25 Days out of Kret
Alexandar couldn’t help but laugh at the wide-eyed look that Alec twisted, turned and walked around with as they walked through one of the main streets of Xynhall, the town on the northside of Pearl-Spine Lake. With surprised, yet deft, steps the teen twisted out of the way of a horse-drawn carriage, noting the pearlescent sheen of the workhorses’ manes as they went past.
“Interested in the horses, Mr Dius?” Alexandar asked his charge, getting a small hum from the teen.
“I’d heard about the pearlescent coats of Xyrtahnian horses but its my first time seeing one this close…” Alec answered with a small hum, his gaze turning towards the south, where the lake could be seen in a gap between two buildings.
“You have the right idea, Mr Dius. The water of Pearl-Spine Lake is what gives the horses here their particular sheen.” The elderly adventurer explained, holding a finger up idly as he walked. “I actually tried drinking some water myself as a young man.”
“And?”
“And I had the most luscious pearlescent hair you’ve ever seen in your life! But only for a few hours before my magic purged the lakes effect from my system.” Alexandar explained, beginning in a puffed up and egotistical manner before deflating with a childish pout.
“So, drinking the lake's water can turn your hair pearlescent?”
“That’s right! I’ve even heard that there’s a few families, and local livestock, that have been drinking the water for so many generations that their hair or fur is permanently pearlescent now, even if they’ve never touched the water in their life.”
“Huh…” Alec hummed, crossing his arms loosely as he thought over that information.
The idea of magic changing the genetics of a given family or creature subspecies was hardly new or unique, look hard enough and you could practically find such mutations anywhere that you went. Yet having the cause for such a mutation right up in his face, metaphorically speaking, was something that he’d never expected to experience in his life.
Meanwhile, as Alec struggled to comprehend the majesty of the lake that sat far, far to their left, Alexandar had an idea. A wide grin stretched his features as he made a small noise and nudged the teen’s shoulder with his elbow.
“What?” Alec snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at Alexandar, his arms unfolding from their crossed state as he raised an eyebrow at the older man.
“While we look for a carriage to take us to Zenik, how about we go buy some water from the lake and take a sip?” He suggested to the teen with a playful grin and a nudge towards a random store.
“Why would we buy lake water?”
“Because most merchants make sure the waters actually safe the drink. It may be a freshwater lake but that doesn’t mean there aren’t small little buggers swimming and crawling around in there.”
Alec let out a nervous laugh as he realized the truth in the elder adventurer’s words, the mental image of him swallowing some kind of dangerous bacteria or living creature flashing through his mind for only a moment. Yet that was still long enough for him to shiver slightly and shake his head in disgust.
“Yeah ok. Buying the lake water it is.”
“Don’t worry, Mr Dius. Just this once I shall loosen my pouch strings and pay for it myself. Sound good?” Alexandar asked with a raised eyebrow and a grin, getting a self-satisfied smile in return and a small nod.
‘Leave it to a [Copper-rank] to pounce on the idea of getting something for free. Ahhh to be inexperienced and coinless once again.’ The man thought to himself, leading Alec over to a stand with a small stack of metallic flasks balanced perfectly atop its wooden surface.
“Welcome, welcome! Adventurer’s from out of town, are you?” The salesman, a rather respectable looking middle-aged man with well combed and maintained black hair and a thick pair of glasses atop the ridge of his nose.
“Indeed, we are! Business been good?” Alexandar asked, looking over the stack of flasks with an interested hum.
“Rather slow today but it occasionally happens.” The salesman shrugged, not seeming too bothered about the lack of purchases today.
Alec just stayed silent, curious about why he wasn’t too worried about the low sales but chalking it up to either a good safety net of profits, faith that it will pick back up again, or both.
“Indeed, it does. So do you have any flasks left over for my charge and I to purchase on this slow day of yours, my good fellow?”
“Of course I do, dear customer!” The salesman retorted enthusiastically, pulling two flasks out from behind his counter. “Chilled with ice magic as well for a perfectly cool and soothing beverage!”
“Haha! I knew it, that sounds perfect!” Alexandar laughed exuberantly before leaning in a little. “A little piece of advice, my good man. Enchant the flasks out the front here as well so that you can’t tell the difference between the ones with the lake water and the ones without.”
