After Daimon stored the ship, he followed the girls to the cave, they returned just on time as the rain started to fall, gusts of wind howled and the overall temperature went down quite fast.
Daimon sealed the entrance of the cave with a large rock and then touched the wall of the cave, without the Risha girls noticing it he covered the outside of the cave with a layer of metal, to prevent the water from flooding them.
He then turned around and was once again surrounded by those three, their expressions clearly said they wouldn’t leave this matter slip.
Still given his current relationship with them, Daimon wasn’t going to give them a detailed explanation, just something to soothe their curiosity.
On the other hand, it’s not like he had to tell them about the system or anything like that, so he chose to the publicly known information about him, in other words the fact that he was a variant, which technically wasn’t a lie, as he used to be a vampire but that changed after he got the Apex Predator physique.
“You three have seen how physically strong I am, right?”. said Daimon as he took a seat on a rock nearby the Risha sisters.
“Yes, even knights are no match for you”, mumbled Leslie as she remembered how Daimon practically destroyed Tayler Gladius back then.
“Well, basically my body is special enough to endure being both a mage and a knight, also I can learn to use more elements, without me exploding, it’s the easiest way to explain it”.
The Risha sisters were surprised for a split of a second, but then they remembered who they were talking about, someone who managed to extort Magus Kings and make a Half Emperor be indebted to him.
Mireya once asked Calvin why he showed respect for Daimon, something completely strange considering he didn’t even behave in Solomon’s presence, and the answer she got was something along the lines of “Our class is full of monsters, but he… he is on another level, when I met him, for the first time in my life, I felt that I had no way to surpass someone and that’s amazing, it’s the best motivation to have someone you look up to”.
“Seriously what kind of mythical creature are you”, mumbled Yvonne as she looked at Daimon.
Leslie pushed Yvonne aside and then looked at Daimon with her big eyes sparkling.
“You can use fire too right, then we can use combined spells~”, Leslie didn’t mention it, but she was charmed by those “pretty” white flames she saw Daimon using earlier, the female members of the fire crane clan have a high interest in different and strong flames, that was one of the reasons as to why Veronica idolized Liz.
Liliana then dragged Leslie backwards as she said.
“Those weren’t flames Leslie… that was some kind of battle aura, am I right Daimon?”.
All the male side of the Snow Eagle clan chose to become knights, so Liliana was somewhat sensible towards battle aura, that’s how she grasped the battle aura component of Demon Light, although she isn’t a knight.
Yvonne then grabbed both Leslie and Liliana by their shoulders and moved them aside, before she took over.
“You used light too, how high must your vitality be, to endure the recoil of two completely contrary elements as darkness and light inhabiting the same boy”, she said as she looked at Daimon with curious filled eyes.
She is a darkness mage and so she has to be way of light mages, but now she witnessed Daimon being able to wield both without exploding, so she was genuinely interested in that.
Daimon didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.
‘These three are looking at me as if I was some kind of magic unicorn or something like that’, he thought, finding the whole situation rather funny.
Since he gave them the talismans, he already decided to be a bit more open with them, because they were past the point of being classmates and instead were his friends now, and his capacity to manipulate more than two elements as outrageous as it might look or sound, it was one of his lesser secrets, so it was a good way to start.
It’s not like Daimon decided it on a whim, previously he told the girls about it and recent events such as Arthur attacking him in front of everyone, as well as his dreams lately made him take that last step.
“It’s something like what I used to one shot Alexander, but on a more complex level, also while my vitality is indeed quite high, that’s not what allows me to do it, it’s more like I’m “compatible” with all the elements”.
Daimon noticed Liliana’s eyes sparkled this time, and he chuckled, out of them, he has showed the capacity to use Yvonne and Leslie’s affinities, so of course now that Liliana knew he could potentially use ice, she of course wanted to see him doing it.
“The fact that I have an “universal” affinity doesn’t mean I can use all the elements, it requires time to master them individually and I’m more skilled on ones than on others, that’s one of the reasons as to why I chose darkness and lightning as my main focus”.
Seeing Liliana’s expression sulking he inwardly laughed before adding.
“But yes, I can use ice too”, Daimon extended his hand which started letting out white mist, before it was clad on ice, originally, he didn’t have ice affinity but he swallowed one of the petals of the snow lotus, to see if that stimulated his magic core to finally advance, needless to say but it didn’t work, on the other hand Elaine was quite happy to see him getting ice, so Daimon counted it as a win in his books.
