Stanley trained with his brother again the next morning. This time around, instead of figuring out why his feelings came, they tried to figure out what those feelings were exactly. They wanted to see what Stanley felt exactly when that feeling came.
Stanley was all but sure that the feelings weren’t random and each of them told him something. If he could just figure out what it was, that would probably help him a lot in understanding just what they were and how they came to be.
Sadly, it didn’t work for him the way they hoped at. Stanley was left in fear most of the time without even being able to focus on his feelings at all. When he wasn’t in fear and just a little out of breath, the feeling would already be gone from his body, leaving him with nothing to feel all of the time.
They returned after an unsuccessful session of training and went to get their lunch.
“What are you doing today?” Bradley asked. “I don’t have to patrol the veil, so I will be in town for most of the time. Do you want to meet me for lunch?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing today,” Stanley said. “We don’t have Census for 5 more days, so I will be hanging around with the defender named George. He’ll tell me what our task is later.”
“George?” Bradley frowned a bit. “He’s the one you’re shadowing today?”
“Yes,” Stanley said and was a little intrigued to see his brother frown. “What’s wrong with George?”
“Well… what’s not wrong with George?” Bradley sighed. “I’m sure he’ll make it apparent, but try not to get on his bad side. And don’t try to tell him your background. As far as I’m aware, he hated Dulls.”
“Oh,” Stanley reacted. “Okay.”
“Let me know if he tries to bully you or something,” Bradley said. “Alright, I need to go. Take care.”
Stanley stood where he was for a few seconds after Bradley was gone. He wondered just how bad this George could be. ．
He had only seen the person from afar and hadn’t talked to him before. He had his own house, so it was impossible to see him in the quarters too.
He arrived in the training area and quickly found the man.
George was about as tall as Bradley, who was a few inches taller than Stanley. He had a normal body that wasn’t overly thin or muscled. He had long, brown, frizzy hair that came to his shoulders.
He stood on one side of the area with an unhappy look on his face.
Stanley approached him and greeted him. “Hello, brother George. I’m Stanley and I’ll be shadowing you today.”
The man’s eyes moved to Stanley and he scoffed. “Why are you late?” he asked.
“Late?” Stanley was a little surprised. “I’m sorry, I thought I was on time.”
“On time means you’re late,” George said with an angry look. “Where’s your other buddy?”
“Freddy? I don’t know,” Stanley said.
“Why don’t you know?” George asked.
“I… I mean, I think Freddy lives in his own ho—”
“Think? Why do you think? Forget about thinking while I’m around. Just follow me and learn,” George said.
‘This motherf—’
“Are you brother George?” Freddy came asking around. “Hi, I’m Freddy. I’ll be under you t—”
“Finally,” the man said. “Follow me and learn from me. Ask questions if you don’t know anything but don’t slow me down.”
The man started walking and the two trainees quickly followed him.
George seemed annoyed to have to take care of two trainees and was constantly cursing someone under his breath. Stanley and Freddy looked at each other, wondering what was happening.
George wouldn’t even say what they were doing and had them simply follow him for now.
The 3 of them walked straight through the main road between the 1st and 3rd quadrants, going toward the cliff on the right-hand side of the town.
Stanley could only wonder what they were doing on this side of the town. As far as he was aware, this was the cliff that they used to get themselves rocks that were necessary for the town’s development.
The cliff on the left was the one with iron ore, and that was where Stanley had gotten his sword on his back from.
“Where are we going, brother George?” Stanley asked halfway through. The silent journey wasn’t the most fun when 2 of the 3 people didn’t know what was happening.
“The prison,” George answered.
“The prison?” Freddy was surprised. “Is our mission today to help in the prison area?”
There were two prisons in Last Hope. The one that was normally referred to as the prison was next to the cliff on the right side and was taken care of by some specific people that were hired to run it as well as a group of defenders that patrolled the area every day to make sure no one escaped before suffering their punishment.
The criminals were punished by forcing them to mine the rocks on the cliff.
“No, our task is simpler than that. You will find out after we reach there,” George said. No matter how much he seemed to hate it all, the one thing George didn’t do was not answer the question he was asked.
“What are your powers?” George asked after a few seconds of silence.
“I have superior physical strength,” Stanley quickly said.
“Strong?” George paused and turned around. “How strong?”
“Uh… about twice as strong as a normal human,” Stanley said quickly.
“Hmph!” George scoffed at the two again. “Useless power. Might as well walk around with 2 Dulls instead of you.”
Stanley felt a pang of anger grow in him. As his brother had said, this man had quite a lot of things wrong with him.
‘Does he think he can just get away with being angry all the time?’ Stanley thought.
“What’s your power?” he asked Freddy.
“I can teleport someone other than me to a short distance away,” Freddy said.
“Short distance? You won’t be of much use either,” George said. “Sigh, I can’t believe I have to be stuck with two weaklings.”
