Leaving Him Breathless

While Ale was busy taking a bath and zoning out, Rudy on the other hand was being surrounded by his teammates.

"wow.. who is this guy?"

"Looks like our leader but is acting ve~ry different."

"Is it an imposter?!"

They kept circling Rudy and making comments like that while giving him all kinds of looks. Rudy had a hopeless expression on his face as if he no longer knew what to do with this bunch.

"What is it this time?"

He asked, in a tone that suggested the same thing must've happened a couple more times in the past.

Alice gave him a big grin as she stepped a little closer.

"Why did you jump?"

She asked in a very teasing tone.

"Jump?"

"Don't act innocent! We all saw the expression on your face when you jumped into the ocean before."

They were talking about the time when the disaster disappeared. Even after the sea calmed down, when they couldn't find any trace of Ale, Rudy was the first one to jump into the water. And the expression on his face was one that his teammates only saw on rare occasions in the past.

"His knights are pretty strong you know."

"Yes. They alone should've been enough to deal with something like this and even rescue the young master in case of any danger."

"They were definitely holding back while fighting the disaster."

Only the strong could recognize the strong. These were the people that had fought countless battles throughout their life. By now, they already had the capability to judge someone's strength to some extent.

"That may be true for the knights..."

Rudy finally opened his mouth. The reason why he jumped down, the reason why he was showing such concern towards someone he only met a day ago, it was actually fairly simple.

"But that guy looks like he's a magnet for trouble."

"He also doesn't look very reliable. No. Not weak. Just not the type to care much about their own safety."

That was the conclusion Rudy came to after observing Ale for the last 24 hours. Someone who looked weak but wasn't weak. Someone with a thing for attracting trouble. And lastly, someone who was careless about his own safety. It was a bad combination.

"He's not wrong."

Ron agreed with Rudy's judgement as he thought back on all the things he had witnessed so far. Although he wasn't the smartest of the bunch, he could at least gauge a person's character to some extent.

"Even I get this weird feeling of wanting to protect that guy, although we've just met."

The others, after listening to their conversation, couldn't help but agree. Although they all had a different version of Ale in their mind, all of their thoughts were somehow similar in this case.

"Yeah, and with Rudy's 'hero complex', I guess his instinctive feeling of wanting to protect something is stronger than ours."

Stuart made a precise judgement of the situation and backed down. There was nothing he could do to change that after all.

"What? I don't have any hero complex!"

Rudy protested, but the others simply shook their heads as they all backed down as well.

"Hey!"

No one paid heed to his wails anymore and just went back to doing their own thing.

"I don't have a hero complex."

Rudy mumbled one last time as a silent protest towards their 'could care less' attitude before he started walking the other way as well.

On the other hand, Ale who had fallen asleep while taking a medicinal bath, felt something creeping up his body and mistook it as another one of his nightmares.

The bright white room was slowly being covered by something black, dark, and sticky. It was mana. But it was a mana so disgusting that it'd make normal people lose their sense of reality.

Hundreds and thousands of deaths screamed inside that mana as it slowly gobbled everything up inside that room, including Ale.

Rudy, having full control over the submarine, soon found out that there was something wrong with it. Sensing that the direction was the same as where Ale was staying in, he started heading that way without a second thought.

Ale, inside his dreamlike state, saw those black matter slowly creeping up from the ground and drowning him. The white set of pajamas he was wearing in his sleep started turning black with every step he took inside that dream.

It was like a swamp, only the water and mud getting replaced by that disgusting black mana. At first, he could walk, it was hard, but manageable.

But no matter how much he walked, there was no end to it. He tried using his mana but the moment he did that, the dark black mana became even stickier and more sinister. It completely blocked and suppressed his own mana.

Feeling breathless, Ale looked down. The mana that was only up to his shin was now deep enough to cover up to his stomach. It felt as if they were pressing on from all sides, making it hard for him to breathe.

At that moment, Ale finally realized. It wasn't another one of those nightmares. This was happening in real life. And the moment that realization hit him, he also figured out the source of that mana.

