Author: …Sorry for my broken time of release. (It will probably continue like this…sorry  TT )

Thanks for reading...

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Chapter 4

“So let’s get to it.”

“To what?”

“Training.”

“Yeah, but where??”

As mentioned before their current location was a cave which was nowhere big enough to train in, the girl thought. Well, she was wrong. Apparently that part was only the “hallway”.

The cave was situated underground and (the funny thing) it was right in the middle of the forest of predator trees. The entrance was as big as normal door making it clearly visible and possible to enter but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

This cave was the man s’ prison and castle. While it was sealed by powerful magic (yes, magic exists here too) to keep him from going too far, it was also a place where no one could enter without his permission.

Back to main point.

“Do you know how to swim?”

He asked her this while heading to the mini-lake at the end of the cave. She followed behind looking at him confused.

“…Yes… barely.”

“Good enough for now. See this lake? Down to one side there are some rocks blocking an entrance. Remove them and then swim through to the other side. You can hold your breath, right? About one minute?”

She nodded again wondering where the hell this ghost was taking her. She didn’t complain though. If he had wanted to kill her he could have done so before bringing her here so she had started, though unknowingly, trusting this man-ghost.

She jumped in the water. After floating for a few seconds to take a deep breath and fill her lungs with sufficient air, she dived in and swam to the direction the ghost had shown her.

There was a pile of rocks put deliberately (or so it seemed) and quite inconveniently (for her) in front of what looked like the entrance to a small tunnel. At least the rocks were either small or somewhat medium sized so she could move them easily.

After maybe 20 min the girl finally moved all the rocks revealing a big enough entrance for at least a grown man to pass through effortlessly. However she was dead tired. Swimming up and around without a break if not to breathe, she had no more freaking stamina.

She swam to the shore and sat there with her feet still on water. She lied on the stone floor and took deep breaths trying to regulate her air intake.

“What?? Tired already?”

The girl looked up to see the man-ghost floating around her head.

Yes she was tired. It’s not that she hadn’t done physical work before. Moving the rocks was actually easy. For her the hard part was the swimming. She had never swam in her (very short) life and what she knew she had learned it by listening to others. Trying to move her body (hands and feet) according to the heard before explanations, that’s how she swam and she wasn’t used to it at all.

“No wonder.” The man-ghost talked again. “With those swimming skills even a floating log would be able to pass you.”

This ghost noticed the weirdest of things (not really… the swimming was just that bad). He was unusually observant and probably knew a lot more than he let on.

Anyway, the entrance was now open. Taking another deep breath the girl dived in again and headed to the tunnel. The other side could be seen luckily. It meant she could pass through without much trouble and so she did. From time to time (to compensate for the awful swimming skills) she used the walls of the small tunnel to push forward.

*breathe*

She got to the surface of the lake as soon as she reached the other side, swam until she reached the stone ground and lied down again (with her face this time).

“Finally! You got me so bored!”

“Hah… I hope you die of boredom one day…”

“Yes, after I’ll revive, I promise I’ll at least try to.”

Yes, he said that with quite the visible tones of sarcasm.

And that’s how the tiring day ended… Wait, what?

Apparently the girl had fallen asleep just like that. (That was fast.) Though not visible inside the cave (or the forest), outside was already nighttime, sometime around midnight.

Noticing her sleeping the man-ghost almost snapped again but didn’t. The anger went away as soon as it came. He hadn’t realized but he too had taken quite the liking to that little girl.

…

The next morning.

The girl woke up to find out the man ghost wasn’t there again. Taking on her surroundings (yesterday she hadn’t bothered to) she was surprised to see where she had ended up.

That place was a “castle” of nature, so beautifully made. It was wide to no end (well, she couldn’t see the end), there were stones and rocks of different forms, minerals of different kinds giving it new lights (colorful ones). The lake in this side was wider and it connected with several small flows of streams that headed to who-knows-what-direction. Some of them followed a path to some of the few other tunnels (visible from where she stood) that led to other unknown places.

*grumble*

Oops! She had completely forgotten. She hadn’t eaten anything these past few days. Her more-special-than-others body had kept her alive but it had been too long.

“What? You’re hungry?”

The man-ghost had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. (nice timing)

“Oh… you’re a human…”

She gave him a now-you-remember kind of look which he shrugged off.

“Anyway, come here.”

He led her down one of the many tunnels. After walking for some minutes they reached a room with a weirdly calming dim red light. That light came from some kinds of plants in deep red color (the light gets contagious here… shining mushrooms, shining moss, shining plants).

“These guys’ predecessors were called Dawnred. They shined red at the light of dawn. This variant of them somehow ended down here and adapted. What you see is how it became after adaption. Anyway, the geezer said these plants are eatable and they have lots of nutrients a human like you needs.”

‘Geezer?!’

*grumble*

‘Oh well, thoughts for later.’ The girl took one of the plants with her hands and hesitantly took a small bite to taste it.

