Near the Tower of Sea Gazers.
In a small cabin.
A young woman opened her sleepy eyes as she got up from her bed.
Her pink hair was in a mess after sleeping for a long while, but there was a healthy glow on her beautiful face.
*Yawwwwnnnn~*
She stretched her hands and yawned as she felt lazy and sleepy even now.
"Sigh... living in this peaceful place has really made me quite lazy..."
She had pink fox-like ears and a fluffy pink tail, which was also in a mess due to her bad habit of being restless when sleeping.
The young woman rubbed her sleepy eyes as she walked over to the kitchen and made herself a coffee.
"The beverages in the outside world are really nice; I am always fascinated whenever I try a new one..."
After making herself a coffee, she walked out of the cabin and sat down on a bench located right outside to enjoy the morning sunlight.
The warm sunlight fell on her face, making her feel comfortable as her pink hair waved along with the gentle breeze.
"This is life~"
She couldn’t help but smile as she felt relaxed and happy living alone like this far away from the tension and pressure of the world.
She was free and happy.
*BOOOOM!!*
Just when she was having a happy, relaxing time, she heard a loud sonic boom ring out in the area, which attracted her attention.
"Hmm?"
Before she could understand anything, she saw a blurry figure fly through the sky and pass by a few meters above in the sky.
"W-what was that!?"
Before she could react to the appearance of that bizarre flying thing, she noticed that the object flew a few hundred meters and then changed its course as if it had noticed something.
It took a complete U-turn in the air and flew right toward her!
"Wh-what!? What’s going on!?"
Before she could react, the flying object accelerated and stopped right above her cabin and then lowered itself on the ground.
It turned out that unknown flying object was a young man flying on a large sword.
But that was not the most shocking part; the most shocking was the fact that the pink-haired woman knew who this expressionless young man was.
"Rio Flash!? Why are you here in the dwarf kingdom!?"
Seeing the face of that young man, a look of anger appeared in the eyes of the young woman.
But the young man called Rio completely ignored her anger as he jumped down from his sword and transformed it into an ordinary-looking flute.
He pointed his flute towards the young woman and asked in an emotionless tone,
"Aurora, the direct subordinate of the demon prince Alverto. What are you doing in the dwarf kingdom?"
"Hmmm? I don’t sense any miasma from you... What kind of trick is this?"
Indeed, the young woman was none other than Aurora, the high-rank fox demon whom Alverto once loved with all his heart.
She threw away her coffee cup angrily and glared at Rio with a look of hatred and anger in her eyes.
"Y-you... You killed Alverto!! You!"
Aurora wanted to criticize Rio; she wanted to vent her anger on him, but words refused to come out.
After entering the outside world, she had also found out the news and had figured out that it was ’Rio Flash’ who killed ’Alverto’ in the final confrontation, and he was now a powerful S-ranker.
Aurora was not a combatant, and after losing the help of miasma, she was barely even at the level of an A-ranker’s level of strength now.
It might take her a long while to gather enough mana to regain her lost strength as a former S-ranker, but even then she will not be Rio’s opponent.
She already knew that she had no chance of meeting or defeating Rio in the future, so she had no other choice but to give up the thought of ’revenge.’
"First of all, I did not kill Alverto. He sacrificed his life for his ambitions; he died wanting to accomplish his goals."
"He sacrificed his soul to activate the altar... Wait! Could it be!!"
A look of surprise appeared on Rio’s face when he looked at Aurora and mentioned the fact that Alverto had succeeded in activating the altar.
"I see, so he did succeed... albeit partially..."
As he came to some conclusion in his head, Rio put his flute away and stopped pointing it towards Aurora.
Aurora was shocked when she noticed that the overwhelming pressure and the killing intent suppressing her had suddenly disappeared.
"Y-yes... his plan was originally to help all demons but if it didn’t succeed, he was going to help me become purified from the influence of miasma..."
Aurora’s knees could not support her as she collapsed on the bench behind her with a sad look on her beautiful face.
"He was an idiot... I never wanted him to sacrifice himself like that-"
Before Aurora could finish her sentence, Rio interjected,
"Alverto was not an idiot; he was a ’hero.’ Do not insult his courage as a ’hero.’ He died the death of a ’hero,’ saved the women he loved the most in his life and managed to achieve an end that he was satisfied with..."
Rio turned his back towards Aurora as he spoke in his usual emotionless voice.
"You have been abandoned by ’miasma,’ so I have no reason to take your life..."
Alverto had already paid a heavy price for his sins; Aurora had nothing to do with them, and thus Rio didn’t bother raising his sword against her.
"You!... No matter what you say! I will always hate you for stopping Alverto from reaching his goals!"
Aurora gritted her teeth and felt powerless when confronting Rio; all she could do was lament Alverto’s death.
She didn’t even have proper words to criticize Rio.
"It doesn’t matter... His ideals were an ’Obstacle’ in my ’path’; I had to defeat him either way..."
Rio didn’t care about others’ emotions and feelings; he respected that Alverto sacrificed his life just to save a single person.
But that didn’t mean Rio would change his mind.
He would have still stopped Alverto if given the choice once again.
"You still haven’t answered my question: why are you in the dwarf empire?"
Aurora looked at Rio’s back and noticed that he was getting ready to leave; she sighed in helplessness and spoke the truth.
"As you said, I have been abandoned by miasma. I have no place in the demon continent, so I was exiled by the demon king..."
"I was able to cross the ’Forbidden Edge’ because of his powers safely and reach the shore of the dwarf kingdom..."
"I have visited nearby towns and cities in disguise... I have been living here for a few months now..."
Rio nodded his head at Aurora’s words.
"That’s fine... Just don’t think of harming innocent people, and change your location to some other remote place. You are living in the cabin of a person who’s related to an SS-ranker of the dwarf nation..."
Yes, the cabin belonged to Fabian, who was Kehrid’s disciple and had died a while ago. Kehrid had told Rio about this cabin.
If not for the fact that he noticed Aurora’s ’pink hair’ outside the cabin, he wouldn’t have even stopped by here.
’Still... it’s weird. Why would have the ’Demon King’ send her to the dwarf kingdom in particular and not some other place?’