~ Jasper ~
It had been two days since Jasper washed up near Lingzhi’s cabin, and unfortunately, he was no closer to finding an answer to his question than he was several days before. Worse, it seemed like his anxiety over the situation was getting worse.
After he had accepted Lingzhi’s offer to stay, he was given his sleeping place: the floor in the common area with cloth placed over the wooden floor. Jasper was initially worried that leaving what resembled bedding in the guest area would be a bad look for Lingzhi if there were any visitors, but Lingzhi reassured him that he hadn’t had any human visitors in years. Of course, this caused Jasper to briefly question what remained of the old man’s sanity after such a long time with a lack of communication.
Despite the firm wood floor under his back, Jasper managed to get a decent amount of sleep during the first night, no doubt due to all of the stress he had undergone that day. When he retired for the night, he estimated it being around eight o’clock in the evening, and by the time he woke up, the sun was shining as bright as it did in a day, and Lingzhi had already begun cooking breakfast. However, Jasper wasn’t particularly hungry due to his anxiety around the entire situation, and ended up going the entire day without food. While Lingzhi did offer him a meal on multiple occasions, it was clear that he didn’t plan to push the issue if Jasper didn’t want to eat that much. When he went to sleep that night, though, Jasper silently wondered if his lack of food would come back to bite him.
In the morning, Jasper woke up much earlier. When he looked out the window, he couldn’t even see any light.
I guess I didn’t sleep as well as I was hoping, Jasper considered, Also, I should be sure to ask Lingzhi what season it is. It was summer back home, but it’s possible this dimension is in the Southern Hemisphere or has its months offset from ours.
Wide awake and having no hope of sleeping, Jasper instead opted to sit back and think some more about what he was going to do next. He knew he couldn’t rely on Lingzhi forever, and at some point, he needed to figure out how he was going to proceed if he was going to save Amber and Ruby. Lingzhi had a point: odds were if he went out into the wild, he would be killed by beasts before he could even find civilization, dooming his sisters to a life without him. But the longer he stayed here, the more likely it was they were going through terrible pain, waiting for him to come save them. Maybe they had already lost hope, thinking he was dead, or that he abandoned them.
After a few hours on this train of thought, Jasper didn’t reach any suitable answers, the same as the previous day. At this point, if he didn’t do something, he was going to go insane. Therefore, once he and Lingzhi sat down for breakfast, he decided to say something about it.
“Lingzhi, I can’t sit here and do nothing anymore. It’s driving me insane,” Jasper confessed.
Lingzhi swallowed the food he was eating and looked at Jasper.
“So does that mean you know what you plan to do?” he asked.
Jasper shook his head. Of course, he didn’t, but that didn’t mean the answer was nothing.
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that doing nothing is the answer. If I try something, I’m sure it will work out.”
“Jasper,” Lingzhi warned, “I told you before, you need to be patient. The last thing your sisters need is for you to be eaten by a bear or captured by local orcs. I happen to know of at least one orc camp in the nearby woods, and they would love nothing more than a human hostage.”
“I know that, I do,” Jasper protested, “But I can’t wait any longer!”
“Be patient, Jasper,” Lingzhi advised, “If you need help coming up with a plan, I can help you.”
“What? Like you helped me by telling me to stay put?” Jasper began raising his voice, “Oh, yeah, and I’m sure Amber and Ruby will be very grateful for that! Grateful their brother couldn’t care less about going to save them!”
“Jasper, listen to me.”
Despite Lingzhi’s plea, however, Jasper was having none of it. He was tired of hearing that he should wait for a better opportunity or for an answer. He had no guarantee that an answer would ever come to him, and in the meantime the twins were suffering.
In his rage, Jasper stood up and walked briskly toward the front door.
“Jasper,” Lingzhi’s voice echoed from behind him, but Jasper slammed the door closed before Lingzhi could finish.
He didn’t care where he was going, he just wanted to get as far away from the cabin as possible. He needed to see anything other than Lingzhi’s face right now. Once he got a few feet from the building, he began to run as fast as he could, his eyes barely open enough to see where he was going. It didn’t matter much, as the chance of him running into a tree were pretty low with how sparse the forest was in this area, but he didn’t have the courage to close his eyes completely. However, he forgot to keep his eyes on the ground, and an exposed root managed to take his feet out from under him.
