Chapter 34 - Vow

Stirring in his sleep, Grim felt his eyes open slowly as they adjusted to the light.

'Did I pass out?'

"Grim!!"

Turning his head to the side, Grim saw a kneeling Noelle and Mimosa hovering over him. Looking closer, he noticed that Mimosa was using her plant dress and healing his wounds.

'To get taken out by such a small amount of pain... If my other incarnations saw me now I wonder what they would say? *Sigh* I really overestimated my own endurance.'

Sighing at the fact that he had miscalculated the amount of pain he would be in from the wind needles, Grim slowly sat up much to Mimosa's surprise.

"You shouldn't push yourself!" She said in panic.

"It's fine." He replied and activated Beast breathing.

*Deep Breath*

'That's better.'

Feeling the pain dull slightly, he managed to make it onto his feet and finally see what was going on around him.

'What the hell happened while I was unconscious?'

Standing in the area around them were all the mages from the banquet including captain Nozel and Charlotte.

Surprised by the sight of them, he turned to look at Noelle and Mimosa.

"Why are they here?"

In short, after Grim passed out Asta and Leopold attacked the wind mage but were caught off guard by how fast his needle attack was and were taken out of the fight and rendered unconscious. Shortly after that the wind mage seemed to go crazy as he wanted to kill the unconscious Asta and Leopold. But before he could do anything, that spacial mage interfered saying how it would be better to take Grim and Asta captive so they could experiment on them. Fortunately for them, Mimosa and the captains arrived and managed to force the spacial mage to teleport himself, the wind mage and their paralyzed comrades away. Unfortunately they also managed to take Asta with them during their escape. Mimosa then got onto stabalizing Fuegoleon's wounds before moving onto Grim.

"I see..."

'So I passed out and everything went to shit... Fuck! Now I feel guilty for Asta getting kidnapped.'

Sighing loudly, he reached for his grimoire and opened it up.

'Lets see if I at least managed to gain something from this whole ordeal.'

Reacting to his touch, the grimoire glowed a bright green colour as it opened up and flipped to a new page.

'Breath of wind, good.'

Seeing the page, a small smile appeared on his face as he was torn between feeling happy that he had gotten something out of getting several holes punched through his body and the feeling of guilt over Asta being kidnapped due to him being unable to withstand the pain that other incarnations of himself would probably shrug off.

While he was stuck in this limbo mindset, he was surprised when his grimoire started glowing pink.

'What the hell?!!'

Flipping to another page, new words manifested in front of his eyes.

'Breath of Flower? How the hell did I get that?'

Turning his head to look at the two members of royalty next to him, he realized that Mimosa was still in her plant dress.

'...Does that count?'

Having never been attacked by a plant based magic before, he could only guess that Mimosa's healing was the reason that this style had unlocked itself for him.

'Actually, now that I think about it...'

"Where's captain Fuegoleon and Leopold?" He asked.

"They're um..." Shuffling uncomfortably in place, both Noelle and Mimosa turned to look at a nearby building. "They're recieving treatment."

"Treatment? But I got treated out here."

Hearing this, the girls started shuffling even more. "You um, you were rejected due to your status."

"My status?" Grim frowned.

"As... a commoner." Mimosa spoke quietly causing an awkward silence to envelop the three of them. "But you were actually in a better condition than them!" Mimosa said trying to dispell the awkwardness. "Although you were also hit, for some reason you bled slower than the rest.'

While Mimosa did her best to calm the situation down, Grim could hear none of it as he was stuck in his own head.

'They rejected me? Those pompous fuċkers rejected me! ME!! If I was seriously injured I would have died!!'

Realizing that he was fortunate that Breath of the Beast amplified his body's stats like vitality long enough for Mimosa to arrive, he suddenly felt a wave of anger sprout from his heart.

But before he could act on it, a familiar mana signature appeared in the middle of the surrounding mages.

'This mana...'

"Hey guys." Appearing out of nowhere with Asta in one arm and a hooded mage inside of a floating sphere with a ring around that for some reason had roman numerials that Grim recognized from his life on earth on it was the wizard king.

"WIZARD KING!!" The surrounding mages exclaimed at his sudden appearance.

"ASTA!!" Grim's group yelled.

"Hey Grim, good to see you doing alright." He waved and got out from under the wizard king's arm.

"Dude forget about that, are you okay?! I mean you got kidnapped!"

"Aha yeah." He laughed. "For a minute there I thought I was dead for sure."

Seeing him stand there and laugh about the situation, Grim felt some of his guilt fade away.

'At least he's doing fine.'

While he was still angry at the fact that a friend of his got kidnapped and almost died because of a dumb thing that he did, he was happy everything had worked out... Well not for Fuegoleon and the whole missing arm thing, but well enough for everyone else.

After that, Asta proceeded to give a quick explanation of how the wizard king came and saved him from the bad guys.

"Listen up everyone!" The wizard king's voice rung out and drew everyone's attention.

'Hmm?'

"As magic knights, there's only one thing that we're always seeking, and that thing is peace within our kingdom. To achieve that goal, we have no other option than to fight these criminals!"

"Criminals?" A familiar voice sounded out from within the crowd.

"Nozel..." Solid muttered seeing the look on his brother's face.

Clenching his fists tightly, the eldest of the Silva siblings turned his back on the group and after excusing himself to the wizard king he left.

"I think the enemy might have just awakened a sleeping lion." The wizard king smiled over Nozel's anger of having his rival lose an arm.

"Now everyone, seeing the results of today's attack, this kingdom will need you all to get stronger than you currently are."

*BANG!!*

'What now?'

"The one who needs to get stronger is me!"

Slamming open a nearby door and coming out despite his exhausted state, Leopold's breathing was heavy and you could practically hear his body screaming for him to take it easy.

"Grim... Asta..." He smiled when he saw the two of them. "I'm glad that the both of you are okay. As comrades that have been to the gates of hell and back with me, I know that both of you will get stronger too!"

'Well I just unlocked breath of the wind and flower so yeah...'

"I'll get stronger too..." Lighting a small flame on his finger tip, Leopold poked his forehead for a reason that Grim didn't really understand. "This is my vow!!"

'To surpass my brother...'

"I'LL BECOME THE WIZARD KING!!" Removing his finger from his forehead, a diamond-like symbol that was identical to Fuegoleon's was burnt into his skin.

"Okay?" Grim nodded not knowing what else to say. "I don't really know what's going on here or how you got to that conclusion, but knock yourself out."

"Hell yeah!!" Asta cheered. "Lets get stronger together!!"