Milo leaves the shop and walks casually through the city toward the battle between us and the demon general. The black clouds begin to radiate several colors: red, yellow, blue, and white. These colors, along with black, are the most prominent. Faintly, violet and green begin to shimmer through. Milo sees it and simply smiles. Without wasting a thought, he draws closer to us. Luna jumps over to me and looks at the sky in confusion.
"I guess this is going faster than expected." I remain motionless, otherwise the spell would break, which is why I cannot answer Luna. Milo comes closer and closer, and my attack accelerates. Slowly, every element can be seen in the sky. All the colors, including the black, gather above the demon. He realizes what I am planning and is now even more determined to kill me before this attack hits him. The light turns into a small beam, which slowly becomes invisible. The demon looks into the air, confused, and suddenly feels safe again. Of course, no danger can be seen far and wide, yet the magic is merely invisible.
A strong wind picks up, and everyone takes a step back. Milo remains standing. The wind becomes more intense. I look up, my gaze fixed on the demon, as the wind grows ever stronger. Some roofs are already flying away. I create a barrier around everyone present. The wind turns into a tornado composed of the most diverse elements. Lightning bolts shoot out of the tornado at specific intervals. Every second bolt is enveloped in fire, and all the others are enveloped in water. Inside, where the demon is currently trapped, a veil of mist begins to appear with a coldness that can freeze a body in just one second. The demon begins to glow and heat up, but the water flowing around him extinguishes him instantly.
"That's why he placed the combination of water and ice so close together," Milo murmurs quietly to himself. The water flowing there freezes completely, and the demon general can no longer do anything. A clinking of breaking ice echoes from the storm. A light descends from the sky toward us. A person floats slowly toward the tornado, which is beginning to vanish.
"What? Why can this human extinguish something like this, or...?" I mutter to myself. A man with black hair and a dark gaze looks at me while he simply pulverizes the demon general after thawing him out.
"You alleged heroes of this world, do not fear, I will not trigger a third wave. But the last and fourth wave will come—in four years," says the man, who disappears again from one moment to the next.
"Min, was that...?" Luna asks.
"Yes, it was a god. More precisely, the God of Demons," I reply simply. So, the last wave is supposed to come in four years. Fortunately, there are only four countries in this world. Since Limbora and Manduro are already finished, only two remain. Since the third wave would have been in Hinomania, where the capital of Himo is, it must be in the last country, which is on the other side of the world and occupies half of the globe. Everyone enters joyfully, but the finale is only beginning—not for them, but for us.
"We have four years to train," I say with a tense voice. Everyone groans in annoyance.
"Not training again," Suri says, annoyed. Milo approaches us with a joyful smile. We all look at him in confusion. No one knows that we are only alive thanks to him, for only now do I realize that my mana would never have been enough. Five years later, as I write these books, I realize this. We are now all beautifully reunited.
"Tomorrow the journey to the last station begins, followed by the training, so get yourselves ready," I say to them while they sit on the ground where ice shards still lie. I don't blame them, as this fight was naturally exhausting. I am also at my limit; my mana is already at zero.
"Yes, rest up for... now," I say with an increasingly quiet voice as I slowly tilt forward. I fall face-first onto the hard stone floor, where the ice shards still lie. My head goes empty and everything turns black. I only hear the voices running toward me and screaming my name.
"Wake up, Min!" Kira screams desperately. Lilly looks at me with a sad face.
"You can't die now, you showed me what true strength is," Lilly says with a desperate voice. They sit around me as if I might die at any moment. Dammit, I'm just unconscious from the fight; that should be clear to them. Milo only shakes his head in disappointment that they don't realize I'm still alive, but I don't understand it in this moment either. Milo just smiles stubbornly to himself. Although this doesn't leave him cold: this isn't strength, but endurance. We all go back to the hotel.
"Seriously now, how did you manage that?" a small beast-boy asks. Suri kneels down to him with a warm, gentle smile.
"Because we trained and had patience," she says with a soft and calm voice. The boy looks at us in confusion.
"But you are heroes!"
"No, a human is never a hero. Because a hero is perfection, but we humans make masses of mistakes, which is good because we learn from them and become stronger. So never call a human a hero," I say while looking relaxed out of the hotel window. The boy looks at me with shining eyes and nods. The little one's mother comes by and picks him up, thanking us briefly for looking after him.
"I'm going to be just like you!" he shouts as the two of them walk away. We eat just a little more and it is already noon. I tell them my exact plan: that I will only train them once we are at the destination, and that we will train for the entire four years the way I once trained Lisa, Suri, and Luna before the incident with the Star Orc Lord. Everyone nods in agreement, even Kira as support agrees. She also seems to want to be of use.
We walk through the city a bit more, which is already somewhat destroyed. A group of people stands opposite us in a dead end as we are about to turn back. No one can see us since it is already slightly dark, and no one can hear us since it is far isolated. They appear behind the girls and take them all hostage. Milo and I look at the guys in surprise.
"Whoa, great loot," says one of the guys in the group as he reaches under Kira's clothes. My hand tenses up. I instinctively reach for my dagger but can just barely control myself. I blur as I take a step forward. Milo looks confused at the empty spot.
