Eric watched as Aria quickly tore her spare clothes she had brought along with her into strips and wrapped them tightly around his thigh, as though it was a tourniquet.
And although Eric could tell that Aria was trying to help him in a genuine way and was ignoring all of the blood that was clinging onto her hands and body, it wasn't helping at all.
In the first place, Aria hadn't even done something remotely like this before, let alone receive any training for it, and she was tying it up wrong.
But hey, at least it was good to know that she now cared deeply enough about him to even try to begin with...
Is what he would've thought of if this wasn't Aria Holt that he was talking about here!
But isn't this simply just too much coming from a character like her?
How did he even manage to get her to trust him enough to get to this point?
'I guess my original objective is completed now, but...'
It was just too weird.
Hypothetically speaking, it shouldn't be this easy to get close to Aria, even after that stupid dumb speech of his.
After all, other than Aurora, nobody had managed to get this close to Aria until towards the much later chapters in the novel when Aria manages to find a way to retain her memories every time Aurora regresses, and very slowly got close to some of the people she knew throughout the multiple regressions before.
That was why Eric hadn't expected to even gain that much trust from Aria originally even after helping her move past this important phase of her life, and only expected just enough to make her at least hear and help him out a slight bit.
Because as he mentioned before to her, he was someone who wasn't worthy enough for her to feel sympathy or care for.
But at this rate he could probably get Aria to do something completely insane and she wouldn't have much complaints about it.
'...Well whatever, let's just worry about it when we get back.'
Right now wasn't the time to worry about this anyways.
So Eric grabbed Aria's hand and stopped her from continuing her pitiful attempt at providing basic care.
"Enough, if you're that worried about it then let me handle it." Eric then unwrapped all of the tied scraps of clothing Aria had tried applying earlier and began replacing them with an actual proper tourniquet he had in his backpack.
Immediately, the blood seeping from his thigh stop flowing down, and Eric used some bandages to clean the drying blood around the area before wrapping more fresh ones on his thighs after that.
"There, that should be fine for now until I get to a hospital. Let's go now." Eric turned over to Aria and casually said before looking back at the masked figure.
The masked figure didn't respond back but started chanting again.
Once the translucent glow of light began to form beneath their feet again, Eric couldn't help but look back at Aria in order to see if she was going to freak out again.
But since Aria just waved her hand at him and gave him a faint slime, he faced the front again and wait for the teleportation sequence to finish.
Less than 10 seconds later, their visions blurred, and when it cleared up shortly after that, they saw themselves standing in front of a very large marble room with tall marble pillars lining both sides of the hall.
Furthermore, they were standing right in the middle of a massive circular formation that was engraved directly into the marble itself.
At first glance, it almost looked ornamental like some overly expensive architectural decision meant to make the place feel grander than necessary, but the thin lines running along the circle were glowing softly and pulsing every couple of seconds or so.
There were also 3 other individuals standing around the edge of the circle, all wearing different kinds of white animal masks.
One woman wore a deer mask, while the man wore a bear mask.
But there was one certain individual that wore a kitsune mask on her face and noticeably had long white hair.
Additionally, unlike everyone else who wore different kinds of attire and armor as if they were preparing for battle, the kitsune masked figure wore only a grey sleeveless, high-collared top, and had a glowing white sword strapped to her waist.
Eric knew that her attire was solely for movement though, and she was clearly ready to draw her weapon out any time.
"The rest is up to you now, Miss Aria. Good luck." Eric calmly stated as he took a slight step back away from the middle of the circle while the owl masked figure that teleported him here stepped aside and moved to the edge of the circle with the others.
Since this scene unfolded exactly as it did in the novel, just without all the masks, the battle attire, and the heightened tension, Eric assumed that Aria could handle the rest on her own and didn't want to interfere with her moment.
As such, he waited for the scene he had read about to unfold before his eyes and even couldn't help but feel a little excited about it as he remembered how much he had enjoyed reading this scene back on Earth.
However, before anything else could even happen though, and Aria could even ask who was the person who had 'accidentally' killed her parent just like she originally did in the novel, the kitsune masked figure said something that was completely unexpected.
"Take the girl away and get as far away from here as possible. Now!" The kitsune masked announced firmly yet also calmly suddenly out of nowhere.
Immediately afterwards, Aria's body radiated some kind of blue color light all over, and she quickly began floating towards the female deer masked figure holding a basic sword with rune symbols embedded on the blade.
Aria tried breaking herself out of it as best as she could, but she couldn't even feel or move her body at all.
Once Aria was only a few inches away from the female deer masked figure, all of the masked figures hurriedly dispersed as though their life depended on it and fled to two completely opposite directions of the hall, leaving only the kitsune masked figure and Eric left in the giant room.
Eric, who was completely confused at what just even happened and didn't even have any time to react, instinctively glanced over at the direction of where Aria had been dragged off to and frowned.
