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My father stood at our side; we were in front of the house’s door. For a moment we had continued to speak telepathically and without realizing it we were looking deeply at one another’s eyes. Eleanora blushed so much she resembled a tomato, as she quickly averted her gaze from me, and her hand slipped off my grasp.
“Sorry, sir…” she said, as she entered the house.
“Blake… Are you and Eleanora… into something?” he wondered.
“What? W-What are you talking about, father… That’s…” I said. I couldn’t help but feel awkward. Despite having lived thousands of years, I was incredible inexperienced in romance, making me very weak in this subject.
My father suddenly smiled.
“I don’t really have anything against it, but make sure to not forget about Erika, you’re very important to her, you know?” asked my father.
“Ah… Yeah, I will not forget about her, don’t worry.” I said.
I didn’t understand what he meant. I wasn’t going to forget her, she is my friend. Why would I forget a friend? I am not a feeble man that forgets friends because I would get involved into a deeper relationship or bond with Eleanora…
…
Oh, I see. He meant the other part of Erika’s bond… I am not foolish enough to not realize the young girl has a romantic interest in me… But it is not something I would like to address. She’s too young and still developing. Such emotions might be fleeting for her in her youth.
But I suppose… there is a possibility.
Ah, as I said before, I suck at this. I feel like I shouldn’t trouble myself with these things for now. I doubt Erika is in any hurry either, so let’s move this to the far future.
Maybe after I can bring her body back… I know the ways but lack the resources to do it. I know I can find her bones in the grave she has… so there’s the primary ingredient, but for the rest… I would need a lot of items.
Ah, these thoughts shouldn’t resurface while I am about to eat… Well, this is the bad thing about having lived for so long. your mind is filled with many thoughts, flying all over the place, it is hard for me not to have deep thoughts about everything and slowly disassemble every subject of thought that emerges in my mind.
“Welcome back! What did you got today?” my mother wondered.
“Most of the first layer is empty, at least around where we live, so we just got a wolf and hunted three little walking mushrooms, we got the spirit orbs at least.” my father replied.
“Oh, I see! That wolf looks very old, I doubt the meat will taste good…” sighed my mother.
“Yeah, we better use it as compost for the most part.” Said my father.
“I’ll butcher it for you.” I said.
“Oh, sure, you really like to do that stuff, don’t you?” asked my father.
“Well yeah, its not that hard and it helps me relax.” I said.
“Hehe, an innate hunter like you, Joan! Today he’ll butcher wolves, in the future, giant dragons!” my grandmother exclaimed. She had very high hopes of my future. It could be said she was the most enthusiastic of the three. Sure, grandma, I will bring you a dragon one of these days.
I rushed back to the room where we butchered the monsters and store the meat, and quickly began to work on it. Removing the blood through my Blood Extraction method that quickly transforms the blood of a corpse into Blood Qi and lets me store it inside of my body.
After the corpse was emptied of its blood, I quickly peeled off the skin and then took out the guts. I even decided to cut off all the meat from the bones so I could gain the most Skill Proficiency out of it.
It took me roughly half an hour at fast speed. Eleanora had come over here at the end curious about what I was doing. It seemed she felt disappointed after realizing I was once more butchering things.
“Someone as great as you shouldn’t be butchering animals…” she sighed.
“Don’t worry about it, I kind of enjoy it myself.” I said.
“Ah… Oh well…” she sighed.
“The meat is done… it does look old, but it could be triturated and then marinated to become edible… I will tell mother that it would be a waste to leave it for compost… especially because meat attracts bugs.” I said.
“Hm, I suppose that’s right, wolf meat always ends up tasty when your mother makes it…” said Eleanora.
“Right? My mother is quite a talented chef!” I said proudly.
“I’ve been taking some cooking lessons from her… I-I want to cook for you…” she said.
“Oh? Really?” I asked surprised.
“Yeah… A-And about what we spoke of before…” Eleanora said, sitting at my side as I left aside the disassembled body.
She sat very close to me and held my hand.
“Eleanora…?” I asked.
“What… other plans do you have for this life? Aside from growing stronger…” she asked.
“Well, I’ve said a few of them… Including giving my family a better place to live, making money, growing stronger… Ultimately, I also want to visit the Demonic Towers of this world… and discover their secrets. If possible, I want to protect this world which has brought me a family I love… destroying these towers is the solution.” I said.
“I see… So you also feel that dreadful aura from them?” she wondered.
“Yeah… They’re not here just to be decorations. I know Lucifer has some macabre plan around them… in the past it was said they flooded this world with Demons, and it might happen in the future… I fear that I might be the trigger for such an event to happen again… After all, he did say he wanted to give me trials…” I sighed.
“…I will stand at your side, as I’ve always done before… Okay?” she assured.
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