“It’s sweet!” she said a little happy.

“Really?!’’ The man hadn’t really tried them before so he couldn’t comment much.

After that, the girl gulped down some of the plants with apparent hunger. When she felt full she looked up at the man-ghost who was quietly floating close to her.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Thanks for the meal” she said looking at him with a small smile on her lips.

The man watched her, a little confused by the words. He hadn’t expected her to say something like that at all. A small smile lit up his face too.

***

Later…

“Now let’s get to this. We should have started yesterday.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

*cough cough* Now that was even more unexpected and took the man off guard. He became embarrassed at the word. He had never had a disciple even when he was alive. However this girl had accepted him as a teacher. Yes, he was really embarrassed (once again it’s the fault of lacking human relation and conversation).

“…Anyway… Let’s start with a question. What do you think a strong person is?”

The girl was sitting cross-legged in front of the ghost, facing him and listening somewhat seriously. Hearing that question, however, she didn’t know how to answer because she hadn’t really thought about it before.

“One who has power?” (wow… how simple) She said this as half a question.

“Don’t kid me. What’s with that answer? Try a little harder, would you?”

“…”

“One who can beat others up?” Another half a question.

*pop* (another popped vein)

The girl noticed the tension rising in the air and tried to think of something fast. The beast of her nightmare showed up. ‘That is a strong being, right?’

“One that destroys everything that stands in its way. One whose path is soaked in blood.” She finally answered in a soft voice and somewhat sad-sounding.

The man-ghost watched her silently this time. He talked only after several minutes had passed.

*sigh*

“Is that what you think? …I can’t blame you… I wasn’t any different before but shall I tell you what I think now.”

She looked at him expectantly and curiously.

“…A strong one is someone who can open up his way to choices.”

“Huh?”

“When battling someone who in terms of ability is weaker than you, if you can choose whether to kill him or not then you are strong, if you have no choice but to kill him then you are weak.

Do you get me?”

The girl was looking at him utterly confused. She had no idea what the freaking hell that man was talking about. He saw that and continued talking.

“Let me give you another example. You have to save your loved ones but you have been given three choices, to save either that one or the other or none. However if you are ‘strong’ enough you can open another choice for yourself. You can choose to save them both.

Now, do you get me?”

Little by little she really was starting to understand him. ‘To open up paths, choices…’

A faint smile was visible on her face. She liked it, this way of being strong.

The man-ghost noticed this (as observant as always).

“It looks to me you’re more eager to get stronger now.”

He said that with his higher and mightier attitude (it was thanks to him she became like that after all).

As for the girl, her faint smile was now a wide grin paired with a look of readiness and confidence.

“However let me give you a warning.” (all serious)

“Huh?”

“To have a choice and to take a choice are two different things. Be ready for what comes after.” (more serious)

She nodded looking back at him a little bit confused but otherwise she took every of his words to heart.

…

“Back to business.” (well… his mood changes fast)

“Hey kid, what kind of main weapon do you want to use anyway?”

This was another thing she had never thought about. Her life until then hadn’t let much time for thinking about getting stronger at all so without putting much thought into it she said:

“…A spear?” (Another half a question)

Now it was the man-ghost’s turn to grin widely. (Care to guess why?)

“Kuhahaha… Yes, yes… Good” He said it so happily it seemed stupid.

“Fate is truly a peculiar thing.”

(I think you’ve already guessed.) The man also used a spear/lance as a main weapon when he was alive, though it was a weapon made only for him so it was a bit different from normal.

“So as you wish, I’m going to teach you the ways of the spear.”

“... Isn’t a sword better?”

*pop*

“What?! Are you an idiot? You said spear.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Hah… Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to teach you the basics of everything swords, knives and bows included.”

“Huh? Why?”

He looked at her with an evil grin this time.

“Because when in war you can’t always be picky about weapons.”

“…”

“Your main weapon, however, will be the spear…And next time don’t say something like ‘sword is better’ *pop*. And you can’t ‘judge’ a weapon like that. To a commoner a sword will only be a tool (to cut radishes for example :p ), to a skilled person it will be a weapon, to a real warrior and master it will become his path…

This is true for any weapon so in the end it comes down to the one who wields it.”

Once again he had suddenly become serious (he and his mood changes) so the girl too had listened to him seriously, the words once again taken to heart.

“…So we will first start with building a little stamina.”

“Huh?? What about the weapons?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me you stupid kid. The way you are, all skin and bones, you won’t be able to hold a weapon let alone use it.

…So do for me 20 laps around the cave.”

“20!!! Hey, I can’t even see the end of the cave!”

“Well, you better hurry up if you want to finish any time soon.”

“Hey…” She started to complain but she saw him giving her a serious look again.

“To hell with it!” She threw a final curse to who-knows-what and started running to the yet-to-be-visible end of the cave.

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The END… of the chapter. Thanks again for reading.