True Magician

Chapter 116

Underworld.

Far away from the Gremory mansion, where there was nothing but bare wasteland with rocky low hills, lit by the light of the artificial moon, I, hidden by magic, watched with interest one interesting picture.

In the middle of all this vast space right on her back lay Rias, who was breathing heavily and looking up at the sky. Her school uniform was covered in dirt and soot, and sweat had almost completely soaked the fabric and her hair. A tiny trickle of blood flowed from her bitten lip, and the palms of her hands looked like they had been burned with sulfuric acid.

But most importantly, the general condition of her body resembled that of having been starved for a week or more. Her skin had taken on a pale hue, her cheeks had sunken slightly inward, and her limbs were one-fifth the thickness of normal.

It didn't take long for Akeno to contact me that night, telling me that Rias had gone to 'training'. And I saw everything with my own eyes, I honestly don't even know what to think about it.

Rias thinks too straightforwardly and doesn't pay attention to what she considers small things, again, unlike Sona. She considers this kind of 'training' necessary because she hasn't been able to do much about it in view of recent events, including the unofficial Ranking Game with canon incident. When Asia supposedly died, to be precise.

Her zeal is commendable, true, but the rest of it? I wouldn't say so. The demons' words about this situation are very accurate. Her body is already at its limit, and if it continues like this, it will break down. It's like going to the gym on a regular basis with no breaks, and the body just doesn't have time to recover and rebuild.

The strain on the body is so great that it throws all of its energies into treating rather than improving. Because of this, the body cannot build a solid foundation for further development, that is, it becomes fragile. And at some point, it will simply fail. In short, what Rias is doing now is not improvement, but harm. Both to herself and to others.

When Rias's breathing more or less stabilized, she slowly straightened up, lifting her body with uncertain movements of her arms, and standing unsteadily on her feet, she gathered mana in her palms, causing a spear of Power of Destruction to appear behind her. Seeing this, I shook my head and decided to start.

- "You really are an idiot, tomato-san." I said, appearing beside her and grabbing her arm, blocking her mana flow. Rias stared stunned at the hand and looked up and saw me, her eyes and mouth open in surprise.

- "Sensei?!" she asked in a hoarse voice, "What are you doing here?!"

- "Your question has the wrong wording. Instead of 'you', it should be 'I'."

I tripped her, causing her to fall onto the soft grass that had just bloomed and stare at me in disbelief, and then squatted down, looking her in the eye.

- "There are many different methods of killing yourself, but this is the first time I've seen such a twisted variation of it. I suppose it's safe to call you the masochist of the year."

- "Why are you here? And it's not a suicide attempt, it's the training I need." Ignoring my words, Rias asked.

- "Interesting choice of words. You said 'I', not 'we'. The fat from your breasts has obviously gone to your head and finally flooded the rest of your brain," I grinned, to which she didn't respond, "Do you think the rest of us will like this? How do you destroy your own body for them?"

- "Your actions seem very suspicious to me. You are a selfish man who doesn't pay attention to those you don't care about. What's changed? What do you care what I do?" she said coldly.