The smile on the salesman’s face never so much as twitched at the words of the elderly adventurer, but the gleam in his eyes told Alexandar all that it needed to. The man understood what he was trying to get across and was already considering the cost-benefit analysis for following Alexandar’s advice.
“Well then, a flask for yourself and for the young swordsman over here too?” The salesman continued, as if Alexandar had never spoken to him at all.
He could appreciate the professionalism on display before him, that’s for sure.
“Precisely, how much will that set me back by?”
“You both seem like good people, how about 1 silver piece each?” The salesman suggested, Alec’s eyes sliding to the sign hung on the side of the stall showing the flasks priced at 3 silver pieces each.
Of course, he knew not to argue when you got a lower price from a vendor, especially when Alexandar himself didn’t seem surprised or worried in the slightest, the man materializing two coins from, seemingly, the aether and handing them over.
“Much appreciated, dear customers. Have a good rest of the morning and afternoon!” The seated man said as the two began to walk away, getting a small nod from Alec and a slight wave from Alexandar himself.
“Alright Mr Dius. Here’s your flask. Go ahead and drink it. Go go go!” Alexandar tried to egg his charge on the moment that he handed the flask over, making the teen clutch the flask closer to his chest and frown slightly.
“You’re a child, Alexandar.”
“I’m excited, Mr Dius. Come now, try it.” He urged the teen, pushing the –closed– flask closer to the teen’s lips.
The teen scowled and whipped the flask to the side before slapping the top of the old man’s hand with his own free hand, a yelp leaving the old man’s lips as he snapped his hand back.
“Stop pressuring me and I will.” Alec grumbled, unscrewing the cap of the flask and taking a good, long, gulp of the mystical water.
After he closed the flask once more, the teen tried to look at the results, twisting his head quickly to the side to try and catch sight of his hair and seeing the very tips of his now pearlescent hair. Though just seeing that his hair was pearlescent now wasn’t enough for the teen, with him pulling his blade out of its sheath to look at himself in its reflection.
A small, high-pitched noise left the teen as he saw his reflection. Alec twisting his head left and right to get as much of a full view of his head as possible, seeing that his entire head had suddenly become abundant in ever shifting pearlescence- even his eyebrows.
“It's good to see you enjoying yourself, Mr Dius.” Alexandar said, grinning widely at the teen, who re-sheathed his sword and turned towards the older man.
“What do you mean?”
“You really haven’t realized you’ve been smiling ever since you saw your reflection?” Alexandar asked incredulously, a soft huff of laughter leaving him mid-sentence as the realization hit him.
It took Alexandar pointing it out for Alec to finally realize that he was, indeed, smiling. It wasn’t the largest smile in the world, nor was it a smile of pure, unrestrained glee. It was, however, still a smile that showed the enjoyment that the teen was having for something as simple as a change in his hair colour, temporary or not.
Very, very briefly the urge to clamp down on his enjoyment and turn away from the elderly man in a fit of embarrassed indignation surged through his every muscle and bone. Yet, the last 25 days that he had spent with the far older, and more powerful, adventurer flooded his mind.
What was wrong with having fun? The old man did it almost constantly and he was a [Tungsten-rank] adventurer, so clearly there was no reason to avoid enjoying himself. Not to mention while the old man was definitely the teasing type, he had never been malicious about it so far, even if his comments about his rank and strength burnt.
So, with the grin still on his face he just shrugged and tilted his head so that he could take a look at his still pearlescent hair.
“I hadn’t actually noticed. But it’s pretty neat, right?”
The wide grin of the older adventurer seemed to soften ever so slightly as he nodded and scratched his chin.
“Oh indeed, indeed. My dear young charge. If not for your eyes, I’d even say that it works on you.” He teased the teen, getting a small snort and roll of the eyes from said teen.
“I doubt you’d be any better, old man.” He retorted easily, continuing to walk now that he’d checked out the temporary changes to his appearance.
“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’m the king of pearlescence!”
The only response that Alexandar got was a long, loud, exaggerated yawn from the teen as he continued to walk further ahead.
“How dare you!” The mage exclaimed dramatically jogging after him to catch back up.
