Jaimie’s eyes opened wide as Jeanie’s makeshift knife changed trajectories from his chest to his belly. It was already too late to dodge, so the young boy just flexed his abdominal muscles and braced for impact. However, rather than implanting the piece of wood in his belly, Jeanie went even lower.
Jaimie's expression froze as terrible thoughts sprouted from his mind. However, rather than future-kid-destroying pain, what snapped the young man was a cute little scream followed by a thud.
“Ouch, my knee!”
The young boy looked down only to find Jeanie rolling on the ground while grabbing her right knee with both hands. She fell on a small rock and bruised her knee.
“Oh, Jeanie, why are you so clumsy.” Daniel walked over to his sister and gave her a hand. “Come, you’re gonna dirty your clothes that Auntie Martha cleaned.”
While the two siblings were talking with each other, Jaimie was still in a state of shock. He turned and looked toward Roy and Robb, only to find them looking at Jeanie with interested eyes.
“Continue the session, Jaimie. You shouldn’t stop.”
Jaimie nodded at Roy’s words. He shook his head to get rid of distracting thoughts before taking a deep breath.
“Okay, let’s do some sparring now!”
* * *
Roy and Robb looked intently at Jeanie after she finished her turn. They saw how confused Jaimie was, and Roy gave him some words to clear out his mind. As the sparring session started, Robb looked at Roy.
“She definitely tripped intentionally, right?”
Roy nodded at Robb’s words, “Yeah, that was a clear feint.”
Robb turned to look at Jeanie once again before taking a deep breath, “But why would she do that? She could have gotten that win.”
“Who knows?” Roy shrugged his shoulders. “But we might need to talk with her before we let them awaken.”
Robb scratched his chin while thinking about Roy’s proposal. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why is that?” Roy tilted his head in confusion. “We need to understand what’s going on before we give her the strength of five adult men.”
“Yeah, I’m not talking about that.” Robb shook his head.
Roy’s confusion grew even further, “Then what do you mean?”
“I’m just saying it shouldn’t be us that talk with her.” Robb then pointed to Jaimie, “It should be him.”
Roy thought for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders. “Fair enough, she can trust someone close to her age more than us oldies.”
The afternoon passed fairly quickly with Jaimie coaching the three little kids as they sparred. After each match, he would have them do five push-ups before resting. By the end of their session, they finished their quota of 100 push-ups and got much more comfortable sparring.
As the sun was about to set, Roy stood up from the bench and walked toward Jaimie, “Why don’t we end the training for today? They seem pretty tired.”
Daniel, whose both sides were hurting, found enough breath to shout, “Seem? Seem tired? We’re dead! We have been dead for two hours! It’s only our soul that is talking to you now!”
Jeanie was laying on the ground without the ability to even move a finger, while Claire was putting her hands on her knees and trying to catch every breath she could.
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“Hmm, but I wanted them to test a real weapon too,” Jaimie pouted. He then shrugged his shoulders and looked at his three victims, “Oh well, tomorrow you will get to play with real knives. Maybe you can stab a goblin too if you’re lucky.”
None of the three kids had any strength to listen or care to reply. All of their energy was spent catching their breath and massaging their sore muscles.
Mary, who has been sitting on a large piece of wood along with Greg and Elena, stood up while nibbling on a piece of jerky.
“You guys are finally done? Let’s go inside, mom should be worried.” Mary walked toward Claire and helped her stand, while Greg and Elena took care of Daniel and Jeanie respectively.
After they made sure that the group of kids entered the house without any problem, Roy looked at Jaimie. “Should we go now to Lorenz’s place? Let’s start with Jack’s group, they should have the easiest time.”
“Sure,” The young boy nodded. “I don’t mind wolves—wolves are much better than those ugly goblins.”
With those words, the group walked toward Lorenz’s workshop. As they entered the marketplace and closed in on their destination, Robb decided to bring up a discussion he had been holding off on for hours.
“Hey, Jaimie, what do you think of Jeanie?”
Jaimie blushed a little bit and said, “What do you mean what do I think of her?”
Robb looked confused at Jaimie’s reaction, “I mean how good is she? You’ve been training her for hours, you should have an idea.”
“Ah, that,” Jaimie let out a relieved sigh. “Honestly, I don’t know. Sometimes she does the worst, but other times she is really good. I don’t understand.”
“You think she does badly on purpose?” Robb pushed the topic even further while Roy looked at Jaimie with interest.
“Hmm, I’m not sure,” The young looked down in thought and scratched his chin. “Why would she want to do badly on purpose though? Everyone likes winning.”
Robb stayed silent for a few seconds before replying, “I don’t know. But you saw she feinted you in that first exercise, right?”
“Yeah,” Jaimie nodded before covering up under his belt with his hands. With an embarrassed expression. “She almost hit me down there.”
“Now, that would have been bad,” Roy chuckled. “Tomorrow try to check with her. See if she is doing bad on purpose and why is she doing so.”
“Okay, I will ask her that,” Jaimie replied.
The group then reached Lorenz’s workshop where they found Jack and his group waiting at the front door.
“Took you long enough,” Jack grinned. “You’re gonna show us the way to this dungeon or whatever?”
Roy looked around at Jack’s group. As usual, there was Hassan and Hawk, Parker, and the two other middle-aged volunteers. The first one had a short and well-trimmed black beard, and Roy knew him as Tyler. He was the owner of a couple of farms and he was doing well for himself and his family before the apocalypse had begun. The other was someone that Roy didn’t know.
“Hey,” Roy extended a handshake to the middle-aged volunteer. “I haven’t got to know you yet, what’s your name?”
The volunteer who only had some stubble on his face accepted Roy’s handshake with a smile, “I’m Daven. It’s nice to meet you, Roy.”
“Daven, that’s a cool name,” Roy tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Are you not from here?”
“No, I’m a traveler,” Daven shook his head. “I stayed here for half a month before the world flipped on its head.”
Hearing Daven’s story, Roy tapped him on the shoulder, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Daven. I hope you didn’t mind our company too much.”
Daven let out a chuckle, “I couldn’t have asked for better.”
Roy smiled before making his way inside the workshop. This time, he found Lorenz sitting on a chair waiting for him.
“Oh, you came,” Lorenz grinned, “I finished early today. Look.”
The young boy pointed at two finished sets of spikes. Each set had eight heads on top of a metallic platform to hold them in place. The two sets were so large that they took up a considerable section of the forge—even that monstrous red bear wouldn’t come off scot-free if he carelessly stepped on them.
“I still have enough ore to make another set if you want,” Lorenz added with a proud expression.
“No, this should be enough,” Roy shook his head. “You need to keep some in case someone breaks their spear or sword and you need to fix it.”
Lorenz furrowed his eyebrows at Roy’s concern, “There is no need to worry about that stuff. All of those knives and swords you guys leave on the ground, if you give them to me I can melt them and have an infinite supply of iron.”
Hearing the young blacksmith’s words Roy opened his eyes wide before tapping his forehead, “Damn, I’m so stupid. We should have gathered those and given them to you.”
“It’s okay, we can just start gathering them from now on,” Lorenz replied with a smile, “Now, should I work tomorrow on a new set? It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Sure,” Roy raised his hand. “If you want to do it, then by all means.”
Lorenz’s smile grew even further; he seemed to enjoy the thought of working on more projects.
“Okay, well let’s go to Roger’s house,” the young boy yawned. “I’m sleepy.”