Affinity:Chaos

"Help, help!"

The young man continued screaming as he ran frantically in Grey's direction.

'Weird, but it's not really unacceptable though,' Grey thought while looking at the young man who had the voice of a lady.

What Grey found more amusing was that the young man clearly had a masculine look with beards and a slightly well-built body, but his voice was feminine which was in contrast with his appearance.

This was something that rarely happened, but it doesn't mean it doesn't. At first, he found it amusing since he hadn't really been in contact with someone like this, but after hearing it a few more times, he just shrugged it off. After all, everyone isn't supposed to be the same.

He stood up, took a single step forward, and vanished.

"Huh?!" The young man who was running in Grey's direction instantly freaked out when he saw him disappear.

He almost wanted to shed tears, but he had to save his energy for running. Crying while running would just make him expend more energy, well, so he thought.

Boom!

He suddenly heard a loud explosion behind him, but he didn't turn around immediately, instead, he advanced forward.

"Ehh? He continued running?" Grey couldn't help but comment with a surprised expression when he looked at the back of the running young man.

After running a few more meters and not hearing the sound of the magical beast behind him, the young man halted, turned around sharply to see what was happening.

To his surprise, the person who was wearing a robe was standing in the direction he was coming from, and the bear which was chasing after him was lying on the ground, motionless, around twenty meters away from him.

"You… you defeated it?" The young man asked anxiously.

"Well, do you see anyone else here?" Grey asked before walking back to the tree he was previously sitting under.

"Ah… sorry." The young man scratched his head awkwardly, "Thank you for lending me a hand,"

He bowed to Grey as a sign of gratitude.

"It's okay, the noise was disturbing my peace," Grey waved his hand nonchalantly before sitting down once again under the tree.

"Oh, I'm sorry for that." The young man apologized for disturbing him.

Grey didn't reply and closed his eyes once again to meditate. He didn't really like interacting with people much, especially with people he didn't know.

"Uhmmm, can I sit with you?" The young man asked.

Grey didn't reply, staying in the same position.

The young man looked at Grey and felt like he was an old expert who didn't like speaking much.

In fact, the more he interacted with Grey, the more he felt like he was an old expert who wasn't bothered with things of the outside world.

The beast which was chasing after him was in the Early stages of the Origin Plane, yet Grey defeated it with a single attack. Not just that, but Grey's speed was insane.

'This person is definitely an Overlord Plane expert!' The young man said in his heart.

After standing for a few minutes and not getting any reply, he sat down close to Grey.

Grey originally thought the young man would leave, but to his surprise, he sat close to him.

"What do you want?" He couldn't help but ask when the young man sat down.

"Hello, I'm Ellis. I traveled into the Magical Beasts' forest to train…" Ellis suddenly started telling Grey of the reason he came into the Magical Beasts' forest, not forgetting to speak of the ordeals he had gone through.

"Wait, wait, wait, what does that have to do with what I asked?" Grey hurriedly tried to stop him from speaking.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that." Ellis apologized.

"So, what are you doing here?" He asked immediately after apologizing.

Grey looked at Ellis, confused.

'Doesn't he get it that I don't want him here?' He thought while looking at him.

He didn't want to outright chase Ellis away, but from how he continued speaking, he felt it wouldn't really be bad to chase him away.

After seeing that Grey didn't answer his question, Ellis continued speaking again. Telling him of how he encountered this bear that was chasing him.

As much as the time Grey had on his hand right now, he didn't have the time to listen to the story of a complete stranger. Even if he wanted to waste it, this wasn't what he wanted to waste it on.

"The bamboo forest was quite large and…"

"You're disturbing me," Grey's annoyed voice interrupted him.

"I'm sorry senior," Ellis quickly apologized.

"Senior?" Grey asked, surprised.

'Hmm, looks like senior doesn't like it when someone calls him a senior,' Ellis thought to himself.

"No, no, what I meant was that I wanted to thank you for your help," Ellis said.

Ellis stood up after saying this, just as he was about to leave.

"Wait," Grey called out.

"Yes, senior?" Ellis turned around quickly, almost bumping into Grey who was still sitting.

His enthusiastic reaction stunned the hell out of Grey.

'Who's he calling senior? This guy is at least five years older than I am!' Grey thought in annoyance.

"First of all, I'm not a senior. Then, what is this bamboo forest you're speaking of?" Grey said to clear up the confusion.

The only reason he wasn't telling Ellis his name was because he was being hunted down by the Emperor, and from how Ellis interacted with him, he could tell he was someone who liked talking, a lot.

There's a high chance Ellis would speak of this experience to people he didn't even know.

'How could someone who speaks this much still be alive in a place like this where people betray each other?' Grey couldn't help but wonder.

"Oh, the bamboo forest, it's just a few kilometers away from here. I still remember the road there," Ellis replied enthusiastically.

"You don't need to go, just point out its location on the map for me," Grey said, before taking out the map he had of the Magical Beasts' forest.