Truth be told, Aria had no idea what had happened at the parking garage earlier today.
Just like everyone else, she had initially ran as far away as she could from the explosion the moment she heard the loud and deafening sound.
After all, who wouldn't run away from that kind of danger to begin with?
It was just the most logical thing to do.
However, after getting far away enough from where the direction of the explosion had occured, Aria realized something and couldn't help but look back towards where the sound of the explosion was.
She found it extremely odd that a few minutes after she was suddenly ditched by the man who knew a lot more about her than even she did, the explosion happened.
After all, the man felt like an anomaly to her, even though it was mostly in a bad way, and everything that he had said or done up until this point was just very weird.
Besides, Aria had a gut feeling that it wasn't a coincidence by any means whatsoever, especially since they had been talking near the parking garage area before he walked away.
So for some dumb reason, one that she still couldn't fully explain now despite knowing the dangers, Aria decided to run back towards the source of the explosion to check out if the man was truly there or not.
And that's when she saw a glimpse of him.
Tattered from head to toe.
Body full of bloody wounds and small cuts.
And a big wound that was struck right on his abdomen.
It was honestly a very horrifying sight to behold.
However, that wasn't the most shocking part of it all though.
No, if that was the case then she wouldn't of have bothered to try and track him down in the first place when he left the parking garage.
Rather, it was mainly due to the fact that the man...
Did not seem to care about his injuries at all.
As if it wasn't even there in the first place.
As if it wasn't even bothering him.
And as if... he was already used to it in the first place and had quickly left her and came to the parking garage knowing full well that he was going to be hurt.
That was why Aria had so desperately chased after the man and tracked him all the way down to his safehouse to begin with even though every fiber in her being urged her not to.
Because she wanted to know how he was able to endure such pain.
But more importantly, she also wanted to verify something...
Something that could finally explain his strange behaviors and vibes he gives off, if it were indeed true.
"..." Upon hearing Aria's odd question, Eric didn't know how to respond back and remained silent.
He could likely guess that she was talking about his condition and how he didn't seem to react to his injuries earlier.
And although he could easily tell her the truth about the fact that he simply just didn't really feel any pain whatsoever and at most could only feel a slight discomfort, Eric didn't want to reveal that piece of information solely because he knew that she would eventually tell Aurora about it.
And he definitely didn't need Aurora to be even more cautious of him than she already was after all.
Thus, after contemplating about what to say for a little bit longer, Eric eventually gave a response he thought was the best without upsetting Aria whatsoever.
"Someone who wants to live, that's all." Eric shrugged and gave a very non-detailed explanation.
For some reason, Aria didn't seem to even react to his answer though and her facial expression remained the same as she shifted her eyes towards his body.
"Is there something wrong with what I just said?" Eric couldn't help but ask.
"...Yes, for someone who wants to live, you certainly don't seem to value your body a whole lot." Aria retorted.
"Well, I was fighting someone clearly more skilled than me. Nothing much I could've done to avoid the injuries really. In fact, I think that this was the best possible outcome imaginable for me." Assuming that Aria was just referring to the injuries he sustained from the fight against Aurora, Eric continued to shrug it off.
But once again, Aria remained still as she kept staring at his chest area.
As a matter of fact, right after Eric had shrugged his shoulders the second time, Aria couldn't hide the expression on her face anymore and cringed at something.
As such, Eric also followed Aria's gaze and looked down at his body.
And that was when he realized that at some point within the midst of their conversation, his wound had slightly opened up once again and blood was now seeping through his white shirt.
"See, you didn't even notice it until now." Aria voiced, "Everybody that I know can at least feel it when blood is coming out of their stomach. You're the only one that doesn't, why is that?"
"..." Eric honestly had no response to this and just sat there silently.
"And how did you know I was hiding the fact that I pretend everything's fine? I've never ever even said that out loud to anyone before." Aria expressed.
"Okay wait, now just hold on a minute here, I didn't really mean anything by that when I-"
"You don't have to explain yourself, I'm honestly not upset about it to begin with." Aria interrupted him mid-sentence and quickly stated before continuing, "I just mentioned it to you because I wanted to let you know that it's not normal for strangers to simply just know the secret of others, especially when that person has never mentioned it to anyone else before, that's all."
"...I see." Eric slowly nodded his head and immediately felt relieved that Aria wasn't upset at him, otherwise Aurora might not even give him any breathing room after Aria vents to her again.
However, after calming down for a bit momentarily, Eric suddenly noticed that something was off.
From the moment Aria had shown up to his doorstep about ten minutes ago and entered his safehouse, she had shown no aggression to him whatsoever.
She appeared to be respectful, understanding, and was even acting rather calm towards him, which was weird.
After all, even if Aria had came over to meet him simply because she was curious about him or his body or whatever, at the end of the day, Aria still absolutely hated him to the core.
There should still be some sort of negative emotion she held against him to begin with, and she should have trouble hiding that.
Besides, in the novel, Eric was pretty positive that Aria purposefully shows her contempt towards every men even if she approaches them first for whatever reason it may be, including the protagonist's future male party member and friends.
It wasn't until much later down the novel when Aria starts slowly trusting some of the male characters and being able to become friends with them at last that she stops openly displaying her hostility towards them.
Eric had honestly completely forgot about this for a brief second since the story had been told in Aurora's point of view, and Aria rarely showed contempt to her, but now with that in mind, coupled with the rest of the interations he's had with her so far, the chances of Aria actually not hating him at all should be almost zero percent.
In fact, he'd probably have better odds winning the lottery ticket than Aria not disliking him at all.
So why was Aria being so tame now out of nowhere?
After thinking about it for a couple of more seconds and seeing that Aria was waiting for him to say something else, Eric realized something and opened his mouth once more.
"Well then Miss Aria, what exactly do YOU think I am then in your eyes?" Eric emphasized on the word 'you' as he leaned one of his hand on the table and spoke.
"Do I really have to answer that when I was the one who asked you in the first place?" Aris asked.
"Up to you. I won't force you if you don't want to." Eric shrugged.
Aria stared at Eric blankly after hearing what he said and tried reading into his facial expressions for a little bit.
However, since Eric's face was always so damn expressionless every time she saw it, and somehow even more so right now, she eventually gave up trying.
This guy's face probably wouldn't even react if he was told that the world was ending soon anyways.
As such, Aria hesitated for awhile until she ultimately decided to just tell him her exact thoughts.
"Okay, if you want to hear it from me, then I'll say it…" Aria then paused for a bit before finishing her sentence.
"Are you... perhaps some sort of higher level entity by any chance?"