A month had passed since our run-in with Misen Ragiu, and things had been pretty uneventful.
Our classes were normal and boring, there were no more random mock tournaments or whatever, Quests were off-limits for us first-years until after the mid-year exams, which meant I was still working part-time jobs to make money.
I had been training by sneaking out of the walls almost every night, but my progress was rather...slow. I was finally starting to get the hang of moving around freely while using Lightning Boost, but I could only properly keep it under control at a x1.5 level boost.
I should be able to double my speed by the time the tournament begins, but I doubt that would be enough, I need to progress faster. I spent some nights training, and other nights testing out the results, I had continuously gone back to the Goblin cave, and while killing those puny monsters was definitely becoming a lot easier for me, they really weren't great opponents to indicate how much I had improved.
But as far as monster hotspots go, the Goblin caves are the closest to the area where I live in the Rustlands, all the other spots where monsters appear are too far for me to get to and then get back from before morning, and it was a lot harder to sneak back in after the sun comes up.
I desperately needed to find something strong to fight, that was the fastest way for me to improve without losing effectiveness.
Right now though, I was low on options.
As for the others, I didn't really know.
Rai and Persia were probably busy training too, they both seemed pretty exhausted during classes, not to mention that I could definitely see overall improvements in them during our combat and Elemental Magic classes, despite the apparent fatigue. Key and Azyl seemed to have no intention of changing their minds regarding the tournament.
On another note, I'd found out something pretty interesting, the current first years only totalled twenty students, which was thanks to the difficulty level of our entrance exam administrator. But the designated exam administrator changes every year, and generally an instructor can't be the exam administrator for at least four years after doing it once. And with all the other instructors who've been administrators for the entrance exam, a lot more applicants tended to pass.
To put it into perspective, there were currently around seventy second year students and over fifty third year students at the Academy, while we first years just numbered twenty.
I suppose the lack of quantity was made up for with a higher level of quality, at least on average.
The other groups in our class weren't bothering us as much as they had during the first week, which was probably thanks to how we did during the mock tournament.
...but a few of them had gotten worse.
Arg and Lamasa were giving us more grief than before, especially towards Persia, who had defeated both of them in the mock tournament. Well, technically she lost to Arg, but you know how that went. I could also constantly feel bloodthirsty stares on me from Gela, and whenever I'd look, she'd flash me a sadistic smirk that sent chills down my spine. I wasn't an easy person to intimidate, but she seriously creeped me out.
Thankfully, today's a weekend, so I don't have to deal with that right now. Instead, I was hauling a sack of flour for my part time job at a bakery. The pay wasn't great, but the owner let me eat any buns or pastries that got burnt or misshapen, so I got to save money on food. Not a bad deal.
Right now the bakery had run out of flour, so I'd been sent to buy another large sack, and was currently on my way back.
"Kuro, is that you?" Greeted a familiar voice.
I looked up to see Key and Azyl, seeming to be out on a walk.
"Oh hey, it's you two. What's up, you guys out on a date or something?" I inquired, raising an eyebrow at them.
"Don't even joke about something like that," Groaned Key, looking put-off.
"The feeling's mutual. I wouldn't date someone who could, and definitely would, choke me with both her hands and her fee-," Began Azyl.
Huh, her feet?
"That's enough out of you, Sleepyhead! As you know, we're neighbors, and I was about to go run some errands for my mother, when I ran into Azyl who was just heading out from his place too. We're both heading in the same direction, so he tagged along," Explained Key, clearing up the misunderstanding.
"Wow...that's a lot more normal and boring that what I was imagining," I sighed with mock disappointment.
"You know...if it weren't for Rai's extreme levels of irritation, you'd be pretty annoying yourself," Remarked Key with a sigh.
"Also, I'm not actually running an errand, I was heading to the pet shop because my pet has been acting kinda weird lately," Yawned Azyl, holding up a small glass box.
As I saw what was in the box, my heart began to race, my knees buckled and I took a step back, as my arms lost all their strength and I dropped the sack of flour on the ground.
...oh, no.
"...are you okay?" Asked Key, as my face turned pale.
...this is really bad...!
"Y-yeah, I'm fine! It's j-just that I, uh, feel a bit dizzy, because...er, lack of sleep or something, I guess," I stuttered, not very convincingly.
Damn it, get a hold of yourself before they figure it out-!
"Hold on, don't tell me that...you're afraid?"
"Of that!? O-of course not, who'd be afraid of a harmless creature like that!?"
"You are afraid! I have to say, this is rather amusing, you always act so cool and calm, not to mention a bit cocky sometimes, and now it turns out that you're afraid of...frogs?" Snorted Key, struggling to contain her laughter.
...fuck.
