Sharp wails pierced the air. She clung to her brother tightly. Another of their kin was placed at the center of a massive magic circle. It emanated a menacing purple, his wails grew louder and louder as it glowed brighter and brighter. His skin melted off his bones as if being devoured by the magic circle. The air grew silent again. He was gone. Bone and all. Suddenly, a cloaked figure opened their cellar and grabbed her brother.
"Rayk!"
She woke up with a jerk. Her heart furiously beating against her chest. She could still hear the silent wails in her head. Circling and circling around her like vultures. She looked around. No chains, the bars of the cellar a door now and a window next to the bed already opened. She got up on her shaky legs and looked out. She remembered now. She touched her left ear. The wound had healed. Her ankle had been fixed. She was fuller than she could ever remember being in her entire life and now she had some meat on her if only barely.
"A strange man for a master..."
It had been a few days since they met. Though, the first day was the only memorable one. The moment they had stepped into town he was being bombarded by praise from all walks of life. She looked at him. He was dressed in rags and tattered clothes. Nothing of value could come from such a man. Nonetheless it irritated her. Being called a hero while walking with a slave right on your tail. Humans really were the same. After they booked an inn he stared at her.
"Lay on the bed," he commanded.
She clenched her fist. As expected. She started taking off her tunic.
(All of them are the sa-)
Abruptly, he had grabbed her and tucked her into the bed. He sat across from the bed and stared right into my eyes. She felt a prickling awareness of his eyes. His eyes piercing right through her eyes and into the tangled mess she was. It felt like a silent interrogation. She sunk into the sheets. A silent judgement. She sunk further. He sighed, got up and told me to rest.
Soon enough he was back. He was carrying a set of leather armor, two rudimentary daggers, some cheap clothes and a sack of what smelt like herbs. He put them all down and after he had treated her injuries he sat across from the bed.
"For the next few days rest up, your injuries should heal by then. Just focus on eating and sleeping."
She sat there listening to those words like an ancient spell she couldn't understand. It angered her.
"Do you get off on looking kind? Being called a hero?" the first words she had spoken.
"Just like a damned witch..."
"Oh, were you even tied to one?" he said with a dismissive tone in his voice.
"And so what if I was?!" she yelled.
He just nodded. He didn't even acknowledge her anger. Instantly it felt as if she had bit some bait.
(What's wrong with this bastard?!)
"To answer your question, no I don't. Though....guess I'm still the same..." his voice trailed off.
He seemed slightly irritated. He shook his head vigorously.
"That's besides the point. We're going to dungeon dive soon. I'll need you at your best."
After that they had barely spoken. They only spoke when he checked her condition. She had now fully healed but like all the other mornings he was never there when she woke up. He kept disappearing somewhere. He stared at the leather armor and daggers. She turned and took a breath of fresh air. The door creaked.
He walked in, two bowls in hand and placed them on the table. After they finished eating he got up and wrapped a sack around his back.
"Wear your equipment, we're going out to train."
She was a bit confused. He hadn't informed her that she had equipment. He noticed her confusion and pointed at the leather armor and daggers.
"I'm a pugil, why would I need daggers?"
She snickered. It made sense looking at his lanky build. Pugils were always weak. This only added to her infuriation. She was under someone even more powerless than her. She wore the leather armor and equipped her daggers. She knew this wouldn't add anything to her cypher but she needed the time.
They left town and went into the forest until the came across a small trail. Abruptly, he just started running, following the path. She followed him.
(What a slow pace.)
She snickered and rolled her eyes. However, they kept running and running. She could feel the fatigue slowly permeate through her legs.
(We should be stopping soon.)
They didn't. They kept going following the trail deeper and deeper into the forest. Suddenly, he sped up more and more to the point she was full sprinting and could barely keep up. The air once smooth and sweet with the scent of herbs now painful embers, her legs trembled under her weight as liquid fire permeated into her legs. After a short while, he slowed down. However, it wasn't the same pace as before. It was slightly faster.
This cycle continued two more times. Going into an ever faster jog and an even faster sprint. Her breathe came in ragged, wet heaves. Her lungs constantly demanding their rights and heart thundering in her chest. A tangy taste of iron emanated from the back of her throat. He stopped far ahead of her. A distance she had desperately tried to close but to no avail. She barely managed to reach where he was before collapsing onto the ground.
(This is madness!)
She looked at him. He was sweating and heaving but not drowning like her. He turned to a tree and immediately started hitting it. His left punches whizzed through the air like a whip and his right punches hit with a strength that reverberated through the tree down to its very roots! He would weave and duck as if fighting an imaginary enemy and continued landing savage blows onto the tree. His knuckles split open and bleed. He continued. The blows getting ever so slightly stronger. The dents on the bark getting more and more massive.
He turned to me. His hands dripping blood.