“Quite easily. Now we should focus on finding a carriage to bring us to Zenik, right?” The teen asked, more settled and at peace than the elderly man had ever seen him; leagues better than that anxious and somewhat snappy teen that had just left his party, that’s for certain.
“Hmmmm. Fine! But don’t think that I’ll forget this transgression, Mr Dius.”
“I’m sure you won’t Alexandar.” Alec chuckled, feeling properly, truly calm for the first time since leaving Blessed Catalyst.
And all over something as mildly amusing as pearlescent hair.
XXXxxxXXX
26 Days out of Kret
Alec stretched as he hopped out of the carriage leaning left and then right before shaking his legs out to try and get his blood circulating again after so many hours of sitting down.
The carriage that he and Alexandar was taking was a passenger carriage that routinely went from Zenik to Xynhall, passing through Grenkin –the town that Alec currently stood in– on the way. Grenkin being another town that sat on the edge of Pearl-Spine Lake with a main road that connected them following the contours of the lake’s edge.
“You really sure you’re just going to stay in the carriage the whole time?” Alec asked, turning around to look at his travelling companion as a young-ish looking couple hopped out of the back of the carriage.
“I’ve been walking for three weeks now, Mr Dius, I think I deserve some rest time now.” Alexandar sighed, as if he wasn’t a man with enough raw power to atomize everyone in the immediate vicinity and the stamina to keep up with such power. “Besides we’re only stopped here for two hours so that they can feed the horses and show off a bit.”
“Whatever you say, I’m going to go out and take a look around.”
“Have fun, Mr Dius.” Alexandar waved, seeming to relax even further into the cushioned seat of the carriage.
Travelling in such a nice carriage, with decorations and cushioning and whatnot, had cost a pretty coin compared to their regular, less comfortable, counterparts but considering it was Alexandar that was paying for such a nice ride, Alec really couldn’t complain.
The teen didn’t really have anything in particular he was planning on doing in Grenkin. However, he knew that he wanted to get his blood flowing again and wanted to see how Grenkin differed from Kret, so he simply chose a direction down the street and started walking.
The teen’s sense of direction was fairly good, above average if you asked Alec yourself, so he wasn’t too worried about losing his rough bearing as he walked. The smell of baked goods, metals, oils and so much more filled the streets as Alec walked down, unknowingly heading closer and closer to the bank of the lake itself. The size of the houses and buildings around him grew larger and more extravagant as he walked, until even the most basic of prices were high enough to make him want to hurl.
With a self-conscious look around at both the buildings and the people that he passed, the teen quickly turned down a side-street. His pace jittering between a fast walk and a jog as he did his best just to get out of such a foreign area as fast, yet casual, as possible.
At the pace that he was moving around with, it took Alec barely a few minutes before he found himself making his way down a set of cobblestone stairs, the buildings ending –rather abruptly– on the edge of the harder looking ground and making way for softer dirt and grass.
Though, of course, the harbour that he could see further down the coast of the lake didn’t seem to have the same issue.
On the softer material, where buildings and heavy carts could not go for fear of sinking and crumbling, the smaller stalls and carts had set up shop. A small market resting on the dirt closer to the town with the sandy beach virtually untouched by the greasy hands of commerce.
That very same market was where Alec found himself wasting some time, stall-hopping whenever he got bored of one or found something else to occupy his attention. The teen lamented his lack of money, since he only had a measly 3 silver and 14 copper pieces to his name, when he came across a small stall set up by the apprentice of a blacksmith.
“Even the cheapest of his blades was seven silver…” Alec sighed to himself as he walked away from the stall, leaning over to the side as he did so.
He understood that a good blade –even one made of regular, non-mana-infused, metal– was always going to cost a pretty coin but he just wished that they could be, for his own sake, a little less expensive.
“Excuse me. Hellloo.” The confident female voice, on the deeper end of the spectrum but not unnaturally so, was so close and so directed that the teen almost couldn’t stop himself from straightening back out and turning around, his eyebrow raising in curiosity.
The female in question looked to almost be Alec’s age, or failing that at least close to it, with a hand on her cocked hip and a small grin stretching her features. Though it wasn’t any of that, that Alec noticed first; No, the first thing that the teen noticed was the vaguely feline ears atop her head, followed by the rather dark pigmentation of her skin for the region, sitting somewhere around a honey beige.
