Chapter 10: Will to Break

Crimson followed Emma into the guild after a few more minutes of rest, he headed in and went up to the loft while trying to ignore the stare that Emma was shooting into the back of his head, he really was happy that she cared.

In the loft, he found Mars brooding and glaring at a glass of water with a look of distaste. As Crimson approached, he glanced over and watched him for a moment, then he downed the glass of water like it was a shot.

After slamming the glass down on the table, Mars growled out a question, "What do you want boy?"

"To grow strong, but for now, I'll take a teacher."

Mars looked at him strangely, "And the boy genius got it into his head that I should be the one?"

Crimson shrugged, "Well, aren't your orders from Lars to break me? If you push me like you did just now, then I'll be able to grow stronger, faster.”

Secondary reason being the last confirmed Level of Mars was 90 - that kind of experienced teacher is nigh impossible to come by.

Mars watched him with an expressionless face for a long moment, then responded, "You want me to break you?"

It was time for him to make use of his eyes, he'd finally figured out how they worked. Well, "figured out" would be an exaggeration, but he had a decent idea of some of the rules surrounding them. The first: he needed to make direct eye contact. That was a "no duh" rule, but it was the first one he'd figured out. The second rule had to do with his intent, his intentions when he made eye contact were important.

Crimson made eye contact, and pressed with his will, his intent was to show how serious he was, "Do your very best."

Mars looked at him, then started laughing. His laugh grew louder and louder till it resounded around the empty guild, seeming to assault Crimson's ears from all sides.

Once it stopped, Mars looked him dead in the eyes and spoke, "Well then, I will break you. Let's begin."

----

As Abel and his friends rushed to the Adventurer's Guild, he couldn't believe that they were late! How could he have let himself sleep in that long?! Their appointment was at 10:00, but it was 09:30! He had wanted to be half an hour early to show how serious he was, but he'd slept in!

Not only that, but the only member of his group that could keep up was Ruby! Well, she was faster than him, but he was faster than anyone else in the group by a decent amount! Except of course Midori, she was almost as fast!

They burst into the guild and saw! ...a mostly empty guild. Where was everyone?! Were they all already out saving the world?! How noble of them!!! Abel felt the tears start to build up in his eyes and he did his best to restrain them!

Even the receptionists must be so busy for there only to be one of them! It was an absolutely beautiful Dark Elf! The pipe she was sucking on was rather off-putting, but that aside, flawless!

Abel rushed over to her with his friends close behind and he slammed into the desk both hands first, he didn't really process the flicker of annoyance that crossed her face as he shouted, "We are the new [Brass] rank class!"

Abel found himself distracted and his face turned red as she moved in an elegant and seductive way to reach out and grab a sheet of paper from a drawer.

When she spoke, his ears and insides melted, "Very well little boy, what are all of your names."

Abel ignored the jabs of three different people in his back as the thought occurred to him that her calling him little boy didn't sound too bad!

"M-my name is A-Abel! What is yours? Can we be good friends? Do you have a bo-"

A hand over his mouth silenced him as Sapphire grabbed him in a chokehold, she then spoke.

"Like he said, this is Abel, my sister is Ruby, the elf is Cecilia, and that is Midori. My name is Sapphire."

Abel watched as his vision started to get dark as every movement she made while writing the names sent a jolt through him, she was too pretty!

Sapphire lowered her head down to his ear and whispered, "She is way too old for you!"

Age is just a number!

"She's not human!"

Why would that matter?!

"She isn't interested in you!"

People change!

"And Cecilia is prettier than her!"

No she wasn't! And why would he touch her?! It would be like dating his sister! Also, it would be great if Sapphire would loosen her grip, it was hard to see the Dark Elf Goddess in front of him with all the stars in his eyes and the darkness that was starting to shroud them!

The Goddess continued filling out papers with every motion being a masterpiece that he wanted to burn into his mind!

Once finished, she glanced up, "I am finished, here are your guild cards, please head down that hallway to the end where you will find the training yard. Your instructors will arrive shortly, so please be patient. Also, please don't kill your friend here, it would mean more paperwork for me - do it out back where Emma would be in charge of the report."

Ahh, even her heartless nature was wonderful to him! How dare Sapphire drag him out from under the cold eyes of his beloved Goddess, he'd-!

