"Increase it?" Aletha repeated with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean by increasing it?"
Beneath the warm glare of the brimming daylight, Ubel, Alai, and the girl gathered around to celebrate their victory against Nealon.
Though the encounter may have been unexpected, they managed to defeat and fend off the foes with just their power alone.
Hearing Aletha's question made Alai giggle for some reason.
With her round ruby eyes shining brightly and her raised prominent cheekbones, Alai answered while taking a deep breath, recovering from the battle.
"Haha. No, what I mean by increasing your strength is by training you more." She revealed as Ubel's glare traveled over the green hills. "After all, this is just your first phase of your training. You wanna' get stronger?"
"Right," Aletha said with a soft smile and a nod of agreement.
Upon their agreement, Aletha and Alai decided to thank the girl for healing them all.
"Thank you so much for assisting us," Alai said, her red hair fluctuating vibrantly. "If it wasn't for you, who knows where we would have ended up."
"Oh?" The little girl said, her soft chin resting against the soft bristles of the grass. "The name is Shaffia. No worries! I deeply respect everyone in Linuxinia. I can't afford to see frowns in this land."
As the gentle breeze blew against her soft robe, Shaffia hurriedly pushed herself up and turned to an evergreen tree.
It stood tall and proud on the hill, dwarfing the others with its sleek, emerald leaves.
A beautiful bluebird fell from the branch, touching the ground softly as it chirped.
Her eyes sparkled in awe as she watched it follow an earthworm, before snatching it with its beak. While Shaffia and Alai watch the beautiful wonders of nature, Dina slowly tiptoed over to Aletha sneakily before…
"BOO!" She screamed.
In reaction, Aletha immediately yelped and jerked her head back. Dina laughed it off and slapped her knee, watching as her attempt came into fruition.
"Did I scare ya?"
Scratching her head, Aletha's face turned red in frustration, pinching her lips together as Dina continued to laugh her pants off. Ubel, Alai, and Shaffia immediately had their attention captured by the event, walking up to her and wondering what was going on.
Yet, despite their situation, Dina still found a way to pull up jokes as if what they had experienced was just some "everyday thing." In fact, Aletha found it offensive for Dina to do such a thing. And so, in reaction, she burst up with rage.
"Grrr. What was the purpose of doing that?!" She screamed as her heart rate continued to increase. "Do you know what we experienced?!"
As Dina's laughs began to die down, the girl nodded with a smug look on her face.
"Yeah. Duh."
"THEN WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF DOING THAT?!" Aletha screamed, her voice growing higher and stronger each second.
"Hey, hey, settle down!" Ubel requested as he stepped into the situation. "There is no need for a fight. We have just defeated an enemy from Wraileza."
"Yeah…" Alai added, slowly lowering her expression to a disbelieving frown. "Look, I know I'm all in it for fun and games. But this is just foul, ya' know? No one needs to be scared after almost dying! It's not right. It's actually pretty rude."
Now hearing the words from Alai's mouth, Dina softened her features and drew her eyebrows together.
She felt the weight of a thousand glares' dagger through her soul. In response, she gulped down a breath of fear and made a clenched half-smile on her face.
"I… understand." She said, her voice trembling and pitiful. "I'm sorry for doing that."
. . .
After an awkward pause broke in between the moment, Ubel snapped his fingers and stepped forward, announcing to all of them.
"Alright, now that the situation is settled. Alai, should we return to your garden and try to recover? Or should we start the next phase of Aletha's training?"
While they started to take their departure from Gushy Geysers, peacefully walking through the forest with Shuffia, Alai answered with a comment of rare and delightful flavor.
"I say, we should proceed with Aletha's training!"
She answered as all the group's faces turned over to her.
"Now that we know she has a lot more strength and is fired up from the fight, let's go to the training range on the shores of Linuxinia?"
"Are you sure…?" Ubel said with an uncertain squint. "I think our lady Aletha had done enough for the day."
"You think so?" Dina added, crossing her arms. "All I saw her do was throw some punches and fight some bad guys. Don't know if that's enough to balance it out."
After considering their next steps, they all decided to resume Aletha's training.
However, as they began their hike across a dirt trail into the wilderness and winding hills that led to the training course Alai had mentioned, Aletha started to feel dizzy.
Her eyes involuntarily drifted shut.
Her body swayed side to side, with her hands hanging limply. Ubel, Shuffia, and Dina didn't catch on to the problem; however, Alai was aware of it.
Turning her head, she was concerned about Aletha's state and asked her while the others continued walking.
"Aletha, are you okay? You don't look too… well."
As her head began to droop and wobble, Aletha answered with a subdued voice.
"I'm… I'm…I'm… f…" Just before Aletha could finish her sentence, she suddenly collapsed onto the ground, losing all consciousness without warning. In reaction, Alai quickly snapped her fingers and hollered at the three ahead, saying.
"Hey! Stop!" She screamed at them as she bent over Aletha's unconscious body. "Aletha fainted!"
Her scream quickly caught Ubel's and Shuffia's attention. They dashed over to Alai and Aletha, showing looks of concern on both their faces.
"What happened?!"
Alai's eyes trembled back and forth, shaking her head in confusion.
"I… I don't know. She just… collapsed."
"Then we'd better get her to safety," Shuffia added as she tilted over to the direction of an opening in the forest. "Although I may not know what happened, I am positive that this condition is severe. We need to bring her to Linuxinia hospital."
"And where is that?" Ubel added as Dina came over, shocked and amused at Aletha's sudden collapse.
"Linuxinia City," Shuffia replied as her eyes anchored over Alai and Ubel. "If you want to save this girl's life, you have to escort her over to Linuxinia Hospital. From there, the doctors would take care of her."
"And just how would we bring her there?" Alai replied, crossing her arms.
As a silent wind passed through their faces, Shuffia released her hand from Aletha's cold, pale arm and answered with a point.
"You three can either carry her all the way toward Linuxinia City. Or… you can carry over to a nearby village not too far from here, and I can call a horse carriage for you to ride in."
"For a young one yourself, you seem very wise," Alai added as she grabbed Aletha's arm off the ground.
"Indeed. You should tell that to my parents." Shuffia replied with a soft smile. As Ubel and Alai cooperated, carrying Aletha with their remaining strength, the little girl informed them that they had to hold the fainting body toward a village atop a tiny stream.
"Also. Don't worry if you can't pay for the hospital visit." Shuffia said with a serious look on her face.
"I'll pay for it."
With her consciousness slipping away, there was one memory that flashed in her mind before her vision went entirely dark.
"Aletha, have you always had this strength?
...
Memories.
Blurry memories.
Though her consciousness may be gone, Aletha's mind flashed with a smorgasbord of blurry recollections.
A sword.
White hair.
Magenta eyes.
A stone castle floating in the clouds.
Sprinting.
Running.
Training.
These were the things that she could clearly recall from the discernible memories. Although blurry, Aletha can recognize one face within that compilation of recollections.
"Asahi."