"Huh...come to think of it, you turned kinda pale when I revealed that my Anima was a frog and showed off my webbed hands," Recalled Azyl.
"I-I'm not afraid, don't be ridiculous-!" I began.
"Alright, then hold him for a minute," Interrupted Azyl, opening the box and picking the frog out.
Instinctively, I jumped back a couple of feet as my heart rate went crazy.
"K-keep that thing away from me!"
...whatever the chances of convincing them that I wasn't afraid had been, those chances were gone now.
"Oh, wow...you're REALLY afraid, aren't you?"
Damn it, there was no denying it now. I didn't want anyone to find out, but at this point there was no way to salvage it.
"...alright, you got me. I have a strong phobia against frogs. I would rather swim naked in a crocodile and snake infested swamp than go anywhere near a frog or a toad. Happy now?" I muttered in reply, avoiding making eye contact with them as I felt my face turn red.
This was...humiliating.
"Uh hey, we didn't mean to make you sulk...l-look, everyone's got something they're afraid of, it's nothing to be embarrassed about! A-and we won't tell anyone, we promise! R-right, Azyl?"
"Hmm? Yeah, sure."
Goddammit don't take pity and try to comfort me, that only makes me feel worse!
"I-I'm...I'm not sulking!" I weakly retorted, picking up the sack of flour and hurrying away from them in the direction of the bakery.
Dammit, even a near indestructible body wasn't enough to cure me of my only real phobia.
I couldn't really explain it, but I could never stand frogs. I guess it's the same way most other people feel about spiders or cockroaches.
Logically, I knew frogs were no actual threat to me, but logic goes out the window when I actually see one. All I can think of is that I don't want it to touch me, and I can't kill it because that would mean touching it. You might think I could kill it with my sword or stomp on it, but no, I didn't even want my weapons or shoe soles to touch it!
I knew how irrational my fear was, but I still couldn't get over it. Everything from their creepy little eyes to the way they move to those disgusting tongues just freaks me out.
Just seeing one in a box had shaken me up this much!
Okay, get a hold of yourself, Kuro.
Let's get back to work and just...forget about it.
A few hours later, I was back in my room at the inn. Well, that had been a shitty day. After the whole fiasco with the frog, I made it back to the bakery, but the sack of flour had a hole in it, from which a fair amount of flour had fallen out. It had probably happened when I dropped it after seeing the frog, and I'd been too distracted to notice it leaking.
As a result, I had my pay reduced.
I couldn't argue much since it wasn't easy to find part-time work in this country, and even with working three of them I was barely making enough money to survive as it was. I work at a clothing store and a flower shop on the weekdays.
I had been planning to train my mastery of Lightning Boost and basic combat skills tonight, but I think I'll head into the Goblin cave and let off some steam instead.
As nightfall arrived, I quietly left the inn, petting the cat that was always by the entrance before slipping out and climbing up, running along the building roofs until I reached the wall. Atop the wall, there were guards keeping watch, but it's not like the entire length of the wall was covered by them, there were plenty of gaps from which I could sneak through.
You could tell where the gaps were based on whether or not there were lights at the top of the wall. If there were guards atop the wall, that spot would be lit up by their lanterns, but the spots with no guards were dark.
The surface of the wall was very ridged and uneven on both sides, so scaling it both up and down was pretty easy. There were almost never any people around at this time, they were either asleep or farther inside the country, where stores and businesses like bars and clubs were located.
As I neared the usual spot I sneak out from, I spotted a familiar figure with cat ears and tail. Huh, what was she doing here?
Unable to resist the urge, I snuck up behind her and blew into her fluffy left cat ear.
"Fancy meeting you here."
"Eek! WHA- mmph!" She began to yell, before I quickly placed my hand over her mouth.
Yeah, that had been a bad idea.
"Sorry, I just couldn't resist. What are you doing here- aaand you're biting my hand, stop that," I whispered, shaking her indignant face off my hand.
"Hmph! Jerk," She muttered, pouting while glaring at me.
"So...what are you doing out here?"
She didn't reply for a while, before sighing and answering.
"I'm climbing out the walls, I can't get stronger just by practicing by myself in a small training room at home. Fighting monsters should serve as better training. Wait, why are you here?"
"Oh, I sneak out practically every night. I don't really have a place to train inside the walls, so I go outside instead."
"It does seem like something you would do. Not that I can judge, I'm doing the same thing right now, after all. Guess you won't be alone tonight, Kuro."
She said that completely innocently, not even realizing the double entendre. Mind your phrasing, Cat Girl...
"Idiot, don't say it like that, it's embarrassing," I muttered quietly.
"Hmm, you say something?"
"Nope! Let's head out then. Follow my lead."
We climbed up the wall and scanned for any guards as we reached the top, but there was no sign of any light approaching us. We then scaled down the outside of the wall, until we reached the ground. We then began heading for the Goblin caves.