“Booom!”, a sudden thunder sound reverberated on the sky, it was strong enough to even get into the cave, also the sound of rain hitting the ground became louder all of a sudden.
With his infinity eyes, Daimon could see through the walls of the cave, outside there was a horrible storm going on, the wind was so strong that some small trees were being pulled from the ground, before they flew away.
“I guess we’ll have to stay in the cave until the storm subsides”, with a wave of his hand Daimon took out two big tents out of his inventory as well as some mats and sheets, the temperature kept dropping and the cave wasn’t exactly good to keep them warm after all.
The Risha sisters stared at each other and then entered the tent, but left the entrance open as they laid down on the mats, it’s been so much time since they had the chance to properly rest and had a decent bed, that this felt like heaven for them.
Daimon did the same after he changed his clothes inside of the tent before laying down on a mat in his own tent, since the cave was now a closed space, they couldn’t light a bonfire.
“Mm?”, Daimon suddenly noticed the temperature warming up a bit with Leslie as the center, she even extended it to cover his tent.
‘This little girl…’, thought Daimon, although they drank the potions he gave them, their mana circuits needed some rest for them to properly recover, in other words they needed to sleep, that’s not something potions or pills can do, unless they are really high ranked ones.
“Leslie, focus on keeping those two warm, this temperature isn’t enough to make me feel cold at all”.
“But…”, Leslie pouted, she was doing it because she wanted to show her value, although none of them mentioned, it was true Daimon saved their lives, meaning that even after improving lately they still ended up causing him troubles, or at least that’s what they thought.
Of course, Daimon knew what those three were thinking, because he has experiencing it himself, Erin and Aura had protected him quite a few times already after all, but he learned to not see it that way.
“If you feel that you are too weak to protect others use that as your motivation, so that one day you can stand in front of the one you want to protect… but for now rest and recover, tomorrow we’ll have to fight and your fire is quite effective against those creatures”.
Daimon’s serious expression then became more relaxed as he pointed at the casual clothes into which he changed before.
“Besides, if you keep increasing the temperature inside my tent, I’ll have to take my clothes off, you know”.
The Risha sisters giggled and the atmosphere inside the cave became more relaxed, they need it, after being on the run for a whole month, they finally were able to rest without being in full alert, it’s not like they lowered their guards, but having Daimon around make them feel at ease.
“Speaking of that, how are you three dealing with the side effects of your legacy spells lately?”.
Daimon saw Leslie using her wings earlier to sweep the floor with some of the creatures, and unlike what he expected she didn’t become that much violent, it was safe to assume Yvonne and Liliana had been using their wings too, but they weren’t showing the side effects now.
Yvonne covered her face remembering how she acted after her match on the tournament, seeing the opportunity of course Leslie didn’t let it slip.
“They already wore off, you should have seen Yvi, we had to runaway once because she mocked those creatures in her “cheeky state”, so the creatures got angry and fought harder~”.
Seeing her sister betraying her, Yvonne got back at her.
“Humph, I remember a certain someone wanting to take on the three limbed creature in a fit of rage and then fainting due to having depleted her mana reserves”.
While those two argued, Liliana limited to laugh at them, at least until they both turned to see Liliana before saying.
“Why don’t we talk about the small ice doll you recently developed to deal with the shyness that your wings bring you…”.
Before they finished speaking, Liliana covered their mouths with her hands.
“That’s enough, let’s go to sleep”, mumbled Liliana as she closed the entrance of the tent, only to open it again a couple of seconds later.
“Good night… Daimon”, she said before closing the tent again.
Daimon softly laughed before he changed his position to be laying face up on the mat.
‘Now that I think about it, I don’t remember having ever slept alone… until now’, he thought, even when he was living with the Naktis, Aisha always slept in the same bed with him, not to mention the past eight years where he was surrounded by the girls.
He then looked into his inventory, the ship he confiscated from the creatures was there, Daimon had all sorts of things in storage, among them he had a flying carriage which was as fast as a peak Arch ranked, just in case.
You might wonder why he used blink instead then, the answer is quite simple, because apparently the sky in this place prohibited flying, he sort of cheated using blink but when he tried to glide using some basic wind spells he noticed the spell was interrupted by some kind of invisible force, at the same time he didn’t see any trace of flying magic beasts even after being up in the sky for so many time.
Later after killing the first creature, he tried using the flying carriage but it didn’t work, only now after seeing the ship he understood transportation in this place had to be done through the sea, either on the surface or below the water.
“I wonder how is mom doing”, mumbled Daimon before he closed his eyes and fell asleep, not without leaving something prepared outside of the cave, just in case.