Angela remained standing in silence for a long ti, even after Larry left, long enough that the Hero eventually returned to find the forest in ruins and her standing beside a fissure in the ground with a blank expression.
"...what the hell happened here?"
The forest looked like the site of a massive battle, and at the sound of his voice, Angela finally looked up, then around, before her gaze returned to him.
His earlier words, that she was just ’waiting for sothing to matter’ again, echoed in her mind, and without saying anything, she teleported to another part of the forest, channelling cosmic energy into the mory gem that held what was said to be a ssage from her family.
Unaware of it herself, as the video data stread into her mind, her lips began to curl upward ever so slightly, and by the ti it ended, sothing that could be called a faint smile had ford on her face.
"Oh, so you can make other expressions?"
"!"
She spun around at the sound of the Hero’s voice, her eyes narrowing at him imdiately.
"Hold on a second," he said, cutting her off before she could respond. "You do know you made no effort to hide your presence, right? It’s kinda hard to miss the imnse amount of magic power you’re exuding."
He quickly explained how he had found her, and she didn’t reply, removing him from the forest without a word before sitting on the ground and replaying the ssage from her family again and again.
’I...should go back ho.’
That was the conclusion she ca to, an obvious one, but as that thought crossed her mind, the events of the previous night resurfaced.
If she returned ho while still unable to control the new power connected to her Envoy title that she had only just discovered...
’No...I have to control it.’
A spark appeared in her once dull amber eyes, for she had now found a goal worth pursuing in the life she had deed aningless.
Her constant encounters with the Hero had created the cracks, and the ssage from her family had flowed through them.
’If I can control it, it might be easier to rid myself of it for good...!’
With such hopes in her heart, Angela began to do sothing she hadn’t done in years.
Train.
Power Control Training.
The Hero continued to visit as usual, though he never received an explanation for what had happened on the day she t the Drifter, Larry.
Unlike before, she wasn’t just sitting motionlessly by the lake she had reconstructed. Sotis, she spent ti inside a small cottage she had built for herself, and at other tis, she was in different parts of the forest.
Years passed in that way, and Angela, having reached the ’bare minimum’ of near-perfect control over the Chaotic Cosmic Power within her—a level she hadn’t believed attainable before—decided it was ti to return ho.
But when the mont ca to tell the Hero, she found herself unable to do so.
’Why?’
She stared at him with narrowed eyes, and, feeling her gaze, the man turned away from the tree he had been planning to climb for fruit and looked back at her.
"What’s wrong?"
"There’s nothing wrong. It’s just that I... I ne...e...d..."
Her words trailed off again, and when the man tilted his head in confusion, she ended up saying what she hadn’t wanted to.
"No. It’s nothing."
’I’ll tell him tomorrow,’ she thought.
But she couldn’t tell him the next day, nor the one after that, nor the one that followed.
Ti continued to pass with her unable to tell him she wanted to leave, and unable to understand why she found it so difficult to do so. She thought about it over and over, but couldn’t find an answer as to why saying sothing so simple felt impossible.
Eventually, there ca a day when the Hero didn’t co by as he usually did.
’Maybe he’s busy today.’
With that thought, she ended the day as usual, but when the next day ca, he didn’t show up again.
’Probably has sothing keeping him occupied. He is a ’Hero’, after all.’
That was what she told herself the following day.
But then days turned into weeks, and weeks eventually beca a month without the Hero ever returning.
’Why isn’t he coming anymore? Is he tired of seeing ? Wasn’t he the one who started bothering in the first place?’
Questions like that filled her mind, and just when she finally got fed up with waiting and decided to go find him herself, he appeared for the first ti in a month.
"Sorry, I was busy trying to deal with sothing. Family business."
"...huh?"
She blinked in surprise, her expression a mix of confusion and relief at seeing him again, but the Hero, noticing only her confusion, continued to explain.
"I may not look it, but I’m actually nobility. And since I’m also a Hero, I’m apparently considered quite the catch among the aristocracy.
My nation’s king was trying to marry off to his daughter to tie to the Royal Family, so rejecting him was troubleso. Also..."
Angela’s mind stopped processing his words from the mont he ntioned ’marriage’, and whatever he said after that never registered.
’That’s why he didn’t co for a month? Because of that king?’
Slowly, a dangerous thought crept into her mind unbidden.