Once completely out of sight, it was like a fog over his mind lifted and he could think clearly. Why had he found her so beautiful? While his comment about Cecilia was still true, she was prettier than that Dark Elf, and all of his rebuttals against Sapphire's arguments fell apart! Age wasn't just a number, she was clearly more than ten years older than him! If he had to pick a non-human race to date, it certainly wouldn't be a Dark Elf! They were sneaky thieves! What had happened to him?!

After he stopped struggling, he felt Sapphire let him go. and she spoke, "I don't know what kind of [Class] or [Skill] she has, but you are very susceptible to it - avoid her in the future."

Oh, was that what had happened?! Things made sense! He certainly wouldn't let some crawler get him to fall in love with her - he was way too good for that!

He took a proud stance and firmly announced with all the energy of his soul, "I won't fall for it again!"

Three pairs of eyes bored into him as he faltered under their response, "Yes, you will!"

His eyes started to well up with tears, "Why would you say that?! I won't let it happen again!"

Sapphire quietly patted him on the shoulder, then stepped outside with her sister skipping along behind her. Midori approached and did the same thing as Sapphire, then headed out before him.

Cecilia looked at him airily, "Is there something nice feeling about your shoulder?"

He shrugged, "I don't know, you want to check?"

"Sure."

After a shoulder patting she reported, "Nope, nothing!"

Well, there was definitely a difference between her shoulder pat and the shoulder pat of the other girls, their made him feel bad for some reason, Cecilia's just felt normal.

He sighed, "Let's go out too, we're already late."

"Okay!"

When they stepped outside, the sight that greeted them was a boy with black hair getting his arm broken by a giant bear-kin three times his size holding a spear. He seemed to take the broken arm in stride and used it as an opportunity to get even closer to the bear-kin and slashed with a katana in his left hand, but the bear-kin dodged it easily by leaning back, then casually planted a boot into the boy's chest. He went flying back several feet where he rolled on the ground.

Abel wanted to shed a few tears in sympathy, that blow was certainly fight ending, and considering how hard he fell his arm wouldn't be in good shape.

To his shock, the boy hauled himself to his feet and scooped his katana off the ground as he once more charged the bear-kin. There wasn't any form of grace or skill in his movements, and even the way he was holding the katana was clumsy, but the fact that he got back up again after those two heavy blows and still wanted to continue the fight made Abel's jaw drop.

As he continued to stare, he thought to himself that the black hair on the kid seemed familiar, but where had he seen it before?!

After another heavy blow, the fight ended when the boy literally wasn't able to get up because of his crushed leg, and a woman he hadn't noticed earlier rushed over and began casting blue-silver healing magic.

In that moment, he saw the boy's eyes and remembered where he saw him before, it was that boy they'd shared a campfire with! He'd left before any of them had woken up that morning! He had mentioned that he'd join the guild, but Abel had thought that he had given up when they never saw him at the guild.

Any disgruntlement he felt for the boy after he'd abandoned Abel and the girls faded as he winced every-time one of the boy's -what was his name?- bones snapped back into place under that healing spell. The ones in his right arm were particularly nasty because they'd ended up breaking through the skin during his fall, but the boy never flinched or made a sound during the healing, he even looked to be enjoying it!

Once more, Abel was shocked to his core as he stared true pain tolerance in the face. He glanced at his friends to ask them what they thought, and saw that they were all as pale as he was. Even Sapphire, who usually didn't have much of an expression, was covering her mouth while completely pale.

Once the healing was finished the boy -wasn't his name Red?- stood and grabbed the katana. Abel let out a horse cry and the girls gasped as Red charged the bear-kin without any hesitation once more.

Was he crazy?! He was going to get himself killed!

The next round was also a complete beatdown that only ended after a heavy blow from the butt of the wooden spear seemed to shatter all of the ribs in Red's body and made Cecilia faint while the rest of the girls cried out. For himself, Abel was so stunned that he couldn't move or make a sound, he just wasn't able to. It was like time had stopped for him as he looked at Red lying on the ground impatiently waiting for the healer to repair the damage.

Why? Why would he push himself to that extent?! Did the bear-kin kill someone he loved, or was he being threatened in such a way as to not allow him to give up?! How could he endure that much pain?! Why? Why? How?

How could he be getting up again after just barely being healed? How could he have absolutely no hesitation in taking up his weapon once more? Why did he look so disappointed when the bear-kin stopped the fight from continuing?!

And the most important question Abel had: how could he become that strong?

