An eagle-type demon beast could be seen carrying three rankers on its back.
It flew at a higher altitude and cut through the air with such speed that the winds around it made howling noises.
This group of three rankers and one demon beast had gotten outside the Badlands and were now approaching the city of New Beginnings. They would then use the teleportation arrays inside the city to get to the city of White Raven.
Argo increased his speed. Amory was going to get dropped off Argo's back as a result.
"Kiyeeeh! Hang tight, Geezer Pipes. Or we gon hear some brittle bones pop like a mother…"
Argo said to Amory while the latter was busy filling his smoke pipe with his stuff. Eren and Nina had sat together over Argo's neck while Amory sat near his tail.
"How rude! Young man, does your demon beast have no manners?"
Amory asked Eren, agitated by Argo's way of speaking to him. The demon beast painted visuals in Amory's head of someone collecting his remains from the ground with a giant spatula. He lit his pipe right away and released fume after fume through his nostrils to register his anger.
The butcher was busy flirting with Nina. The healer sat in front in the same way she would ride a colt. Eren sat right behind her. Nina's back touched his torso. He had wrapped his arms around her waist as if protecting her from falling off.
Of course, being B-Rankers neither Amory nor Nina needed anyone's help. Even with such a high altitude, falling off Argo was a minor inconvenience. Still, Eren acted like the knight he was and offered Nina his services.
The healer could feel Eren's hands venturing to some of the sensitive parts of the body. As if they were asking for some form of compensation for acting like harnesses for her. She would pinch the back of his hands from time to time whenever he did that to prevent him from showing public displays of affection.
Eren chuckled before responding to Amory.
"Haha. That's him trying to speak to you politely, Master Amory. He is just a kid who has a bit of a mouth on him."
Nina chuckled when Eren defended his demon beast. She could tell where Argo got this trait from. Basically, the demon beast took Eren's way of cursing or criticizing someone in his head and ran with it. He was just outspoken about it.
Eren let an agitated Amory cool down before asking the question he wanted to ask both the Master rankers.
"Why were you trying to fight Ro… Errr… I mean why were you trying to fight a Monster Overlord anyway?
And both of you were inside Monster Canyon for quite some time. What were you trying to find for so long?"
Nina wanted to answer Eren's question herself. But she let Amory speak so that he could feel a bit lighter in his head after talking about it. The old man smoked his pipe some more and sighed before answering.
"I was trying to break into the Grandmaster rank, Eren boy. Monster Canyon is… or was my last hope of ever achieving something like this before..."
"Before you die?"
Eren said in a neutral voice. Yet, for some reason, Amory could not find any disrespect for his seemingly futile efforts in Eren's voice. The old healer felt as if Eren had also gone through similar experiences before.
"Yes. Before I die."
Amory subconsciously felt comfortable speaking to Eren as if he was talking to an old pal from his era. He added further.
"They were my last-ditch efforts. Guess I will never know what it feels like to be a Grandmaster ranker anymore. This is sad news for me and also for the guild I have been a part of for almost all my life. Just when my guild and that child Jiana needed me the most…"
Amory kept on talking about his problems to Eren. But then he carried on monologuing, not caring if anybody was listening or not.
Eren listened to Amory's story keenly and was reminded of his last-ditch efforts inside Monster Canyon. He could relate to the old man because he had been in his shoes in his past timeline. It was just that he was nobody at the time. The stakes for his breakthrough were also much lower.
Through Amory's statements, Eren learned that Nina and Amory had been trapped in an isolated dimension in Monster Canyon while exploring a ruined site. It took them only a few days to get out of the isolated dimension successfully. But by the time they did, months had passed in the real world. Since the isolated dimension observed the accelerated passage of time within it, both rankers were unable to contact anyone while they were inside.
'What is up with this Monster Canyon? Why is it so bizarre?'
Eren thought to himself as he listened to two Master-Ranked entities' experiences. He was sure that he would have had a much harder time dealing with the dimension without Alephee's help if things were this difficult for two B-Rankers.
The butcher knew that Monster Canyon always had space-time anomalies. But he noticed that the instances of these anomalies appearing had increased in the current timeline when compared to the last time.
He wondered if he had any hand to play in this phenomenon. Alephee only activated the dialing back of time while he was inside Monster Canyon. He thought that maybe Alephee's powers permanently altered the place, giving rise to such instances.
Nina prioritized Amory's task when they learned that the outside world had observed a different passage of time and that a few bad things had happened to their guild. She didn't contact Eren because he couldn't help her at their level. At least she thought of it as such.
Unlike a certain individual among them, the Master rankers couldn't turn back time for themselves. So all they could do was prioritize Amory's advancement to Grandmaster rank. That was the only thing that could help both Amory and his guild at the same time.
"Your guild was attacked? By whom?"
