"We should get someone to manage them. Is there any spare personnel?"

"I doubt this, Paul. We should hire someone new."

"We will work on this."

"It's better you do this soon. Instead of training, I was actually tasked with management."

"Patrice, I know you don't like paperwork, but you are the only one I can trust with inspecting our branches."

"Yeah-yeah." Patrice shook his head in defeat.

"Erm, Paul, sir, Patrice, it's good to see you." as I heard a piece of their dialogue, I decided that it would be better to make my presence noticed. Greeting them, I nodded to the remaining people.

"Erlig…" Paul paused for a second as he looked at me. "Finished training for the day?" he smiled.

"Actually, I wanted to talk with you one on one. But of course, only if it's possible." I probably moved unnaturally with my joints still being rigid, but my hand still went after the scar on my nose to rub it.

"One on one?" Taken aback by my sudden question, he looked to the side and saw his entourage nodding at him.

"You go ahead and talk with the boy. We can wait. It's not like everything will fall out of place if we spare ten minutes." Patrice got himself involved as he rubbed his chin, turning his gaze from my sorry figure to Paul and then back to me. "If it's something serious, you can talk in Paul's office."

Paul hesitated for a second but eventually, he gave up. Leading me, he went through the gym towards his office.

"Are you actually that lenient to everyone, sir?"

"Lenient?" As he was walking first, I couldn't see his face, so I couldn't judge his reaction. "What do you think?"

"I think all of you are too kind to be true."

"Hehe," He chuckled, "I can ask you a question in return. What kind of people you expected to meet here. And what kind of people you met to think we are too good."

We arrived at our destination soon without the possibility to continue our conversation. Paul opened an inconspicuous-looking door. Honestly, if it wasn't for him, I would never know this door even existed. Proceeding inside, I saw a small staircase leading upwards. And another door. This time an opened one.

Going up the stairs, we walked to a small room filled to the brim with papers that were not organized. A small window was hidden with shutters. A modest desk had a mountain of unsorted paperwork mess on it. A single couch standing on the side of the room had some boxes on it. A small cupboard had a teapot with a box of instant tea and paper cups.

This place looked like it was ransacked by thieves.

"Sorry that you are seeing it like this. We moved all of the actual working papers to the office we rent. Thus this place became something akin to a storehouse of ours." He looked around and traced the windowsill with his finger. Seeing a lot of dust gathered on his finger, he scrunched up his face.

"I don't mind it. I didn't come here with an official appointment." I tried to shrug, but my shoulders didn't listen to me, so I probably made a weird gesture.

Walking towards the cupboard, Paul looked at me, "Want some tea?"

"I will pass."

Taking the lid off, he looked inside the teapot. Wincing, he put everything back. "I think I will pass as well." He had a strained smile. Dusting off his hands, he smoothed his sideburns with the base of his palms. "Anything happened? You look rather off." He crossed his hands.

"Training happened, Tatiana happened, and then Bill plus Johnny."

"Hah. Those brats, I let them run for far too long," Paul shook his head, smirking, "We need to reign them a bit, don't you think so?"

"I don't know. I think they are good as they are."

Paul's expression dimmed. "I thought that at least you would understand me, but alas. All of you young-uns are sticking close to each other."

"I don't know about others, but I mostly think that they help me a lot."

"Help a lot?" he cast a deep gaze and scanned me for a while. Doing so his gaze soon grew unfocused as he was looking through me rather than at me. "I guess they are helping you. As for Tatiana, I never thought you will actually hook up with her. After all, she is rather hardcore. There were more times than I wanted when she made a few promising athletes quit our team."

"Jessie introduced us, and at that moment, I thought somewhat similar to those whom you said quit."

"Then…"

"Then something changed, and now I greatly appreciate her help."

"That is great."

"The thing that is changed is actually the reason I wanted to talk to you. I decided to take fighting seriously."

"Great." There was no strong reaction in Paul's expression. In fact, he looked like he already heard this from me at least a dozen times.

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"And I wanted to ask you for some help. Not a help, actually…" I shook my head. My eyes darted here and there while I tried to think of how to say this. "It's more of a favor?"

"Hmm." Paul's eyebrows creased, yet he motioned for me to continue.

"I want to take my training up a notch. That's why I asked Tatiana. But it's not all. I wanted to have a lot of official fights…" Before Paul could nod, I interjected once more. "But I want it to be as low-key as it can possibly be." I was staring at Paul intently, waiting for his answer.

Looking at him properly for the first time... Paul was... old.

His face had wrinkles all around. Though his sideburns were taken care of, his short, neatly combed black hair was slowly but surely turning grey. His bushy eyebrows were currently furrowed. Even though his face looked squarish, through his dark eyes, an energetic mind could be seen. All while his tracksuit with a logo of team Brave and Bold couldn't hide the fact that his body was in top condition.

We stood in silence for some time.

Paul's eyes rounded up at first before he squinted them, his eyebrows almost connecting as they creased. He appeared deep in thought.

"Why though?" Finally, he asked me, but his face was still pointing down.

"This... I would prefer not to tell. I would say that I don't want certain people to catch a whiff of what I'm actually doing."

"But I remember you asking about money. Staying low-key you won't get high payment."

"That is of no concern. I've talked with my parents, and they said it's okay to take things slowly." Giving him a straight lie was uncomfortable, but with all of my muscles barely moving, I won't expose myself…probably…

"An unusual favor, I must say."

"Oh, but it won't be for long. I just want to get some experience at first. A month and a half, maybe two? I want to fight as much as I can."

