Chapter 3: Asia Argento

"Nee, master, why are they looking at us with hostility? Can I kill them?"

Lily asked while we were making our way towards my house at the church.

"Don't worry about it, it was always like this. I'm already used to it"

"Master, why are they so weak?"

"They are normal kids, unlike us"

"Hmm..."

"Here we are"

I said while arriving at the entrance of a small secluded house.

"Strange... It's far too quite. I didn't sense Asia's presence while we were passing the church, I can't sense her presence inside"

I muttered while opening the door.

"Huh? Where's all our stuff?"

I asked myself while walking inside the empty house, everything was gone, be it our furniture or even our clothes.

"What the hell happened?"

I started to worry and panic, something must've happened that caused both Asia and our stuff to disappear from the house.

"So you've come back, you damn heretic"

A voice behind us called, as I turned around I saw a middle-aged man wearing a priest robe.

"You're searching for the witch? We've already kicked her out of the church, and so will you. Now that your guardian is gone, you have no right or purpose to stay here. Now leave heretic, or else we'll force you to leave"

"Asia..."

I whispered with worry, I felt furious from this ungrateful bastards, but my worry for Asia overcame the anger that I felt. I have to find her.

"Master, can I kill him?"

Lily asked as her killing intent started leak from her while staring furiously at the head priest for mocking her master.

"No, leave him be, let's go find Asia"

"But master he-"

"I said leave him Lily, its a waste of time to deal with this ungrateful bastard"

"HOW DARE YOU?!? YOU DAMN HERITIC!!"

The priest shouted in anger as he walked towards me furiously, raising his hand and slapped me across the face, is what he expected as I caught his hand, slowly applying pressure on my grip as I broke every bone in his hand causing him to cry and kneel in pain while screaming in anger.

"ARGHH! HOW DARE YOU!?! LET GO OF ME!!"

"Be grateful that I didn't kill you"

I said with a ominous tone in my voice as I let go of his broken hand.

"Lily let's go"

We walked out of the house and leaving the priest wailing in pain on the floor while holding his broken hand.

"Mn"

Lily followed me out of the house as we both ran out of the church while having Detect on fully activated as I tried to find her presence.

"Master, I don't know what her presence feel like"

"Just follow me"

I said in a cold voice while desperately searching the town in stealth. We went to every corner of the town searching for her, but was unable to find anything.

"Master..."

Lily said worriedly while looking at my exhausted expression from running around the town without rest.

"Where are you, Asia?"

I continued my search for her but still was unable to find anything, extreme worry and anxiety ran down my body while desperately searching for her. I was covered in sweat as my body started to give up from exhaustion. Lily looked at me worriedly as I pushed myself to my limit searching for Asia.

"There is still one place that I haven't checked"

Wiping the sweat off my face as I hurriedly ran towards the playground that we used to play at when we were just a child.

As we got there I saw a familiar silhouette of a nun with long blond hair and green eyes, sitting on the swing, crying her heart out as she desperately wiped her tears away with her hands.

"Asia"

I muttered as I felt relieved but pained from seeing her cry. I felt a sharp piercing pain in my heart when I saw her red and puffy eyes.

I hurriedly ran towards her wanting to hug and comfort her but stopped when a man wearing a cleric clothing with a maniacal smile on his face walk towards her.

"~you must be Asia-chan~"

He playfully said while reaching our towards her. I used detection and found 4 more presence hiding in the trees as I ran towards him.

"Lily, take care of the idiots hiding in the forest"

"Of course, master"

Disappearing from my back as I charged towards the priest.

"OH?! Who the fuck are you?!"

I pushed him back while I held Asia in my embrace.

"That's my line, who are you?"

"Oh! That's none of business, you shitty heretic"

He said while pulling out a gun and firing it at me at close range. I easily dodged his gun while I let go of Asia and grabbed his leg.

"What the?! Let go of me!"

The man shouted while struggling to get out of my grip, I lifted him up and slammed him on the ground as I cast bind on him.

