We left the apartment well before dawn.

Breakfast had been a short affair, and while I ate, Helas quizzed me about my new identity—where I’d gone to school and what I’d studied. She seemed satisfied with keeping my story close to the truth. Then she threw a black cloak over my shoulders, and before I knew it, we were jumping from the balcony to a nearby rooftop.

“What are we doing, exactly?” I asked.

“You know your directions from here?” Helas asked, pulling the hood of her cloak over her head. She pointed north, toward the faint glow of the temple against the dark sky, and raised an eyebrow to tell me she expected an answer.

“North,” I answered with a sigh. “The slums and the temple are in that direction. South is the tourist district. I’m not sure what’s east of here. West of here is pretty much everything else, like Tairayat, which is where I’m supposed to be going.”

“You remembered. Good. Follow me if you can. Time to go on patrol.”

She cackled and took off at a speed toward the slums that I had almost no hope of matching, but I could only be caught off guard so many times with her sudden training games. She must want me to learn as much about the city during the day as at night.

Alright, fine.

I chased after her with a grin, expanding my perception in case she had any tricks waiting for me. The city blurred around me as I ran, both our footfalls pattering on the terracotta tiles like a sudden downpour. Adrenaline surged through me, my newly increased stats working together to propel me across the rooftops with ease.

Everything just flowed even better than before, all my new stats working better separately and also better together. Like this, maybe I would’ve been able to hold out longer against the Error Wolf in Rage. Precise footfalls. Reflexes that allowed me to pivot when my perception picked up her change of course.

Helas had a certain sound to her steps. Like she weighed more than her current form could possibly hold. My heightened perception could pick up the sound of her sprinting through the din of another city starting to awaken. Always quiet, too, but with an aggressive gait that often made her intimidating when approaching someone.

She came out of nowhere though. One moment, I could see her in the distance. The next, I couldn’t hear her at all, and she disappeared from in front of me.

I startled, straining my perception to pick up any hint of her. A smell—the faint sweetness of sage. The feeling of the air around me stilling until her fist darted into my periphery—[Keep One’s Silence]. She wasn’t holding back today.

For fuck’s sake.

With a grunt, I threw up my arms to block her punch, but my strength was no match for hers. She’d broken my arms before and seemed determined to do it again. The crack was loud, and pain shot up my forearms. But I’d stopped it.

“Good,” she said. “We’re not done though.”

【NOTICE】

Please wait while your Demon Core [2%] regenerates your Form…

This may take a while. You may consider further tethering your Demon Core.

She dropped to the ground from the roof and sped off toward the northern part of the merchant district, taking sharp turns every few blocks. I activated [Cold-Blooded Nature] so I could ignore the pain and pursued her as closely as possible so that she couldn’t disappear on me again.

But we couldn’t do this forever. Helas’s rules were simple. We played her training game until I risked getting seen by someone. Usually that was when I ran out of time on [Forgotten Son], which didn’t leave me with a lot of time to use against her to my own advantage.

So what could I do against her? I’d never found any of her weaknesses using [Revenge Best Served Cold], but now that I’d leveled up so much, maybe I’d finally find a vulnerability to exploit.

【NOTICE】

You have activated Revenge Best Served Cold [Uncommon] for the first time today.

Your awareness broadens to uncover up to two of your target’s weaknesses if they possess any. Please concentrate on your target...

She glanced at me over her shoulder, a devious look glinting in her eyes as if she knew what I was going, and she vanished in front of me again. Was she equipping and unequipping the cloak she’d made me wear so she could smuggle me into the kingdom? The cloak with a name she still hadn’t told me.

Maybe I could get her to tell me if I managed to land a punch on her this time.

I expanded my perception again—but I’d started thinking of it as two different levels. At one level, I could hear or see at an incredible distance, but there was too much information to process everything I heard or saw. At the other level, I could capture all that I could perceive at a close distance with absolute certainty of exactly what I was perceiving.

