Success

"I've seen the way you people fight. Relying on nature's mana to fuel your spells with those weird runes of yours. I don't like it."

"A warrior should rely on nothing but the skills and techniques that they've developed. Placing all your hopes on external factors instead of improving your own abilities. Just the thought of doing that shit makes me sick!"

"GRIM!" Noelle yelled.

Ignoring her sudden outburst, he continued on.

"If the elves attacked this place instead of the Clover kingdom, with their natural ability to disrupt mana and make it harder to condense spells, you guys would have been fucked within a day. And now you're asking me to learn from the very same people who are unable to fight properly without using a crutch? Are you fucking stupid?! Training here would do nothing more than hinder my development."

"But the devils-" Lolopechka started.

"Will fall to my blade." He grinned and clenched his fists tightly. "Thanks to that battle I had with your spirit guardian earlier, I'm already stronger now than I was yesterday. I've even gotten a hint of what I need to do in order to grow even stronger."

"So yeah. I'll fight those devils. But I'll do it my way, with my own power and for my own satisfaction."

'If I can't beat them with my own power, then there's no point.'

[A/n: Grim's thoughts are similar to Goku's when he achieved ssj god through the ritual.]

Having finally said his peace, he turned away from the young Queen and began to walk away without giving the others so much as a glance.

But before leaving, he shot another look in Gaja's direction.

"I'll be back for a rematch."

"Wait Grim!" Lolopechka yelled.

"What now?" He paused.

"How did you do it?"

"Huh?"

"Gaja said you broke a stage 0 spell. But with your strength that should be impossible! So how did you do it? How did you overcome such a difference in power?!"

"...Are you dumb?"

"What?"

"Do you know who I am? I'm Grim motherfucker, ain't no such thing as impossible for me."

And with that, he left the Heart kingdom leaving the entire room in shock.

---

Unable to bear the awkward silence any longer, Mimosa tried her best to bring the atmosphere back to what it was before Grim left.

"Your majesty." She began.

"He said he'd fight..."

"...What?"

"He said he'd fight!!" Lolopechka suddenly burst out into joyous laughter and high fived Undine who was also smiling back at her.

"Ehhh?!" The clover kids were all taken back in surprise.

"Y-Your majesty, aren't you disappointed that Grim didn't agree to be trained by you?" Finral asked.

"What? Of course not!" She quickly shook her head. "While it would have been nice to have him train here so that we could determine how strong he'd get. Our main objective in all of this was securing his help. Now that he's said that he'd fight the devils, I consider it a successful negotiation!"

"I-Is that so..." Finral laughed nervously.

'I don't remember you negotiating though...'

"In any case." She continued. "He's bound to get stronger wheather he trains with us or not."

"But what about us?" Mimosa suddenly asked. "Will we still be trained here?"

"Of course!" Lolopechka immediately agreed.

"While he might have been a bit crass in the way he said it, Grim was right when he said that our way of fighting didn't suit him. You guys on the other hand will definitely benefit from it."

"So for the next six months we'll train you as hard as we can! And then we'll launch an attack on the Spade Kingdom together. Oh! And don't forget to pass that onto Grim. It'd be really bad if he attacks prematurely."

---

[Beyond the Heart Kingdom's border]

'I should have made Finral teleport me back.'

Flying high above the clouds and zooming through the sky. Grim quickly made it back into the Clover Kingdom's territory with tons of time to spare before sunset.

'Stage zero huh... If my power estimation is right, then I already reached the level of stage 0 back in my fight with Zagred.'

'But if these new devils are even stronger than him, then I'll have to obtain the power of a stage zero mage without the use of my elf form.'

Damn, just the thought of this is making me buzz!

While flying, a subtle but of disernable flow of mana suddenly dragged him out of his thoughts.

'Oh?' He raised an eyebrow and slowed down.

Suddenly appearing out of nowhere, a group of black hooded figures using several magic tools to fly suddenly appeared all around him.

"Now who would you be?"

Staying silent, the hooded men were about to make a move until they saw Grim hold out his hand and shake his head.

"No! Don't tell me, you're my fans aren't you?"

"..."

"No." He quickly rejected that notion.

"My fans wouldn't hide their faces from me."

!

"Then could it be that you're some battle hardened sexy ladies who've heard of my sexual prowess and are here to challenge me?!!"

"???"

"Ah *shakes head* but looking at your physiques its obvious that you guys are men... Unless you knew that and still came after my body!!!"

"!!!"

Aggressively shaking his head and waving his hands in front of his face, he ruthlessly shot them down.

"If that's the case - then I should let you know *summons beast swords* I don't roll like that!"

Suddenly vanishing from sight and appearing in front of one of them. He grabbed onto one of the hooded men's heads and squeezed-

*SPLAT!!*

Bursting the man's head like a watermelon, he suddenly vanished again only to appear in front of another hooded man. Repeating this action over and over again, he finally stopped once he held the last one up by the neck and had his sword sticking out of their abdomen.

Making use of the [Transparent World] to look through the man's body, he stabbed his sword into one of the points where mana would usually flow causing the man to feel an excruciating level of pain.

"Y'know *twists sword* while I wouldn't put it past you for going after my body. Now that I think about it. I think its more likely that you guys were actually hired by those cucks calling themselves nobles."

"Y-You knew." The assassin in his hand struggled to say.

"Of course." He nodded. "The artifacts your little group are using are way to shiny to be used by your everyday assassins. Now if it was only one of you that had it then I could understand that. But all of you? Psh, only those wastrels would throw away brand new artifacts away like they were nothing."

"I-If you knew who we were, then what was that nonsense you were spewing earlier!"

"Oh that... I was just felt like playing around with you guys. Better to think you died because of your preferences than profession right?"

"Isn't that worse?"

*Shrugs*

"Think it over in hell."

Removing the artifact that allowed him to fly, Grim released his grip on his throat and let gravity do its job.

'...I guess its time I make use of Nebra.'