“Now hold on a second!” exclaimed Dom, gripping the spear tightly with a couple of tiny lightning sparks running through it, “We ain’t agreeing to anything yet! And I ain’t trusting ya that easily either!”

“Hm?” Annaleth replied, turning to look at Dom almost as if she had forgotten about him. Her eyes flashed green momentarily, after which she looked at the man up and down. “You’re not bad either, but do you really think you’ll be able to survive on your own?”

“Excuse me?” Dom asked back, nearly glaring. “I might not be an army, but I sure as hell can hold my own.”

Annaleth chuckled and shook her head. “If that’s what you think, then wouldn’t you be out of this place already?”

“I um—I, well…” Dom stumbled upon his words and ended up grumbling instead.

“You can either accept our offer of friendship—or at least of cooperation—or you can go back out there and try to figure it out on your own,” Annaleth said, crossing her arms under her chest and looking down at both Dom and Eleanor.

There was a moment of silence in the room, where Dom seemed to be grumbling to himself, and Eleanor simply looked down at me. I looked back at her, but I couldn’t tell her what she should or shouldn’t do, so I said nothing—though, if it were up to me, I’d rather not stay close to a woman that treated me with such disrespect.

“I think—” Eleanor finally said, causing Dom to look at her, and her to tighten her lips a moment before looking up at Annaleth. “I think… We should work together…”

Annaleth smiled, Jul nodded in satisfaction, and Grool followed suit with one slight nod. However, Dom looked at Eleanor with surprise. “Are ya sure about that? Things could very well just end up not too different from last time.”

“I think that… Lady Annaleth… isn’t a bad person…” Eleanor said, glancing at Annaleth, who smirked in response.

“How can you be so sure about that!? These are demons we’re dealing with! This could all just be a show to make us lower our defenses ‘fore completely dealing with us!” Dom exclaimed, tapping the butt of the spear on the ground once.

“Yeah… But that’s what your people did to me before…” Eleanor said, giving an unusual look of anger to Dom, who was taken aback by it.

He seemed ashamed of what happened back then as he lowered his head, but after considering things for a moment, he looked back up at the group of demons that were patiently waiting for them to decide, which is when he sighed and shook his head.

“Fine. I guess that if they’re going to kill me, then I would deserve nothing less… If anything, I’d say I’m not too different from them,” Dom said, putting the spear aside, and lifting a hand in greeting. “Name’s Dom. Just Dom. I’m no noble girl.”

Eleanor chose to pick the hem of her skirt from the sides and do a curtsy with her head slightly lowered. “And I am Eleanor of Andras.”

“Good. Now, what are your positions?” Annaleth asked, pointing a finger down at both Eleanor and Dom.

Eleanor looked up at the demoness with a look of confusion, which was turned to Dom when he tapped the floor a couple of times with his spear. “I’m an All-Rounder, but my focus is on mid-range spell casting.”

“Hmm… So, you could fight in any position… Can you heal?” Annaleth asked as she considered Dom, and Eleanor’s head kept going from one person to another in clear confusion.

“Nope. I can only hurt,” Dom said with a shrug and a shake of his head.

“That’s fine,” Annaleth said, before turning to look at Eleanor. “What about you?”

“Eh?” Eleanor replied, dumbfounded and pointing a finger at herself.

“What the fu—yeah you! There’s only five people here and a strange cat!” Annaleth replied with a look of annoyance.

“Eh… Erm…” Eleanor fidgeted, trying her best to figure out what they were talking about.

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It quickly became obvious to the people in the room that she was clueless of what was going on, with Dom being the first to look at her with raised eyebrows. “Oi… Don’t tell me that you don't even know about that… This is something that every proper fighter knows—or at least a noble girl should.”

“W-well, my father did teach me the basics of fighting, but in my territory, I was tasked with finding a way to save it from the piling debts…” Eleanor said, ashamed, as her cheeks blushed and she lowered her head.

Annaleth seemed to carry an incredulous look, while Jul was stuck stunned at what he was hearing. However, after a moment, Dom’s surprise was cleared away and he sighed. “We’re talking about combat positions. It depends on your skills and your training…” saying that, Dom paused for a moment to consider Eleanor. “Judging by the way you were fighting in that basement; I’d say ya’re a close-range fighter. I never saw ya use magic, and that strange magical hand of yours proved to be quite strong—At least to slap people away.”