"Behind you." My eyes glow with rage and a desire to kill, but I can still restrain myself. I flick my forefinger and thumb against one of these guys and he flies against the wall. A loud crack can be heard. The gust of wind sent the others flying as well. The entire alley is now a huge linear crater, and a few houses are only standing by half. The girls land softly thanks to Milo's wind magic.
"Min, what kind of wind strike was that? You could destroy a whole country with that... no, a whole planet," Milo says with an excited voice. I shake my head.
"No, that was a strike without magic," I say while I gather the guys and tie them up. Milo looks at me confused, as if I had just made a joke. We continue to our hotel and finally arrive.
About twelve days later, we arrive in the new country, in Himo, and even just a few kilometers away from Himomania. After another nine hours, we even arrive in the capital.
"Wow, this journey took a long time. Even though we fought so much, I am not exhausted at all," Lisa says to Luna, who nods in agreement. I look around for a hotel but find nothing, even though it is a mixture of medieval and futuristic things.
"There's an inn over there, but maybe we should buy a real apartment instead, because we're going to stay here for a few years," Milo says with a thoughtful voice. Everyone looks at Milo understandingly while I already search for a house for sale. After walking through the city for a few minutes, we find a real estate office. We quickly buy a house, fill out the forms, and we also have to fill out the questionnaires. I receive the key for a three-story house with a 100 m² garden. We walk through the city toward this newly purchased house. While the streets are overcrowded, we go over the roofs to the house.
"That should be it, shouldn't it?" Lilly asks, pointing to a large house with a huge garden. We go down to the somewhat emptier street.
"Wow, even though it's evening, the streets are still completely full." Luna looks around in surprise as she says this. We go inside and look at the house. The house has three floors and an attic. The entire house is huge. We go into the garden, where I already have a plan for the training: every week there will be a mini-tournament between everyone. Otherwise, they will complete missions twice a week. Three times a week they simply train, and once a week they have free time.
We go back inside to eat. Milo goes into the kitchen and immediately starts cooking something with the ingredients I brought along. Milo prepares Pasta Bolognese. The scent spreads throughout the building while Lisa, Luna, and Kira set the dishes on the table, with forks and spoons, and one glass per seat with juice in it. Milo finishes the food. Since tomorrow is Sunday, everyone will have one more day off before we start training. We all go to sleep, as we are exhausted from the long journey.
The next morning begins like any other, except for the ones during our travels. We have a relaxed breakfast together. I then explain the plan to them for these four years of training and 192 free days and, to be precise, 1268 training days. After each year, I will check their strength once. Luna and Lilly go out after breakfast to explore the city, while Milo and Suri have a little date. Kira stays with me, and Lisa looks around the city on her own. I have planned to build the training area in the garden: a 50 m² combat field, a small pool around 20 m², and a small 30 m² terrace. I start with the terrace. For this, I create a stone floor in the front left corner by the terrace door. After the stone floor, I create a steel pillar at all four corners. Above that, I build a glass roof where the sun is shielded and only reduced UV gets through. Two hours later, the terrace stands there with a grill, chairs, and everything else.
Next, I start with the pool. Thanks to earth magic, I can easily dig out a hole. After that, I just have to let the water in and that's it.
"Wow, that looks beautiful! I'll quickly buy some plants, then we can make it even nicer," Kira says with a beaming face. I just nod, and Kira immediately runs off to buy flowers. I let the water in and build a little light under the water so it shimmers beautifully at night. I already start preparing the surface of the ground where the combat field is to go. I place a layer of cushioning stone on the minimally hollowed-out pit. While Kira picks out beautiful flowers, Suri and Milo are out eating, Luna and Lilly are walking around the city a bit, and Lisa goes shopping. I am just finishing the combat field when Kira arrives and brings the flowers. We start decorating the terrace as well as the pool and the combat field.
While I am doing all this, Suri and Milo first go through the city after leaving the house. They discover a small shop.
"Mika's Sea Restaurant," Suri says with wide eyes, as she has always wanted to eat seafood prepared to a high standard. Milo looks at her understandingly.
"Come on, let's go in." Milo takes Suri's hand. She blushes slightly but then agrees. The two of them go inside and sit at a table in the far corner. Both order a soft drink with mussels and sushi, and for dessert, a curd with fruit. They receive their drinks and food and begin.
"Milo, I haven't really told Min anything about my past yet. Do you want to hear it, since you told yours, I mean?" Suri looks slightly embarrassed at Milo, as if the question were uncomfortable for her.
"Yes, of course I would like to hear about your past," Milo replies with a smile.
"Alright, I'll start: back when I was little, it became public that my mother was actually a human and my father was a beast-person. Because of that, I can turn into a beast-person and into a normal human. Back when I met Min, I was a beast-person, but after an incident, I made myself human—but that doesn't matter now. Back then, I was cast out because I was a half-blood, which means I don't really belong anywhere. Additionally, my father was king of the city. My mother was executed before my eyes back then, which is why Mia's death left me relatively cold, and I'm sure it was the same for the others. Now you know, quickly summarized, my story from before." Suri takes a breath every now and then. Milo listens attentively to her past. They finish eating and then move on, while the others simply have a relaxed day.