My Girlfriends Are Hardcore Yanderes - Chapter 175

Chapter 175: Eryx Part 4
Outside.

“Why did you stop me? Now we’re going to be a laughingstock!” Lucia snapped, trying to pull her hand free from his grip. But even his normal physical strength was too much for her.

He kept walking, and she could do nothing but bite her lips in frustration. The worst part was that he wasn’t even responding. She began to wonder if she had done something to anger him.

When they were far enough from the building, he stopped walking and turned to face her. He first checked to see if they were being followed before speaking.

“What would talking back accomplish?” he asked.

Lucia clenched her fists, glaring at him.

“It’s not about winning the argument! It’s about standing up for myself. Do you know what it’s like to be treated like you’re less than everyone else? To have people mock you just for existing?”

Her voice cracked slightly, but she quickly steadied it. “I can’t just let them walk all over me.”

“That’s useless,” Asher said blunty “You’ll just embarrass yourself even more.”

“Easy for you to say!” she shot back, her voice rising. “You’re already powerful. You don’t need to prove anything because all you have to do is show your strength, and everyone respects you! I’m not like you!”

Asher sighed, seeing that she misunderstood him. She probably thought his strength had always come effortlessly, that it was something he’d been born with.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The power she saw in him was not a gift—it was earned. He had fought for it, faced death more times than he cared to count. He was even been trapped in the Void, a place that could have kept him in darkness forever.

No one knew the toll it had taken on him—how it had reshaped his whole personality.

But right now, none of that mattered. He wasn’t going to start explaining the horrors of his past to her. People rarely listened when told about suffering; they just saw the power that came after.

He focused his attention on her. She was tearing up, acting like a child.

The woman he had seen at the academy, the one with the fire in her eyes, was gone. Now, all that was left was this fragile girl who seemed to have lost everything.

“If you want to prove them wrong, I’ll do it in the tournament. I’ll fight for you. It’ll show them that you’re not someone to trample over.”

“You will?” She was stunned by assurance. This was the first time someone had been willing to go that far for her. It made her chest tighten in a way she could not explain.

She looked away, trying to compose herself, but the small flicker of gratitude in her eyes was impossible to hide.

“I’ll trust you,” she muttered lowly.

“Good.” Asher nodded, turning to walk out of the aerial port. He had no intention of crossing paths with Elira’s group right now. He would teach them a lesson later, when the time was right.

She followed him in silence, her thoughts a whirlwind.

As they walked, she kept stealing glances at his wide back, her emotions a jumble of confusion. She wondered why he cared so much, why he had stepped in when he had nothing to gain.

‘Does he like me now?’ she wondered.

But for Asher, it wasn’t that complicated. He wasn’t doing any of this to win her favor or make an impression. The idea of seeing her romantically hadn’t even crossed his mind.

To him, she was just a companion. He was doing the sensible thing—she was helping him, and it would be wrong to stand by and let her get bullied.

When they reached the boulevard, they boarded a rune-powered stagecoach.

As for the Storm Eagle, there was no need for concern. They had already informed the personnel when they registered, and it would be taken care of.

The stagecoach moved smoothly along the road, which looked like asphalt but was more flexible, almost like a hard rubber.

It was a marvel of Eryx’s technology—durable enough that no tracks were left behind when the stagecoach rolled over it. It was one of the city’s many wonders, showing just how far ahead Eryx was compared to the rest of the world.

The streets were lined with tall, metallic streetlights, their gothic design adding a unique harm.

Each lamp glowed a soft green, perfectly in sync with the color of the moon that hung in the sky, casting its pale light over everything. The green light flickered slightly, giving the whole city a uniform color.

In addition, there wasn’t a single real tree in sight. Instead, the streets were lined with artificial ones. Their leaves were made of polished metal, shimmering softly in the dim green light that filled the city.

His thoughts drifted to the city’s most basic question: What did people eat here? Without real trees or crops, agriculture seemed almost non-existent.

Did they have food factories? Magical farms? It was a mystery that lingered in his mind, but one that would have to wait.

Lucia, sitting across from him, had also grown silent. She stared out the window, her gaze lost in the strange, dark look of Eryx.

Before, she had never seen the city as anything more than an impressive place, full of wonder.

But after spending so long in Alarath, the dark, depressing streets and the lack of real nature made it feel more like a prison now.

“Is it always like this?” he broke the silence.

“Yeah. It’s always like this,” she responded, showing no hint of enthusiasm at all.

Asher nodded, his fingers tapping lightly against the armrest. “I can’t decide if it’s impressive or just… empty.”

“It’s both,” she said after a pause. “Impressive, but hollow.”

The two nodded in agreement. There was really nothing more to say about it, so they lapsed into silence, letting the quiet settle between them as the stagecoach continued its journey.

They passed more towers along the way, each one more imposing than the last. But at this point, the words that came to Asher’s mind were all the same: dark, metal, industrialized, prison-like, and depressing.

The city, with its cold, towering structures and lack of natural life, felt like a maze of steel and stone.

Eventually, they reached their destination—the Origin Arena. But it wasn’t like any arena he had imagined.

From a distance, it looked more like a towering monolith than a place of competition.

The structure stretched high into the sky, about forty stories tall. It was round, almost resembling a giant staff, its top rising sharply above the cityscape.

As they got closer, it became even more imposing. There were no windows, no signs of life on its surface.

All they could see were the rough, uneven stones that made up its exterior, giving it a fortress-like appearance. The stone was weathered, as though it had been there for centuries, standing against time itself.

When the stagecoach finally parked at the side of the road, Asher and Lucia could see that sorcerers had already begun to line up.

‘I guess this is it,’ he muttered under his breath.