“Rui,” Somnia started, effortlessly swatting away a ball of purple-tinged water I’d shot at her. “I know you’ve been practicing Poison Manipulation – and that’s fine –, but Hana and her family have been using it for generations. There are plenty of other Elemental Attunements you can try. Besides, no disrespect, but Hana may be a less-than-ideal teacher.”
“I can do it!” I snapped. “It’s just a variant of Water Manipulation! And Earth! …And some variant of that!”
For the past few weeks, Somnia, Archie, and I had been tasked with taking care of some Rogues that’d gotten too close to the city while the Galeroses trained the Honor Guard to do that for us. Once they’d been sufficiently trained – and disciplined in a few cases –, Yugo seemed to remember that he was meant to train us and did exactly that. Our first training session in the Tiger Lily Hotel’s garden caused enough damage and destruction that Hana fined us for it. Following this, Shuten Douji offered to let us stay in their elaborate bunker system. They called it the “Silent Hand Tunnel Network”, and it ran throughout Minashire with exits and entrances in every major city and every location significant to their spy organization. The place looked fairly industrial – a stark departure from the distinctly Saikoujin architecture we’d been living in as of late. The walls were made of white brick with concrete floors with painted arrows leading to specific regions and routes. The red line, for example, led to every exit in the Azuma Saikyou region while the blue one led to every exit in Burnchester.
The yellow lines led to all the rooms, lodgings, meeting rooms, recreational rooms, and – important to our cause – training facilities. They were designed like industrial-looking basketball courts with laminated white floors lined with black markings written in text I couldn’t understand. The walls were also white with black Oni-art painted on the leftmost wall and the ceilings were black and lined with steel pipes.
Thankfully, the Silent Hand’s training halls were sturdy enough to handle our full power. I say all, but I really mean all except Yugo. He still refused to go all-out against us, something Somnia and I both hated, but to his credit, he’d been focusing less on battle tactics and instead training us on using our abilities in smarter ways. In Archie’s case, it was working alongside Lochness as a second fighter. For Somnia, it was properly channeling her emotions during a battle. And for me, it was my [ELEMENTAL MANIPULATION] Skill. He’d been stuck on the “alchemical use” portion of the Skill’s description, and so he’d had the Historian teach me the ways to properly understand Elements so that I could take better advantage of the Skill. After a week of this study, I managed to teach myself how to manipulate Electricity. It looked cooler than it was, but the real utility came in pairing it with Water Manipulation – something I was still just decent at. The Historian had suggested asking Hana for tips considering how closely lined Poison and Water were, and that was when the idea struck me to also try to learn Poison Manipulation from her.
“That’s the spirit!” Archie called from the far wall. He’d been leaning on it, reading a book while Lochness cheered for us from beside him; the act appearing as her waving her head side-to-side in her bipedal form. “The moment you give up is the moment they win!”
“Who’s they?” Somnia challenged, smacking away another failed attempt at Futakuch-Onna’s poison-ball-arrow attack.
“They! It’s unique to you! That’s how you motivate yourself.”
“So the moment I give up is the moment the Horsemen win?” I tried.
“Exactly! See? He gets it.”
I used that as motivation, giving up on ranged attacks and switching to the physical combat I excelled in. I imagined my fist as being coated in a cloud of purple aura and launched it at Somnia who stood with hands covering her face. Seeing the opening, I struck her in the chest with an Electricity-Attuned palm strike that knocked her flat. For just a few seconds, the air around her seemed to change. I’d gotten used to it after our many sparring sessions. It was somewhat offputting; despite appearing as this prim-and-proper Galerose soldier, she had the aura of a wild Curse. Like if we weren’t partners, she’d try to rip me apart the second I wasn’t looking. It was even worse when to test that theory, I did look away from her – walking away as though finished with the fight only to find her right behind me within milliseconds. It took a lot to shake me, and even more to shake Fallen Star, but the moment that happened we both felt a bit… uncomfortable.
Taking that lesson into account, I helped Somnia up from the floor – only for her to sweep me and laugh at me for dropping my guard. She’d attempted that many times – as had I –, but my annoyance at my inability to properly manipulate Poison even to a minor degree made it difficult for me to focus. Archie, noticing my discomfort, did his best to cheer me up while helping us both up.
“There are plenty of other Elements, you know? And Electricity is cool as hell! Besides, you’re Level 87 now! Who cares about Poison-Manipulation?”
“88.” I corrected, pointing to the Level Scroll beside me.
“I can’t see those,” Archie noted. “But my point remains. You’ll be fine if you’re missing one Element.”
He was right, I knew. But I refused to accept that. I’d spent most of my life arrogant due to usually being the stronger of those I fought. Leaving the Fallen Star Cult showed me just how much growth I had to do, which had begun to give birth to a new trait – stubbornness. I didn’t like not being strong enough to win against powerful opponents by myself, and Futakuchi-Onna had been holding back tremendously. If there was something, anything I could do to give myself the edge, I’d do it. Working more closely with Fallen Star had been proof of that resolve.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The moment we stood, Somnia started complaining to Archie about his refusal to train with us. He’d told her that he’d spent the day helping the city rebuild and even helped feed many of the workers with aid from the local restaurant owners, prompting him to chide her about fighting “not being everything”. After saying he was like her brother “Ulzre”, she admitted that she respected what he’d done and accepted his excuse, even adding that she’d spent her free time helping her siblings with whatever needed to be done and commenting on the pride she felt in giving the people of Saikou a sense of safety due to the Galerose’s presence. When the conversation inevitably turned to what I’d been doing in my free time outside of training, though, I’d been a bit too absorbed by my Level Scroll to answer them.
