Chapter Twenty-Four: Accusations

After the aura suppression endurance contest ended, Autberry assured everyone that the camp staff had recorded everyone’s performances, and that the day’s results did not determine which two cities would earn the month’s rewards because there would be a second contest in two weeks.

It had not been explained until now that contests would take place twice a month for the cultivation resources, and on some level, Lacy felt cheated. She would always win the aura contest, but the jogging endurance one might be up for grabs by people who pushed themselves even harder. Not that Lacy had ever slacked, but still.

However she knew better than to complain. The camp’s objectives were to train all the recruits, not just the best handful among them. Autberry had obviously kept hidden that everyone who didn’t do that well this time would have a second shot so that fewer people would be disappointed in their current results and work even harder. That was good, if anything, so Lacy didn’t let it bother her.

What did bother her were the looks she was receiving from the one-fourth of recruits who hadn’t clapped along for her. She didn’t care if they didn’t cheer for her, nor did it matter that they looked at her with suspicion, but even though she tried putting it out of her mind, she was a little scared of the aggressive faces that followed her.

‘But if they think Autberry went easy on me, they’re not gonna hurt me,’ Lacy assured herself. ‘That would put them on Autberry’s radar according to their own logic, after all.’

Still, she wasn’t looking forward to what she was expecting would happen as Autberry dismissed everyone, telling them they were free for the rest of the day. Lacy, Shu, and Hoomar made their ways to the cafeteria pavilion, followed by at least one group of people.

To no one’s surprise, when they sat down, recruits from a different city partially surrounded them.

“You have really good aura resistance, dont’cha?” the lead guy asked, his smirk unable to fully cover his scowl.

“No doubt she built up some splendid resistance these past couple weeks,” a second guy said.

“I imagine getting some aura shoved inside her every night helped a lot,” a third asshole ruefully chuckled.

Shu and Hoomar shot to their feet, towering over most of the men.

“I challenge all of you to one-on-one spear sparring, to incapacitation, not first touch! I’ll take on all of you, one after the other!” Shu declared.

“And if you are not man enough to accept having your asses made black and blue by a woman, I challenge you as well to the same conditions,” Hoomar added, his deep voice hitting everyone like a sonic boom.

The assholes immediately became irate and defensive as they took frightened steps backward.

“Nobody spoke to you!”

“Do you think the lady is too weak to defend herself?”

“What are some nobodies interrupting our conversation for?”

Lacy also rose to her feet, and all eyes fell on her.

“One of them has a point,” she said, to all listeners’ surprise. Except her friends, with whom she’d already talked about what to do in such a situation. “I’m not too weak to defend myself, so I should. What city are you brutes from?”

Before the angriest of them could get a word in, one of them replied, “Lohgfamen, which is better than your Yellowvine in every way. Our city is larger with more powerful cultivators and far more influence than yours. You might as well be farmers, in comparison.”

Lacy sincerely doubted what the man was saying about his city. According to Peegra and a few others, all the city-states in the region were unremarkable. Even if some were bigger, they were basically an allied unit because of their proximity. The camp was founded and run by all five cities, after all. Any kind of inter-city competition was played up and encouraged to get recruits to train harder.

“Then let’s get a Lohgfamen guard to test our aura resistance, hm?” Lacy asked, to which their expressions changed. “Clearly you think Autberry showed me favoritism, but your people shouldn’t.”

Two of the assholes went briefly silent as the talkative third said, “That is much more acceptable than your bitches fighting for you.” Then he turned and stormed off, likely to beg his instructor to host their little competition.

“Since you’re so confident,” one of the two leading assholes added, “how about we wager coin?”

“I’ll put twenty jans down that I outlast you,” the other said.

“I accept. I put twenty down against both of you, if you both put twenty down, each. Let everyone hear that Mathews Lacy accepts the bet!” Lacy said as loud as she could, which she probably didn’t need to because so many recruits had an ear on them. “What are your names? So that you can be held responsible for your stupid bet.”

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“Call this daddy, Meihg, and when you fall to your knees you will find who was truly the stupid one.”

“And I am Lauf. I expect my money immediately, though I will accept payment in other forms,” the other creepily grinned.

The men walked away to find their third who went off in search of a Lohgfamen guard, then the hanger-ons who hadn’t spoken scattered to spread the word. Shu and Hoomar had been serious about beating them to pulp, and Lacy could feel the determination and protective anger emanating off them as they watched everyone leave.

“I wish they’d accepted our challenges instead, those cowards,” Shu grumbled. “It’s been too long since I drew a misogynist’s blood.”

“I have not drawn anyone’s blood, yet, but I am eager to,” Hoomar said.

Lacy hugged her friends before they all sat down again and talked about Lacy’s need for more spear training while they waited for the Lohgfamen assholes to return.