"Hoouuu…" He smoothed his sideburns again. "I will only ask you one thing." His eyes peered straight into mine, and I could feel the air around us getting denser. His pupils were blazing, and I saw the seriousness and graveness in his eyes. "Are you plotting something with this? Like getting into some illegal thing. Because if I knew that's what you are after…"

"No." I interrupted him with a single word. I didn't expect it myself, but it came a lot steadier than I thought.

In the end, I never thought of any of my actions as being criminal-like. Fighting with gangsters? Self-defense. Underground facility? Earning money with those who went there willingly.

The only criminal thing I did was related to Violetta, but there was no fighting involved there.

"I'm not planning anything like that. I can't see myself fighting just to bully the weak. It will be either used in official matches, to better myself, or in self-defense. Only righteous intentions." Saying this not a single muscle wavered. My voice was steady, and my gaze was unshaken.

"Than I will believe in my daughter's judgment." Paul mellowed after hearing my response. "I will try to comply with this. But don't expect as much. It doesn't work as you imagine. Eventually, you will be pushed into the limelight. With your mindset and your potential, I can see it happening."

"Stall this moment for me." I put my hands behind my back.

"I didn't think I would say this to anyone. Boys and girls of your age are all striving for this… yet you..." Answering me, Paul shook his head in exasperation, "No matter how hard the light will shine on you, we will make it dim as much as we can."

"Thanks a lot."

He waved his hand at me. "Don't bother. I will think of this as a long-term investment. Thus, we should sort out the remaining things."

"???" With much difficulty, my head tilted sideways.

"We had a lot of stuff happening, and we neglected some of our fighters. As you know, to prepare for the fights you need a full camp. Which means a personal physical coach, wrestling coach, striking coach, and a head trainer who will make a game plan for all your upcoming matches."

"I haven't thought about this…

Striking and wrestling, yes, but a head coach?"

Paul smoothed his sideburns. "As your opposition won't be all that amazing, I guess we can be content with Tatiana as your physical training coach. She doesn't have anything on her schedule, so it will be alright. Your striking will be supervised by Patrice. I know that you started training with him because of Jessie. Yet he is quite busy…" He rubbed his chin.

"I think I heard of this."

"Exactly." Paul nodded. "So we should balance it somehow, right?"

"Right?"

An expression of contemplation soon was replaced by a playful smile. "I think I can train two people at the time. Jessie will train your wrestling ability. Oh? You aren't surprised?"

"I kind of saw this coming. After all, it was her who wanted to train me in the first place. Right now, I am confident enough in my abilities to actually get training through her."

"Hoh, that's great then. She will help you with game plans and wrestling. She would as well supervise your training. With this, she will get coaching experience, and you would get a beautiful partner. How about this?" He smiled.

"…"

"…"

"Ahem, anyway. We will sort everything out in a few days," Paul turned around and started rustling with the paper that laid on the desk. "By the way, you got the results of your evaluation?"

"Yeah." I guess?

After finishing talking with Paul, I felt that a huge stone was lifted from my shoulders. Feeling my muscles slowly getting alive, I walked to the shower for the third time this day. I also felt the muscle pain getting back.

Turning the coldest water in the shower on, I walked out after ten minutes, with my clothes changed. Looking at the time, it was a few hours past midday. Taking all the time I needed to do before meeting Mara today into consideration, I calculated that I need to get back home now.

Looking for Annie, I saw her doing a most basic, light exercise with the help of Tatiana. Both of them laughing. For some reason, Jessie looked sour. Walking closer, I heard Jessie trying to cheer for them, but her expression was somewhat unnatural.

Did something happen?

"You are doing well here?"

"Oh Erlig, you've come at the perfect timing." Tatiana walked towards me, huffing. She was clearly overly excited with how her eyes sparkled. "Your mother asked for a few exercises, but because she doesn't have the appropriate clothes, it's hard for her."

I looked at Annie, who stood with her cheeks rosy in color from exercising. A simple sweater and a pair of jeans. Yeah, not something you would find comfortable training clothes.

"So, why don't you show her how it's done properly?"

My brain had a short circuit for a moment. "I can't though?" Seeing how fervent Tatiana looked, I looked at Jessie for some help.

"Tanya, I think it's about time they go home. Look, Erlig is already in his everyday clothes."

"He is?" Tatiana examined me, and her expression dimmed. "Oh, yeah… Can't you stay for more time, though?"

Why was she even asking this?

"Tanya, I should really go now." Annie walked to my side. She has already taken her winter coat from me and put it on. "I still have some chores to do." She smiled softly.

Hearing her words Tatiana's expression dimmed further. "But miss Grimes can always visit us again, right?"

"Right?" Tatiana's spirit rose once more.

Annie looked at me, and I could only shrug my stiff shoulders. "If you want to, and it's allowed..."

"Then it's decided." Jessie walked between me, Annie, and Tatiana. She beamed at the three of us.

I tried to ask her if anything happened with my eyes, but she avoided looking at me for some reason. Giving up, I turned to face my stepmother.

"Should we go?"

"Yes, let's go."

Saying goodbyes, we made our way back home without any trouble. On our way home, I helped Annie carry the groceries and ended up in a bath full of icy water. Feeling all my muscles loosen, I almost fell asleep but was woken up by Annie. Having a light dinner, I went back to my room and saw that my phone got a missed message.

I already knew that it was from Mara, so I didn't get too surprised when I saw the content.

"I'm at your front door."