The young woman had dark brown, almost black, hair with the occasional lock of hair ending in a burnt red colour, like the lock that dipped down to subtly curl just above her nose. The rest of her hair fell somewhere around her upper back in length with a strange proclivity to curl towards the ends, giving her a look that somehow combined both elegance and ferality in equal measure.
Her eyes were a burnt, dusty red highly similar to the highlights in her hair and seemed to sparkle with an almost excited gleam as she greeted him. The young woman almost looking straight ahead at him, as she only stood a mere 7 centimeters below him at 167cm in height. The majority of her body was hidden by a worn, but undeniably expensive and well-made, travelers’ cloak with its hood pulled down.
“Hello. Can I…help you?” He asked, vaguely cautious of her as he asked his question.
He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something about her just screamed danger to the teen. It wasn’t overt like with Crowell or nerve-wracking like the Guild Guards, but more akin to how his instincts told him that Alexandar was dangerous, only far less potently.
“I hope so. I’m Calliope, nice to meet you.” She introduced herself quickly, getting a half-formed, equally as quick introduction from Alec in return. “And I was wondering if you were an adventurer, by chance?”
The way that her gaze dipped to his cuirass and blade told him that she was already fairly certain in her judgement, but he couldn’t fault her for asking just to be sure. There were many, many strange things in the Twin-Continents and mistaking someone for a low-level adventurer like him would be far from the strangest thing to occur.
“I am.” He nodded, shifting his weight idly as he talked.
“Mind if I ask what rank you happen to be, Alec?” Calliope asked, leaning forward slightly with a wider grin that happened to show her slightly sharper than average teeth.
The teen had to fight from showing his displeasure as he answered, and even then, he was fairly certain that he did a terrible job at hiding it.
“Copper.”
Calliope’s eyes widened, her ears standing straight up in surprise, or alarm, as she realized what he had said. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting such an answer and Alec honestly couldn’t blame her, it was rare to find [Copper-rank]’s that left their home city or town, let alone travelled like he had done.
After the journey that he had, had just to get to this point, he understood alarmingly well just why that was. Without the aid of a higher-ranking adventurer like Alexandar, the chances of a [Copper-rank] going from one country to another and living to tell the tale were disturbingly low.
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“I see.” Her ears flattened out a little from their alarmed state and her forefinger and thumb came to her chin, her eyes going flat as she seemed to fall into a brief moment of deep thought.
Alec let her have her moment of thought, his eyes trailing the surrounding marketplace idly in an effort not to stare at Calliope as she thought over whatever was going through her mind.
Calliope was undeniably someone that came from money or had a lot of it at her disposal. Which either –most likely– made her a noble, an adventurer, or both. None of the people around them seemed to be paying Calliope any particular notice except for what was to be expected for a woman with a face as pretty as hers undeniably was, so that tipped the scales further towards foreign nobility.
Say what you will, but adventurers with the kind of funds to buy a cloak as well-made as hers, unless she saved for a while to buy it, were generally known by at least a portion of a town with a populous as large as Grenkin.
“I see. Well, no matter, I was hoping to get my blood flowing a little bit and was wondering if you’d be willing to spar? Of course, with you being an adventurer I’m happy to pay you to take some time out of your day for this request.” Calliope offered an innocent smile crossing her features as she leant forward and to the side slightly, clasping her hands behind her back based on what little of her posture he could see beneath the cloak.
“You’d be willing to pay me for a spar?” Alec asked, unable to hide his surprise at such a turn of events.
He’d never have guessed that someone would ever pay him to have a spar with them, let alone in some random –large, but random– town on his way to the capital of Xyrtah. In his surprise, he never noticed the way that Calliope’s eyes seemed to travel over his clothes and adventuring gear critically, her fingers curling and uncurling in a small pattern seemingly only known to herself before her gaze returned back to his face.
“Of course. How does…five silver sound?” She offered, her grin seeming to sharpen a little as Alec made a choking sound in response.
‘Alright that pretty much rules out nobility.’ He thought to himself as he pounded his fist on his chest twice to try and get his breathing back under control.
