After we finished exploring the dungeon, we went back to the guild to make the report. It was already night and the sun had already set this brining the darkness to the world.

I felt my body move sluggishly, it was probably because I overused my mana too much again. I wonder what I should tell Athena once I come back…

“Hey, Shiro.”, Mash who just came back from selling some items. The treasure that we found was divided among us, we could choose to sell the items we had found in the chest or keep them.

“You’re keeping the books, I thought Silvet would’ve taken them.”, I looked at the bunch of books being held between her arms. “He gave them to me, he said that he wouldn’t really do much with them and said that I would make better use of them.”, Mash explained.

“I see. Are you sure you don’t want my staff? I mean it doesn’t look really pretty but I think it isn’t bad.”, I said that even though I didn’t even know what a staff did in the first place. Normally when I think of staffs, I think they’re used for casting spells, but you don’t need a staff to cast spells though…

“No I don’t need it, I already have one and it was given to me by my teacher so I couldn’t possibly throw it away.”, Mash sat down on the bench right next to me and set the books next to her.

“If that’s the case then I’ll keep it. What are they used for anyway?”, I swung the staff up and down as if it was a toy. “I think it’s not a good idea to swing it around as if it was a toy. Staffs are used for supporting the casting and manipulation of mana, high quality staffs are able to not just be able to control mana exquisitely, it can also hold a lot of mana.”

“What happens if you have too much mana?”, I asked as I swung the staff like a toy again. “If it is overfilled with mana the crystals won’t be able to sustain the power  and will eventually blow up.”, Mash answered.

‘This is a dangerous weapon…’, I thought. I stopped swinging the Staff and instead simply held it like a staff should be held. “We’re back!”, Gray and together with him Silvet and Laila came back from selling items.

“Hey Shiro. Would you like to come dine with us?”, Gray offered. Everyone must be exhausted and hungry since we literally did one last quest before nightfall. “Unfortunately, I have to go back. Someone’s waiting for me.”

“Okay, I understand. Then what about tomorrow?”, he asked.

‘Why the hell does he want me to come eat dinner with them that badly?’, I thought. “Fine, I’ll come tomorrow. Where are we meeting?”, I asked.

Gray gave me some sort of card with a name written on it, it was presumably the meeting location. “Everyone else will be there as well. So make sure not to come late.”, Laila who was in the back said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”, I stood up from the bench I was sitting on and made my leave. “Anyways, I need to go now I see you guys tomorrow.”, I said my goodbyes and left the guild.

The street was bustling with people, both humans, elves dwarfs were coexisting together. In the middle of it all was a small white haired boy that could easily be mistaken for a girl. His presence was so thin that it would give you the thought that if you looked away for a second, he could disappear.

‘I wonder if Athena woke up already…’, I muttered as I tried to squish between the people in front of me.

I was used to evading crowds, it was almost like an a unique ability I had. Even if I was tall or small I could always make it through. I felt as if I was in the middle of a festival and I’m squishing through the crowd.

I actually wanted to change jobs back at the guild, but it was taking longer than usual for me to level up. It was probably because I wasn’t using my Skill ‘Thread Reeling’ enough. I didn’t use it on purpose because it would be weird if people would see a ‘human’ shoot out threads from the top of their fingers.

As I was making thoughtless monologues, in a dark corner of the street, there was a shadow lurking. It was a small silhouette wearing a coat to hide its face and undergarments.

“Now you will die…”, the silhouette muttered, it sprinted out of the back alley and sheathed out two sharp daggers. It started chanting a spell in the middle of the crowd of people and it’s speed increased considerably.

The shadow sprinting through the crowd of people reaching towards the white haired youth suddenly stopped in its tracks.

“Huh?”, I heard the sound of something falling down. I looked at the ground to find a something with the shape of a person facing face flat on the floor.

The person slowly stood up and cleaned the dust from its cloak. “Are you alright?”, I asked the cloaked person.