In most circumstances, I didn’t need to use my perception on both levels at the same time. When I was in a fight like this, it was best to focus on my immediate surroundings while maintaining a loose awareness of what was happening beyond that.

But could I focus enough on the smell of sage she carried, on the slightest shift in the way the air moved when she used [Keep One’s Silence], to use her own attack against her?

Her presence flickered in front of me, and I strained to close the distance between us. She mazed through the slums, where shanty shacks built on top of each other created narrow alleyways that collected trash, and crossed into the merchant district.

The streets were wider and cleaner, making it easier to keep pace with her. She smirked over her shoulder, and then Callas slammed her entire feathered body into my head.

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I managed to lift my arms and turn my body in time to lessen the impact, but a sharp knife-like stab sliced up the arm that’d taken most of the blow. Was she trying to go for a new record breaking my bones? Or just abusing the fact that I’d heal on my own now?

Then, as if to answer my question, she followed her crow’s body slam with another punch of her own. This time to my exposed side—above my kidney, driving into my ribcage and forcing all the air out of my lungs. I smashed into the opposite building and vibrated with the pain [Cold-Blooded Nature] was repressing in the back of my mind.

【NOTICE】

Please wait while your Demon Core [2%] regenerates your Form…

This may take a while. You may consider further tethering your Demon Core.

I activated [Forgotten Son] again and caught myself before I slumped to the ground. No time for that. Sucking in a deep breath, I followed her as she headed south, leading me through several markets and making me rely on [Forgotten Son] more to keep from being noticed.

What aggravated me, though, was the way that she slowed down in front of every potion shop. As if I wouldn’t have noticed them otherwise.

I wanted to punch her in the face more than ever.

Each time she slowed, I honed my attention on her, willing [Revenge Best Served Cold] to find something I could use.

【NOTICE】

Unfortunately, your target has no weaknesses that you can exploit.

You may activate Revenge Best Served Cold [Uncommon] once more today.

I swore, but I wasn’t surprised. Until I evolved the skill more, it wasn’t going to work on someone as strong as Helas, let alone one of the Rashirat like Ezrenad.

What had I expected? It’d been two days since I’d died and became a Slayer. Even with the training dungeon, to keep my promise to Mother to kill Ezrenad, the scale difference left a gap too wide to fill in such a short time. How frustrating.

I needed to work harder and get even more powerful. I’d do whatever I had to do. Play Helas’s little training games. Study at Tairayat. Tether the demon core Mother gave me.

Ahead, Helas split from a main road down an alleyway and into the shadows. [Forgotten Son] didn’t have much time left. We were close to the arts district, where she probably intended to drop me off.

This would be my last chance to do something.

I drew in my perception as I gave chase in the darkness, honing it further and further so that all that I knew was what surrounded me. Ten arm spans—the range of her skill. The time that it’d take her to cross that distance was how much I’d have to make this work.

【NOTICE】

Forgotten Son [Uncommon] has been deactivated.

You have no remaining use of this Skill today.

Helas took my bait.

I caught the faint smell of sage first, wafting toward me like a soft breeze; neither [Keep One’s Silence] nor her cloak could disguise her scent like [Forgotten Son] would’ve for me. I sharpened my perception, dredged up every drop of awareness I had in me, until time seemed to move in slow motion, each second drawn out and unrolling in front of me at a pace my agility could afford.

From the left, the still air of her skill crept toward me. She was never coy with her hits. Didn’t need to be when so few could stand up against them. I didn’t need to bare her strength, though.

I ducked under her arm, stepped forward to put more power behind my punch as I drove my fist into her exposed stomach. If I broke a bone or two, it’d only be payback.

“Fuck,” she croaked, catching my fist before it’d fully slammed into her. “You’re getting better, kid. That was by far the strongest punch you’ve landed yet. And you’ve made quick work of adjusting to your new agility and perception stats. I think I can trust you to patrol alone even.”

She hadn’t budged at all, hadn’t been pushed back.

“Game’s over, though,” she continued. “You don’t have any use of [Forgotten Son] left, do you?”