"You know, I actually got into the Rustlands the same way. After I, uh, escaped from my torturers, I found myself outside this wall. I walked around it for a bit, and decided against walking through the front gate, in case they asked me for a passport or something. After I snuck in, I started working part time to earn money for food and rent. Hey wait, during that Quest, we were given a card that acted as a temporary pass for us to enter and exit the gates of the country right? I know Adventurers are free to come and go as they please, but what about normal citizens who want to, say, go on vacation or something?" I wondered.
I had to tweak some of the details to fit in with the modified backstory I'd given her, but the main points were all true.
"Wait, you mean you don't have an Identification Card? Uh, Kuro...Non-Adventurers need to have a valid reason if they want to exit the country, for that they'll need to get approval from a government agency, you know, any one of those buildings with the green signboards. To come back into the country, they need to present their Identification Cards to the guards at one of the entrance gates. If you don't have one, you better apply for one at one of the government agencies soon. Oh, and you better say that you lost yours, if you say that you never had one...well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think they'll probably lock you up. Wait...how were you even able to enroll in the Academy without an Identification Card?"
...damn it, not-God, you left this little detail out too!
"...well, talk about dropping a bombshell. I had no idea a system like that even existed! They never asked for identification when I applied for the Academy!"
"Huh, it must have slipped their minds because applying for the Academy without the card that identifies you as a citizen of the Rustlands would be a pretty suicidal thing to do. You...would have probably been jailed if they had asked you for it and you said you didn't have one."
Crap, I thought I was learning more about this world, but I had overlooked something that important!? I should head to one of those government agencies first thing tomorrow.
"So, how are the government agencies linked to the royal family? Do they call the shots while the royals are more like figureheads or glorified mascots?"
"Well, I think major decisions are made by the royal family and their advisors. They assigned a government to handle the more minor issues regarding the general population. They set up government agencies all over the country to handle the smaller stuff like domestic disputes and neighborhood complaints, in addition to approving Identification Cards and exit permits. Do you really not know any of this?"
"I, uh...oh hey, we're finally here!" I replied, as the caves came into view.
We went inside and were immediately greeted by a large group of Goblins.
"Mind if I take this bunch?" Inquired Persia, cracking her knuckles.
"Sure, knock yourself out."
She shot forward with her usual wind blasts and wind blades spinning around her hands, took out a third of the goblins with a quick swipe, and then shot another blast of wind from her feet again, almost as powerful as the first blast, and then opened her mouth and fired off an intense...well, it looked like a mini-hurricane. In no time at all, the Goblins had been decimated.
"Hey, not bad, Kitty Cat, you've definitely improved. What have you been working on?"
"Hmm? Oh, I've been training to be able to endure continuously propelling myself without losing momentum. Before, if I wanted to keep going, I would have to shoot out another blast after the momentum of my first wind blast begins to die down. But now, I'm trying to maintain that peak level of momentum continuously, as well as to control it so that I won't...you know, crash into stuff. If I manage to master it, I'll be able to move more smoothly, more consistently fast, and a lot less linearly. The main problem I have right now is breathing at that speed, I need to eventually stop to catch my breath. Before, when I would slow down before blasting off again, I had a split second to catch my breath. When I started training to master this method of movement, I kept crashing into stuff at first, but it felt pretty good once I started to get the hang of it. And I've also been practicing firing from my mouth too, it was kinda tricky at first though," She replied enthusiastically.
When you train hard on something, and someone else notices the results of your hard work, it feels really good. Back in my old life, I wasn't exactly close with the assassin who raised me, but whenever he gave me something to train on, and then noticed when I improved and commented on it, I'd feel pretty proud and good about myself, and I'd begin listing and blabbing on about all the ways I had gone about training, just like she just did.
Wait, she said it was hard to breathe when she moved faster...but I hadn't had that problem with Lightning Boost. Wait, I see...she was propelling herself externally, while I was boosting myself internally, and not just my speed, but my five senses too, including me nose, meaning that my breathing could keep up with the increase in speed. Sadly, my physical strength didn't get a boost, but I could increase the force of my attacks by using the extra momentum.
As we headed further in, we ran into a few more groups of Goblins, taking turns in fighting them, but at no point did it feel even remotely challenging.
"Hey, shall we just leave? I think training alone was more effective than this, it's really not that much more difficult that stomping on bugs," Sighed Persia, as she blew away a group of Goblins with a single blast.
She had a point, the more I fought these things, the more it felt like they were moving in slow motion.
"Yeah, I'm kinda over this myself."
And so, we turned back and headed for the outside.
"This isn't good, the tournament is just a month away, at this rate we won't even get close to being able to take on that guy."