How had Alec come to this conclusion, one might ask? Rather simply, he had absolutely zero experience with nobility of any sort apart from stories; where a rather common theme, and recurring joke, was that none of them had any idea what sort of money regular people and adventurers made and worked on.
Of course, logically, Alec knew that not everyone of true nobility would fit nicely into that same stereotypical mould, but knowledge and experience were not the same things.
Alec had known that a Dune Worm was dangerous before leaving Blessed Catalyst, after all. He now looked back on his past self and laughed at the naivety that he had left the city with.
“Uh, yeah. Absolutely. I have an hour and a bit to kill.” He said, trying to regain his composure and straighten himself back out.
And action which seemed to amuse Calliope highly, if the gleam in her eyes was any indication, though he really couldn’t blame her in this circumstance.
“Awesome! Let’s head out of the market before we start, hm?” He grinned and jabbed a thumb off to the side, gesturing for him to follow as she started walking.
With a small shrug, mostly to himself since Calliope was turned away from him, he followed after her. Being led outside of the market and to a more open, empty area that they could safely spar in.
At least Alec hoped they could safely spar here. He knew that his own attacks would be fine, but he had no idea where Calliope sat in terms of strength or technique.
“Alright, a simple three count should suffice, right?” Calliope asked, taking a pointed last step before spinning on her heel to face Alec as he came to a stop in time with her.
“A three- what now?” The blue haired teen asked, tilting his head to the side.
“A three count, to start the spar. I count to three and only after that can either of us move or attack.” Calliope explained, somehow both patient and amused with his lack of knowledge.
“Ah. Yeah, that’s fine.” Alec nodded, reaching for the blade at his side as Calliope’s own magic coalesced in the palm of her hand that she held outstretched from her form.
Simultaneously, through pure chance, both teens grabbed their weapons at the exact same moment. Alec’s fingers curling around the barely wrapped metal of his own hilt as the pristine blade of Calliope materialized in her own grip.
!!!
Both fighters leapt away from each other in an instant, but while Calliope only went a meter or two back in her retreat, Alec launched himself as far as he could go in a single leap. The teen sliding to a halt almost five whole meters from his starting position and a bead of cold sweat forming on his temple.
Both Alec and Calliope, unknown to each other, possessed instincts far removed from those of the average adventurer, let alone the average civilian. But the actions of the other, an almost mirror copy of their own, surprised the both of them. Neither teen having ever met someone with instincts as fine tuned as their own, naturally or through experience.
Yet, in the wake of this realization, while Alec only widened his eyes in awe and surprise, Calliope’s reaction was far different. Her animal ears perking up and her lips stretching into a sharp grin as her pupils seemed to dilate ever so slightly in response to her realization.
“I see. Maybe you’re a good candidate.” She muttered to herself, well outside of Alec’s earshot, before speaking up once more. “So, a three-count start and the first to draw blood or force a surrender?”
“That sounds good. Ready when you are.” Alec nodded, drawing his blade completely and holding it in a basic stance.
The stance wasn’t bad, it had no glaring holes in it, was well balanced and kept his blade in a centralized position, yet Calliope couldn’t help but hate it. For as much as she had been expecting following the involuntary retreat of her own body in response to him grabbing his sword, a stance like this certainly wasn’t it.
Sliding one foot back and leaning her weight primarily on her back leg, the girl clutched the hilt of her blade with both hands and held it perfectly parallel to the ground with the tip pointed directly towards Alec. Her blade a well-made product with a straight, double-edged, blade of about 80cm met at the base with a vaguely burnt-red metal guard composed of two thick arms that had a slight upward curve to them. All in all it was a fantastic blade for a mid-level adventurer, likely a Silver or Gold.
Which also, annoyingly, put her well out of Alec’s ability to properly combat. But he’d been dealing with [Tungsten-rank] Alexandar for close to a month now so getting his ass kicked by a Silver or Gold wouldn’t be quite as bad.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
The moment that the count was finished, Alec shot forward, attempting to take the initiative in this impromptu spar of theirs. He didn’t need to beat her –the idea of drawing a surrender out of a stronger opponent was well outside of Alec’s abilities– he only needed to be the first to draw blood, so long as he did that, he would be considered the victor of this bout.