"What're you waiting for, start getting used to those daggers,"
"I'm too tired to do that!"
He looked at me for a bit, "Do you think the dungeon will care?"
"...There could be monsters out here,"
"Yes there are, you've met some," he leaned in closer, "and they want you to make excuses."
That stung.
"Get to it,"
She slowly stood up and looked him in the eye, "What should I do now?"
"Practice unsheathing your daggers,"
"Huh? How's that even remotely usef-"
Instantly, a gust of powerful wind assailed her face nearly making her lose balance. She trembled slightly. He had stopped his punch right at her nose. Any further and she'd be a leg deep in a grave.
"I want you to have your daggers out before my cross reaches you,"
"...C-cross?"
He quickly taught me all the terminologies I'd need to know for the day about his class. Even more humiliating of a fact was that the cross was slow. On top of that he taught me about the two grips I'd need to know. The ice pick and hammer grip. He gave me no further instruction after that. He just left it up to me.
She unsheathed the daggers. Surprisingly, the weight felt just right. A pair of wide bladed dirks.
She looked at him again. He was at it again. Every blow produced a sickening crunch as the wood bent under his forceful punches. Every single punch held a savagery she had so rarely seen. The blood that continuously spluttered not enough to stop his momentum.
She started practicing trying out the ice pick a couple of times. It felt awkward. Especially since she had to rotate her wrist to face the enemy. The hammer grip was far better. She unsheathed and sheathed so many times until she could hear her wrists audibly cry out in pain.
"Ready?"
He said approaching her. She nodded. They started. The first cross came before she could even grab the stilts of the daggers. So did the second and the third. However, she noticed that his body turned before she threw the punch. The fourth came with her unsheathing half way through. Despite the revelation she got stuck there for a while until the fifteenth punch when he stopped.
He nodded, "Good."
He turned and started jogging.
(Again?!)
Another round of treacherous running later found her completely exhausted. She barely had the energy to even stand. Though she had noticed that a lot of trees they passed by had the same dents she had witness. Some were shallow others were deep. However, all of them weren't as deep as the one's she had witnessed. She looked at him again. He was only out of breath now after all that madness.
"We're going to exercise now, watch carefully and repeat the motions,"
"What's the point? I'm not suited fo-"
He looked her in the eyes again. She looked away.
"A thief's build is like a coiled spring," he began as he gently shifted her gaze onto him.
"Lean and deceptively strong. You don't need to hit as hard as I do, you only need to slash where it matters, understood?"
She slapped his hand but knew she had no choice in the matter. He first had her begin with wrist exercises. By the time she was done, she could barely even clench her fist yet he was still going. He cycled between arm, shoulder, core and leg exercises like they were nothing. No break in between. The more she was stuck with him the more incomprehensible he became. He even taught her how to exercise her neck muscles. She had never had of such a thing and yet here she was blindly following that man.
After they both finished, they went running again. Only this time it was a far shorter run than the rest as they arrived where they had started. She was still out of breath by the end of it. The last thing he taught her that day was some foundational dagger strikes. They trained all the way until noon. Only then did she finally get a break.
After they made it back to the inn she flopped straight into bed. Her chest heaving. She could still feel the burn coursing through her body. This was grueling. He came in, two bowls in hand.
"Eat well and rest up,"
She complied and got up. Merely picking up her spoon made her entire arm tremble. He looked over and chuckled.
"This is your fault!"
He took a spoonful of food and ate it. Clean, smooth and steady. He smirked.
(This bastard!)
Immediately they finished eating, he got up.
"We're going out again?!"
"No, only I am, rest up."
Her pride was shattered by this point. She was a proud Felinae but she couldn't even match up to a mere pugil!
(Damn it why am-)
He patted her head gently.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, you did good today Runa,"
She moved her head away from his hand. She was convinced he was secretly mocking her. He grabbed his sack and made his way out. It was then that she finally realized that he'd be dressed in the same rags the day before.
(...bastard.)
He returned in the evening looking as if he'd just been through a battlefield. His whole body trembled and waivered at the slightest brush of wind. This had become their routine. For the next two sennights, they'd wake up, eat, train, eat again and train once more.
All the while she was watching him. She couldn't match his vigor in training. She felt the scorching heat that emanated from his determination. Every drop of sweat and blood he shed motivating him further. The intense gaze he always had as if facing down the worst of the worst of demon kind. All aspects she knew she solely lacked. For that she earned her respect.
(Maybe things would've been different if...)
She was glad that he had made her train as hard as she did.
'...they want you to make excuses.'
Those words had been circling her head ever since. Perhaps he was right to some extent.
The last day of training was finally over. They would dungeon dive the next morning when the dungeon portal opened. He was washing her, starting from her tender neck, taking care of her hair and meticulously scanning her body.
