Chapter 4 Ariel

After the day of Dante's killing the wolf, Ryota accelerated his schedule and began to teach Dante the basics of physical fighting. None of it was too crazy, and he kept it to widely known fighting styles, but he quickly ran out of material since Dante could accomplish everything he showed him on the first try. He didn't want to teach him magic yet since most learned it in their teenage years, and a lot more could go wrong if it was done incorrectly.

One thing Dante did notice was that he couldn't replicate everything. His body was strong for his age, but some features of his body were inadequate; some moves required more strength while others desired more flexibility. Things like this caused him to plateau but wouldn't be a huge problem in the future when he grew into his body.

Currently, Ryota is standing on top of a tree branch that is incredibly high, monitoring Dante. Over the past few weeks, he had given Dante more and more free reign to explore the forest and fight by himself; he would only step in if he thought Dante would get severely hurt.

He sat on a branch and just enjoyed watching his little prodigy dismember multiple beasts. Sometimes he would encounter a small pack of wolves or even wide arrays of reptiles that were around the river. Ryota would steer Dante towards new areas to get more practical experience with plenty of different kinds of beasts.

As Dante was freely walking around, he heard the sounds of metal clashing and decided to take a look. As he got closer, he could hear feminine grunts happening, followed closely by a deep growl. When he crossed a bush, he was met by a young elven girl who was possibly around his age, attempting to hunt a fully grown star wolf. But this star wolf was peculiarly looking; you could see around his legs where the fur was thinner and the veins were purple. At this point in time, Dante had killed a plethora of star wolves, but he had never seen this characteristic before. Even worse was the fact that the wolf seemed to be much stronger than it should be.

He quickly ran towards the fight, but the girl screamed at him before he could get closer.

"This is my fight!" The girl seemed strong-willed, and Dante could respect it, so he decided to stand by and jump in when needed. After a grueling five minutes, the girl finally killed the wolf by using an elvish curved sword.

Only now did Dante get a good look at the girl, and he quickly realized she was by far one of the prettiest girls he had ever met. She had blonde hair that cascaded down to her shoulder blade, so it wasn't long enough to get in the way of combat, and a gold and silver set of armor that was incredibly lightweight and flexible.

The looks were a nice plus for him, but the fact she had a strong mind and enough sense to wear appropriate armor was all the more reason why his respect for her was slowly growing. Dante had his fair share of grueling duels, and the biggest part of that was a strong will and the mindset to get through them. Clearly, the girl was ticking all of his boxes.

"I'm Dante." He casually said it with a wave.

The girl was panting, and after a few seconds of silence, she decided to lay on the ground.

"Ariel." She said she was gasping between breaths.

Dante stared at her for a while before backing away and attempting to leave. He didn't want to seem weird or anything, so he decided to leave it up to fate if he saw her again. You could say Dante was socially awkward in some sense. Right before he could, though, she began to say something.

"Wait a second, how are you in here?" She didn't piece it together sooner since she was winded from her fight with the wolf, but clearly she should be alone in this forest.

"I'll leave that up to your imagination." He said it with a mischievous smile before bolting off and leaving her behind.

Ariel wanted to chase after him, but even in peak condition, she was sure that she couldn't keep up with him. She had no idea who he was, but he was far more athletic than other people she had seen in her age group.

Slowly, a smile began to blossom on her face, and shortly after, she began to sit up and dust off her armor before limping back home in an attempt to figure out who she just met.

After a few minutes of running at full speed, Ryota suddenly appeared in front of him with a smirk on his face. This gesture made Dante think that he had done something wrong or even evil just now.

"Why the face?"

"Nothing; you handled yourself fairly well in front of royalty." Ryota said this before turning around and walking back to the cabin.

Dante figured she was someone at least special, but he wouldn't have thought a princess would be a possible battle junkie like him. Another box was checked off for Dante, and he was finding himself more and more interested in Ariel.

After that day, though, Dante never ran into Ariel again. It sucked, but Dante quickly got used to it. Over the next few months, Ryota managed to get a small arsenal of weapons for Dante. Ryota thought that Dante trying out so many weapons was foolish since most people focused on mastering one weapon, but he decided not to voice his thoughts since the past few times he had been proven wrong. Sure enough, as the weeks passed and Ryota showcased very basic martial techniques to Dante, he learned them after a few repetitions.

Most people in Aevis dedicate their path to power by either pursuing magic or martial techniques; both at their core use mana, but martial masters only use it as a form of supplementing their power, while people who pursue magic rely all they have on it. It was essentially a battle between people who augmented themselves and people who cast spells. But that was only a general path; many others had lived and pursued different ways to reach the top, but these two were the most prominent.

"Have there ever been magic swordsmen?" Dante asked curiously.

"Many have tried, but the amount of time it would take to master it isn't worth it. They typically start off incredibly powerful, but when it comes to later in life, they get passed up by people focusing on one path. The farther you go in magic and martial arts, the longer it takes to learn." Ryota had been alive for a while and knew how well power scaled.

"How old are you?" Dante had an inkling that he was older than he let on; he looked in his mid-thirties, but the amount of knowledge the man had was beyond his years.

"I turn 143 this year," Ryota said.

Dante just sat there, stunned by this bombshell.

"The stronger you get, the longer you live." Ryota said it should've been common sense.

"Ryota, I've been stuck inside a damn cabin my entire life."

"Fair point…" Ryota scratched his head in embarrassment.