“Ow,” he muttered, squinting his eyes in pain.
He turned his back around to see his right foot caught under the root of a large tree nearby, and began feeling pain up his right leg. It was likely just a strained thigh, as it was a pain that Jasper was somewhat familiar with, but it still made standing up rather difficult. Defeated, he sat down in an attempt to wait out the pain.
“Man,” Jasper spoke to himself, “If I get beaten by a god-damned tree root, how am I supposed to save anyone from anything, let alone from slave traders who are likely used to fighting off thieves?”
The fall had managed to dissipate much of his rage, and instead he began to fill with shame. He was secretly glad that Lingzhi seemingly hadn’t followed him, as trying to explain getting a leg injury less than a minute after declaring he could take anything the world threw at him was not the best look for his idea. In fact, it would only serve to prove the old man’s point further.
At this point, Jasper began to feel a slight pain on his left leg as well, and he looked over to see a scraped knee. In comparison to the leg, the pain was rather mild, but there was a definite scrape mark and a little bleeding. Not wanting to get his only set of clothes dirty, Jasper looked around for anything he could use to wipe up the blood. Eventually, after finding nothing useful within his radius of mobility, he settled on a leaf that had fallen out of the tree above him. While it was very possible it would backfire, Jasper was rather confident in his odds.
As he held the leaf to his knee, a smile came to his face, as a memory of a time long past resurfaced.
It was a typical Sunday during the siblings’ elementary school days. After returning from the Sunday church service, the three of them decided they wanted to visit the city’s biggest park. Despite how busy their parents were, Jasper managed to convince his father to drive the three of them.
When they got to the park, the girls were incredibly excited, and despite wanting to act mature in front of the twins, Jasper was barely able to hold back his excitement as well. The three of them rarely got to go anywhere outside of school, except to the smaller local playground. This was a great chance for the three of them to just play like children, something that Jasper in particular was getting fewer and fewer opportunities to do with their parents being around less and less. This time, though, he had his dad filling his role as the chaperone, giving him the opportunity to play without needing to keep an eye on both the girls at the same time, something that was difficult when they had disagreements on what to do.
The incident in question occurred while Jasper was playing keep-away frisbee with the twins. They, being the younger ones, were tasked with keeping the frisbee away from him, and so far, they had done quite a good job at it. Jasper was impressed with how well they were able to communicate without giving away their plans, and even began to feel hints of jealousy. However, disaster struck when Amber accidentally stuck her foot into a gopher hole in the playground.
Jasper was running after Ruby, who was waiting for the throw from Amber, when he heard the scream. He turned around to see his sister on the ground, crying. Her hands were placed over her knee, which he quickly assumed she had scraped in the fall. He immediately ran over to her prone body, ready to help her.
“Amber, are you okay?” Jasper asked.
“No, it hurts,” his sister replied through sobs.
Jasper sat up Amber and took a good look at her knee. As he expected, it was bleeding, and from the wince of pain he felt from when he moved her ankle, he guessed that was sprained too.
“Don’t worry, Amber, I’ll get you bandaged right up.”
However, what Jasper quickly realized was that he didn’t have anything on his person that could work as a bandage. He hadn’t brought much of anything with him, and he doubted either of the other two had either. He began looking around, trying to find their dad, who might have brought something useful. Once Jasper spotted him, he told Ruby to stay with Amber and ran over to him.
“Dad, dad!” Jasper shouted to his dad, who was sitting on a bench in the corner of the park with a newspaper, “Do you have a bandage?”
Without looking up from his paper, he shook his head.
“Sorry, I don’t,” his father replied monotonously, “It’s okay, though. Boys like you need to learn to tough out the pain without any help anyway.”
Of course, the response left young Jasper infuriated. His dad didn’t even know that it was Amber who was hurt, because he couldn’t be bothered to look at his own children! Not only that, his first instinct was to scold him for not being tough enough. It would have seemed incomprehensible to him that a father could be like this, but at this point Jasper was used to it. As long as he remembered, his father had never been one to focus on his children, being much more occupied on his work or going out at night with Jasper’s mother and friends.
Not bothering to tell his dad the rest of the story, Jasper returned to Amber and Ruby, the latter of whom was apologizing with tears in her eyes, while Amber continued crying over the pain in her leg. Knowing he had to think quickly, he looked around for anything that could cover up her knee. After deliberating between bark from a nearby tree, leaves covering the ground, or his own shirt, he decided to go with the leaves to spare his sisters the sight of him shirtless, something that had almost traumatized them on multiple occasions at home. He walked up to Amber and put a relatively green leaf on her knee.
