Soaring through the midnight skies, Asta carries the injured student towards the commercial district on the flying claymore, passing through the forest they eventually see the goons carrying each other as well.
"What is your name anyway?" Asta asked the passenger with a smile.
" Celivos.. Celivos Agrigus."
" And why was that punk so hell bent of beating you up?"
" I used to be that moron's fighting dummy, i trained alone and finally beat him in one of the sessions." Celivos 's tone hint at a satisfying victory that he wished for, he continues " The family head saw him get defeated by a sparing partner and sent him to training in mountains."
"So he resents you for defeating him and just wanted to beat you for fun? Sadistic idiot" Asta mocked Viscos for his stupidity and yawned. He turned to the forest for a second before turning to the front again.
Just a minute later, Asta could see the commercial district, it's shops with their variety of architecture comes into view as he begin descending towards the ground.
A little behind him, Sol was stalking them like a hungry crow, she comes out from the bushes of the forest to find herself at the main road for the commercial district.
'They came to the commercial district? why? i remember there being infirmary at the dorms as well, i need to get my answers no matter what.' she resolves herself and quickly removed twigs on her clothes and hair, her chase continues as she entered as well.
Asta, completely unaware of the stalker behind him, walks through the still bustling streets alongside Celivos until he reached a two story building called Roots of Alfhiem , and entered inside. Sol however didn't manage to see them enter and kept walking down the streets in panic.
Entering the store, Asta is greeted by a elf with green emerald eyes, the elf wore a golden monocle and a wide brown robe with a tree pattern, he had a small orb the size of pearl bead in his hand and a quill in other hand.
"Asta! How have you been boy? I was almost about to start thinking you failed the exam." the elf puts the item to the side and walked up to Asta and ruffled his hair, " Why are you just standing outside? come in and make yourself comfortable." The elf continued as he led the duo inside.
"Don't mind if do*begins walking* Did that idiot manage to join the clergy as well? I heard him send all those bragging letter to his other friends back into the city"
"He sure did.. but not without being kicked out after pestering the spirits there, they banned him from entering for a week and he just lazes around all day." the elf was talking when the good old Silo walked in a pair of pajamas.
"Sup" Asta raised his hand in a greeting but Silo rubbed his eyes out of pure disbelief before running back inside out of embarrassment with a terrified face.
The door opened again soon after as Silo comes out properly dressed up in his clergy uniform.
"You should have told first, geez. My image got ruined before I had the chance." Silo says as he makes a grumpy face.
"As if you had a image at all, i brought you a customer." Asta pats the injured boy on the back and he fell face first.
Asta nudges him with his feet a little but Celivos didn't budge a inch, they quickly carried him into the room where Silo begin his healer work in peace.
Asta was kicked right out of the room before the healing even begin and left alone with the staffs and his articifier uncle radal.
"Is it really that gruesome? I remember walking around with half cut arm before." Asta asked while walking towards the counter and sat on a chair.
"Not gruesome but disgusting, imagine watching your skin grow back like a larva. I almost puked watching it once." Hadal appeared virtually disgusted by the memory and almost went to the toilet to throw up.
Asta just laughed it off as a joke and brought the staffs to Hadal, he handed them to him and bid his farewell and left the store.
Walking away he slowly begins walking towards a nearby food Store.
Suddenly his senses perked up as he felt a extremely hostile glare from inside a nearby alley, From the side of his eye he saw Sol looking at him from inside a empty trash can.
'Is she a spy or something? Why a trashcan out of all things? *Takes a deep breath* Calm down Asta, she maybe just on some duty or something, play it off.'
Completely ignoring her, Asta moved on with way and into the restaurant while Sol again spent too much time getting out of the trash can.
The trash can feel as she was getting out and delayed her even further, She lost sight of Asta and almost ate away her fingers in anger.
"NOT AGAIN DAMN IT. *Fell to her knees in stress* WHY CAN'T SOMETHING GO MY WAY?" She almost ripped her hair off in frustration.
The passersby look at her and mutter among themselves while looking at the hopeless girl, talk like about her having a break up and more speculated.
"SHUT UP AND GO YOUR OWN WAY, YOU DAMN BUMS HAVE NO JOB WHATSOEVER", her words hit at the deepest wounds of the students as they quickly distanced themselves away.
After another hour or so of looking around, Sol finally gave up and begins walking away from the district with a exhausted mind.
"Sol? Did your duty end already?" Asta comes from behind as Sol was sitting on the ground.
She turns around like a owl and saw Asta slurping a bowl of soup, He laughs at her ragged look and offered her a bowl he had as a extra.
"YOU MORON." Sol screamed as she lunged onto Asta and shook him like a palm tree on a windy day.
He looks at her all battered up like a lost adventurer with dusty clothes and dirt on her face. Fuming like a bomb she gives Asta a death glare.
"Where is he? The other guy, where did you take him?" Unable to hold herself any longer she erupted on Asta and demanded answers.
"Which guy? The bully or the bullied? I beat up quite some people up today."
"The boy you carried on the claymore, I saw you give him a ride." She asked bluntly while still shaking Asta.
Asta grabs her hand and frees herself of her grip while backing off, he makes a wierd face disgusted face and distances himself.