----

Crimson sighed in annoyance as Mars put their sparring to a stop. He'd just started to get a feel for moving around, not enough to say he'd gained any battle experience, but enough for him to realize the basic things he'd need to work on.

Footwork for one, no matter how he shifted or attacked it wasn't hard for Mars to knock him down. In addition, the bear-kin's feet were constantly in motion: sliding, repositioning, and digging in to most effectively channel damage into Crimson's body.

From that, he'd come to understand that strength with a weapon started with the legs. True, strength in the arms would help greatly, but without effectively using his legs he would never be as effective. It was that realization that made him remember the [Twin Steps] style waiting for him in the secret library of Falst. It focused primarily on footwork, and made it easy for him to make the decision to spend all of "Highday" at that library.

"Highday" was their equivalent of Sunday, and it wasn't too far, today was "Thursday" after all.

The second realization Crimson had had from that little spar session was the importance of variety. It pretty much meant that he'd need a backup if something happened, like when he'd sacrificed his right arm to try and get a chance to attack Mars which had ended in failure, but forced him to rethink things a bit.

He'd definitely need to spend time on two handed forms as well as single handed and dual wielding since he'd have his stilettos as a back up.

He'd also drawn other conclusions, but they could be pondered over piece by piece at his leisure.

He glanced at Mars and thought over a bit of what the bear-kin had explained to him their training would be.

Essentially, Mars' [Sword Mastery] was only Lv. 22, which was apparently a low level for a mastery skill, so he couldn't really help Crimson with sword forms, much more than that: katana forms. Since he was useless for the sword, Mars informed him that his presence would be there for two reasons.

The first: to teach him the Basic Adventurer's Style, which pretty much amounted to "how to swing a weapon without cutting yourself" and really wasn't an actual fighting style.

The second was pretty much what they'd been doing for the past few hours: being a sparring partner. Since Mars was required to take an active role in his instruction and lacked any really effective way to teach Crimson the idea was that he'd be there for Crimson to try out the stuff he learned to see if it would be viable in a fight. It would also help him get practice fighting against spearmen who usually held the advantage in a fight against a swordsman.

Really, Crimson was more or less left to his own to figure out how to use a sword.

He'd be putting those sword books to good use...

Crimson turned to thank Emma for her help and noticed for the first time the harem trope staring at him with white faces. Were they that shocked to see him after he left them behind?

He quickly dismissed them from his mind and walked over to Emma. Once he reached her he bowed low and spoke in a low voice for only her ears, "Thank you so very much for your help."

She stared back grumpily, "You can show your thanks by not doing this again!"

He scratched his head thoughtfully, "It looks like I'll have to find another way to show my appreciation."

"Argh!" she stomped the ground a few times then left.

One side of Crimson's lips quirked up in amusement before he turned his attention back to Mars - intentionally ignoring the harem squad.

"What's next?"

Mars shrugged, "I leave, you stay and finish the class for today. It should start soon if the instructor isn't late like he usually is."

Crimson grimaced, he didn't want to deal with wasted time...

"Don't worry about it boy, just do what you want and be ready to return when he eventually shows up."

He nodded, a trip to the library then.

Crimson tilted his head for a moment, thinking, he might as well use that time to get ahead if he could, "What will this instructor be teaching for today?"

"The Adventurer's Handbook, we also call it the brown deadweight for fun."

"Is it in the library?"

Mars nodded firmly, "If it wasn't then Lars would explode the second he found out."

"Good to know" he responded.

As Mars left, Crimson went over to the bath room and rinsed off, then he went inside. He was forced to ignore the harem squad going both ways, but they made it easy by just standing there, staring at him with slack jaws. If they'd tried to bug him he would have been forced to run to not deal with it.

He grabbed Emma, headed up to the library, and took a copy of the brown deadweight to the loft. It really was annoying being forced to grab her every time he needed to check something out.

Crimson settled into a corner of the loft where he could see the guild entrance, then settled in to read. It wasn't a long book, not even full-sized with less than a hundred pages and decent margins, so it took him less than half an hour to finish it.

Essentially, it pretty much covered some basic rules in the guild, in dungeons, and the rules surrounding requests that all governed adventurers. It also went over some of the privileges of being an adventurer, like the ability to enter any country so long as your alignment was "good" and a few other things.

Overall, uninformative. A lot of the things could be guessed or -to Crimson at least- were rules that he had thought that were left unsaid, but that everyone knew about. The most interesting stuff was about dividing loot in a dungeon.