"Yeah, we need to be fighting something that can actually fight back in order to get stronger faster. Goblins are among the weakest monsters out there, but they're the only ones that aren't too far away. Just training isn't good enough, we need to get used to using the results of our training in actual combat."
"But where are we going to find monsters that can challenge us? Even if we can find a way to get to the other areas around the Rustlands, none of them have seriously strong monsters, and there aren't any of those monster infested Death Zones nearby either. The other countries are surrounded by better resources than the Rustlands, but they also have much stronger monsters in those areas, which they can handle since their Adventurers are a lot stronger than the ones here, at least on average. What can we do, isn't there anything close by that we can fight?"
As she said that, while pacing around restlessly, it suddenly came to me. An obvious solution.
"Hey...we're both pretty strong, right?"
"Hmm? Uh, yeah I guess so, though our current problem is that we're not strong enough. What's your point?"
"Well, just think about it. We need something strong to fight. And we both consider each other strong, so..."
"We can train by sparring with each other!" She exclaimed, her eyes lighting up.
"Yup!"
With that, we finally had a breakthrough, a clear way to get stronger!
And so, we began, I took off my weapons, while she took off her metal clawed gloves. Given our fighting styles that focus on delivering a fatal blow with every strike, it was a necessary measure to keep us from accidentally killing each other. I'll have to keep myself from suppressing my emotions and immersing my mind in bloodlust too.
"Hey wait, you can heal any injuries you get, can't you? Do I really need to take off my gloves?"
"Yes, you do. I may be able to heal most injuries, but it's not like I'm immortal or even indestructible. Besides, the more I use my healing, the faster I lose my stamina. Hey, don't look so disappointed just because I'd rather you didn't sink your claws into me."
"Aww, I was kinda hoping to cut loose without any worries, since you seem sorta unkillable."
"Hey, a sparring partner isn't a punching bag! Or in your case...I guess a scratch box."
After a few more minutes of verbal sparring, we finally started the actual sparring. Her improved continuous movements using wind blasts were pretty tricky to deal with, the lines of her movements were no longer linear or predictable, and she would have easily defeated me if she had better mastery over it or if I wasn't using Lightning Boost.
In addition to boosting my speed, my reaction time had also improved, by streaming lightning through the nerves connected to my eyes, it felt like I could see everything in slow motion, allowing me to react a lot faster and control my increased speed better. But my eyes would literally explode if I lost control, so I had to be careful. She was a fair bit faster than I was even with my Lightning Boost at x1.5, but she wasn't able to keep up that speed for long, she had to slow down eventually to breathe.
We continued sparring for a couple of hours, until we were both running near empty on Mana.
"You know, almost all your attacks are aimed at your opponent's throat, head or heart. In a drawn out fight, it becomes kinda predictable," She informed me, panting as we both lay down on the ground.
We were resting up a bit before we'd head back...that had been pretty exhausting. But I also felt rewarding, like I had made significant progress in those couple of hours than I had with days of Goblin slaying.
"I'll keep that in mind. You should probably work on how long you can hold your breath. You're pretty vulnerable when you need to breathe and your speed begins to taper off," I replied, breathing heavily.
"Yeah, I know. That's easier said than done though. S-so, um...how often should we do this?" She asked, a bit awkwardly.
"Oh, uh...how about every three days? We can train on our own for two days, and then test out the results of the training by sparring against each other on the third day?"
"That only gives us nine or ten sparring sessions before the tournament though. Um, h-how about...every other day?"
She was being slightly bashful...it was sorta adorable.
"Uh, sure. If that's what you want, I don't have any problem with it."
"Great, sounds like a plan! But hey, you better keep up with me, I clearly won today's sparring session, after all!"
"There's no winning and losing in sparring, dumb Cat Girl. But if there was, I clearly won. There were a bunch of times where you left yourself open and I stopped my attacks short."
"Yeah? Well, I did the same thing, and more times than you did!"
"You clearly weren't keeping count accurately, I...!"
This continued for a while, as we kept pointlessly bickering with neither of us backing down, it didn't stop even as we headed back and reached the wall.
"This is possibly the most childish argument I've ever been in. What do you say we call it a draw for now and settle it during our next sparring session," I sighed, as we made it back into the Rustlands.
"Fine by me, I'll make it clear which of us is stronger!"
"Right, sure you will. Well...I guess I'll see you later," I said, as we reached the point where we had to go in different directions.
"Mhm...see you later," She replied, walking in the direction of her home, before stopping and turning back, looking at me with slightly red cheeks and a small, blushing smile, "Um, hey. This was...really fun. Bye for now, Kuro."
"Y-yeah, it was. Bye, Persia."
As we both turned and went our separate ways, I couldn't stop myself from thinking; that was...really cute.
_____________________________________________
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.