"What the shit is this?!"

He struggled to free himself from the mana rope, rolling around the ground while moving his body recklessly trying to get free.

"Master, I have taken care of them"

Lily came back carrying four fallen angels with a dark rope around their body immobilising their movement.

"Who are you?!"

The woman with long black hair wearing a black strap outfit that barely hid anything on her body.

"Lily, let's go"

I ordered her as I walked away with the crying Asia in my embrace. Lily who felt conflicted from his master not killing them, decided to just follow his commands and left the 5 screaming figures behind.

"L-Lucias, I-I thought you left me, Lucias, p-please don't leave me"

"Asia, don't worry, I won't leave you behind, sorry for disappearing suddenly"

I caressed her head as she buried her face on my chest and cried loudly while she hugged me tightly like I would disappear as soon as she let go of me.

"I'm sorry, Asia, I'm sorry I left you behind, I won't leave your side ever again"

She continued to cry on my chest, while mumbling how her friends and priest turned their back on her without hesitation when they found out that she could heal other beings other than humans.

"T-they, the-"

"Asia, just let it all out"

"P-p-please don't *sniff* Leave me *sniff* Like they did, please, please, please"

"I'll never leave you behind anymore Asia, I'll always be by your side"

"R-really? *sniff*"

"I promise, so don't cry anymore"

She raised her head to look at me while wiping the tears off of her eyes as she smiled brightly from relief before falling asleep.

"She exhausted herself from crying"

"Master, why didn't we kill them?"

"There is no need to waste our time with them, if they come back and tried to steal Asia away from me again, then I won't show mercy on them anymore"

"Master, what should we do now?"

"Well first we need to find ourselves a hotel to rest at, but our money is in yen, we're in Greece, so I don't think we can use our money here"

"Can your ability convert it?"

"I don't know... Let me try"

I opened my status board and clicked on the section currency, 3 options came out as I pressed it. One was withdraw, Keep, and Convert.

"Oh, I can convert it"

I chose the convert option, another window popped out and there are two boxes present in the window. One of the boxes was in Yen while the other box has a [choose currency] option.

I chose [convert to euro] and suddenly all of the cash the yen sign on the currency section disappeared and was replaced by €.

"What the hell... It didn't decrease/increase in amount? It stayed the same"

I said before taking out a stack of cash to see if it really changed.

"So it really did changed"

I said as I look at the paper money on my hand while walking on the streets, carrying Asia in a princess carry.

"Master, let's stay in that hotel"

Lily said while pulling on my sleeves and pointing at the love hotel in front of us.

"I don't think we are allowed inside"

"Why?"

"Because we're minors, we can't go inside until we reach the appropriate age"

"Then where should we stay?"

She asked while I looked around my surroundings finding a proper hotel but found out that we were surrounded by love hotels.

"Master, why are they looking at us weirdly?"

Lily asked innocently as she saw the people around them looking at us with weird expressions on their faces.

"It is pretty weird finding 3 underaged children walking around this district"

I said before speeding up my pace until we ran at a nearby empty abandoned warehouse.

"We have no choice but to stay here for the night, so Lily can you surround this warehouse with a barrier?"

I asked her as she nodded and raised her hands up. Mana started to gather on her palm as she spread it around the shed, covering it with a layer of mana.

I then placed Asia down on the bench as quietly as possible but woke up when she couldn't feel my embrace anymore.

"Lucias... Where are we?"

Asia asked while rubbing her puffy eyes as she sat up on the bench.

"We're in an abandoned warehouse, were going to stay here for the night"

"Who is she?"

She asked while pointing at Lily.

"She is Lily, a friend of mine, she has nowhere else to go so she came with me"

"She is an orphan like us?"

"Well, yeah you can say that"

"Master"

Lily pulled on my sleeve as she went closer to my ear.

"Master, she seems far too weak, right now, I doubt we can protect her properly especially from the amount of supernatural beings in this area, why won't you let her go inside an instant dungeon to increase her strength?"