“Huh?” she asked, confused to her brother’s actions.
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Jasper smiled at her.
“It’s not as good as a typical bandage, but it should help it stop hurting.”
Amber sniffled and nodded as Jasper applied pressure to the scraped area for a little while. Ruby, in the meantime, continued to wipe her face as she desperately hoped that her sister wouldn’t be in pain much longer.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” she apologized, “If I hadn’t thrown the frisbee where I did- “
Jasper shook his head and cut her off.
“It’s not your fault. Throwing frisbees is hard, and sometimes you don’t know where it will go.”
“But, if I was better at it, wouldn’t she be okay?”
Without releasing his hand from Amber’s knee, he put his free arm around Ruby’s shoulders for a hug.
“Amber doesn’t blame you, and I don’t either. So please don’t cry, okay?”
Despite her difficulty stopping her tears, she nodded and put on a forced smile. At that point, Amber’s tears were also beginning to subside.
“I think it hurts a little less, now,” she explained.
Jasper nodded and smiled.
“I’m glad you’re okay. Now, what do you say we go home, and have some ice cream?”
Amber’s remaining frown began to flip into a smile, and she immediately threw her arms around her brother.
“Yay! I love ice cream!”
As the memory ended, Jasper noticed that his smile had grown to something wider than he had experienced since he washed up on the beach several days prior. He had been so focused on how his sisters could be struggling and on blaming himself for their current situation that he had forgotten why he wanted to save them to begin with. In the end, they were family, and he knew that if they hadn’t been transported to this dimension, they would have had many more family experiences like this. Realizing where his train of thought was going, Jasper could only laugh at his selfishness.
At this point, the pain in his leg was beginning to subside, and he managed to stand up without much difficulty. With his mind refreshed, he decided it was best to return to the cabin and speak with Lingzhi again. He began limping back in the direction of the cabin when he heard a commotion behind him.
“Hey, didn’t you say you heard something comin’ from the old man’s cabin? Some shoutin’ or somethin’?”
“Yeah I did, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go barging up there. You know he could beat us all up in a fight.”
Suddenly wary, Jasper hid behind a tree and took a look around the corner to see where the voices were coming from. What he saw confirmed his worst fears.
A group of three or four humanoid figures was walking in his direction, talking amongst themselves. They appeared to have green skin, and were wearing primitive leather clothing, something that not even the wilderness hermit Lingzhi commonly wore. What was worse, they had weapons. The man in front was carrying what looked to be a hunting spear and a rudimentary wooden board, which Jasper assumed was a shield, and the other men were carrying similar weapons. However, the one in the back appeared to be holding a longbow, which Jasper could see peeking out from behind the other men. With all the information he had, he could only come to one conclusion.
These were the orcs that Lingzhi had warned him about. If he recalled, Lingzhi had said they were fond of taking hostages, and he seemed to be prime material for one. He looked for a potential way to sneak away but found out quickly that would be easier said than done. If he ran straight toward the cabin, the orcs would definitely see him, and the archer would likely take him out in a hurry. If he continued to hide, it was likely they would eventually find him given the fact that his hiding place was simply using a tree as cover.
In other words, he was completely trapped.
While he was deliberating what potential avenues for escape he had, a voice rose above the others, catching his attention and filling his heart with dread.
“Hey, guys! I found some human footprints over here! And they look fresh!”
This immediately caused a commotion amongst the orcs, who quickly gathered around the root in question and began commenting on the discrepancy.
“What does this mean? Is there someone else in the area?”
“Could be the old man coming to mess with us again. Maybe he’s finally planning to get rid of us.”
“I doubt the old man would be this stupid. Sounds more like we’ve got some fresh food around these parts.”
At the words ‘fresh food’, Jasper’s heart turned from cold to ice. While it was very possible they meant it as a figure of speech, his innate fear of the unknown led him to the conclusion that they would literally eat him if given the chance. He suddenly felt the urge to close his eyes and pray for assistance, knowing there was little other chance of him escaping this predicament.
“Hey, I think I smell him over here!”