"Oh you! Scaring your master like that!"

Fear turned into excitement and the next moment, surprising the owner of that mana, Ale actually dived down into that ocean of black mana.

It was much deeper, darker, and more sinister inside compared to what he had seen on the outside. As he kept swimming down, he could feel chaos that was on a much severe level compared to anything he had seen in a while.

'This is it! My baby!'

Ale dove down faster, wanting to reach the core of the mana, his heart beating like that of a fifteen-year-old seeing their crush up close.

"What.. what are you doing, human?!"

A voice, similar to a screeching noise, came from beside Ale. Fluster and shock were clearly visible on that voice, as it was the first time that entity came into contact with such a bizarre human.

It was the sword. A sword that carried malice and had taken the lives of hundreds and thousands of humans and other living beings. It was a sword that was full of death and despair.

Any normal people would lose their mind if they came in contact with it. Even the strongest humans would feel disgusted just by being in the same room with that sword.

Yet, while being completely engulfed by that sword's aura, this guy was swimming around with a cheery disposition. This was the most absurd thing the sword had seen in its thousands of years of life.

"Oh? You're speaking to me now?"

"What...?"

"Hi! My name is Ale! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

Ale stopped trying to dive deeper and started speaking to the mana around him. Since it was just mana, he wasn't having any problem breathing or moving freely either.

"Pleasure...? Are you out of your mind, human?"

The sword couldn't help but ask. There was a person in front of it who defied all logic and rules of nature. A person with light attribute, the complete opposite of it, he's supposed to be the one most disgusted by its power. Yet, that man looked like he could care less about its devious nature.

"Are you asking if I'm crazy?"

Ale tilted his head and asked back in a cute tone. It was a tone he had only used with his younger brother in the past. Not every day did people get to witness Ale acting cute.

"You ARE crazy."

The sword replied, a little flabbergasted.

"Haha.. You're so cute. Of course I'm not crazy! Or maybe I am? Whatever. Doesn't matter!"

Ale kept mumbling to himself for a while before he finally looked up and stared into a distant point inside that pool of black mana. It was instinct. He could instinctively tell where the core was since there was such a strong resonance between the two of them.

"What matters is! That the two of us met! Like this! Isn't this fate?!"

"What? Us? Fated?"

"Exactly! The purest light bearer with the darkest sword! How cool would we look if we worked together?!"

The sparkle in Ale's eyes alone were enough to dismiss all the darkness around them.

"Why would I work with a human? A light attribute user of all?"

The sword asked, slowly starting to lessen the mana around them. It's been a while since the last time it met someone with such an interesting personality.

"Well, you're not wrong. A demon would suit you better."

And there was someone that Ale knew that was a much better candidate for the sword than him. The future Demon King. But he didn't want that. The thought of his baby holding hands with that guy and accompanying him in war, just the thought of it filled Ale with jealousy and anger.

"No! You belong to me! You're mine! No one else can have you!"

His honest thoughts came out as he pictured his dear sword with that sonuvabitch Demon King.

"...."

The sword fell silent listening to Ale's absurd words. For the first time in its life, it was left completely speechless.

Realizing what he had just said, Ale gasped and covered his mouth with his hands. But it was already too late. The words had already left his mouth.

Even after staying silent like that for a while, he received no reply from the other side. There was pin drop silence between the two of them. Feeling suffocated due to the uncomfortable silence, Ale shamelessly decided to speak first again.

"Say something, won't ya?"

"...."

"Oi"

"...."

"Talk to me dammit!"

As Ale was slowly losing his cool, he failed to notice the disappearing mana around him. The core which seemed further and further before, was starting to look closer.

After taking a few breathe to calm himself down, he finally noticed the shape of a sword approaching his way.

"Oh? You're here?"

His eyes glistened again like it did the first time he saw his sword in this life. This was the real deal.

"I like you. You remind me of someone I knew in the past."

The sword finally replied as it flew and stood right in front of Ale.

"Then you-ack!"

Before Ale could finish his sentence, the sword pierced right through his heart, snatching away every last word he was planning to say, along with his breath.