"What about it? I can do whatever I want. Tell me why you are stalking me first." He points at her and accused her straight on.
"I-.. I didn't know you changed like that. I should give mimosa a advice to stay away from you?" She said while diverting the conversation, Asta looks at her even more confused like a duck.
'Changed? Did she realised my personality is changing? I need to be more caref-"
"I didn't expect you to like boys to say the least. Well everybody has their preference." Sol turned around like one of her golem's and begins walking away.
Meanwhile, Asta just stood their like a statue with closed eyes as bit of blood flew down the corner of his lips, he Slowly turns towards her and begins running like one of those horror genre creatures.
Sol screams as she runs for her life, she turns into the forest but Asta being the athletic jock he has always been, Slowly grew closer without any ki or magic.
"TIME OUT TIME OUT" Sol yells while begging for mercy as Asta sped up even more from the fear in her screams.
He keeps running and soon caught up to her, they both run side by side as Asta slowly opened his eyes as if about to kill her with a glare.
"Golem Magic: Empe- oof" interrupted mid spell, Sol was pinned down to the ground by Asta who seems ready to kill her, she quickly spun around his arm and slammed him into a tree as she makes distance.
They both stare at each other while standing a few meters away, the tension causing Sol to have goosebumps and a extreme amount of tension.
' Should not have said that, i should not have said that. I was barely in top 100 of the academy in first and year and now I have to fight the first ranker?' Resolving her for a hopeless fight she clenched her grimoire.
"Who told you I was gay? Was it Magna? I will make them pay for this prank with interest." Asta asked like a predator asking a prey for its final wish.
Sol looks at him all confused, as a small compressed Stone golem forms in front of her.
" I saw you help that guy up on the rooftop, he was barely standing with shivering legs so i thought-"
"Thought I was Like that? *The anger turns to pure disappointment as he facepalms himself* I didn't knew you read alot of those romance novels." Asta mocked and insulted her at the same time, he forgot about fighting her and simply turned around and left.
Sol had no comeback, nor in strength nor in words, Her mind is now filled with all the potential rumors that will be circulating around if the word of this spread.
"STOP, *sprinted and caught up to Asta* Don't you dare say this to anyone. Or else i-"
"You what? Well I guess a lady still got her preferences, I won't judge you for this. I got a lot of things to worry abo-" Asta was interrupted mid way as Sol grabbed his collar and pulled him.
She literally brought out dagger from her pocket and aimed it his neck, Asta froze out of pure bafflement and blanked out on the spot.
"I know you had a superiority complex but are seriously going this far? you have changed, just admit it." Knocking away dagger, Asta walks away.
Sol watches him leave and fell into deep thought about what she wanted exactly.
****
Another day another morning, Asta woke up like usual and did his workout, Yubin who has now changed into a tiny golem squirrel was munching on some rocks.
"You know you look much better compared to those times, it's like you have something more than just a mission now." Yubin said as it climbed onto Asta who was swinging Goliath on the rooftop.
"Well I don't have to worry about that geezer's order anymore, it said to fight till death and I did so."
"I always hated that pile of scales, he feared the devils so he sent you to fight. Egoistic bastard." Yubin insults the red dragon who forced Jassen to charge into devil territory a century ago.
Asta finally completed his last set of swings and wipes away the sweat, it's the moment of sunrise with light coming across the horizon.
"My body need to increase it's Mana reserves, we would have to do the rupture technique if I need some success."
"Are you Crazy!? Even those damn beastmen Barbarian don't try that, you got lucky last time but there is no celesia to help you here."
"Stop nagging, I no longer have a affinity so it should be much easier." Asta said as he sat cross legged on the ground.
The two grimoires he had were brought out and placed in front of him as he prepared himself for the experiment.
Yubin constantly warned him but he didn't listen and Yubin had to eventually relent, together they drew a bunch of magic circles around them with mana dust, blood and dragon blood.
"Just don't die on me again, i haven't even eaten a piece of mithril you promised me." Yubin reminds as it made the final part of the circle and the infused it's mana.
The circles grow like a lighthouse as a large amount of nearby mana was sucked towards Asta, the elements were random from the surroundings and collided with eachother.
The unstable Mana was forcefully pumped into Asta's body as his mana nerves overload from sheer quantity, the anti-magic grimoire worked as a converter and constantly compressed them into anti-magic.
Asta's ki soars as pillars of metal akin to totem emerge around him, blocking the inflow of mana.
Over the course of next few hours, Asta repeated the process as each time the burden on his mana nerves grew higher and higher until.
A pain akin to being ripped apart drills into Asta as his mana nerves finally begin to expand, unable to handle the overload of Mana, the nerves begin breaking down at points where Asta wanted.
He seeped the mana into his muscles and skin, creating new pathways that didn't exist before at the cost of his body being damaged.
Soon he stopped as the damage soon reached it's limits, his nerves highly damaged but still able to heal and new pathways that can be made into new potential mana nerves.
Gasping for air, he smiles and picks up the core of the circle shutting it down, Yubin climbs onto his shoulder with a expression of worry.
"Hardest part done..*gasping* it was much better than last time." Asta said as he finally lost the strength in his body and fell face first on the floor.