After the excruciating torture that was lunchtime, Camille returned and immediately began our Etiquette lessons. It was even more boring than the General Education lessons. She drilled into me the proper speech to use in various situations, how I should act in public while in uniform, and the professionalism I should embody when working as the Constable.
In short, Camille wanted me to become the image of the ideal and perfect Constable. She had a lot of work cut out for her.
“What do you do when you spot a serial killer walking amongst the people in a crowded public area?” Camille asked.
“Take out my axe and slice the motherfu— the killer in half.”
Camille closed her eyes as she massaged her temples for the fourth time. “No, you do not brutally kill criminals in full view of the public unless the situation is dire or if the mission demands it. If possible, always try to capture the criminal and bring them back to the Guard Barracks for proper processing. The public's perception of you is important, and it will do you no good if they see you as a mindless brute who kills at the behest of the Governor. Next question. You are investigating a noble's domicile due to suspicion of illegal activity and you find definitive evidence of his crimes. How do you arrest the guilty noble?”
“Bag the man's head and tie his hands so he couldn't draw weapons or cast some magical shenanigans.”
“No. You only do that when the noble in question actively resists arrest. When they surrender willingly, you escort the noble in a carriage without binding them and bring them to the Guard Barracks for holding, and you file the necessary paperwork for a noble's arrest.”
I found it funny how a noble still gets such lenient treatment even during an arrest while everybody else gets the blunt end of the law's hammer. To be fair, there wasn't much difference with Earth's society.
The Etiquette lessons went on for four hours, during which my mind was crammed full of information about how to interact properly with people of varying stations. In short, I had to grovel and kiss the asses of people above my rank while people below me had to be given cordial respect. As for criminals, Camille gave me permission to act like my normal, ‘stupid’ self, which I liked, but she didn't have to add stupid.
When the Etiquette lessons were finally done, Camille and I proceeded to the training hall where we saw Lance, hard at work training his spear thrusts. The young man was always serious, but when I saw him again for the first time after our conversation at the cafeteria, I noticed the hardened determination on his face.
This was the first time I had a good look at Lance's fighting style, and with one glimpse through my inexperienced eyes, I could instantly tell that Lance's mastery of the spear was leagues beyond my meager Axe Mastery. Instead of the dirty and unrefined way I handled the axe, Lance looked like he was dancing with the spear as his partner. Both man and weapon moved with a unified purpose, allowing each thrust to flow smoothly and transition to the next.
Camille and I stopped a fair distance away to not interrupt Lance's training. She had a small smile on her face as she watched. “Impressive, is he not? I was lucky when I found such an unpolished diamond in the rough.”
“Yeah. Remind me to stay in the kid's good graces.”
It was honestly disturbing to see such a young man be so proficient in the art of combat. I knew that this world was harsher than Earth and necessitated the presence of powerful warriors capable of slaying the nasty monsters lurking in the wilds, but Lance couldn't have been older than sixteen. He was practically a child soldier, trained from a young age to become the strong warrior he was now.
We didn't watch for long. Camille approached the ring where Lance was training. “The last thing I expected from my diligent student was to skip classes yesterday.”
Lance's footing went off as he heard Camille's voice. He turned to us with a sheepish expression. “Oh, teacher. I, uh, I'm sorry for skipping classes yesterday without informing you. Something, um, came up.”
Lance did his best to avoid my gaze. Asshole that I was, I piped in. “How's the situation with your girl? You made up with each other yet?”
Lance glared at me as Camille raised an eyebrow. “Oh? This is the first time I have heard of this. Who is this ‘girl’ that caught my student's heart?”
Knowing Camille's information network, I did not believe her in the slightest.
“No one! There's, uh, there's nothing between us!”
“More like there's nothing anymore,” I said, and Lance gave me a murderous gaze. “Alright, alright, I'll stop. Did my advice help, at least?”
Lance looked reluctant to respond, but he still did. “Yeah. I apologized to her. There's no more bad blood between us, though I wouldn't say we're back to our former relationship. But I'm fixing it.”
“You still haven't answered my question, my dear student,” Camille said menacingly. “Who is the girl?”
“It's a girl named Cassi,” Lance reluctantly answered.
“Oh? The old baker's daughter?” Camille asked with a smile.
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Lance looked surprised. “You know her, teacher?”
“I know everyone who works for me. Little Cassi is a sweet one, and I just might punish anyone who tries to break the poor girl's heart.”
“I-I said I'm working on it!” Lance said with panic. I could sympathize. Camille was a damn sadist when it came to training.
Camille nodded. “Good. See to it that you do. Now, enough chitchat and back to training. Bob, I want that Axe Mastery of yours to level up today. You will not leave this training hall until that happens.”
A bummer, but that works for me anyway. I don't think I want to return to my hotel room anytime soon. I don't want to find out the next surprise that the assassins had in store for me.
Over the next two hours, Camille trained us hard. She would call out the name of the basic axe forms quickly, and I had to execute it perfectly and on time or else her blade would stab me in the heart. Not lethal for me, but painful as fuck.