That was the last straw. They were going to find him if he stayed put. Taking a deep breath, Jasper immediately started running as fast as possible in the direction of Lingzhi’s cabin.
“There he is!”
“Get him!”
He could hear the sounds of orcs’ feet hitting the ground as they ran toward him, all as he tried to keep his distance as best as possible. If he was far enough, it was possible the archer wouldn’t get involved, and his head start would prove to be enough to get him all the way back to the cabin. However, his hopes were quickly dashed as he heard an arrow fly past him.
On top of that, the surprising sound along with the proximity of the arrow caused him to lose his balance, and he found himself plummeting toward the ground in front of him. While he tried to catch himself, the pain in his leg, which had been masked by the adrenaline rush of attempting to escape from the orcs, suddenly shot through him, and the next thing he knew a spear was pointed at him from behind.
“Looks like you were right. Fresh blood in these woods. Never thought I’d see the day, but who am I to complain?” the orc with his spear to Jasper’s back commented.
As the orcs celebrated their victory, Jasper shut his eyes as far as he could. By now, he had lost all of his hope for surviving this phase of his life, and was content to simply wait out the consequences of his rash actions. Lingzhi had warned him of this exact possibility, and he still ran out of the safe area in favor of putting his life on the line for no good reason. It seemed like the dream was over, and he didn’t want to imagine the consequences for his sisters.
“Wait, what’s going on?”
“Oh God, it’s the old geezer!”
“Battle positions!”
Feeling the absence of the spear at his back, Jasper rolled over to see Lingzhi between himself and the orcs that had attempted to capture him. However, while he recognized the man’s physical features, the aura he gave off almost convinced Jasper that he was a completely different person.
Gone was the kind, quirky, and wise old man that he had come to know over the past several days. In his place was a machine: calculating, measured, and calm. The sword in his right hand seemed to glow with a radiance Jasper had never seen before, with its short handle almost blending into its gold elliptical hilt, and the metallic blade gleaming as if it had never been stained in its life. While the blade itself was rather average in size and shape, clearly favoring versatility to being specialized in one area, in the hands of its wielder it appeared as if no other could take its place.
Jasper watched as the man approached the orcs, remaining on guard without showing any signs of fear or trepidation. One of them lunged forward with his spear, only to have the weapon turned aside at the tip by Lingzhi’s sword, and the next thing Jasper knew, the warrior in front of him was gone. Instead, he heard a faint grunt.
Where there was originally just skin, the orc’s chest was pierced with the same beautiful metal that was only moments ago right in front of him. Behind the orc stood Lingzhi, a stoic expression on his face, reflecting neither fear nor confidence, neither anger nor peace, neither joy nor sorrow. It was the face of someone whose entire mind was focused on the task at hand: to defeat his enemy.
With the death of their comrade, the other orcs began to flee, and despite his easy defeat of the one enemy who dared to approach him, Lingzhi made no move to follow and finish the job. Once they were out of sight, the man finally sighed and sheathed his sword at his waist.
“Well, I should scold you for this,” he commented to Jasper, “But I think that would be redundant at this point. You seem to understand perfectly well where your mistake was.”
Jasper nodded, prompting a smile from the old man.
“Then I must say, I’m glad I made it in time.”
Despite the returning pain in his left leg, Jasper managed to stand up and follow Lingzhi back to the cabin, the entire sequence of events that had just transpired playing in his mind. Despite the brutality present in such a battle, it was somehow mesmerizing to him. The way Lingzhi moved was full of grace, and his final stroke happened so quickly no one could even react to it. From what he understood of swordplay, Lingzhi’s technique and mentality were on par with the greatest masters of the craft in his world, far beyond some simple knight like he had implied.
Once they returned, Jasper asked Lingzhi a question.
“Would you mind speaking with me a little more? I’ve had some time to think, and today has made me realize some things.”
Lingzhi nodded and sat down at the dinner table. Jasper followed suit, then began speaking.
“Firstly, I wanted to ask. Who are you?”
“I’m sorry?” Lingzhi asked, somewhat amused, “I’m Lingzhi, your local hermit.”
“I know that,” Jasper complained, “But somehow I get the feeling you weren’t telling me the whole truth when you said you were just a knight the other day. I’ll admit I am not the most well-versed in the art of swordplay, and it’s possible that I’m just being naïve, but the way you fought was beyond anything I have ever seen. I can’t believe that someone of your skill is just another knight in an army.”