Calliope’s eyes blew wide in eagerness, the girl launching herself forward as well and leveraging her grip on her blade to arc it upwards once she got within range. A couple of blue hairs floated past Alec’s eyes as he ground his feet into the grass and lurched back to avoid the sudden ascending slash. The swordsman brought his blade down towards Calliope as her blade raised above his head, only for her to twist her wrists and swing the blade in a conical arc to bring it right back around and impact with Alec’s. A couple sparks showering the grass to Alec’s right as he threw her blade to the side and leant to the side to avoid the foot that she shot at his chin, doing an almost perfect standing split as she did so.
“Hey, hey. Nice moves for a Copper.” Calliope grinned, attempting to bring her heel down on his shoulder now that he’d dodged, only to have to abort her attack and lurch back herself to avoid a thrust aimed at her right shoulder.
“But where’s the flair, the strength? You aren’t holding back on me now, are you?” She continued, kicking off the ground and backstepping a few meters in only a few taps of the ground to put some more space between them once more.
“Ah, you can sense that. Sorry, it’s still not instinct to jump straight towards using mana.” Alec apologized, his mana thrumming through his body, flowing down into his blade and slowly filling it.
‘That look on his face…’ The girl’s eyes narrowed as she readied her blade once more.
“Alec. Do you not enjoy fighting?”
“Hm, not really. It’s something that’s necessary and that’s about it.” Alec shrugged; his own blade pointed towards Calliope as he answered her question, his guard barely lowering as he spoke.
“Huh…Do you enjoy the art of swordplay, then?”
“No…?” Alec raised his eyebrow in confusion at the sudden line of questioning from the girl, a memory niggling at the back of his mind.
“Ah. That’s disappointing. You’ll never really grow if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, after all.”
XXXxxxXXX
“There’s no passion behind your swings, Mr Dius. I may not be a master of the blade myself, but I’ve met many skilled swordsmen and the difference between the good ones and the extraordinary ones is leagues apart.”
“So, because I don’t have passion, I can’t reach that upper level?” Alec asked, tilting his head to the side a little.
“You’re nearly there, but not quite. You go through the motions like you’re expected to be good with a blade. I can tell just from the way you swing and move with your blade that you hold no real love or reverence for swordfighting.”
“Not really. My qualification is [Swordmaster]. The moment I figured that out, I picked up a blade and here we are.” Alec gestured around him, to the ‘defensive walls’ the Dune Worms corpse made around the two.
“Exactly. You didn’t pick up a blade because you wanted to or needed to. You picked it up because you were expected to. I’m not saying you can’t grow to become an immensely skillful young man, of course not. But my personal belief is that if you do not enjoy something, you cannot reach its zenith.”
“How am I meant to enjoy fighting with a blade?” Alec asked, both curiously and a little snipped at the idea of being told he’d never reach his full potential.
“I don’t know. I’ve never found that enjoyment myself.” Alexandar shrugged, getting a twitch of Alec’s eyebrow, “That’s entirely for you to decide or discover, I’m sure you’ll know when you do.”
XXXxxxXXX
“I’m getting déjà vu…” Alec muttered to himself, his eye twitching.
“Who knows, maybe I’ll be the one to teach you that enjoyment. That’d be great, right?” Calliope grinned before launching herself forward even faster than before, bearing down on Alec in fractions of a second.
Blade met blade and sparks showered the grass once again, the two combatants beginning to fight at a faster and more brutal pace. The elated expression on Calliope’s face was only countered by the cold, concentrated expression on Alec’s. Fire and Ice meeting in a brilliant display of skill, reflexes and instincts.
‘Shit!’ Alec deflected two strikes aimed at his arms and hopped over a leg sweep from Calliope.
‘I knew she was stronger but she’s totally toying with me!’ While he was in the air, Calliope shot up to him with barely a flex of her ankles, clashing blades with him once more and grinning widely.
“So, you can block even with your posture and grounding this non-existent? Well done!”
The two of them pushed against each other and split apart as they landed on the ground, Alec narrowing his eyes at Calliope as she twirled her blade in a fancy display while swaying from side to side.