"... That is true, let me try telling her"

I said before separating from Lily and facing Asia who was still a bit tired from crying.

"Asia"

"Hmm?"

"Asia, if I were to tell you that their is a way to make you stronger, would you accept?"

"Stronger?"

"Yes because, there are some chances that we will not be able to protect you, and our ability is still lacking to fully protect you, so we plan to increase your strength so if that chance ever happens you can protect yourself"

"I-if that's what you want then I'll do it"

"No, don't do it for me Asia, do it for yourself. You must rely on yourself Asia"

Especially now that I might day fighting them to protect you, if they are more powerful than me.

"T-then I'll do it for myself"

"Good, then [ID create]"

As soon as I activated the skill the surroundings changed into a more ominous one as growling of zombies are heard outside of the warehouse.

Asia became shocked and scared at the sudden changes but forced herself to calm down and trust Lucias.

"Asia, let's go outside were going to teach you the basics"

I stood up and came towards the entrance of the warehouse.

Lily blended with the shadows as she went to the window on the top of the warehouse, watching both of them from above.

I casually opened the gate causing the nearby zombies to go to our location. Asia was pale and trembling while she clings on my back, watching the disfigured corpses walk towards them.

"L-Lucias w-what is going on?"

"This is my ability Asia, I can create a separate temporary space that contains any monsters that I desire"

I explained to her while casting bind to all incoming zombies.

"Oh I forgot"

I went towards the party section and invited Asia to join my party together with Lily. I clicked confirm and suddenly another window appeared in front of Asia. She looked confused about what is happening as she click accept on the notification window.

"Now then let me explain everything. Do you see the board like thing that has your name, race, and level"

"Yes"

Asia replied while looking at her status board.

"That is your status board, it displays your current speed, strength, charm, luck, and vitality in numerical numbers kind of like the rpg game that we played 2 years ago"

"Mn"

"The Hp is your hit points, it represents how much damage you can take, and when it hits zero, you'll die"

"The Mp is your mana points, to put it in perspective, when you use your healing do you feel yourself become exhausted?"

"Yes, I feel kind of tired when I heal someone"

"Well that is because your consuming your mp, every spell that we cast will consume a certain amount of mana, and as you use your healing multiple times, you'll exhaust your mana pool causing you to either pass out or experience extreme fatigue or exhaustion"

"Your strength is basically the physical power that you have, for example a human with 2 strength can lift a pebble like its nothing but is unable to lift something heavier, but a human with 100 points in strength can lift a boulder like they are lifting a pebble. The same applies for the other stats, intelligence measures deductive reasoning, knowledge, memory, logic and rationality, the more intelligence one have, the more mp they have and the more powerful their spells are. For example right now you can heal simple injuries like fractures, but if you can increase your intelligence, you can at least heal a missing limb or reattach a decapitated head"

"Endurance is basically the measure of how much stamina you have and how much damage you can take before dying"

"Agility is the measure of speed, balance, coordination, and reflexes of the body"

"Can you follow Asia?"

"Y-yes, please continue"

"Now we move on to Luck, to put in simple terms, luck is the measure of how lucky one person can get. For example, a person with 10 luck have a chance of winning 1 lottery out of a thousand tries. But if a person with 500 Luck tried the same thing, they will win 9 out of 10 tries. Luck can influence everything like chances of critical strikes, an attack missing you, or even the chances of a rarer drop. This stat is most useful in the use of life skills like blacksmith, Alchemy, or tailoring"

"Finally Charm, basically its the measure of our social skills, and physical appearance. The higher your charm is the more beautiful you can get"

"Oh..."

"Now then we move on to skills, basically it displays your ability to do 'something', and each skill has a proficiency level. The higher your proficiency level, the more skilled you are in doing that 'something'"

I explained while she looked at the skill section of her status board, I used appraisal on her to take a look at her stats, but I froze from what I saw...