’If the king was trying to make him marry into their royal family, then...should I just get rid of the royal family so they don’t bother him again...?’
"Are you listening?"
"!"
She snapped out of her thoughts at the sound of the Hero’s voice, blinking in surprise as she realised he was suddenly standing right in front of her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, a trace of concern in his tone. Then, his expression changed into a smug grin as he added, "Ah, did you miss ?"
At that mont, sothing seed to click in Angela’s mind, and as she thought about her reaction earlier to the idea of soone else marrying him, she ca to a conclusion.
"I see."
She reached out and took hold of his face, looking into his eyes, though her focus wasn’t truly on him, and muttered quietly to herself.
"I’m in love with you."
For a mont, silence hung between them. Then...
"...I’m sorry, what?"
The Hero was understandably stunned, but Angela was already lost in her own thoughts.
Releasing him, she folded her arms and walked off to the side, nodding to herself in understanding.
"I see. That explains everything. Now I understand why I still tolerate your presence despite having found you annoying on repeated occasions."
"Ouch..."
She ignored the Hero’s remark and continued muttering to herself as though he wasn’t there.
"That’s also why I’ve been unable to tell you I wanted to return to my ho universe. I’m simply reluctant to separate myself from you."
"Wait, what?!"
"That also explains why I sotis find myself wanting you to co here even on the days you usually don’t."
Unable to bear it any longer, the Hero moved quickly, grabbing her to pull her out of her stream of thoughts.
"Alright, hold the fuck up, missus."
"Hmm? What’s wrong?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "I was only making a logical conclusion based on the facts present."
Seeing her blink at him with clear confusion, the man could only sigh in disbelief.
"I’ve never been in a relationship myself, but I’m pretty sure all the people who have didn’t start off this weirdly. Even I can tell you’re skipping a lot of steps here."
"I’ve never been in a relationship myself either," she said plainly.
At that, the Hero rolled his eyes, muttering with heavy sarcasm, "Colour surprised."
Not understanding his sarcasm, she continued speaking.
"I suppose it would be a first for both of us."
"Yeah, it wo—wait!" He stopped himself mid-sentence, raising his brows as he asked, "Why are you assuming I want to be in a relationship with you anyway?"
At this, Angela tilted her head slightly, her expression genuinely curious.
"You don’t?"
For a brief mont, silence reigned supre before the man sighed and muttered.
"...I do..."
"Then the feeling is mutual, as I expected. There would be no logical reason for your persistence in coming here to see year after ye—"
"Yeah, let’s put the logical reasons aside for a bit, okay?" the Hero interrupted quickly before she could continue another weird analytical explanation.
And so began Angela’s relationship with him, in a rather ’chaotic’ manner, fittingly enough.
◇ ◇ ◇
Angela’s return ho was delayed again, but this ti she wasn’t confused about the reason why.
She also left the forest for the first ti in years at the Hero’s insistence, and ti went by like that, their relationship deepening with every passing year.
However, she was soon faced with a problem her mind hadn’t even considered before.
The Hero began to show signs of ageing.
Her Deathless Immortality aside, Angela’s power was on a level where her ’lifespan’ was ’infinite’, so the idea of ageing had never once crossed her mind until she noticed the first traces of it on him.
It was then that the reality finally dawned on her that he was a ’mortal’.
At that realisation, she imdiately decided that sothing as trivial as mortality wasn’t going to be a problem.
The solution was simple.
If his lifespan was short because he was mortal, then all he needed to do was beco a Higher Existence.
And so, it was in that way that she forced him onto the path of acquiring power he had never even imagined a single being could possess.
It was a long and monotonous process, but when she asked him the question, "Do you want Death to do us part?", the Hero’s motivation ter was mysteriously filled to the brim.
His lifespan grew alongside his power, growing from the few centuries it had been when she t him to millennia, then tens of millennia, and so on.
The matter of lifespan was what once again reignited her desire to return ho, and after catching an unfortunate passing Drifter and using them as a ssenger to inform her family that she’d be returning soon, she turned and revealed her intention to go back to the Hero.
The Hero had co from a single-parent family, and unlike him, that parent had no desire to increase their power for a longer life, content with what they already had after seeing their son bring ho the woman he wished to be with.
It was only after that parent’s passing at old age that Angela began her journey back to Zanerth, this ti with the Hero, who was now her husband.
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