With a sigh, he got up, grabbed Emma away from her desk once more, and swapped the book for the next one. Simply, he'd asked what the next lesson would be, and she'd pointed out the related book to him. He settled down and started reading once more.

Fortunately, this one was a bit more interesting because it talked about secondary guilds. Simply, they were guilds owned by adventurers that allowed them to work for a common purpose. The book talked about some of the rule surrounding their existence, the advantages and disadvantages, and how to create/join one.

It was interesting reading, but useless to him, the disadvantages hit where it hurt since most guilds stay in or around a single town or area, and they restricted the guild members freedom to an extent. The extent of the restrictions changed from guild to guild, but even the basic ones made him cringe.

For him, there just weren't any advantages that he could take advantage of, for the moment, but that didn't mean the secondary guilds didn't try to recruit people. There were plenty of rules around soliciting new members, they were shockingly strict as well.

Crimson sighed and slammed the book shut, it had been pretty short too, just took him an hour to read. He glanced over the guild proper and saw that people were actually starting to show up, which meant that the instructor might be there soon. The guild was also more crowded than usual, Thursday was the day adventurers put in the most work to save up drinking money for the weekends.

Crimson found it to be rather pathetic: they were just forcing themselves into a dead end by doing that. Why spend money on a drink that will take away from valuable time that could be spent training? You lose a two fold chance to become stronger, first with the money since you lose something you could have used to buy new equipment, second with the time involved. It just made want Crimson want to throw his hands up into the air from frustration.

Shaking his head at the waste, he grabbed Emma from her desk once more while ignoring her storm of protests and returned the book to the library, he grabbed a copy of [Magic Light] -since his was at his room- and stalked out back to the training field to wait for the tardy instructor.

When he stepped outside, there were a disappointing few number of people training. Just a few adventurers clumsily swinging their weapons for sparring matched, plus the harem squad who were playing audience to one of the sparring matches, it was the elf Verity vs some guy in armor - theirs was easily the most interesting and skilled fight going on.

With a sigh, Crimson settled into the corner of the yard and started working on forming a [Magic Light] at least ten feet away to finish Chapter 9. It appeared that the copy of the book he'd grabbed had been more used than his usual copy, there were: notes, scribbles, and annotations all over the pages that didn't do much to help him, but there were a few interesting notes on Chapter 9.

The first mentioned that completion of Chapter 9 should allow the creation of a basic [Magic Light] up to 20 feet away, which was about four-five times his current limit, and the second note mentioned something that was extremely helpful: the need to add intent to the images presented, a force of will.

So, did it work like his eyes? Usually, people would flinch when he made eye contact because of his will behind them. From what he could tell, it was usually a sense of stubbornness as he refused to give in and the shock of seeing such a will presented was enough to make people flinch, but not run. In the case of Sherry, he was trying to force her to leave, which worked, but he wasn't sure how well - he couldn't see through her form of strength. She might have just ended up backing off of her own choice.

If he took that approach with magic, maybe that would work?

Instead of ten feet, he backed it off to five, just a foot past his current limit for forming a [Magic Light], and started guiding his mana to the edge of his limit, then when it reached the edge he went from guiding it, to using his intent to PUSH it past. It was slow, but he got it to move slowly, bit by bit past his limit and was still able to keep it under his control. Once it reached five feet he gritted his teeth and slowly started to weave it into a light, but it failed half way through as his concentration was broken by a plain man who walked up to him.

"How are you doing? My name is Jerry, I'll be your-"

Whatever he was about to say was stopped as he choked on his words in response to Crimson's eye contact, his intent was simple: get lost.

The man stumbled back a few steps, then turned and ran into the guild like a pack of rabid dogs were on his tail.

Crimson couldn't even feel satisfaction from the response, he was just too annoyed by his progress being interrupted to care that he had confirmed that he actually knew how his eyes worked.

Returning his attention to his mana he quickly brought it back to the edge of his range, then once more started pushing it out of it while still maintaining control. It was a bit faster than last time, but not by much, he was able to get it back to the point he was at last time, but yet again someone was approaching! With a force of will, he shoved their presence to the back of his mind and focused on what he was doing, not willing to start over yet again.

