“Come on! Just one more time. One more and we’re done.” My body ached. The painlessness spell wore off a long time ago, when my brain experienced enough pain to break it, and it was all downhill from there. Sure, Charlotte was helping me get back up with healing spell after healing spell, but the pain was still there, spreading through every nerve in my entire system.

“What am I even learning from this?” She hadn’t taught me a single technique, way of improving my core strength, or anything actually useful to defeating Liz.

“Well, nothing. I’m just making you more resistant to pain. Your level is quite small, but that can be fixed after I bring a couple monsters here from a hard dungeon for you to kill and level up. Your pain tolerance won’t be as easy to improve once your strength is higher, so I’m doing it while you’re weak. If it’s too weak, you’ll just pass out from enough pain. If I hit you in the ribs hard enough, you wouldn’t be waking up for at least a day.” That… made sense. Still didn’t make it feel better.

“Fine.” I drank the healing potion next to me, and got up again. Liz had allowed me to carry a samurai sword, or whatever the hell it was called in japanese, and that was what I used against Charlotte. Her sword towered over mine in width and height, but that didn’t matter apparently. With enough skill, anyone could beat anyone else. It made sense, since Emmet McDermott also used a sword akin to mine, and he was meant to be the strongest mortal.

“Ready?” I nodded, and immediately moved my sword to the right after seeing the dust flying towards that direction before her after-image disappeared. Our swords clashed, and I pointed it downwards to send her sword into the dirt, before I ran on the sword to get to her and to hopefully hit her. She… wasn’t there when I reached her, and I was walking on thin air. Needless to say, I was sent back into the ground. “You do know you don’t have to try and fight back, since this is just to train your resistance.”

“I can train both my reflexes and resistance at the same time. The difference in how long I get defeated is marginal anyway.” I looked up to see her smile.

“Well, you’re doing well in both regards. I didn’t expect you to redirect my blow, even if I’m taking it easy on you. You could have potential, but you’re not a reincarnator.” Wait… what?

“Then why bother training me?”

“Huh? Oh, you misunderstood. You could have potential to defeat Elizabeth on your own, but you can’t without at least a couple boons from reincarnating. My training will make you able to resist and actually damage her, but your job would just be in helping me win.” I guess that made sense. Charlotte was a lot more clear and simple in her goals, to the point where it was taking my mind a while to adapt back to that type of simplicity. Elizabetha had me paranoid about quite literally everyone’s intentions. “Anyway, come on, get up, let’s go again.” Again?!

“Didn’t you say that last time?” She dropped a healing potion next to me.

“That was before I found out that my pouch has enough healing potions in it to drown a city. We can train for however long we can before Elizabeth gets suspicious.” Great, amazing, incredible. I grabbed the healing potion, drank it, and got up again. Her pouch probably distorted reality to store that many potions.

“Ready?” I blocked her once, and didn’t move fast enough to defend my back. “Here’s another potion.” I drank it and got up again. “Ready?” She went straight for my back, and I managed to duck under her sword by raising it upwards with a deflection, before she just pushed it downwards to crush me. When I shakily rose, there was a potion in front of me. I drank it and got up again. “Ready?” I didn’t even take a defensive stand this time. I blocked a hit from the right, turned around to barely deflect a hit from the back while ducking, and jumped away from her sword and into another swing from her sword.

“Fuck! My–” She poured the healing potion down my throat.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. Get up.” She was ruthless. I was getting no rest here. I pulled myself upwards, and already heard that one word in my mind before she said it. “Ready?” I blocked a hit from the right, then got hit from the left instead of the back. “Come on! Adapt more! You’re so stiff. Did you think I’d do the same pattern against you every single time?” I grabbed the potion, drank it, and got up again.

“Fine. Come at me.” She raised her left eyebrow, and then chuckled.

“Alright then. You asked for it.” I blocked a hit from the left, ducked, pushed my blade into the ground and pulled myself up to avoid a leg sweep before pulling it right back up and planting my feet down to block a swing of her sword straight on that sent me flying from Charlotte’s sheer power. I turned around to block another attack, but she wasn’t there. I put my foot into the ground, stopping myself and turning around again to hit her attack with my own, but we all knew who would’ve won a one on one power struggle. I was back in the ground, again. I think my nerves were burnt out. I couldn’t feel that much pain, or so I thought until I felt a glass bottle roll next to my head.

“Seriously?” I said. I was tired, exhausted even, and just delivered what probably was my magnum opus in terms of fighting her.

“You’re here to improve your pain tolerance. Your actual combat ability is nice to improve, but proving yourself in that aspect changes nothing. You’re here until you can get up without the potion being shoved up your throat.” I could do that right now! I pulled myself up from the ground, felt my arms shake, and my nerves did not feel burnt anymore. Every muscle felt like it was an ever-tightening towel, and I could not even move my legs fast enough before giving up. I grabbed the potion, and readied myself for another round of training.

