"You can hear me, can't you?" Clementine said as she leaned in closer. "Hello~?"
"Please be a little more quiet..." I said, exhausted. "You basically just killed me. I need a few minutes of rest."
Her brow rose.
"You don't seem very frightened of me."
"Why would I be? You were controlled by a demonic ritual. Whatever you did just now wasn't by your own will."
Hearing my words, her eyes widened.
Then, she gripped her forehead and stepped back.
It was probably the recoil from all that had just happened.
She should remember, since she did in the game.
And I was right, as after a few minutes, she walked back to me and sat down beside me.
"What's your name, boy?"
"It's Amon. And stop calling me boy. We're the same age."
Despite how she appeared, she wasn't ancient.
She was literally 18, just like me.
"Amon... And you seem to know my full name already. You also perfectly predicted my attacks. Have we met before?"
"No we haven't, but I know a lot about you," I said. "I know that you got two Gifts, and I also know that when you were born, the Siren race went through an evolution. No one knows that yet, right?"
She just stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded.
Yeah...
She was a little awkward.
Not really a social butterfly either, since she didn't have any friends, only followers.
So because of that, we just stared at each other without saying a word.
But I soon broke the silence.
"Your race is going to get attacked by demons very soon. They wanted to use this ritual to make you kill a bunch of humans, and while your race is fighting with the humans, they would swoop in."
"Obviously, since I stopped you before anything like that could happen, you won't have to worry about the humans attacking you. Even so, you should move out, since the demons know where you live."
"But why?" Clementine asked. "Why would they attack me and my race? What have we done to them?"
Is she oblivious?
Or does she just not realize it yet?
"Your tears. They can increase someone's energy capacity by a lot. Everyone wants to get their hands on them."
I wish I could tell her more, since I had thought of so many things I wanted to say to her, since she was extremely important in every route.
But my mind was too foggy.
I was barely getting most of this stuff out.
If anything, I felt like I was about to pass out.
But mentioning her tears got the main point across.
Clementine clenched her fists and whispered,
"All of this just for a few of my tears... How despicable."
She then glanced down at me.
"Amon, are you here for my tears too?"
Haha.
On the contrary...
"I am."
Her body immediately stiffened.
"But I only need one, and I promise I'll drink it in front of you."
"You..."
For the first time since meeting her, I saw a faint blush on her face.
She stood up and raised her foot, prepared to stomp down on me.
But when she saw my innocent look, she stopped and sat back down.
"Ugh... Pick something else."
"I can't. That's the only reason I went on this mission in the first place. Plus, had I not been here, you would've killed a bunch of innocent humans, remember?" I said softly.
Sure, I was guilt tripping her.
But I really needed this.
For normal humans, if they were to drink her tears, their energy capacity would increase by around 1.25 times.
It was a lot.
But the way her tears worked was that they expanded the heart slightly.
And since I had a slightly larger dragon heart... my energy capacity was going to double, if not triple.
So as Clementine and I went back and forth, I eventually managed to get through to her.
"Fine. But I haven't cried in almost a decade."
Mhm.
I know.
Which is why I took out something a little special from my dimensional ring.
"Here."
"This is...?"
"It's called an onion."
Yep.
The good old onion strategy.
I couldn't really move that well, so I gave her the onion and a knife.
She just stared at me, stunned.
This was definitely not on her bingo card.
Neither was it on mine.
I thought of the onion idea while on the trip here.
"So I just cut it like this?"
"Just like that."
She began cutting the onion like some toddler, and eventually, her eyes teared up.
So she leaned over me, and yet, none of her tears fell.
She grew a little frustrated, so she began chopping some more, but sadly, it didn't work like that.
In the end, I decided to do something a little cheeky.
"Lean in a little closer and close your eye. It should fall out."
With a nod, she did just that.
But when her eye was only a few inches away from me, I exhaled a deep breath and then lifted my body up slightly.
I licked the tear right off her eye, causing her to jump back in surprise.
"Y-You! Who told you that you can do that!?"
"We're even now," I said through a chuckle.
And for the first time in a while, I saw her flustered.
Clementine paced around her domain, all the while creating mini water tsunamis and splashing them onto me.
She was cute.
And honestly?
It was worth it.
I felt my heart expanding slightly too, so I knew her tears did their job too.
Or maybe this sensation was something else...?
Chuckling again, I finally mustered enough strength to stand up.
When my energy goes back to full, it should take me around three days to get to the place where I can heal my soul damage.
That also means I'll have to separate from my group.
But not like it mattered.
They'll have it handled.
The only one I was worried about was Isabelle.
But since Draven was in the city, and he was an exceptional and trusted healer, even in the future, I knew this whole issue was resolved.
I got my power-up.
And I managed to survive without being killed by Clementine.
I got lucky this time.
But that just meant I couldn't underestimate the future events.
I had to get stronger, much stronger.
Anyways...
"Clementine, what will you do now?" I asked.
She turned toward me, still a little awkward.
"Uh... I'll listen to you and move elsewhere."
A small pout appeared on her face.
"I'll also make sure to not get so close to you again, or you'll lick me."
I couldn't help but smile.
"You're much more approachable when you're not acting so grumpy."
"Who's grumpy?"
The two of us went back and forth for a few minutes, and she was much more interesting than I remember in the game.
She barely had any dialogue in the game.
Her only purpose was to be that strong heroine the main character calls for plot armor.
But she was her own person.
Someone who had lived her life in isolation, and someone whose backstory wasn't just a few lines in the game.
It seemed like we could talk endlessly, but then again... my injuries were severe, and her soul healing was only temporary.
So I soon stopped hearing her voice, and before I knew it, my vision became blurry as I tumbled forward.
I saw a shocked look appear on Clementine's face as she suddenly began running toward me.
And then, my vision faded completely as I lost consciousness.
***
A/N: Important!!! I deleted the chapter where he found the demonic array manual. Reread it a few times, and it just read like filler to me. Now, canonically, they went on the carriage-> time skip of technique learning/studying -> arrival in mudflats. No more demonic array manual.