They were only kept waiting for a few minutes, thankfully, and the trio of accusing bastards returned with an armored man in tow whose eyes widened at seeing Lacy.

“They didn’t tell him that they challenged me,” Lacy giggled to her friends as she stood up and gave the guard a smile that threatened him to keep his mouth shut, because there was no doubt every guard had been informed of the spirit cultivator training amongst the recruits.

As the guard lightly nodded back to her, Lacy thought, ‘Autberry did tell me to get used to my high status.’

With the guard’s tacit agreement not to reveal to his recruits who they were facing, Lacy happily strode right up to the party of four and said, “C’mon, we’re burning daylight. Let’s get this over with.”

“First, present your jans,” the guard said politely.

“Yeah, we don’t want you running off with our money,” one of the assholes snickered, making the guard wince.

Lacy just smiled as she pulled out her coin purse and counted forty jans. They were small, square, metal coins with tiny engravings that looked like copper or bronze. She wondered how the country prevented counterfeit coins if they were really made of such common metals as copper, or copper and tin.

“Thank you,” the guard said as he accepted the coins and put them in his own purse. “Now, yours,” he said to his recruits, clearly trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.

The assholes looked confused as they took out their own coins but didn’t question the edge to his voice. However, the third guy who hadn’t been present for the bet agreement wisely backed out.

“I, uh, didn’t take part in the bet,” he said. “I don’t need the money…”

Maybe he had some brains after all, though he was still part of the contest.

“Now for the rules,” Lacy said. “How about we up the stakes a little more? How about we all suffer the escalating pressure until the last person falls? Even if the other three cannot even stand.”

The three men whom she challenged looked around as it to say, “Is she serious?” but nobody around them gave any kind of support. Not their guard, not their hanger-ons, not the spectators. It seemed the three stooges were the only ones who understood they had messed up.

Since they hadn’t responded, Lacy asked, “What? Too scared to agree?”

The guard behind them winced for the boys but kept his mouth shut.

“We agree,” Lauf said, and the others nodded.

“Good. Now let’s begin.”

Lacy immediately took out her aura and shielded herself as the guard stepped between everyone—because his aura only extended out so far—and began applying pressure.

Lacy did her best to proudly stare into her aggressors’ eyes, making them feel like fools as their expressions changed under the pressure. Of course, they were fine at first because it only felt like gravity had increased a little, but soon their faces reddened and their foreheads broke out in sweat. While they were being crushed from every angle, Lacy just kept on smiling.

“Lacy has some bite to her,” she heard Shu chuckle, and Hoomar hummed in assent.

It wasn’t long before one of her challengees caved, falling to his knees as he struggled to breathe and choked out the words, “I concede!”

But the pressure didn’t relent, even as a second fell and joined his friend on the ground.

The last guy—Meihg, Lacy thought was his name—stared between her and his instructor with confusion and frustration, looking like he wanted to cry out at the impossibility of the situation. Then, he too fell.

But the instructor didn’t relent because Lacy was still standing. In fact, she stepped closer to loom over the pieces of shit who insulted her.

‘Not gonna lie, this feels great. They deserve what they’re getting.’

She was usually the type to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case the men were just straight-up toxic to her. What did it matter to them if Autberry showed her preference? They should have taken their suspicions to the other instructors, not gone straight to harassing Lacy.

That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t give these guys a second chance. If they learned their lessons from this and apologized, she wouldn’t hold it against them. They were only human, after all.

‘Well, I should probably change that phrasing. Not everyone in this world is human, after all. So…they’re just people, and people are flawed, and everyone deserves chances to make up for their mistakes.’

“Initiate Lacy, I ask kindly that you let me release these morons. I am sure they have learned their lessons and will not underestimate someone for their sex,” the body Seed said, to the laughter of the spectators.

Lacy looked between the Lohgfamen guard and his recruits, who were suffering under the pressure yet too prideful to crawl out from under the area of influence.

“Sure,” Lacy said, and the pressure disappeared. Then she put out a hand toward the assholes. “Take my hand and you’re forgiven.”

The guy who had abstained from the bet immediately took her hand, hurriedly apologized, and she lifted him to his feet. Then he scampered away, likely to his barrack.

Meihg, the guy who’d called himself a daddy unironically because it was a real thing in their culture, smacked her hand away to the horror of the guard and struggled to his feet on his own before hurrying away.

Lauf had the good sense to follow the first guy’s example by apologizing for demeaning her and accepting her help in getting up.

“If you, or anyone else, want to spend your free time training with me, then feel free to ask. I always need help with my spear fighting.”

Not every day was spent entirely training with the instructors. Aside from every mid-day’s rest, one day a week was reserved for recuperation and another day every week the recruits were only trained for half the usual amount of time, leaving half the day to rest.

Lauf looked between Lacy and the guard whose expression was full of disappointment before nodding numbly and walking away, apparently needing time to think about what had happened.