‘This feeling. The ferociousness in her attacks and how unrelenting they are. They all feel like…’
“…Lion.” Alec muttered to himself, finishing off his own thought, and making the girl across from him perk up as one of her ears twitched.
“Oh? Is that what you were doing the whole time, trying to figure out what type of beast-kin I am?” She chuckled, getting a clenching of Alec’s fist around the hilt of his blade at the perceived slight against his skill. “Well, you got it right. I’m a lion beast-kin, congratulations.” She chuckled, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
She couldn’t believe that he was taking the time during a spar like this to think about something so stupid. Perhaps considering him as a candidate was out of the-
Mana emanated from Alec in a small shockwave, causing Calliope’s eyes to snap open in an instant, her pupils the size of pinpricks as she felt the sudden surge. She’d let her guard down for a single moment and he’d gone for a Power Stance?
Well, that showed her what she got for underestimating her own gut, that’s for sure.
The tip of Alec’s blade was in her face in a single instant, the speed of his kick-off and the power inlaid in his blade setting all of Calliope’s instincts off in a catastrophic explosion of mental static.
CLANG!
Calliope’s left arm was thrown out wide alongside her blade, having deflected the tip of her opponent’s blade before it could make contact, her body tilting back as she did her best to backpedal amidst her deflection. She should have reacted better than this, she should have already been far out of his reach, and usually she would have been, but the teen had been smart. He’d struck when her guard was down and used what must have been the most dangerous Power Stance in his arsenal to do so, guaranteeing her instinctual response.
But the Power Stance had only been step one of his plan. Alec had never expected to hit with a strike as large and in your face as Tyrius’ Fortress Piercer, no that had merely been the setup.
The goal of this spar wasn’t to win, it was to draw blood. And Alec’s mana attribute was, arguably, the absolute best at doing precisely that.
In a single instant, as much mana as Alec could pull forth pooled in his left palm as he reached out for Calliope, letting his right arm –and blade– be thrown off course with the full force of her deflection to help him reach for her faster. The lioness raising her right arm to let him grab it before raising her leg off the ground once more and snapping it into his ribs, throwing him across the grass-covered clearing.
Calliope let out a heavy breath while clenching her right fist at her side, her expression nothing short of elated at the plan that Alec had just managed to pull off. Though that elation died a quick, painful death a second later as a pained groan left the dust cloud that had once been a flying blue-haired swordsman.
“Shit. Alec are you ok?” Calliope’s blade disappeared in a quick flash of light and she ran into the dust cloud, swiping her arm to clear some of the nearby dust.
The sight that greeted her wasn’t exactly the prettiest in the entire world, one of Alec’s eyes closed tightly in pain as blood ran down his chin and stained the top of his shirt and cuirass. The defensive armament torn and broken in a way that it simply couldn’t be repaired by anything short of a miracle, and sadly neither of them had access to such a thing.
“N-Not dying.” Alec coughed, clearly in pain. “L-Looks like even a-a cheap cuirass c-can save your life, huh?”
Calliope didn’t say anything in response to his words, just grabbing the cuirass and tearing it off, reducing it to its base leather strips in the process but at least allowing her to get a better view of the injury that she had given him through the torn hole where her foot had made contact.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. I got a little too into the fight at the end there.” She apologized, a genuinely sincere –and embarrassed– smile crossing her expression as a green magic circle lit up her hands.
The relief of the healing magic was clearly evident in the way that Alec visibly relaxed on the grass as she started her administration, his own hand raising to his side and his fingers twitching, another green magic circle lighting to life.
With the two of them working together to heal Alec’s wound, the injuries began to mend themselves quickly; though seeing the way that Alec was using his own spell, Calliope couldn’t help but speak the question that came to her mind.
“Why are you healing yourself like that?”
“I-It’s what my companion taught me….Focus on the tertiary structures surrounding the man injury and get them working again so that they can aid in the recovery.”
“Not sure that’s sound advice for some of the injuries an adventurer could pick up on a quest.” Calliope scoffed playfully, though she couldn’t help but see the wisdom in that particular usage of healing magic.
“Yeah, but this one wasn’t going to kill me. It just means im in pain for a bit longer to save on mana usage…”
“Not a bad trade off.”