“T-t-this shan’t stand! I will not allow this humiliat—! Ouch!”, the person held its hand in front of its mouth to suppress its pain. “I biwth my tongue…”,

I just stood still enjoying its small little show when it pointed its finger towards me and said. “I won’t forget this!”, and it left running away.

‘What the hell just happened…’

“Oh, there ye are boy.”, Willow who was just about to enter the Inn said. “Ya look troubled. Something on ya mind?”, he noticed.

“Yeah, you could say that. I just ran into something pretty weird.”, I told him as I slowly opened the door to the Inn.

“Uwaaaahhh!!”, I saw Alice screaming in despair holding her head and shaking it left and right. “H-how can this be…?”, she muttered in a shaking voice as if she had been shown her worst nightmare.

I looked towards Azure who was smiling mischievously. ‘Oh, I know what happened.’, I found a set of chess on top of the table and the white king had been knocked over.

“I can’t believe I lost to a slime… I thought my intelligence was at the very least average…”, Alice muttered in a low voice. “Azure did you cheat?”, I asked her.

“Huh? How am I supposed to cheat in chess Master?”, she brought up another question instead. “You could move your figures while your opponent is busy strategizing.”

Azure was dead silent and Alice suddenly gained hope together with anger. “That’s it! Right? Right?! There’s no way I would lose to a slime!”, Alice looked at me with the face of a madman in this case a woman.

“Welcome to the club.”, Willow consoled Alice and sat down on the chair. “Whatever you say Alice. Has Athena waken up yet?”, I asked her.

Alice recomposed herself. “No, not yet. Actually I’m starting to get worried.”, Alice played with the horse pawn from the chess set.

“Uhm, I see.”, I didn’t say much and slowly walked away. “Have you all eaten already?”, I asked before leaving. “We’ve already eaten, you already know who’s the only one who didn’t.”, Alice said.

I felt my heart clench at her words, for some reason her words seemed to attack me deeply. “Alright, then I’ll bring her something.”, I walked towards the barmaid.

This Inn was not just a place to stay a night in, it also had food and drinks to be bought.

After finishing the quest we divided the reward equally, everyone received five silver coins. And the treasures were also equally divided among us, I took the staff.

I asked the barmaid what they had available, and I ordered their daily meal that would change… well daily.

The barmaid nodded at my request and told me to wait until they’ve finished making the meal.

I felt my heart beat increase before the room I was about to enter, it was a mix of feelings that I did not personally enjoy. Guilt and Fear, not exactly the best mix I would say.

I felt guilty for making Athena look after me while I slept profoundly, fear because I would not know her reaction now.

I felt my heart around my throat, but I steeled it and entered the silent room.

In there was a sleeping beauty, I wished I would have not used that way to describe it, but those were only words to possibly describe it.

She had Silver hair that extended all the way to her waist, her body was small and petite it would make you think it was a child. Every single soft breath of hers made my heart go aflutter.

I pulled a chair next to the bed without making any noise and sat down on it, I placed down the food I ordered on top of the small drawer next to the bed.

In this silent room only two identities could be heard, from one of them is the soft breathing enveloping the room and the other is it’s heart beats that are increasing every second that came to pass.

“I’m sorry once again Athena for making you worry. And I’m sorry for making you go through such lengths to look after me.”, I apologized to Athena who was in bed.

I did not know whether my voice reached her, but the fact that I was able voice myself out at all was good enough especially in the presence of the person in question.

My eyes drifted towards her body, it was small and looked frail it was as if wind itself could blow her away.

My drifted even further down, I felt my heartbeat increase even further. I subconsciously reached out my hand towards her.

‘GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER! YOU WOULD NEVER ASSAULT A SLEEPING GIRL! ESPECIALLY SINCE I WOUDK PROBABLY CHICKEN OUT BEFORE ANYTHING TOO GRAVE HAPPENS!’

I took my hand back and calmed myself down when suddenly, Athenas eyes slowly opened.

She slowly lifted her body, her silver eyes that shone like the moon made my heart skip a beat. Just her eyes alone made me freeze and get stuck still.

