The Goddess' Champion

"Stop laughing!"

"Ha… HAHA! I-I just told you- HAHA!!!" The gigantic horse's laughter revered in his entire soul, so much so that with her wings flapping she forgot to cover her gnashing wound.

"Damn you I swear I'll slap that arse of yours at least once." He grunted in disdain, getting back to his own work instead of talking with the clearly lazy horse.

"And then I'll kick your balls."

"By then I'll be long gone."

"I'll always find you regardless of past or future…"

"…" The two of them glared at one another, he felt a hidden meaning behind those words but dismissed them.

"You should continue… your group of humans outside are getting restless, especially that girl" She huffed a neigh and turned around; laying down again while using her wings as a quilt, letting him do his own thing as he had already caught the hint of her teachings by now, he could continue on his own.

The two didn't speak to one another as he continued trying to create his improvised array.

**

**

It took him a few hours before eventually created the piece of the array, it was a grey coloured stone composed of three triggers and a single catalyst.

Three grey coloured stones with different shades and a small ground magic catalyst, she thought it was quite neat to be his very first creation.

"You're done, what exactly do these do?" The mare asked with intrigue, having them float in front of her eyes for inspection, as far as she could tell the engraved spell was merely a spell to create minerals.

"Look and behold." He activated it with his own magic and the grey stones shone before starting to produce something.

It was three sorts of different powders.

"You're quite talented, three triggers and a single catalyst... I guess I indeed am a good teacher~" She flaunted her 'academic prowess'.

"*cough!* sure... that explosion had to teach me something too." He decided to not sour the moment by calling her illiterate, mathematically dysfunctional and a literal horse.

...

Surprisingly, once activated, the array just kept creating those three small amounts of powder, nothing else... She was slightly disappointed, thinking it would be something more amazing.

"What are you going to do with that?" Zebellia didn't understand, she thought he was doing something else.

He merely smiled and took a handful of that powder before using his magic to condense it into a single tablet with measured amounts of the three of them, by using this tablet, he created yet another array using it as an ingredient.

A fire array composed of the tablet and a small catalyst and a flame spell.

It was as if his imagination was giving free rein to his creativity, the moment he knew the rules of the game, he couldn't wait to play it.

In the end Zebellia saw how he created yet another array, this time remarkably faster than before, in fact, it was as if he had been creating them for at least one month.

As for those three elements, they were some he knew very well... Sulfur, Salpetre and Charcoal.

Having finished his product, he threw it away until it was far enough and then activated the array.

*BOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!*

The explosion wasn't massive, a gust of gas spread across together with debris, but his eyes shone at that moment, let alone not only his, Zebellia's too were.

Because aside from some flame magic she didn't detect anything else, where did the explosion come from?

"…" The Valkyrie was left out of words, trying to understand the implications of what he just created.

'Did he just create a bomb that can't be detected by me?' She thought in disbelief,

"It is done…" He saw her reaction and frowned, in this world where supposed gods roam the land and powerful creatures like her exist, she doesn't know what black powder is?

Thinking about their magic cultures, he somehow came to understand how this was the case.

'Over-reliance huh...?' He deduced correctly, over-reliance on magic.

"How does that work?" She asked with new-found curiosity.

"As I told you before, those are inflamable elements, when in contact with fire they will ignite and produce gas in great speeds... do you remember the rosemary from before? it is almost the same but with a more wild reaction."

"How do you know all this? aren't you supposed to be some womanizing emperor?" She threw a low jab even if it was unintentional, sadly for her, the conqueror saw no shame in being a womanizer, but there was more.

"Hmph! Don't mistake me with your bastard of a boss... an Emperor needs weapons when there is war… it was a dear friend of mine who showed me this, he was quite smart, these explosives were created by him back when we were in the academy, I'm merely replicating it… in the end, I was always more wicked than him, using his invention I destroyed his army..." He sighed and recalled those old times.

'I hope you rest in peace, Hector… and thank you, once again.'

...

"Then it is time for you to go back, show me what you can do with that~" She was thrilled to see the mayhem that this new array that he created would cause, usually... combustion magic could be detected by anyone with a remote knowledge of magic, but this artificial explosives, if he could find a way to conceal the blaze spell, they wouldn't be noticed, ever...

Her words made him smile, he was also quite eager to see how everything could turn out to be, this was quite the interesting learning session, the knowledge acquired here wouldn't be wasted, in fact...

He'd use it during his entire stay in Sandoria.

"I'll show you more than what you're hoping for, Zebellia~" Closing his eyes he resolved to go back to the real world and put his plans back in motion.

**

**

"Zamira." His sky blue orbs opened and what he saw was a beautiful purple-haired girl pressing him down on the ground, he frowned.

'Isn't this a little too fast? we haven't gone on a date yet...' He wanted to say, only to end up hearing the curses of the mare inside his soul.

"You're awake! I was starting to get worried, you have been like that for hours!" Zamira yelled and pulled him up, she thought her saviour had just died like that, even his heart had stopped and she thought he had some sort of cardiac arrest.

"Yeah, I was… thinking, let's go back, I have a plan to tell to the others." With a lot of enthusiasm, he saw that the ogres were still in the midst of their dance, now less than before as some of them apparently went to sleep, but there was no threat.

Pulling her arm he head back inside the clearing

"Hmn…" She simply nodded and allowed herself to be led with her broken sword in hand.

…

They walked back to the entrance of the channel where he found Anne and the other guy talking closely while Andre was unexpectedly doing some push ups.

He only regarded the man with an odd expression, 'The hell are you doing?'

The bulky guy is seemingly not content with his own body yet...

"I have to be strong at all times!" Andre felt his discriminating gaze and resolved himself to answer with his best response, it had nothing on the conqueror who only thought the man was 'sus' and his original distance limit from the man would have to increase an additional centimetre.

Anne and the other guy, Sam also dusted themselves off to pay attention to whatever plan he had.

"S-Sure… listen up, take your weapons, I know what we're going to do and we may have to fight." He sat them all down and began to explain his plan, for them it was basic.

Fight.