Cross Worlds

Side Chapter 2-2 (Side- Reality)

Bee darts around the cave, jumping off the walls with great speed. It seems she's gotten even faster since the last time I saw her, if only a little bit. As for power however, it's gone up a lot. She wears red goggles made from the same material as the queen bee woman's mask's glass around the eye section, and she also has gauntlets with singers on them. Her last upgrade is in the stinger on her back, which simply fires more enhanced lasers now. Not only can she fire enhanced lasers from her stinger, but she can now do the same from her hands whilst drilling through an enemy with her blades.

"You really have gotten stronger!" I shout as I cut off a chunk of the monster's outer shell with my energy wrist blades.

"Before you ask, yes, the gauntlets were inspired by you and your teacher! You're the one who inspired me to get stronger dude!" She laughs as she fires another barrage of beams into the monster's face, keeping its attention on her.

"Well thank you, but at the end of the day, it's your motivation that helped you get stronger!" I cut the monster's underside and it roars in pain. To put it simply, this beast is like an earth dragon without wings, and it's covered in various rocks and gems to keep itself protected. However, there are plenty of spots where its body isn't protected.

I believe Riku Fantasy warned me about going into caves out of fear I might run into one of these beasts; "Gravehaps" as they're called. Though, with assistance, this monster isn't much to be afraid of. Unless we were to run into one that possesses magic. With the crystals on its back, it could greatly enhance whatever magical ability it happens to possess, even to the point where it could take out a large group of heroes. Thankfully this one doesn't have any magic. It's a piece of cake, to the point I can even mine some of the ore off its back and around its nest without worry.

"I can imagine a select few people on my planet now... 'This is animal cruelty!' Yeah well if it wasn't so hostile and actually did something for the environment, we wouldn't have to do this." I shake my head. Why am I having an imaginary argument in my head right now? I look at all the ore I've collected and smile, yelling to Bee. "All this ore is sure to get us even more money, but let's end it now!"

"Right!" Bee flies right at me and grabs onto me, helping me fly up as well. "If I'm holding onto you, I can keep myself from planking! Let's finish it together!"

"Yes ma'am!" I charge up the energy she lends me into my hands and she in turn charges up energy in her stinger. Together, we fire a powerful energy blast into the mouth of the monster whilst it roars at us. There's clearly an explosion on the inside of the beast, and blood drips out from its many open wounds, eyes, mouth, etc. The gravehap falls to the ground, officially dead as the light leaves its eyes.

"Alright! Let's mine some ore!" Bee and I yell in unison and we get to work. I carry as much of the ore back as I can with me while Bee uses her magic to drag the gravehap, leaving her portion of ore on the monster's back. She leaves its body outside the city and the Adventurer's Guild's receptionist comes to check it out and all of our ore. With all we have, we multiply our reward by 2.5.

"Thank god, I was starting to get low on money..." I mutter as I look at how many credits I have remaining.

"Since you did most of the work, chipping away at it like that, I'll only take 500 credits this time." Bee gives me a playful grin.

"What? You can't do that to me again! It hurts my conscious!" I grumble.

"Alright, then how about this, I take 500 and you gotta do one thing I say." She smirks deviously and I quickly get a bad feeling.

"Can't you just take half..?" I mutter.

"Nope! I want you to take me to wherever it is you've been going after your training with Artemis! And yes, I have seen you." She snickers.

"Huh? Is that all? Alright. Just give me one second." I turn to the receptionist, asking her to give me any edible meat from the gravehap after it's done being dissected.

"Are you sure? It might be edible, but it's rather hard to make good food out of it..."

"Don't worry, I know a pretty good chef." I smile and the receptionist shrugs, agreeing to have it sent to my room when it's finished. Shouldn't take more than three days. "Alright then, next stop, this way!" I dash off towards the slums.

"Hey, wait up!" Bee follows me close behind. It doesn't take us long to arrive in the slums, everyone greeting me as we go along and teasing me about Bee being my girlfriend. I blush in embarrassment and wave them off before arriving at the home I've visited quite a few times now. I've even spent the night here a couple times so I didn't have to pay for the room I've been staying in. I tried to refuse their offers, but those children are so hard to refuse.

"Riku!" The children in question run over and hug me.

"Oh, you brought a friend along?" Reina smiles politely. "Hello there."

"Hiya." Bee grins. She's been taking all of this pretty well thankfully. A part of me was expecting her to go bad on me suddenly and start acting like that "noble hero".

"Is she just your friend or is she a special kinda friend?" Makou winks at me twice.

Reina lightly elbows him. "That's none of our business Makou."

I laugh nervously. "She's just a friend friend... We've only been on two quests together. I'm surprised you don't recognize her, she's Flash Bee, a pretty popular hero."

"Really? I don't recognize her." Reina tilts her head.

"Me neither. Flash Bee...doesn't even sound familiar..." Makou mumbles as he scratches his chin.

"Huh?" I look over at Bee. "...Did you lie when you said you were famous?"

"You know..." Bee wraps her arm around my neck and grabs my chin. "Maybe being a little bit more than friends wouldn't be such a bad idea. Perhaps I should've made my request a date with you." She winks.

I know she's just trying to change the subject, and it works. Reina covers her face, blushing somewhat, but both Makou and Haruto are cheering for me. As for Gina however, "No! You can't have him! He's m-mine!" Gina hugs me a little bit tighter.

"Awww, I got some competition." Bee snickers and kneels down to ruffle Gina's hair.

"Don't change the subject you bug zapper..." I mutter to myself and sigh. "Thank you for saving my heart from bursting Gina."

Bee ends up staying for dinner with all of us tonight, the family still having plenty of food from the last time I dropped by. I'm hoping that gravehap provides a decent amount of meat for the slums. The thing was huge, so it should provide a good amount at least. In the meantime, I'll continue hunting for the slums and grocery shopping for the Gilbinga's. I might not want to say it out loud, but I'm starting to grow attached to this family. I know it's probably not a good thing, considering how many enemies Riku Fantasy has, but that's why I decided to introduce Bee. I'm hoping she'll become a powerful asset in helping me defend the people I've grown to care about. Considering the fun she's having, I don't think there's much to worry about.