I sighed. “No,” I confirmed for her. “I still won though.”

“I’ll patrol first tonight then. And yeah, I’ll give it to you this time.” Helas sure had a way of making my wins seem like accidents on her part. “You need to work on close combat some more, and you should start practicing spells while you fight. You could’ve used a shield, as weak as yours would be. But something is better than nothing, especially if you encounter a demon. This way, kid.”

She pulled her hood off and walked out of the shadows of the alleyway toward one of the arched entrances into the arts district. Two city guards posted to either side, and one of the last people I expected to be here paced in front of them.

Why would Khoulgan leave the academy, where he surely felt the most safe?

His furs were gone, replaced by a loose white outfit that I’d seen other students wearing and a blue sash that must’ve been associated with whatever Tairayat house he’d joined.

He grinned when he spotted me, and I regretted that I couldn’t [Forgotten Son]. Somehow, it felt like Helas had made me run out of it for this reason.

I ignored him and trailed after Helas. “Since I won, will you tell me the name of your cloak?”

She raised her eyebrows at me, and then her face scrunched into a scowl. “It’s the Loveless Cloak,” she answered under her breath. “Let’s meet your chaperone. Khoulgan, right?”

“Wait, I have so many follow-up questions.”

She squeezed my shoulder, and the tension of a headache shivered across my scalp as [Cold-Blooded Nature] worked to dispel the negative mental effect of the pain she loved putting me in. Why must I regenerate so slowly?

“Maybe later,” she said.

“Later when?”

Helas leaned forward to kiss my cheeks while she muttered, “We don’t have a fallback if you’re not invited to sit for the first exam. So make sure to get invited.” She ruffled my hair as she pulled back with a convincing grandmotherly smile. “Good luck!”

Khoulgan met us at the entrance, showing a silver coin with Tairayat’s emblem to the guards. “This one’s here to apply,” he told them. “I’m his chaperone.”

“Why do I need a chaperone?” I asked.

He grabbed my arm, tugged me through the entrance, and said, “You’re welcome.”

Thankfully, he’d grabbed the arm that had mostly healed. “For what? You know I could’ve slipped by them.”

“But what for?” he asked, a mocking smirk overtaking his features. “It’s better to be seen.”

“Why are you really here, Khoulgan?”

“Like I said.” He pulled me under his arm for no reason. “I’m your chaperone. The dean wanted to be sure you didn’t have any trouble getting to campus. Or really she wanted to give us an excuse for having met. So what am I supposed to call you now?”

I resigned to sharing his company but quickened our pace through the arts district. We weren’t the only students making our way to campus, and the closer we got to the path that’d take us to the top of the hill, the more nervous energy they gave all off.

“Therzin Trazigar.”

His eyebrows raised. “Therzin Trazigar? That’s what you’ve come up with?”

“It’s the name my mother gave me.”

“Then who was that I just met?”

“Helas. She’s—” My mentor and the only person I had left in this world that I could call family. I smiled despite myself.

“Helas—?”

“—my grandmother. It’s an ancestral family name, so there is more than one Helas in our family tree.”

He looked doubtful. “So you say. You two must be close though?”

“You’re asking a lot of personal questions for a chaperone. Why don’t you make yourself useful? Tell me about the application.”

Because there had to be a reason why all these students were so nervous.

He shrugged. “What’s there to know?”

“Do you know what questions I’ll have to answer?”

“What do you…?” He squinted at me. “Don’t tell me you haven’t prepared at all?”

【NOTICE】

Your Demon Core [2%] has completed regenerating your Form.

“How could I?” I asked. “I didn’t know I was going to be applying until two days ago, and before that I was already enrolled somewhere up north.”

I deactivated [Cold-Blooded Nature] and immediately regretted it as a wave of anxiety sank in my stomach. Attending Tairayat was a great opportunity to understand magic at a deeper level and, maybe, continue tethering my demon core. I couldn’t afford to get rejected.

“Where up north?” he asked.

“Tell me about the questions and maybe I’ll tell you.”