“Aha! So that hand is truly strong!” Annaleth exclaimed, floating closer to Eleanor, who took a surprised step back, but the demoness wouldn’t let her get away. “Show me!”

“Bad idea,” Grool said, taking a step closer and causing Annaleth to look at him with a questioning glance. “It powerful. Things damaged.”

“Simple then,” Annaleth said, turning to look at Eleanor with a confident smile. “We’ll take it outside.”

“Erm…” was all that Eleanor could say, before the demoness grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside, causing her to yelp.

Dom followed closely after them, his grip on the spear as firm as it could be, and the glare that he was throwing the demoness clearly indicating that he was ready to attack—should anything strange happen. I, of course, did as I have been doing with Eleanor so far, and just watched.

Once they took a handful of steps outside of the base, and everyone was outside, the tree trunk that hid their base closed once more, giving the impression from the outside that there wasn’t any structure in this place at all.

Annaleth dragged Eleanor to a small patch of clear grass that was close by; however, not wide enough for the sunlight to completely pass through the treetops, leaving only a few rays to illuminate them, so they would still be hard to spot for someone looking at this place from above.

Once Annaleth released the arm, Eleanor quickly retrieved it and looked with a concerned look at Annaleth, who was floating a short distance away from her while looking down at her with a smirk. “Go on then. Show me your power.”

“I, well, I’m not sure how to…” Eleanor tried to say, but the severe glare on the demoness caused her to look away, and to me. There was nothing I could tell her, since I didn’t know exactly how she summoned her arm besides whenever she found herself in a dangerous situation, so I simply tilted my head to the side, as if asking her what she was looking at me for.

However, her gaze remained on me momentarily, after which she finally looked back at Annaleth. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then, with a harsh swing of her left arm to the side, the large black hand was summoned. There wasn’t a lot of space between her and the tree next to her, so as soon as the hand appeared, the tree was split in half, and Eleanor yelped in surprise, jumping away from the fallen tree.

“Amazing,” Annaleth exclaimed, her eyes trailing the floating black arm that was matching Eleanor’s own surprised stance. “A summon of pure, raw, dark magic, and…” her eyes glowed green for a moment while looking at Eleanor’s arm. “It is contained within the reformed arm. But…”

Saying that, Annaleth’s expression turned sour, with one eye narrowed in hardly contained displeasure. She was looking at the completely broken and unconfident stance with which Eleanor was standing. Annaleth’s eyes were slowly going from the ‘girly’ way Eleanor’s arms were trying to ‘protect’ her, down to the shaky way her legs were spread, and ending on the loose way her feet were planted on the ground.

“The owner of the arm doesn’t seem to be good at all. I can’t even say what position you should take when fighting with us,” Annaleth said, shaking her head.

Hearing such an assessment, Eleanor lowered her head, and the arm at the side disappeared in a puff of dark mist. “I’m sorry…”

However, Annaleth floated closer to Eleanor, lifting her head up by pinching Eleanor’s chin and forcing her to look up at the demoness. Eleanor had a look of surprise, but Annaleth simply returned a confident smile. “No need to be downcast. We’re not going to leave you behind to die. So…”

Annaleth didn't finish what she wanted to say as she remained quiet with a smile on her face. It seemed like her intentions were obvious to the others, judging from their reaction.

“Urgh, I would rather not…” Dom said with a sigh and a shake of his head.

“Good idea,” Grool replied with a nod.

“Ahhh, ‘tis with great satisfaction that this one shall, therefore, and in perpetual continuity spread the word of the mighty crimson flower of the winter field that there shall be, thusly, nothing more than—”

“We’re going to train you, train you, and train you, until you’re able to hold your own,” Annaleth finished, ignoring the rambling goblin who appeared to not know that that was what Annaleth meant as his expression was of surprise for a moment, followed by a nod as if he knew all along.

“To think I’d be living with demons now…” Dom whispered to himself in a defeated tone.

“No time to waste!” shouted the demoness, before floating away from Eleanor and summoning a fistful of ice that floated on top of her hand. “By the way, I’m a Combat Healer… So… Don’t bitch over broken bones, I’ll fix you right up!”

And so… Eleanor’s training began with a scream.