Chapter 973 ‘Nine Hell’

A few hours later, Kisuke was offered food and it was surprisingly appetizing for him. However, after inspecting it for a moment, he didn't touch it any further. Nothing really happened after that so he just 'slept'.

Kisuke returned to Earth and the first thing he did was to ask Riveria, "Riveria, would you like to come with me to the other side?"

Riveria, who'd just come out of the bath and was wearing a thin light green hoodie over a white tank top and short shorts while drinking a glass of milk, glanced at him and replied, "You finally asked. I thought I would have to wait the whole week."

"...What would you do if I didn't ask you?"

Riveria stared straight into his eyes and with an incredibly straight face, she answered, "I'd bite your leg and never let go of it until I could go home."

"...Why do I have a feeling that you're not joking?"

"Because I'm not." Riveria then smiled widely and revealed her perfect rows of white teeth, "Try me."

Kisuke's head was instantly filled with the image of the dignified High Elf biting on his heel like a maniac. That scene made Kisuke swallow a mouthful of saliva and tempted him to actually try it and see that in reality. But before he could get his words out, a bullet of compressed Magic Power came rushing towards his face and he had to dodge it by tilting his head.

The bullet dissipated before it hit and damaged the wall, but Riveria was preparing more bullets on top of her finger, "I'll have to gouge your eyes out first, though. How many times do you think you'll be able to regenerate before we could go to the other side?"

Kisuke raised his arms in surrender, "Geez... How violent."

Kisuke then went and sat beside Riveria. Riveria, on the other hand, took back her Magic Bullets and moved aside to wait for Kisuke to sit down before laying down on the sofa and placing her legs on top of Kisuke's lap. Without questioning her actions, Kisuke began massaging her leg muscles.

These past few years, Riveria had been getting comfortable around Kisuke and wouldn't mind showing him her sloppy side. Throughout her stay in this foreign and very dangerous world, these times were one of her important beacons of relaxation and gave a feeling of security. However, she could really only act like this when it was only the two of them and would never dare to even come close to Kisuke if the others were around.

Though Riveria really only became this comfortable because Kisuke wasn't saying anything about it.

"When are we going and what do I need to prepare?"

Kisuke thought about it for a moment before replying, "Something came up so I'm not really sure when but it's probably around a week or two from now. While waiting, you should polish your high-altitude Flight Magic and Thermal Shielding Magic."

Riveria furrowed her brows and asked, "What for?"

"Just in case." Kisuke answered curtly before continuing on another topic, "By the way, neither I nor Yoruichi and Serafall will be participating in any battles involving monsters, no matter how difficult it could become for everyone else."

"I know that. After coming to this world, I already understand why you wouldn't want to. Aside from taking away the opportunity to get stronger from the Adventurers, joining in that kind of skirmish is just way below you... It's childish and silly. Though I'm still surprised that you're allowing me to join in."

Kisuke sighed, "You've already left that world's natural ecosystem so I honestly don't want you to get involved. But that's too much to say to someone who grew up in that world and considers it as her home. All I can say is... Please don't go ballistic."

Riveria averted from Kisuke's gaze and said, "I'll try to limit myself to just Elven Magic."

Riveria remembered the promise she made with Gareth before she left, but looked like she'd be breaking it in a different sense.

Kisuke never really expected Riveria to improve the way she did when Yoruichi and Serafall sent her over as an experiment. If she goes all out, her firepower could easily match that of a combat-oriented God, albeit, for a shorter duration than normal due to her lack of raw Magic Power capacity. However, firepower wasn't the most terrifying about her, but her versatility.

Recording hundreds of thousands of spells and techniques in her Soul Gear and creating new spells and techniques through the combination and modification of the ones recorded, she could do almost anything, making her second only to Kisuke.

She only lost to Kisuke because the latter could respond faster and cleverly to most situations and he could most certainly turn the advantage around to his favor while Riveria could only counter and cancel the incoming threat to her most of the time.

All in all, due to the sheer amount of spells she knew, she became one of the most dangerous individuals in Kisuke's group and her existence was very much unknown among the factions, just like Benihime in her independent actions.

"And what? Pull out something like [Elven Giga Cannon] and incinerate everything within your sight? Just keep it to your 9 original spells and just go chantless."

"..."

Kisuke knew what she was thinking and added, "Defense and Healing Magic are fine, but no Attack Magic rapid fire. You'll raise a literal hell."

"I'm called 'Nine Hell', though?"

"So you want to keep casting wide area Annihilation Magic like Rea Laevateinn every second?"

Riveria made an expression as if she was offended, "Is that how you think of me? I'm not unreasonable like you! I'd do it only every... 9 seconds."

"So that's the 'Nine Hell'!?" Kisuke slapped Riveria's thigh, "There's no amount of monsters in that world that would need that much force! Every 5 minutes!"

"You don't know about that! I think it'll only be enough to fry that Black Dragon! 15 seconds!"

"No way! You just want to show off, don't you!? 4 minutes and 30 seconds!"

While they were arguing how many cooldowns Riveria should have, the night ended.

In any case, it became a squabble between Kisuke not wanting to waste the other world's effort to get stronger and take away their sense of crisis by having a cheating High-Elf bulldozing everything in sight, and Riveria who wanted to show off what she got after returning since she hadn't really got any chance to go all out after the period of peace and quiet came into this world.

'Oh right... I still have to gauge the three girls' real strength tomorrow.' Kisuke thought while he was being choked by Riveria's thighs in protest of his imposed long cooldowns.