The Forgotten (Arifureta x original character)

Chapter 88: Inside the Cathedral

Once the smoke from the explosion has settled down, Zane decides to go and check on Tio and Ms. Aiko. As such he teleports to where he believes they got blown off to. When he gets there, Zane finds that Tio shielded Ms. Aiko from getting hurt when they hit the ground.

Zane runs up to them and says, "I was not expecting that big of an explosion."

"I know it was great, wasn't it," Tio states.

Ms. Aiko appears to be in shock about the size of the explosion that she just caused. Not wanting to push her for an explanation at this point, Zane says, "Let's head to the cathedral and see what damage that caused.

With this decided the three of them make their way to the cathedral. As they near it, Zane notices that there is nothing but rubble left. There are no signs of any people ever even being in the cathedral. Based on this Zane is guessing that either they all got away, or they were all completely wiped out by the attack.

As the group is looking at the damage that Tio and Ms. Aiko did in attacking the cathedral, Hajime arrives at the cathedral ruins. When he does he says, "What in the world happened here?" He then sees Ms. Aiko and says, "Oh teacher, you didn't run away?"

Tio says, "She insisted on assisting you."

"I see you are here too, Zane," Hajime comments.

Ms. Aiko stammers, "Um... I just wanted to help out Tio."

"Yeah, Yue and Shea sent me to see if I could help out over here. I cannot say that I did all that much though," Zane replies.

Hajime says, "Well at any rate it is good to see that all of you are fine."

Ms. Aiko states, "Yes! I am glad that you are alright too. Very glad."

"For a moment I thought that I was going to die. But I am still alive. I am really impressed by Master's teacher," Tio comments.

"Huh," Ms. Aiko asks.

Tio then explains, "You boosted the power of my breath so much that it tore down the whole church," She then adds, "Truly impressive."

Hajime asks, "Teacher, what did you do?"

Ms. Aiko quickly shakes her hands and says, "No, it's not what you think! I didn't mean to do this! The church's barrier was a bit tough, so..."

Ms. Aiko grows quiet at this point. Hajime pushes for more by saying, "The barrier was tough and..."

"I was hoping I could improve Tio's breath somehow to break the barrier. But..." Ms. Aiko states.

"But what?" Hajime asks. After a second Hajime says, "I see. You used your farmer's skill fermentation acceleration to create methane... Highly flammable. Then you used Tio's wings to collect the gas all into one spot and boom."

Tio happily says, "We were blown away too. It's been a while since I was so close to death."

"And not only did you destroy the barrier, but you blew up the whole church," Hajime says.

Tio states, "Even with my long life, I could not have thought of such a method. I am in awe."

"It's not what you think! I did not know that it would explode like that. I just wanted to avoid half measures..." Ms. Aiko shouts.

Zane comments, "You are a teacher, you should have known something like this would have happened. I mean you were a social studies teacher, so I can understand you not knowing the whole extent of the explosion. However, even with only my education I could have told you how much damage lighting a ton of methane on fire could do."