LEVEL INCREASED
87 > 88
UTILIZATION PERCENTAGE: APPROXIMATELY 17.6%
HP: 84
STR: 83
STM: 90
A-STR: 93
A-STM: 91
For the first time in my life, my Auric attributes outnumbered my natural ones. If I had to guess, I’d say it was because of how much I’d been using them lately. Aura Manipulation was like physical exercise; the more of it you used, the better your body would be at manipulating it. Still, seeing these numbers felt both vindicating and intimidating. Ares would be thrilled in his own chaotic way to see that I’d been using Fallen Star so much. Personally, though, it was freeing to know that I’d used it without being the ‘God of Destruction’ that the Fallen Star Cult so desperately wanted me to be. Fallen Star was mine to use however I pleased, and this stat line was proof of that.
After training, we all took some time to shower and freshen up in our rooms in the Tiger Lily before meeting for dinner in the dining hall. We took our seats in the same area on the far wall closer to the food trays, though there were these two Oni seated beside us that spoke so loud it’d been difficult to hear our own conversation. The gray-skinned tall men dressed in traditional Oni attire – loose white kimonos with black hakama and red belts – droned on about how many of these Rogue Myths named “Wild Men” they needed to fight. Apparently, they were both numerous and annoying, though I couldn’t understand why that mattered to them.
“Aren’t Oni ‘Legendary’ Myths?” I asked Somnia and Archie the moment they left. “Why are they complaining about… what did they call them? ‘Knee-height gnats’?”
Somnia shrugged. “Numbers add up. They probably got overwhelmed.”
Archie, meanwhile, made a surprised look, completely disregarding my question. “I didn’t know you knew about the ‘Minashire’s Legendary Myths’!”
“Yeah. The Historian taught me while he was teaching me about the Elements.”
“Which ones do you know about?”
“The Historian is one. And the Minashire Monitor. And Yuki-Onna. Oh, yeah! He always mentioned Typhon, the Demogorgon, and Kirin as part of some group. I don’t know why, though.”
“It’s because they were all in the Typho-Gorgon War,” Archie said, raising an eyebrow. He snorted. “Oh, yeah. I forgot you never went to school.”
“I had scholars teach me the basics!”
“So you were homeschooled.”
I was on thin ice with the Tiger Lily’s actual staff, so I decided not to punch Archie in the face. Graciously, Somnia stepped in to stop me from doing something brash either way. She gave me a brief history lesson surrounding this “Typho-Gorgon War”, describing it as the battle where the Myths Typhon and Demogorgon faced off in a multi-year-long battle for reasons people don’t truly know, though there are apparently many theories and claims. Kirin, a Myth Contracted to a war hero named Nori Knight, was pivotal to ending the war as its ability known as “Kirin's Decree" was enough kill Typhon, thus ending the war.
“So, of all the Legendary Myths, which one is the strongest?” I asked.
“Typhon.” Archie and Somnia said in unison. After sharing a look, Archie allowed Somnia to continue. She did so animatedly. “No offense to Yugo, but The Historian and the Minashire Monitor are like… wow. Typhon, though? They're like… woah. You know?”
“I… guess? What about the rest of the world, then? Who’s the strongest Myth period?”
“Animarum,” Somnia and Archie once again said in unison. Somnia allowed Archie to speak this time. He did so animatedly. “Animarum is a step beyond ‘strong’. The world moves around Animarum. She’s so strong that she’s a proper myth, in the sense that some people don’t even believe she exists because of the wacky stuff surrounding her name.”
“Like?”
“You know how you can theoretically do anything inside of your Mindspace? Well, Animarum can apparently do anything anywhere. The world is her Mindspace! Not literally, but you get the idea.”
“THAT IS THE POWER I DESIRE. STRENGTH SO VAST THAT NATIONS BEND AT THE VERY UTTERANCE OF MY NAME.”
“Oh, look. You got Fallen Star excited,” I groaned.
Archie chuckled. “Sorry.”
“Tell him I said hi,” Somnia waved.
Glory is unimportant. All that matters is killing the Horsemen. What you do in your free time – separate from me – means absolutely nothing to me.
“HMPH.”
And Somnia says hi.
“HELLO.”
“Fallen Star says hello.”
Somnia smiled.
“Ah!” Archie called. “That reminds me! There’s no such thing as a Legendary Curse list yet,” Archie smiled. “That gives you two something to work towards, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not important to me. I’m honest enough to admit that I have an ego, but it’s never been so inflated that I’d need validation from some sort of list.”
“THE NAME FALLEN STAR WILL BE ETCHED IN HISTORY ATOP THIS ‘LEGENDARY’ LIST WITH THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES. SET FORTH AND GROW MY RENOWN.”