeking strength, which puts your life in danger, for every second, of every day?", he asked with a serious look on his face.

She stared at him with wonder and fear. She then closed her eyes, and after a moment she opened them again. But something inside them had changed.

"Thank you for warning me, but, I still want to become strong.", she said not further explaining her thoughts.

"Alright then, good luck, I guess."

Truth is, Iono wanted to scare her, he was pretty sure that she would ask him to train her.

He wasn't dense or anything, he knew where the conversation was going.

Therefore he tried to prevent that by scaring her but he didn't. It actually backfired making him sigh inwardly.

"Youn-... Iono! ", Clarissa yelled reluctantly.

"Ah, sh*t! ", he thought.

"Do you think, you can teach me how to be strong?", she said in a cute begging voice, while her hands were behind her back, and she was moving her foot in a way that showed how shy she was.

"And there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the question we've all been expecting!", Iono joked inwardly, while staring at the little girl, which was occasionally glancing at him, waiting for his answer.

"Honestly I would answer no without hesitation, but thinking of what my mom would do to me if I returned home and she found out I said no, makes me shiver.", he thought and actually shivered.

"Yeah, sure. Why not? ", he said, smiling awkwardly.

Clarissa immediately rose her head, and her smile reached her ears. She was brimming with happiness.

"Hooray! Hooray! ", she yelled while jumping around.

"Let's hope this isn't a dream, because I don't want to regret wasting time nurturing an illusion.", he thought.

"For now, let's go gather the herbs, and tomorrow morning we can formally start training.", he told the jumping, little brunette.

"Mm, I understand! ", she replied while flashing a smile.

"She's cute." he thought.

It's wasn't a lustful expression, just a genuine reaction to her smile.

He wouldn't lust after a small child, he was a millennia old monster, well, inside at least.

After walking for a bit longer, they reached the deeper part of the forest.

Here monsters would appear all the time, and the herbs were much more common and of greater quality. After all, almost no one had the strength to venture so deep in the forest.

Every now and then Clarissa would stop to pick up herbs. She didn't really know any herbs, she mostly picked up, "grass that looks funny", is what she called it.

While venturing in the forest, Iono was focusing on his eyes, using his inheritance to avoid most beasts. After all, he wasn't alone.

While walking deeper into the forest, his eyes picked up something, a couple hundred meters away.

It was a giant red lizard, sleeping. Its body was curled up around a beautiful, green flower. The flower had a weird light surrounding it making it stand out.

With his eyes Iono discerned that the so called "light", was actually condensed mana.

The flower had absorbed enough mana for it to be able to condense it.

His eyes shone with greed, but then fell on the little girl next to him, who was still ignorant of the situation.

"If I remember correctly, that's a Green Daisy. A rare flower that appears only where mana is thick in the atmosphere. It's got enormous potential as an ingredient... but it's mostly for healing purposes...

*Sigh*

Damn it! The first treasure I find, and I have to give it to this little troublemaker.", Iono cursed inwardly.

Clarissa's mother needed this herb. Iono was cold to other people, but not to people he appreciated.

Clarissa was obviously annoying to him, but she was an innocent little girl, whose luck was worse than his, and who had to deal with things most adults wouldn't dare to deal with.

Therefore Iono didn't dislike her. He just thought that, as long as she's around, he'd have to help her. And he didn't like that.

"Clarissa, there's a herb, about 200 meters from here. It's a flower that can definitely make your mother better, but it's protected by a very scary monster. Therefore, I will go and pick it up, while you hide somewhere around here and wait for me, ok?"

Clarissa perked up and her eyes turned into stars. She was happy she found something that could help her mother get better.

"Mm, ok! ", she nodded and hid in some bushes.

Iono walked towards the clearing where the lizard was sleeping. He tried to erase his presence, and take out the lizard silently.

"Take advantage of the sleeping moron!", he thought.

He pulled out two purple daggers his father had made for him, and silently moved through the flora to reach the lizard from the back.

He slowly but steadily approached the lizard from behind, ready to strike at any moment.

The lizard was rather big. About 5 meters long and 2 meters tall. Her tail was about 3 meters long. It had red scales all over it's body, other than the stomach where the scales where scarce.

It had spikes protruding out of its back, and a horn sticking out of its snout. The horn was jagged and looked like it had been through lots of battles.

It was heaving peacefully, taking it's afternoon nap, when...

*Swoosh*

Iono dashed with all his strength, and jumped high in the air, holding a dagger in each hand, bringing them down on the lizards head.

Just a moment before the daggers reached its head, the lizards eyes opened, and it tried to move it's head out of the way, without success.

The daggers stabbed the lizard on the head, but only a metallic sound echoed through the forest, as the daggers where parried away.

"SO HARD! ", Iono thought with wide eyes.

This lizard had one hard head!

It turned to glare at it's attacker, and opened its mouth to roar.

Suddenly, small flames escaped its nose, and in the next moment, a sea of flames engulfed Iono.

Iono kicked the lizard, and used the repulsive force to dodge the fire breath.

"What am I fighting, a f*cking dragon!?

Since when do lizards breath fire!? I mean dragons are just big lizards but sti-", and his thoughts where cut off, when a tail came swinging at him.

It was as fast as a whip, but anyone could see that it could do much, more devastating damage.

He rolled to the side dodging and dashed towards the lizard, with his daggers in hand.

"What's with this thing? It's way stronger the norm. Monsters like this, shouldn't exist in this forest at this time. The future is different than I remember.", he pondered.

But he was forced to put his thoughts at the back of his head, as he saw the lizard preparing to release another, point-blank range, fire breath.

Iono kicked the ground, jumping high in the sky to dodge the breath, and then used one of the vines of the trees around them, to swing himself towards the lizard.