In the end, preparing for the stampede wasn't as hard as I was momentarily worried it would be. With several layered barriers cutting off the paths that didn't lead directly to the point where we were aiming to face against the horde of monsters, there shouldn't be any problems with our testing.

Yet in order to satisfy my own paranoia, rather than letting the one path that the monsters could take to be a cone with the fighting point at its tip, I made sure to create two diagonal walls, turning this tip into an extended, narrow path, effectively limiting the number of monsters that could attack either one of us at once.

So far, Bonger never really had the habit of bothering me with some useless bits of information, so in the end, I decided to make sure that in the off chance a monster so powerful that it would force the three or even four of us to make a move simultaneously were to appear, then cutting off the rest of the small fries could be done with just a single thought!

"I wonder how long they will take…"

With all the preparations finished now, rather than stressing ourselves with the coming fight, I was sitting with Eve at the edge of a wall rampart created in the past by the villagers, swinging our legs in the excitement. After all, rather than a challenge, the two of us considered this event as a chance to test our limits! As such, there was no way for either of us to hold our energy back!

"Who do you have in mind? Those beasts or Celleria with those poor people?"

With Eve's head falling sideways on top of my shoulder, I reached with my left arm and pulled her waist a bit closer. While completely devoid of any further intimacy, just this moment of staring into the distance together, with each passing second shortening the remaining time that we would have to wait before the fun would start… For some reason, despite how our bodies were completely covered by the clothes, even without even the smallest bit of our skin touching, I couldn't help but feel elated during this moment.

"For some reason, I can't really be worried about her. Don't get me wrong, as her likely sister I still am worried about her a bit, especially with the long-lasting order currently falling apart due to your excursions, yet I think that she still didn't show us either her real face or her real power. I'm not sure if you noticed, but that horror in her eyes as you were mildly threatening her… It was faked."

With her cheek still resting on my shoulder, every time Eve spoke, I felt the vibration coming from her skin and spreading through my entire body. Yet as I listened to her words, I had to admit that after paying that situation all the way back in my tower a visit in my memories, it seemed like my dearest fiancee was completely right about what had happened back then.

"So, you can't wait for those beasts to appear, right? Mind telling me what you find most exciting about this practice run we will have with them?"

With how the two of us was leisurely relaxing, I felt a small tingle in my soul where I learned that Eve was more interested in growing even stronger and more efficient with her power rather than treasuring this calm moment between the two of us, after thinking about it for a while, I forced myself to stop looking at her with this insanely small bit of regret.

After all, when looking at the entire situation from her eyes, the picture painted would greatly differ to what I saw in front of my eyes. She never had the chance to learn about this place and all three groups of people that were involved in the fight with each other. She never had the chance to feel her own effort paying out whenever she would achieve something greater than before.

The void created by the lack of her presence beside me during all this time I struggled to save her, could only be filled by her own actions. Even with all the memories that I passed to her along with that small bit of her soul that resided within my core, after thinking about it for only a faintest of moments, I realised that there was no way those memories would be ever enough to fill the gap.

That's why, rather than feeling hurt by her focus on the battle, I should support her wish to achieve something herself with all my might! After all, she wasn't some kind of support character in some kind of trashy novel written by a beginning author who learned most of his craft while writing this kind of bullshit. She was a real person, with real needs, ambitions, fears and shortcomings! Treating her as just a convenient source of warmth, pleasure and mental comfort would be akin to betraying both her feelings and her trust!

"Did you prepare some moves for today, or was the time too short?"

Given how we basically jumped out of the city and landed in the village, then spend most of our time preparing for defending this place, I couldn't really expect my beloved one to pay any mind to the proper ways of facilitating her powers during battle. 

With that thought in my mind, I instantly immersed myself into the darabase of the stuff that I collected from the Heavenly city underground library.

"While it's nothing more but an idea, I think I found a few moves that just feel natural for me. Yet whenever I execute them without pumping my body with energy, I feel as if there was something missing, greatly limiting what those punches and kicks of mine can achieve, not to speak about all kinds of sword moves that are popping up in my head…"

"Then how about you… Ugh, I see that we really won't have the time for that. It seems that your turn will be coming now, so let me take a comfortable spot and control the barriers. With that said, good luck, dear!"

Just as I was about to pass on some basic fighting techniques that I found in my database, a hint of red appearing in the corner of my eyes alerted me. With my head instantly turning toward the direction of this momentary light, I strayed my eyes for the moment before changing my sentence.

The stampede was coming back!