"When will you stop!"
"I wouldn't have to do this if you didn't lie about your injury last sennight,"
"It was just some wrist pain!"
He sighed and rolled his eyes, "You choose the strangest hills to die on."
He got to her chest and started washing. Sudden jolts and shocks traveled up and down her spine.
"Ah~"
She quickly shut her mouth. She could hear giggles. A vein popped on her skin.
"Stop fondling my breasts!"
"Not enough meat to call these breasts," he flicked her nipples and toyed with them a bit.
"Ha~ Stop that!" she turned and tried to punch him.
He dodged it with an easy head tilt. He smirked. She was about to say something when she spotted the massive tent in her loincloth.
"Pervert," she snickered.
"Never seen a man before?"
"Tch! You always have a retort for everything!"
She stared at him for a bit. She still found it hard to believe all those savage blows came from a body as lean as his. Her eyes trailed further and further down. He snapped his fingers right at her face.
"Like what you see?"
"Shut it!"
Before they finished up, he touched her chest again.
"I told you to stop tha-"
Instantly, characters appeared from her cypher.
[
Runa Bertrada:
Class: Thief {Common}
Class Level 2: 17/500
Level 1: 438/7000
Strength: 96
Endurance: 67
Dexterity: 133
Mana: 20
Flux: 4
Skills: Stealth (Lvl.1), Dash (Lvl.1), Backstab (Lvl.1), Stab (Lvl.1), Quick Draw(Lvl.1)
Mp: 20/20
]
She couldn't believe what she was seeing. All her stats had all tripled! She even leveled up her class! She closed and opened her eyes again and again but the numbers didn't change. She even had four new skills! She had heard of dash but backstab and stab were new to her.
"Wasn't your class Pugil?!"
"It is. Don't tell anyone I can do this, understood?"
She quickly nodded her head excitedly and just continued staring at her stats while throwing furtive glances at me.
"...Do you want to check your skills?"
"Yes please!"
[
Stealth (Lvl.1): Lower the chances of being detected temporarily. Twice as effective in the dark. 4mp.
Backstab (Lvl.1): Throw your dagger out at an enemy. If it strikes the enemy you teleport behind them and any attack will deal 5X damage. 10 Mp.
Stab (Lvl.1): Shoots your dagger forward to stab an enemy. 2 Mp.
Dash (Lvl.1): Instantly cover a short distance in the direction of movement. 3Mp.
Quick Draw (Lvl.1): Increases the speed of drawing you weapons. {Passive}
]
She was ecstatic! She couldn't believe the amount of progress she's made. However, she was slightly disappointed.
"What's wrong?"
"I've gained a lot of useful skills but they'll be difficult to use,"
"Why?"
"My flux is too low,"
"What does that even do?"
"You're kidding me, how could you not know?"
He stared at her. She sighed.
"It determines how much mana you can use out of your mana pool, if you have too little you'll need to concentrate and gather the rest, I'd need four ticks for backstab,"
[A/N: The tick of a pendulum clock.]
He quickly checked his.
[
Greg Quagmire:
Class: Pugil {Common}
Class Level 2: 497/500
Level 1: 6335/7000
Strength: 204
Endurance: 209
Dexterity: 227
Mana: 45
Flux: 18
Skills: Powershot (Lvl.1), Dash (Lvl.3), Masochist (Lvl.1), Bullet Jab (Lvl.2), Tireless Endurance (Lvl.1), Steadfast Heart (Lvl.1), Rapid Recovery (Lvl.1), Hardened Fists (Lvl.1)
Mp: 45/45
]
[
Hardened Fists: Punches ignore a portion of enemy's defence and deals 1.5X the damage.
]
"Guess I'm clear," he said, still irritated at how difficult it was to gain exp and stats.
However, Runa was gawking at his cypher. She couldn't believe it. Not only were his stats ludicrous but he had an insane amount of skills for a level one!
"How did you get so many skills?!"
"I trained, I just got Hardened Fists yesterday," he said as he finished up bathing.
She stared at his stats one more time. Amazed by it. As she finished up, she gazed at him in a new light now. She had made all this progress by barely keeping up with him. Though eclipsed by his it was more progress than she'd ever made. She turned to him.
"Master!"
(Oh? That's new.)
"I'll do my best!"
For the first time he saw him crack a smile.
"I'll do my best too."
After that Runa tucked herself into the sheets while he just took his chair and slept in the corner of the room. She stared at him. She knew it was uncomfortable for him. Especially after two sennights. Though she wasn't comfortable with the idea of sharing a bed with him. He might've been aware of that too. He had proven himself strangely perceptive.
As she was drifting into sleep, the moonlight seeping through the cracks in the window, she realized she had never known his name.
(Greg Quagmire...)
The name rang in her head as she drifted to sleep.