Asia Argento

Race: Human

Sacred Gear: Twilight Healing

Title: Loved by the Dragons

Level 2

Hp: 600/600

Mp: 2,000/2,000

Strength: 4

Intelligence: 20

Endurance: 6

Agility: 5

Luck: 30

Charm: 200

Skills:

Heal (lvl 12/100) - Allows the user to cast a spell that can heal any injuries to its target. Heals 100 (+12% per point of intelligence) hp per second. (Consumption: 100 mp/sec).

Dragon Tamer (lvl 1/100) - Allows the user to make a pact with any known dragons with a % (1% per skill level) chance of success in taming a dragon. Increases compatibility with dragons that rises based on the level of the skill.

Cooking (lvl 34/100)

Tailoring (lvl 27/100)

Housekeeping (lvl 47/100)

Praying (lvl 80/100)

Mana manipulation (lvl 1/100)

Sprint (lvl 4/100)

"Uh..."

*How did she get the Dragon Tamer skill?*

"Lucias, I want to see yours as well"

"I don't think..."

"Please?"

"... Fine"

I sighed before showing her my status screen which immediately shocked her by how strong I am compared to her.

Lucias Frey

Race: Human

Sacred Gear: None

Title: Undead Hunter, Vampire Hunter

Level: 155

Hp: 22,000/22,000

Mp: 28,500/28,500

Strength: 230

Intelligence: 285

Endurance: 220

Agility: 211

Luck: 165

Charm: 205

Status Points: 285

Shop Points: 1,000

"I-I-I"

"I know what you want to say but Asia don't compare yourself to us. We have experienced bloodshed and trained ourselves to get where we are now. Asia, you weren't trained by the church at all, but you were taught to follow the words of God"

"I-I'll do my best to get stronger, so I won't be a burden to you and Lily"

She said in a determined expression while clenching her fist, as she steeled herself to look at the disfigured corpses tied to the ground.

"Asia, when it comes to skill proficiency we have no problem, but what I want for you to have is the determination to kill when it's necessary. Right now your far too soft, and even if I did improve your proficiency, it will be worthless if you lack resolve"

"K-kill?"

She asked with a pale face like she couldn't believe what I told her.

"Yes, Asia"

"B-but-"

"Asia, do you want to get stronger?"

"Y-yes, b-but-"

"Then you have to do this Asia"

"B-but I-I can't-"

"Asia please, you can do this"

I tried to motivate her but she still looked pale, but their is a slight resolve from her eyes. I know that its far too much to force a 9 year old to do this, but we only have ourselves from now on. So I need to assure that all of my friends are safe.

"You can do this Asia"

I said as I handed her a small knife that Lily hid from her pocket as we left the instant dungeon from before. She trembled while holding the small knife with visible tears in her eyes as she tried to move closer to one of the tied zombies.

"I-I-"

Asia's POV

I-I have to do this for Lucias. I have to-

"I-I-"

"I-I can't"

I gave up... I felt fear and conflicted. I was taught to always takes God's words by heart, I can't resolve myself to kill. I can't, I can't Lucias... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Lucias please don't hate me,please don't leave me, I can't, I'm so useless, Lucias.

Mc's POV

She cried while mumbling sorry multiple times as her body trembled.

"Asia... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have forced you"

I said to her before grabbing her wrist and pulling her into a tight hug as she trembled in my arms, but slowly she calmed down while looking at me with a sad expression.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Lucias"

"Don't worry, its not your fault, I shouldn't have forced you"

I caressed her hair trying to comfort her while she was burying her head on my chest, crying

"Let's leave"

I raised my hand into the air as my mana slowly spears out breaking the instant barrier that I created and returning us to reality.

Lily's POV

How disappointing, I can't believe that Lucias let her be... He should have pushed her, at this point we can both potentially die protecting her. This is just...

"..."

I sighed before coming down as I had a look of disapproval on my face while looking at Asia. I knew that she is a kind and caring girl but this is just... far too much. She will be Lucias greatest weakness. I need to do something to change this... I need to talk to her.

I thought deeply while sitting down on the bench as I saw Asia calm down from her crying and Lucias looking at her with a worried expression.