Lingzhi gave Jasper a long look, and sighed.
“I guess that’s true. I used to be captain of the Aurumian Royal Guard back during the Golden War. I didn’t think it was relevant to bring it up, so I didn’t.”
Jasper sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. This whole time, he had assumed quite fairly that Lingzhi was nothing more than a normal person who had once fought in a war, then retired to the countryside. He had no idea that the same old man who was pressuring him to think through his decisions was someone so amazing.
“Lingzhi,” Jasper continued, “I can’t leave my sisters alone forever. They’re twelve right now. But I don’t know where to go, and I don’t know what to do if I find them. As I am, I think I’d lose against anyone I fought. I don’t have the experience or mindset to fight for their freedom.”
“That’s quite the mature perspective, Jasper,” Lingzhi praised, “It’s natural to worry about them. You’d be a worse person for not wanting what you do. But it is as you said: you lack information, and you lack ability. Between those, you will never succeed. But let me say this: once you come to a decision, I would be completely willing to do whatever it is I am able to do to help you.”
“Why? You hardly know me,” Jasper protested.
“Are you sure about that?” Lingzhi laughed, “Because I know that you are a person who deeply cares about your family, and are serious enough that you’d be willing to put your life down to save them. You’re reckless, but your heart is in the right place. What else would I need to know about you that isn’t extraneous by comparison?”
Jasper put his head down, knowing the old man was right. While they had only known each other for a few days, he seemed to understand Jasper on a deep level, in a way that no one else had ever understood him. Not his mother, not his father, not even the sisters he loved so much.
“Thank you,” Jasper offered, “I think I have an idea.”
“I’d like to hear it,” Lingzhi replied.
“I’m not strong enough as I am,” Jasper confessed, “I was so stupid that I hurt my leg over a simple fit of anger, and I nearly got myself captured and potentially eaten by orcs. If I want to save Amber and Ruby, I need to get stronger, and I need to be more confident.”
While he was speaking, Jasper noticed that Lingzhi’s smile was slowly beginning to disappear, and for the first time, Jasper was beginning to see hesitation on his face, with a hint of fear on top.
“So, what do you propose?” Lingzhi slowly questioned.
“Will you train me?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Jasper noticed the old man’s shoulders slump slightly, his eyes breaking contact and finding themselves staring at the table in front of them. It seemed like as Jasper made the request, the life was beginning to leave him by the minute.
“Now why would you want an old man like me to train you?” Lingzhi muttered.
“You understand the way I think, Lingzhi,” Jasper admitted, “You are calm, confident, and steadfast in what you believe. You are incredibly talented with the sword, and you’ve even admitted that you were one of the best swordsmen in all of Aurem. I can’t think of anyone better to train me.”
Upon hearing Jasper’s declaration, the old man let out a deep breath and stood up. He turned his back to Jasper and began walking toward the wall near the couch. While he didn’t look quite as tired at this point as he did when Jasper first brought up the idea, his shoulders were still somewhat slumped in a way that they hadn’t been any other day Jasper had been here.
“Just to let you know, I’m not going to go easy on you because I like you, okay? If you want me to train you, I’m going to make you the best you can be, no matter what it takes. Are you okay with that?”
Without hesitation, Jasper responded.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“I can’t say when you will be ready to take on the world, but I don’t want you leaving here until I think you are ready. That said, I won’t be unreasonable about it, knowing your reason. Is that fair?”
Jasper almost hesitated, knowing that he would be putting the twins through more pain than might be necessary if this took a long time, but he managed to push down the fear and answer in the affirmative.
After all, slow and steady wins the race.
Lingzhi turned to Jasper, his eyebrows raised in surprise at the boy’s determination. Then, after another moment of hesitation, he let out another sigh.
“Very well,” Lingzhi declared, “As of this day, the twelfth day of the eighth month of Golden Calendar year Three Hundred and Eighty-Eight, you are now my pupil.”
Jasper chuckled and walked over to the hermit, kneeling before him.
“Thank you, Master Lingzhi. I won’t fail you.”
In response to his statement, Lingzhi let out a small laugh.
“Master, huh?” he murmured, “It’s been too long since I’ve heard that.”
And so, Jasper’s training under Lingzhi began that day, the training that would surely shape his life and give him the power he needed to save the ones he loved.