“Take another hit!” We moved on from direct sparring after a while, and now it was my time to just block her hits over and over again to improve my grip on the sword and pain tolerance. There was no out-smarting her in this one. I just had to endure bone crushing hit after bone crushing hit. It was like ego lifting, but good. Normally, you couldn’t just heal your muscles back up to maximum capacity with one vial of… whatever the hell was in that healing potion, so ego lifting would just destroy your muscles and make you too tired to be consistent in your lifting. Yet, now that health potions were a thing, ego lifting made sense. I would exhaust my muscles out to their limit, make them heal, and they’d be stronger far faster. Yet, after repeating it so many times, the pain was lessening, and my tolerance got strong. Not that I would notice since my tiredness would make me feel the pain just as much.

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“B-Break…” I was practically begging for one. We never stopped during the sparring sessions, and have been going with this for a couple minutes. It also didn’t help that my arms were prepared to rapture at any second now.

“Nope! Your only break comes when you collapse!” She hit my blade exceptionally hard, and I just gave up. I collapsed to the ground yet again. “You better have not pretended to collapse. You’re not getting a potion if you lied.” How would she even know that? I just raised my head slightly, and shook it before going face first into the dirt again. She grabbed me by the hair, and shoved the bottle down my throat again. My arm mended in real time, and I could feel every fabric, or sheet of flesh reuniting with its brethren across the gaps left by my arms disintegrating. She let me fall down.

“Give me a minute.” I rested, breathing in and out heavily before she pulled me up and punched me away to energise me again.

“Come on! We don’t have all day. Get faster at recovering before I make you.” I pulled myself upwards, and ran directly at her to get to my sword. “That’s more like it!” I rolled under a swing of her sword, and then slid on a bit of mud to get around her and grab my sword to block her second attack.

She was literally just using me as a punching bag now! Neither of us were allowed to use a sword, and as such, she was just punching the shit out of me! I could barely avoid one in every five punches as she just combo’d them up in such a way I didn’t really see a way of getting out of her series of attacks.

“Come on! Try a little harder than that! I’m turning your jaw into minced meat.” I jumped backwards, which only delayed her attacks. Her style was very simple. She was just going for the most amount of damage in the shortest amount of time, no matter the exhausting it inflicted on her. She was also ambidextrous, further playing into her style. What I had to do was… I forgot, or maybe got the info punched out of my head. Most of the time, I’d remember at least something from an online video. But this time…

“I’m fucked.” I said before getting punched in the throat again, making me choke my soul out. I dropped down to my feet, and breathed heavily again before she picked me up by my hair again.

“Come on, get up. I’m not letting you go until you learn how to last for some time against me. Here.” She gave me a health potion, which I drank. I don’t know how many I went through today, but it was certainly too many. My throat just reeked of herbs and whatever else was in the potion. I stumbled backwards, not even knowing why I was doing this anymore, and felt air moving towards me before my foggy brain processed the punches knocking me about. “Pull yourself together” I… I can’t… I think… I’ll do it tomorrow.

I woke up in Liz’s office, full of bandages and being hugged from behind as always. I must’ve finally blacked out. It was strange though. The final moment itself wasn’t all that painful compared to what I took from her before it, but it must’ve been taken worse by my system thanks to my exhaustion and my healing spell tolerance. I probably drank enough to lessen the effect of just one bottle by… a lot. I checked my pockets before moving, and just as I expected, there was a note in it, probably from Charlotte. After checking the pulse of Liz, I opened the piece of paper.

“This piece of paper will burn once you read the final word. Meet me behind your church every three days. You did good for a newbie, I’m sure you’ll get your freedom in no time!” And with that, the paper burned away. I jumped a little as I felt Liz rumble a bit in her sleep before bringing me even closer towards her. Charlotte must’ve dropped me off in a terrible condition, so I wouldn’t blame Liz for being overprotective this time.

“Hey, wake up.” I shook her awake, only to feel nuzzle more into me.

“Five more minutes– Oh, wait! No!” She got up, immediately pulling me up in her arms and putting me on the chair of her office room before searching her drawers for bandages. “I don’t know what you did, but your body is rejecting healing spells. It should wear off in a couple days, but until then, you’re staying put.” Why didn’t she ask me what happened? “You are staying within my view twenty four seven, young apprentice.” Oh, she knew. That was… just perfect. Incredible actually. Charlotte messed up so badly that my wounds and healing potion tolerance could only have been explained through a long, painful and deadly training session, one that only Charlotte could put me through.

“Aren’t you going to do anything to stop me?” Liz frowned as she took a roll of bandages out, and moved to remove my old ones.

“And face Charlotte? That’d be too much hassle. You’re mine, the mark makes sure of that. Your place in the hierarchy is under me, and the hierarchy is unstoppable. If you defeat me in this lifetime, I’ll be there in the next one, and the next one, ready to do this whole song and dance all over again, because you’re worth it.” Was owning a slave that essential to her? Just enslave someone else. Why am I only worth it?

“And what if you’re wrong about the hierarchy? What if, through enough reincarnations, I move above you on the hierarchy.” She tightened up the bandage she was replacing, making me wince in pain and shut up.

“That could never happen. You’ll always be below me, that’s just how it works. Only communists think the hierarchy can be broken, but they’re stupid.” No explanation why they’re stupid, so I had to deduce that going against the hierarchy, no matter the reason, was stupid to her.

That, at least, was very consistent with her.