Lance had it hard, too. He was instructed to stand behind me and stab Camille without hitting me, all while I performed my axe forms. Every time he hit me, be it through his fault or my own, Camille would grace Lance with a tiny cut on his flesh through her gaze alone. Seems harmless enough. That is until we were an hour into our training routine and Lance was sporting dozens of those tiny cuts all over his body that must have stung like hell.
In the final hour of our hellish training, Camille increased the stakes. She would call out axe forms faster than I could execute them, and the punishment of a simple stab to the heart turned into a deep slice to my body that ravaged my innards. To make matters worse, Camille didn't wait for me to recover when I failed an axe form. She would continue calling out axe forms, expecting me to continue performing perfectly despite my grievous wounds. It came to a point when my entire body was ravaged with slashes and my regeneration had difficulty keeping up. I could even see my intestines peeking out. It didn't help that Lance was also stabbing into my back repeatedly due to my erratic movements caused by pain and injury.
Despite my predicament, Lance had it worse than me in my opinion. With the hundreds of small cuts now adorning his body, Camille switched his punishment. She retrieved a lemon from somewhere on her body, then she summoned magical ethereal blades that floated in the air like ghosts. They glowed scarlet like her hair.
She sliced the lemon and squeezed it all over the ethereal blades, then sent them to cut up Lance with shallow wounds every time he made a mistake. As soon as it started, the poor man behind me began howling with pain.
Damn, this bitch was sadistic as fuck. Creative, though, I'll give her that.
The two hours of training felt like an eternity, and when it did finally finish, Lance instantly collapsed to the ground from exhaustion and pain. His face was a mess of blood, tears, and snot.
I was in better condition than the kid. As soon as the training finished, the deep cuts all over my body began healing rapidly, though my eyeballs were gonna take a longer time to regenerate. At the very least, Camille didn't target Little Bobby this time.
The training was a nightmare, but the gains made it worth it.
[Regeneration has leveled up to Lv.5]
[Physical Resitance has leveled up to Lv.6]
[Masochist has leveled up to Lv.3]
[Axe Mastery has leveled up to Lv.4]
[Hard as Fuck has leveled up to Lv.4]
[Due to your harsh training, you have gained experience.]
That was a lot of Skill level-ups, but what caught my attention the most was the last message. I got experience from today's training, but not from yesterday's. There was also the specific word ‘harsh’ put in there, which likely meant that for me to gain experience from training alone, it had to be as hardcore as today's. And even then, I had a feeling the experience I gained was a paltry sum compared to what I get when killing monsters and people.
I shared my thoughts with Camille, who confirmed my suspicions. “Indeed, training gives very little experience in general. But make no mistake, that is the normal path to power. Not everybody can survive being burned alive and having their heart destroyed, Bob, so most people reach the levels they have now through dedicated training. It also comes with the advantage of one's Skills being high-leveled by the time their Class evolves.”
I suppose she had a good point there. I'm only three levels away from my Class Evolution, yet only two out of my eight Skills were at the second tier. I hoped I'd have the time to train them all to the second tier before I reached level 25, but considering my luck, I doubt that would happen. A man could dream, I suppose.
With the training done, Camille allowed Lance to go home, but she told me to stay for a moment. “I would have a word with you, Constable.”
As soon as she said that, Warner was suddenly seated on the bench. I startled. “Can you stop doing that?”
“If you want to stop being surprised, then start training your senses,” the old man said before turning to Camille. “So, we gonna let this oaf in on the plan?”
“Not like we have much choice,” Camille answered. “He is already aware of our actions behind the curtains, might as well put him to good use.”
“Rude to say that out loud in my face.”
Camille ignored my words as she turned back to me. “You are indeed correct that we were using you to bait the assassins out of the woodwork, and thank the Gods that it worked because we now have a possible lead of their hideout. Warner, give me your report.”
“I just got back from the diviners. The murdering buggers were difficult to track,” Warner muttered as he lit a cigarette while ignoring Camille's disapproving stare. “True to their reputation, they are masters of stealth and infiltration. The five assassins that went for Bob on their first attempt were completely trackless. No records, no paper trail, no nothing. I even had their blood analyzed by diviners, but they had protections in place to keep them invisible to divination. Now, protection measures from divination are time-intensive, and given that they tried to kill Bob a mere day after your nephew was sent to jail, they were probably special operatives Carmen already had in reserve, ready for emergency deployment like Bob's assassination.”
“I agree,” Camille said. “It makes me uncomfortable that Carmen had been funding an elite group of assassins all this time, but I suppose I should have expected that of him.”
“This next bit of intel is more concerning,” Warner said. “On their second assassination attempt, they messed up. The tenklos they sent has a footprint in the city.”
“Tenklos?” I asked.
“The tentacled bastard that poisoned you,” Warner replied. “The nasty things could concoct a variety of poisons inside their bodies depending on the situation, which they inject into their target through their claws. Anyway, the tenklos was not as careful as it thought. It was seen early yesterday morning in the city baths where it stayed for several hours. It probably didn't like staying out of its natural habitat for too long. Thanks to that, I managed to scrape a sample of its slime off the stone where it bathed and gave it to the diviners.”
Camille leaned closer with a predatory look in her eyes. “And? What did they find?”
Warner turned grim. “Carmen is hiding an entire Shadow Guild Enclave underneath his mansion.”