However, when an intense pressure far stronger than what he had felt in the corridors suddenly washed over him, Eric immediately shifted his attention back to the kitsune masked figure and didn't dare look away anymore.
"Your opponent is me, not them." The kitsune masked figure spoke as the sword hanging on her waist disappeared from view and reappeared back in her grasp in an instant.
At the same time, the circle sigil on the floor began to light up at the center where Eric was standing, and the glow quickly spread across every line until the entire circle was illuminated.
Following that, a translucent barrier formed around the edges of the sigil, sealing both Eric and the masked figure within.
"...You know we're both trapped inside here now, right? Even if you were the one who created this sigil in the first place to trap and prevent intruders from going any deeper in your hideout, it's not easy to get out of here." Eric knew what the sigil on the ground was and how extremely complex and high level the sigil was.
"I know. I'm just buying time." The kitsune masked figure felt that Eric was intentionally mocking her, but she didn't let that get to her.
"Fair enough." Eric casually shrugged.
Based off of the two things she had said the moment he was teleported here, coupled with how scared the owl-masked figure had been during their first encounter, Eric could now tell that there was a huge misunderstanding about him.
However, he was extremely confused about it since he didn't know what the misunderstanding exactly was, or even how they had misunderstood him.
It couldn't be that they think he was extremely strong or something, because they have managed to land a clean hit on his thigh without any effort.
Besides, this kitsune masked figure was actually the same individual that had been the cause of the accident that killed Aria's parents long ago, and the one that Aria wanted to confront.
It was needless to say that this person had the ability to detect someone's strength by just glancing at them.
Nevertheless, as long as he could escape and return back home without dying, he couldn't care less about why they feared him.
"You don't need to stall though. You already know that I didn't come here looking for a fight. See?" Eric slowly raised his arms in the air like he was surrendering.
"Then just stand there and be quiet." The kitsune masked figure subconsciously gripped her weapon tighter as she stated harshly.
"Alright, but do you mind if I check out the barrier for a bit? I haven't seen one before in my entire life, let alone one this powerful." Eric didn't bother hiding the fact that he had never seen a barrier before since he wanted to test something out which would most likely give him away anyways and asked.
"...I don't care, but if I see you doing anything weird to it, your head comes off immediately." She warned.
"Sure." Eric complied and then walked over to the barrier and started poking at it as though he was just a little kid trying to entertain himself.
Meanwhile, the kitsune masked figure observed him meticulously as she stared at the back of his body.
She was certain that Eric knew a lot about them and what they did.
Even if they were a secretive bunch that works behind the scene for centuries now, they were well known among those familiar with the supernatural, and their goal was also quite straightforward.
They existed to protect the people of the city by preventing conflicts and dealing with supernatural beings who could wield magical energy before they could harm innocent civilians unaware of its existence.
That was all they did, and there were also many groups and organizations like them that operated in different cities, regions and continents.
Because without them, the ones who still at least knew from right to wrong after obtaining power that could easily cause havoc, this world would've more than likely collapsed by now.
However, due to that fact, they also had huge targets on their backs, and she was sure that Eric was one of those people that wanted to kill them.
That much became clear the moment the receptionist told her that Eric had glanced at all the fake decorations they had scattered around, including the ones hidden in the lobby that were never meant to be found.
Unfortunately, she didn't expect for Eric to also be incredibly formidable, and she had a gut feeling that she was going to end up dying today no matter what she did.
It wasn't obvious at first since Eric undoubtedly pretended to get injured back at the corridors, but she could sense that Eric didn't even fear them whatsoever.
Not back when he first entered the corridors, when she had been watching from afar with magic, and not now.
And that was something that shouldn't even be possible to begin with.
Because everyone she had ever encountered carried at least a trace of fear within them, and she could easily sense that.
It didn't matter whether they were brave, arrogant, claimed to have nothing to lose, or were even significantly stronger than her, deep down, everyone still had that very tiny fear of potentially dying even if they weren't aware of it themselves.
That was why the kitsune masked figure understood that the one standing in front of her now, the one who seemingly knew everything about them and still wasn't afraid to come find them, was much more dangerous than any other foe she has ever encountered before.
Still, for the sake of her comrades and potentially even the sake of this city, she needed to buy them enough time for word to reach to the other groups and organizations about the monster residing here.
Until then, she had to keep him here no matter what.
While she had been quietly watching Eric stupidly play with the barrier however, all of a sudden the barrier, the one that she had thought would take an incredibly long time to even break through... started to flicker constantly.
And before she even knew it, the barrier had disappeared entirely in a blink of an eye, and there was no longer anything separating Eric from the rest of the outside world.
Afterwards, she watched Eric turn back to her, and said...
"Hmm, I'm surprised that even worked."
He even tilted his head slightly as if he was genuinely surprised.
And that was when her grip on her weapon tightened more than ever before.
Because for the first time ever, she felt like going up against an enemy that she couldn't win against.
Even if everyone in the world attacked him all at once.