“Uh huh…Also, I win.”
“Huh??” Calliope’s spell cut out entirely for a moment as she turned her gaze to Alec’s face, though she quickly recast it when she saw the way that his face twisted up in pain.
“Your arm.” He explained, pointing to her right arm with his own.
The girls gaze moved down to her arm per his request, only to widen and blink owlishly for a second before she bust out laughing so hard Alec was worried that she was going to pop a rib herself.
“HAH! Well done. Looks like you did manage to win after all. Congratulations, Alec.”
“Heh, yeah. No problem. Now please focus on helping me.”
“I’ll focus on what I want to, thank you.” She smirked, purposefully cutting off her spell for a few seconds.
“Owwwww.”
XXXxxxXXX
45 minutes later, With Alexandar
The sound of someone sitting next to Alexandar got a short hum from him as he cracked an eye open and saw Alec. The teen missing his cuirass and now wearing a brand-new shirt that the elderly adventurer absolutely knew the teen couldn’t afford.
“You didn’t steal that did you, Mr Dius?” He teased the teen, smiling widely.
“Wha- of course not. Someone else bought it for me.”
“And why, exactly, would they do that for a grumpy-pants like you, hm?”
“Now you don’t get to know.”
“Wha- Mr Dius! You can’t just dangle a juicy story like that in front of my face and then take it away!” Alexandar gasped, sitting upright with a scandalized expression.
“Too bad. Just did. Now if you excuse me I’m pretty tired so I’m just gonn-“ Alec muttered, shifting a little to try and get comfortable, only to pass out the second that he managed to find something even half resembling a stable condition.
Alexandar just stared at the teen for a second, sensing his low mana reserves and the subtle, lingering remnants of healing magic around the left side of his torso, a small –gentle– smile coming to his features as he just groaned and adjusted himself in his seat.
“I look away from you for two hours and you get into something exciting huh? Whatever am I to do with you, Mr Dius?”
Alec let out a long, slow breath as he slept.
“You’re right. Its better to leave you unattended, I get more funny stories.”
XXXxxxXXX
Meanwhile, with Calliope
Calliope entered her hotel room, sighing lowly at the lightly armoured figure that fell to a single knee the moment that she closed the door behind her.
“My lady, you have returned safe and well.”
“I have, you can stop kneeling now.” She hummed, almost uncaringly as she walked over to the end of her bed, spun on the ball of her foot and sat down animatedly.
“Of course.” The figure said, chuckling a little beneath their helmet.
“You know that you don’t have to kneel to greet me.”
“It was the orders of your mother, My lady. I cannot disobey them.”
Calliope just rolled her eyes at the response, this was the 84th time they’d had this conversation since they had left her home, so she’d already been expecting it, as much as she wanted the answer to change. Yes, she had been counting.
“Was your walk around the town eventful, My lady?”
“You could say that. I need you to look into a [Copper-rank] adventurer for me. A swordsman with blue hair, goes by the name Alec.”
“H-Huh!?”
Calliope didn’t react at all to the armoured figure’s shock, merely grabbing an apple from a bowl next to her bed and beginning to eat it in a relaxed manner.
“We spent three weeks in Zenik and you didn’t find a single worthy candidate and now you’re saying that a [Copper-rank] caught your eye, My lady?”
“That’s indeed what I’m saying.” She hummed, almost smugly, as she took another bite of her apple. “It has nothing to do with his power, that can always increase. He has the instincts and goal prioritization that I’m looking for.”
“Then…why not extend the offer right then, My lady?”
“Because I may not care about how strong he is to be a candidate, but I can’t exactly expect a ‘Copper’ to handle the responsibilities bestowed upon them.” She snorted, rolling her eyes shallowly. “Besides, mum and dad would blow a fuse if I picked one Copper off the streets with no backing and no achievements to their name. Best to let him work his way up himself before extending the offer.”
“I see…you’ve thought this through.”
“Of course I have. I want him to be the next Legio Imperia, after all.” She smirked at her guard, resting back on her free hand while crossing her legs.
“I see…I shall look into him then, My lady.”
“Thank you Canael, I’m sure you’ll do good work as always.”
“I try.”