“…Master?”, she muttered after making a small yawn that seemed cute. “How long was I asleep?”, she asked me even though I didn’t react to a single thing she said since I was charmed by her eyes.

It felt as if it was a long time since I’ve heard her calling out to me. “Don’t worry, y-you were asleep for just one day unlike me.”, I stuttered a little but was still able to answer her.

Athena seemed to get a little relieved after my answer, she smelled the food I brought and her stomach grumbled in reaction.

“I brought food for you, since you were asleep I thought you’d be hungry.”, I told her, my white skinned cheeks only had a small tint of pink on the indicating that I was embarrassed.

“Thank you master.”, Athena said with a smile on her face. “Anyway, I’ll be going to my room now. Goodni—“, I was about to make my leave due to the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment, but Athena held my arm.

“I’m a little too weak to eat….”, Athenas grasp on my sleeve was weak, it was as if she had no strength left. “… could you feed me?”, Athena asked averting when contact.

‘I caused this, so I’m gonna have to swallow what little remains of my manly pride.’, I turned around and sat down on the chair, I picked up the plate with soup.

I picked up the spoon and filled it with soup and slowly reached it towards Athenas mouth. She opened her mouth slowly, you could see the steam coming from the soup meaning that it was hot.

I used ‘Flame Manipulation’ to control the heat within the food, ‘Flame Manipulation’ isn’t exactly what it says, it’s almost like a differentiated form of ‘Fire Attribute Magic’, the difference is that it uses ‘Dark Attribute Magic’ mana.

It’s the same thing with every other Attribute Magic. An example would be ‘Life Attribute Magic’, it is not to create ‘life’ it is to ‘control’. Another example would be how people heal diseases, with life attribute they could enhance the humans Immune System.

‘Skills like these are really convenient’, I thought.

Athena Took the spoon in her mouth and drank the soup, I could hear the sounds of her gulping it down.

I slowly took out the spoon from her mouth, there was a sting of saliva connecting between her mouth and the spoon.

‘I feel like I did something extremely unholy right now.’, I felt my heart almost exploding and this was just the first spoon!

Soon after finishing feeding her I stood up from the chair and brought the plate with me so that I could give it back to the establishment.

“…master…”, Athena tugged onto my shirt yet again. It looked like there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t. “What is it?”,

“Thank you.”, she said and let me go.

I took in her words and opened the door when I heard a thud from the other side.

It was Alice blushing beet red. “I-I-I wasn’t p-peeping!”, she said, but I ignored her and just walked on. “Yeah, sure I’ll believe you.”, I said.

‘I condemn you for being able to say that even though you were clearly peeping. You’re lucky that I was too embarrassed to be able to act anymore today.’, I went downstairs and returned the dishes.

“Fwwaaaahhh!”, I lied down on my bed after a long day of working. I was manly exhausted because my mind couldn’t keep up the absurdity that had happened after Athena woke up.

There was one more thing I had to do before I could go to bed. I should have done this as the first thing but I forgot to do it.

I took off my equipment and clothes and laid down on my bed once again with only my boxers on.

‘Okay here I go.’, I turned off ‘Materialization’ and switched over to my ‘Spirit Form’ to check whether or not it had healed.

“No way…”, my body was in the same shape as before, my arms and legs were still gone.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’

YeetusFeetus

Uuuhhh... making chapters is getting harder... Anyway I hope you enjoy another chapter, I didn't win the contest (the results were shown a week ago). I didn't say anything about it because I forgot to mention it, but I'm mentioning it now.

I knew I wasn't going to win (not as if I was really trying to), I simply put my novel on this contest because I thought I might as well as give it a try. I enjoyed writing this and I hope all of you enjoyed reading it as well, I realized that most people in this website don't really enjoy the 'tragedy' tag, though there are some who like it.

The reason why this chapter took me too long was because.... I think all of you already know (F/Go). There's a new event coming up where I can get 'Altiria Pendragon', I WILL get her this time!

I also wanted to ask this (there was a question I forgot to mention in the 'Q&A' chapter).

1. Did most of you find this novel through the contest or on the main page?