"Lily, take care of Asia, I'll buy us food at the store, so wait for me here, okay?"

"...understood"

I replied as he left the warehouse, leaving both me and Asia alone. Asia was on the side, looking down with a sad expression on her face.

"You..."

Asia who heard me lifted her head up and looked at me with her innocent green eyes.

"...Asia-san... I don't know what happened between the two of you that made her pamper you that much. But I have to warn you, if you continue being like this, you will be Lucias greatest weakness"

"W-what do you mean?"

"It is what I said, Asia-san, master loves you far too much, he wanted you to grow stronger to ensure your safety, but he didn't want to force you into it. At this point, both of us might day from your weakness. Because I know that he will do everything to protect you, even if it means dying himself"

"..."

"Asia, please consider, you have to face this now when its still early. Please, I don't want to see my master get hurt"

"B-but-"

"Please Asia"

I pleaded her as I kneeled down in front of her, bowing my head to the point that it touched the ground.

"Please Asia. You're far too important for master, I don't want to see you or him get hurt. Please Asia, please"

"I-I don't-"

"Asia, do you want to see the day he dies?"

"N-no I don't want to"

She instantly answered while looking at me straight in the eyes.

"Then you have to get stronger, if you don't, you'll be possibly used by our enemies to threaten master since it is easy to capture and kill you right now. You know Lucias by heart, you know that he'll sacrifice his life if that ever happens to you. Please Asia, please"

Asia who heard me couldn't retort since she knew what I said was true. He lowered her head looking at the ground as she heard my words. Seeing her like this, I grew pale and lost all hope that I had for her. I knew that she is far too soft to do this, but I still wanted to try. I lowered my own head from disappointment staring at the cold ground.

"I'll do it"

I raised my head, looking at the blond girl in front of me, filled with resolve and determination. She was still pale but unlike before her eyes were not as weak as before.

"How familiar"

I muttered quietly while looking at her eyes as a flash of memory appeared in my head. She had the same resolve and determination as master when both of them were trapped inside the instant dungeon and when master was desperately searching for her.

*I did my best, master*

I smiled while looking at her eyes, at this moment I knew that she will not back down like Lucias did in the past.

Mc's POV

"I'm back"

I called as I entered the warehouse while carrying 2 plastic bags, I searched for the two of them and found that they were enjoying chatting with one another.

"Lucias, you're back!"

Asia greeted me brightly unlike the expression and fear that she had before on her face.

"Lucias, I want to go back inside the dungeon"

She immediately said with resolve while looking at me straight in the eyes which shocked me. I was confused by her sudden changed but saw Lily smiling at the corner, instantly I could guess that she talked with Asia when I was out.

I smiled at Lily with gratitude as I placed the food inside my inventory. I raised my hand and created the same instant dungeon as before.

Asia held the knife in her hand tightly while biting her lips, trying to not run away or tremble like what she did before.

"Then let's go"

I said before opening the entrance and binding one the zombies that charged at me.

"Go Asia"

Asia came closer with trembling legs but she didn't stop until she was next to the fallen zombie. She held her knife tightly, hesitating but forced herself to open her eyes as she swung the knife down at the zombie.

"ARGHHH"

"YIEEEE"

She yelped from horror but regained herself as she held the knife stuck to the zombies head, trying to pull the knife out of the zombies head but she still lacked strength to do so.

"Let me"

I said as I grabbed the knife covering it with my mana to sharpen the blade.

[Skill: Sword Enhancement acquired]

I let go of the knife and kept my distance as Asia held the knife once more and easily pulled it out.

"I-I did it!"

She said excitedly with a pale face as she went forward another zombie stabbing it to death while I held it down with bind.

"I-I can do this!"

I smiled while looking at her happy smile from being able to face her fears and overcome it. She ran towards me, hugging me tightly with her trembling hands before returning to stab another zombie. As she tried to force herself to get used to doing it.

"Thank you Lily"

"It's only natural for me to help you, master"

" But still, thank you"