“Ugh…” Aren groaned, waking up to a splitting headache.

“Where am I…?” 

As his vision focused, he saw that he laid in a small clearing surrounded by trees, with a campfire burning at the center. He tried to sit up, but quickly felt a cold metal pressing up against his neck, the blade impossibly sharp, drawing a thin line of blood at the lightest touch.

“Don’t move.” A girl's voice sounded in his ear, coming from behind him.

 Aren turned his head slowly to look at the person, realizing that it was the girl he saw fighting the Titan.

“Is this how you treat the person that saved you?” He said, slightly annoyed at this treatment.

“I would’ve been fine, even without you.”

“Whatever you say. Now can you move this knife, or am I just not allowed to move anymore?”

“I’m not that stupid. I can tell you’re a demon, so what are you going to do if I let you move?”

“I won’t do anything. Does it matter that I’m a demon?”

“Yeah, obviously it fucking matters. The voice said that demons should never be trusted, and I’ll believe it over some random person.”

Aren had enough of this girl by now, though he could understand why she would believe that. But it still greatly annoyed him, so he simply increased the gravity around himself.

“W-what are you doing…”

He caught her arm that was holding the knife before it could plunge into him from the gravity as she fell. Standing up and stretching his aching body, he looked back at the girl.

“If I wanted to hurt you, you would already be dead. Get it?”

“Fine. J-just let me…go now.” The girl stuttered, the weight making it hard for her to speak.

Aren released the aura, and she gasped for breath, looking up at him with distrust in her eyes. 

Eventually, she stood and walked past him, sitting by the fire. She continued watching him warily, beginning to cook a large piece of meat pulled out from a makeshift backpack.

“Here, let me do that.” Aren said, and used his Infernal Aura to easily cook the meat.

The girl looked at it in surprise, before muttering under her breath towards him.

“...Thanks…”

“Oh? What was that?

“Shut up.”

Aren grinned and sat down at the fire, the atmosphere lightening considerably.

“Well, what's your name then?”

“It’s Lillia.”

“I’m Aren. Anyway, what were you doing, fighting out here?”

“I followed that monster from a place around 200 miles from here. When I first saw it, it was wandering around an enormous black tower of stone, even larger than the monster itself. I guess I was just curious, so I decided to follow it. However, it noticed me at that place back there.”

“A tower? Interesting…” This piqued Arens interest, and he planned to investigate it.

The two continued talking for a few more hours into the night, and he learned a little more about Lillia during this time, who turned out to be surprisingly talkative after a while. She was one year older than Aren, who had actually just turned 16 recently. She was of the elf race, and her ability was called Force Barrier. She could basically exert an extremely strong force that reached out one foot from her body, pushing attacks back. The downside was that each hit taken ate into her mana, weakening the barrier depending on the strength of the attack.

Aren also learned what the voice that had told Lillia her abilities said about demons. Essentially, it said that demons are untrustworthy and an enemy that should be killed on sight. Hearing that, he couldn’t blame her for acting the way she did to him when they first met.

He greatly enjoyed talking with her now, as it had been years since Aren had any meaningful social interaction.

Eventually, they went to sleep for the night. It turned out that Lillia was much more prepared than Aren, who at this point only had the same baggy, tattered brown pants that by some miracle had survived this long. She, on the other hand, was prepared with two very large blankets, one for the ground and the other to cover them. She also possessed some crude pillows, stuffed with some type of feathers.

Aren crawled under them, satisfied as it had been a long time since he slept with any cover. Lillia did the same, except laying as far away from Aren as possible.

“...Goodnight.” she whispered, falling asleep almost instantly, and Aren soon followed suit.

Waking up the next morning, he tried to sit up but felt something weighing on him. Looking down, he was shocked to see Lillia had her arms tightly wrapped around him, still sleeping. His face reddened a little bit as he looked down at her. 

Aren hadn’t really taken a good look at her until now, but she was extremely pretty. She had a well-defined jawline and a small nose, with unblemished skin and green eyes. Lillia’s delicate features were completely relaxed in this state, normally she had a kind of tense look on her face. He slowly removed her arms from around him, making sure to not disturb her, before standing up and waiting for Lillia to awake.

Walking around the clearing that they were in, Aren appreciated the new look of Earth. Although there was a much greater amount of danger compared to before, even an insignificant area like this was much more beautiful than anything he had seen in his life. Nature seemed more alive, and the population of small animals increased by multitudes.

After a little while longer, Lillia finally woke up.