A bit of blood started to leak from his nose as he wove the mana together, bit by bit until the weave was almost done, with just a bit of a pull, the whole thing fell into place, the element slid into the construction, the [Magic Light] appeared in the air, and a maniacal grin spread across his face. While it wasn't completely up to the "20 feet" promised by the notes in the book, he could work his way there, like exercising with weights he could push his range further and further until he reached that point, but for now, he could call Chapter 9 completed.

By happenstance, when his light appeared it was right in the face of the person who walked up: a sweat soaked Verity.

She stood rubbing her eyes for a moment and he made his [Magic Light] disappear.

"Why did you do that to me?"

"You walked in on my training, it wasn't intentional."

She let out a low menacing chuckle, "Really? Since I helped you out with your training, you can help me with mine. Oh, by the way, you have a bit of blood on your nose."

Crimson wiped the blood off, then responded to her comment, "I don't think I'll be any help to someone of your [Level], I don't even have a [Blessing]."

The grin on her face grew wider, "I know, you told me before, but I think you can help with this since you're a mage. You know some attack spells, right?"

"No. I just started learning magic earlier this week."

She dropped the smile and stared at him in surprise, "You're kidding! I heard magic was really hard to learn!" she tapped the tip of her chin thoughtfully, "If you only started earlier this week, then I guess it was an exaggeration."

Crimson shrugged. He wasn't exactly a standard magic user, using him as a baseline for anything would just mess up data.

"Well," Verity started to continue, but was stopped by the guild door banging open with a great boom as it slammed against the wall.

Lars and Mars stepped out with the plain faced man that had interfered with Crimson's training earlier.

It occurred to him that he hadn't stopped to think through what he'd done to the plain faced man earlier. Well, the consequences would be worth it, all of the disciplinary action laid out in the brown deadweight were tolerable under the specific circumstances, the fact that he didn't actually attack the man would also assist his case.

The plain faced man pointed at him and both bear-kin turned to stare at him menacingly, but upon seeing that it was him Mars performed a face palm and Lars sighed, then they both walked back inside.

The plain faced man looked at Crimson in confusion and fear for a moment, then ran back inside after them, only to come back out a few seconds later looking scared and dejected.

"Um...if the [Brass] rank class could come to me..." his voice echoed weakly across the area, barely intelligible.

Crimson sighed, closed the book, and stood.

"We'll talk later, Verity."

She looked surprised, "You remember my name?"

"You stand out," he responded simply and walked away.

He was the last to arrive where the man stood as the harem squad had eagerly run over to him. Well, the womanizer, the airhead elf, and the hyper cat-kin had run. The dryad and the blue-haired cat-kin walked. That pretty much summarized which members of the [Brass] class he could possibly get along with without trying hard.

He quietly stood at the edge of the group for the sake of the pale faced man -Jerry as he introduced himself- as the "class" for the day started.

The man took an hour -an hour!- to review the first chapter of the Adventurer's Handbook. Something that he'd read in two minutes.

Fortunately, he'd realized the second it took more than five minutes for the man to be teaching these rules that it would be a waste of time to continue listening, so he returned his attention to his mana. His focus was to push it further away than before, but he wouldn't actually be creating a [Magic Light], just focusing on distance for the moment - no need to call attention to himself.

He was able to get it back out to five feet once more and was able to do it without getting a bloody nose which was a good sign, but pushing it beyond there was a little too much for him at the moment, so he focused on moving the mana in a circle around him at the edge of his new range. It took quite a bit of effort to keep it there, and less than 30 seconds of keeping it at the edge of his range it slipped out of his grasp.

He quietly sighed and had a few members of the hyper group look at him in annoyance, but he ignored them and started pushing the mana back out to five feet once more.

Once there, he was able to keep it there for a minute this time. The third try was a minute and fifteen seconds, the fourth was a minute and a half, then a minute and forty seconds, then a minute and fifty seconds, and so forth. Eventually, he was only able to increase the time for a few seconds with each successive attempt, but he was able to get it up to three minutes after a lot of work. He took a deep breath, then tried once more to push it out to six feet. He was able to get it half way there before it slipped out of his grasp, but that was because he was distracted when that idiot elf fell asleep and landed on his shoulder!

He roughly shoved her the other way and she swapped to using the dryad as a pillow instead of him - good!

He continued to push, and was able to get it out to six feet after two more tries. Once there, he was only able to keep it there for five seconds before it slipped out of his grasp, but it was a start.

Moving with an idea, he pushed the mana out to five feet and held it there, and was able to keep it there for a three minutes and thirty seconds easily! Getting the mana out to six feet had made a huge difference!

