I'll Come Back

It was now the next day. Which means it's now Friday. Just two days to go and it's finally time to save Dvalin. I did my usual morning routine. Like usual, Mona woke up from the smell of the food.

"Good morning, Mona." I said with a smile.

"Good morning, Aether." she said with a smile as well.

The first one to chow down the food was Paimon. If she keeps eating quickly, she'll choke. I scolded Paimon, but she still continued on anyway. Eventually, she choked and Mona quickly gave her water. I couldn't help but just chuckle at Mona's panicking state.

While we were eating, I just realized something.

"Wait… I haven't done any commissions lately…"

"It's okay. As long as you do at least one within a month, you're safe." said Mona.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen her do commissions yet. As if reading my thoughts, Mona spoke up.

"I already did a commission three days before I met you."

When we finished eating, we took a bath together and got ready for school. I don't include bathing in my usual morning routine anymore since I've been bathing with Mona lately. Anyways, after we finished getting ready, we both walked to school. We ran into Albedo and Sucrose again. This has now turned into a norm, but even so, we still greet each other.

"Yo, Albedo and Sucrose." I said.

"Good morning, Aether and Mona." said Albedo.

We all walked together to school and were met by the usual group of girls. However, I noticed that it wasn't actually the usual group. There was one more additional member. It was Ganyu. Weird to see her with them.

"Good morning everyone. Weird seeing you here, Ganyu." I said.

"Well, they said they needed to talk to me about something, but we needed to wait for Mona first."

"Ah, I see…"

I already knew what it was so I nodded to Mona and she went to the girls. I heaved a sigh and walked behind everyone else since I was thinking of something.

I was thinking of whether I should use the bow or not for my fight with Dvalin on Sunday. I might use it, but I'm more worried about my aim more than anything else. If I mess up, I might even cause some serious damage. While pondering such things, we reached the classroom. I didn't even notice Albedo and Sucrose leave…

The day continued on normally. Well, not really… Ganyu was there talking with the girls. The teacher didn't even care. While I was sitting at the far right corner so that I won't hear their conversation. I might know some of the contents, but eavesdropping is wrong.

When it was finally dismissal time, we all left the classroom. Ganyu said that she has something to do at the Student Council, so the girls said their goodbyes.

"See you on Monday Aether!" said Ganyu.

"Yep, see you on Monday!"

After saying goodbye to Ganyu, we all headed to the diner. This is now our normal routine after school. We don't run into problems since we don't attract too much attention. Unlike last time when Venti yelled Barbara's and Noelle's name and we got surrounded.

After we finished eating, we went to our dorms and took a rest. Mona and Paimon were the first to sleep. Since we don't have school tomorrow, I might as well stay up and do something productive. Which is mastering the bow… I hope.

I warped to my Domain and made it take shape into a shooting range. I then made the very same bow that Venti uses and started to shoot at the targets. After about ten tries, one thing was for certain.

"I suck at this…"

I can't aim well. It was only 25 meters and yet I can't even shoot the arrow on the target. So, I decided to lessen the distance to 18 meters. When I did that, I could perfectly hit the bullseye. With this, I now know that my range limit is 18 meters.

Next, I tested out my Air Warp. I could teleport objects along with me, but I don't know it's range. I created a spear and pinned it to the ground. Then, I moved 10 meters away from it and warped 10 more meters away while focusing on bringing it along. I was warped, but the spear didn't come along with me.

I lessened the distance to 8 meters, but that didn't work so I keep on lessening the distance. When I was now only 5 meters away from it, that was when it worked. The range of my Air Warp that would let me take others is 5 meters. This means that I needed to get Dvalin within this range to be able to drag him to my Domain. Seriously, this is going to be a problem. Not to mention the possible threats of Abyss mages and other Abyss monsters.

I was going to test more things, but I didn't want to have that headache again so I just went back to my dorm and called it a day.

---

I woke up and did my new routine. The one without me bathing before making breakfast. As usual, Mona woke up to the smell of the food. However, instead of eating happily, she was a bit gloomy.

"What is it?" I asked.

"...You're going to do something dangerous again, aren't you?" she said in a sad tone.

I haven't told her yet, have I? She realized it, maybe because of me messing around with my Domain and disappearing last night. I walked over to her and gave her a hug.

"I'll be careful, okay?" I said in a gentle tone.

"I know that this is also part of being an adventurer, but I still can't shake off the feeling that something's bad about to happen to you… so, can you bring me with you?"

I was genuinely surprised at that. The reason I didn't tell her or any of the girls about this was because I didn't want them to be in danger.

"No. Don't even try to tell the other girls about it as well. I won't let any of you come with me on this one."

"Why? What's so dangerous that you wouldn't even let us join you?!" she said while starting to sob.

"I'm going to save Stormterror!"

She was speechless at that. Dvalin was a powerful being, so fighting him in his state right now is truly dangerous. After a few minutes, she stopped crying and calmed down. She slowly nodded her head, meaning she agreed with me.

Since it was the weekend, nothing much happened. Although, I did spend the whole day making Mona feel less gloomy. When night time fell, we hugged each other tightly to sleep. The reason for this was because of a voice on the wind telling me "We leave at dawn.". When I told Mona about this, she suggested the hug. I need to survive this fight for the sake of me seeing my loved ones again and not hurting them. I made that oath as my consciousness fell.