Healing System

"Astraea... what are you doing?"

She was sitting on the ground and seemingly drawing something, he could not exactly tell what it was since she was not the greatest of drawers, however, there was a short text that caught his eye.

But it seemed like it was not related to the language he had learned back in the temple, the one in front of him seemed similar but different at the same time.

She appeared to be startled as he jumped up and quickly used her threads to get rid of the writing on the ground "M-Michael.. you are back."

'What's with her?' He raised his brow at the sight, she was usually the calm and collected type, but now she was acting like he saw something he should not have.

Though his eyes quickly widened upon sensing her mana, just before he left, she was at the lower stage, but now, it seemed like she was about to reach the upper stage.

'Just what happened..?' Michael was pretty confused, here he thought his progress was fast, yet here she was, nearly doubling his efforts in the same amount of time.

However, he won't judge, maybe something happened in those three days that he was gone that made her get stronger rapidly.

But he assumed it would not hurt to ask "How did you get so much stronger?"

And he was met with a small smile, her previous startled look completely gone "It's a secret."

'Of course it is..' He sighed but then suddenly a thought came up in his mind, one that he could not help but debate while he was training.

"I am going to go back to my world soon... do you want to come with me?"

Astraea's eyes widened, as if she had not expected him to bring that up, but she quickly composed herself and shook her head.

"I am sorry.. I still have some unfinished business I have to deal with." She said apologetically.

The business she was referring to was most likely her life before meeting him, more specifically, the ambush that had happened which caused her to run away.

It seemed like she was working hard on figuring it out and he did not want to be the one to stop her from doing so.

However, as he was about to drop that topic, she once again spoke up "But.. when we meet again.. I'll go with you, it's a promise" She held up her pinky finger right in front of him.

Michael stared at her for a moment and nodded, accepting her gesture and finalizing the pinky promise.

"Do you want my help with the 'business?' " He asked just in case, he did not know when he would return to this world again.

"No.. It's my battle, I want to avenge my family by myself" She said with a determined look.

'I see...' Michael could not refuse her, yet it did not feel good to let her go just like that, he just hoped that the pinky promise would hold up, as insignificant as it was.

Suddenly, an impatient voice came from right beside them "Are you two done already?"

Michael turned and noticed Fafnir holding a passed-out Thrym by the collar.

'Damn... he does not look okay..' He glanced at Thrym and noticed a bunch of bruises and even a popped-out bone, And then there was Fafnir, he seemed perfectly fine.

"We are ready.." Michael said as he let go of Astraea's pinky and walked up to Fafnir who now had a small smile on his face.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Good, hey you, take him" Fafnir threw Thrym at a nearby giant and without even waiting for an answer, grabbed both Michael's and Astraea's collars, immediately disappearing from the mountain.

'I can't see anything...' Michael thought as his eyes were being bombarded by the wind, it seemed like the speed at which they were moving was far too fast for him to handle.

In the next moment, they arrived in front of some kind of distortion in space and just as Michael was about to speak, both he and Astraea were thrown into the distortion.

He closed his eyes and the moment he opened them back up, he saw the familiar house the two of them had been checking out just before they were transported into the rift.

And along with them, Fafnir came too, walking out of the rift calmly and once again picking up the two of them by their collars.

"Can you stop doing that?" Michael grumbled as his vision once again began shifting, until finally, he appeared right in front of a much bigger rift, one that seemed to be on one of the floating islands.

"Girl, are you coming with or should I drop you off elsewhere?" Fafnir suddenly asked and she explained her destination, it seemed like she wanted to be taken to a city near the one where she had been raised.

Astraea waved at Michael before being picked up by the collar and disappearing.

'Bye..' He waved at the empty air, and in the next moment, Fafnir reappeared.

"I am surprised you managed to end up in a rift, someone's been going around causing cracks in space, be glad you ended up in the little people's realm, or else you might have really died" Fafnir scolded and began walking to the rift.

'Little people?' Michael raised his brow and followed after Fafnir. However, he did have a little question that had been on his mind for a while.

"How did you know I was in a rift?"

"Hm? I was following after you. I decided to get some food but then you just disappeared suddenly, so I had no choice but to go find you" He said nonchalantly and stepped through the rift, leaving a puzzled Michael behind.

A stalking dragon, your future is not looking so bright.

Michael ignored the system's comment and sighed 'So he saw everything huh.. system, how much of the training you put me through is supposed to be secret?'

It doesn't look that strange to onlookers, more so a dragon who had probably lived for several millennia if not much longer, he looks to be some kind of ancient dragon after all.

'Fair enough' Michael decided it was finally time to go through the rift and so he did. The journey was not as bad as the first time he had gone through it, his halo had protected him.

But now, it was a smooth process, so he just simply closed his eyes and waited for the weird sensation of mana interacting with him to disappear until eventually, he reopened his eyes.

And much to his and Fafnir's surprise, the sight in front of them was not what they expected.

Dark clouds surrounded them and the smell of smoke did not fail to enter their noses, however, coupled with that was the smell of blood.

They were currently in some kind of area in the inner part of the city, it looked pretty secretive yet at the same time pretty open, it seemed like this was where they were hiding the rift.

He was not exactly sure how no one had found out about it yet.

Fafnir did not waste any time and kicked the space in front of them, creating a massive hole that tore through everything in its path.

And what finally greeted their eyes, were a bunch of ruined buildings and all sorts of corpses flung around the streets.

Huh...

'What the fuck?'