Crimson let a big grin slide across his face and Jerry flinched for a moment before continuing.

What? They hadn't made eye contact.

——

Midori glanced at Crimson over her sleeping friend, and did her best to keep the blush from rising to her cheeks. She'd had a few more...pleasant...dreams about him since they'd separated, and she wasn't the only one. Even now, she could see that Sapphire was trying not to stare at him and Ruby blatantly glanced at him every few seconds.

It really was quite odd that she'd focus so strongly on him, it wasn't like he was the best looking guy -Abel would win out between the two- nor was he extremely muscular -again, Abel- nor was there anything but his eyes that were a great draw - some would probably find them off putting. Yet, she still couldn't keep her eyes off him for very long.

Well, she did admit that the intense amount of focus he was exuding at the moment was a bit...interesting. Well, to be honest with herself, it was attractive. Imagining that level of focus on her and her alone was...intoxicating, in a way.

Her race, dryads, were closely related to plants. They used a combination of regular human food -except meat- as well as sunlight and air to sustain themselves. Because of their reliance on so many things, they naturally latched onto people and things they didn't want to lose and wanted them to latch on in return. It really didn't make complete sense, but that was how Midori's mother explained those instincts to her.

Her racial trait really didn't have an effect on things. The racial trait of dryads were three in number, but the one she had was called: [At One With The World] which just naturally boosted her affinities with: [Life], [Water], [Earth], and [Wind]. She wouldn't know by how much until she got her [Blessing]. The only reason they knew that this was her racial trait was based off the process of elimination, she certainly didn't have [Touch of Nature] or [Beloved by Nature], so that just left [At One With The World].

Since her racial trait didn't have an effect on things it was confusing that dryads would have a strong sense of attachment, yet it definitely wasn't in her head because her mother was the same way, along with all the other dryads she'd met, men and women.

It was rare, but when something wasn't included in the [Blessing] it gave everyone a headache, especially since this little detail applied to an entire race, some of who accepted, a small amount who rejected, a majority who decided just to not think about it too hard, and the final group that was trying to figure what the Goddess of Nature was going on.

Midori had originally been a part of the "don't think about it too hard" group, but since she was actually experiencing it...well, she joined the "what the Goddess of Nature is going on?" faction.

Especially in this case, why would she latch so hard onto Crimson?

She spent her time deliberating so hard that she barely noticed when the class ended, and realized to her chagrin that she hadn't heard a word of what the instructor said.

The only thing that her attention had been on the entire time was Crimson and her confused feelings for him. She didn't love him, but...did she? It was so confusing, and her emotions were only becoming more and more tangled as she thought about it.

Right after the class ended, Crimson disappeared and left nobody with the chance to talk with him, despite the fact that three people certainly wanted to.

Abel stood and hobbled away right after Crimson disappeared, with a glance Midori could tell that was his "I need a latrine" walk.

With him and Jerry gone, it just left the three girls and a sleeping Cecilia sitting deep in contemplation, but they were interrupted after not too much longer.

"What is going on between you girls and Silver?"

Simultaneously, they all turned to see the elf who was speaking to them. Like Cecilia, she also had blonde hair, but hers was a bit different in color, gold instead of white, she also had green eyes instead of her friend's blue.

She continued, "The bonds between you and Silver are weird, there's an unnatural amount trust flowing from you to him, but almost nothing except a bit of annoyance from him to you."

Midori's eye brows shot up, she could see their bonds? That meant she had [Aural Reading]! It's an extremely rare racial trait belonging to elves, one of their two, even Cecilia had the other one...though they'd figured that out the same way Midori knew hers: she didn't have [Aural Reading], so it stood to reason that she had [Adapt], the usual elf trait.

What she'd seen with [Aural Reading] was also shocking and relieving, but she needed to check.

"Wait, you see trust going from us to him, nothing else?"

The elf smiled cheekily, "Well, from you: trust, confusion, and a bit of an attachment. Your kind has a tendency to latch onto others quickly, but I can't see Silver attaching himself to others quickly at all, you should just forget tying yourself to him and move on."

Midori turned completely red, but she needed to ask, "There's no love there?"

"None. Your attachment might turn into infatuation if you're not careful though."

Midori nodded, she didn't want to fall in love with a stranger.

The elf asked another question, "So, how did you all come to trust Silver so much?"

Midori wasn't the only one who turned red at that question.