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Journey back south
🕑 Added 2022-09-06 10:12:06 +0000 UTCThe girls quickly got up when they spotted Seth coming close. The sudden trip south came completely unexpected, but they couldn’t say they were not excited to see what was outside the capital. None of them besides Leora have even left the academy before.
Seth walked up to them and said: “Let’s go. We must pick someone else before leaving the city.”
The girls nodded and followed after him.
Seeing the bags they were carrying, Seth just remembered he didn’t tell them they didn’t have to pick anything, but he said nothing about it. For now, planning on having them leave the bags in the carriage.
“Teacher, who else is coming with us?”, asked Alexa as she came close to Seth.
Knowing she would probably be the only one who might have an adverse reaction to Pearl’s presence, Seth said: “It’s a refugee from the Wrath Kingdom.”
Seeing her frown, just like he expected, Seth continued: “I know your father and brothers have fought most of the surrounding kingdoms, but you should give her a chance.” He then motioned for the other girls to come closer as well, before continuing: “We’re going to pick up a girl from the Wrath Kingdom. Her name is Pearl Valdez, and her situation is quite special.”
“The king of the Wrath Kingdom captured her entire family, and she ran away, trying to escape to our kingdom. Here, the army at the border captured her and sold her as a slave for a brothel in the capital. I rescued her before anything else happened to her, but I want you all to be considerate.”
Seeing the girls nod but Alexa still frowning, he asked: “What is it, Alexa?”
“Teacher, how do you know she’s not lying? Most spies have stories like this..”
“I can’t tell you how, but I know 100% she’s not lying. I want you all to give her a chance.”
Seeing that Alexa also reluctantly agreed, Seth continued leading the way to Pearl’s inn in the outer ring. After entering the inn for ten minutes, he walked out with another person covered completely by a black cloak.
Seth looked at everyone and said: “We’ll take care of introductions on the way. Let’s make haste.”
After his words, they went to pick up the carriages from the stables and rode out of the capital. One was driven by Seth and he let Leora man the other one. After they were far enough from the capital, Seth stopped the two carriages and walked all the girls to the side.
Removing the cloak covering Pearl’s head, he quickly took care of the introductions. Caitlin seemed the most excited to see someone with pink hair and red eyes, but Pearl didn’t seem too thrilled to entertain her questions.
Once the girls calmed down somewhat, Seth dropped tens of practice wooden weapons from his storage space in the middle of the group and said: “If you thought this is a vacation, you were wrong. On the way south, everyone is going to continue training. You will choose a weapon and I will take time to teach every one of you some simple fighting techniques in the evenings. During the day, you will all run after the carriage to increase your stamina and strength.”
Everyone nodded, and Caitlin raised her hand. “Me as well, teacher?”
“Are you disabled or something? Of course you as well. Otherwise, you won’t receive any food.” Said Seth. He had long noticed how lazy Caitlin was, and he knew he could only make her work with food offerings.
After everyone agreed, Seth took the reins of the first carriage and had the girls swap on driving the second one, starting with Leora.
In the evening, after they stopped to rest for the night, the girls looked more dead than alive. After having Pearl help him create two makeshift tents for everyone to rest at night, he started his training.
Alexa was the first one who was picked for armed training and she joined Seth in the cold snow carrying a wooden sword.
“You received training from your family, didn’t you?” asked Seth.
Alexa nodded and said: “Yes. Before joining the academy, my father and brothers would always help me practice.”
“Good, show me what you got.”
Seth spent a few hours skirmishing with Alexa. Her form was alright, and it was obvious she was familiar with sword fighting, so he only gave a few pointers here and there without beating her too hard.
The only one which had any sort of armed training besides Alexa was Pearl. Since he wanted the two to eventually spar with each other, Seth asked her to join him next.
“I know your training with me until now was different, but I want you to fight with a sword.”
Pearl nodded before creating a wooden sword with creation energy and charging at Seth. Her style was a lot more aggressive than Alexa’s, but it also showed a lot more mistakes.
By the end of his spar with Pearl, she was kneeling on the cold snow while panting for breath. Her body was also covered in bruises, but these were not visible because of the long cloak she was wearing.
He went harder on her, but that was only because he had to. Her energy type didn’t give her any advantage in combat, so she had to train twice as much as the other girls if she wanted to keep up.
They continued in this rhythm for an entire month until they reached the end of the capital territory. All the girls picked a sword as their weapon, which was not completely unexpected since it was the most used weapon in the entire kingdom. Pearl also received separate lessons on knife fighting from Seth whenever he had time.
“From here on, we’ll encounter either beasts or bandits.”, said Seth as he summoned a mix of weapons for the girls and continued: “I want you to fight them off on your own. I will not step in until you’re in mortal danger, so keep that in mind. Also, try to fight one on one with them if we have the numbers advantage. This is also training.”
The girls got serious and each of them picked a weapon before running again. On the first day, they didn’t encounter any enemy, so at night Seth finally had the girls fight each other, paired by their level of proficiency. Alexa with Pearl, Leora with Rebecca, and Caitlin with Lisa.
When they encountered their first enemy, it was just a wild bear. Since it would be overkill to have all the girls fight a simple bear, Seth asked Pearl to deal with it.
Pearl rushed towards the bear with her body bent forward and one hand at her back. When the bear tried to claw her, Pearl slid on the snow underneath, right under the bear’s claw, and cut its belly open with her knife, staining the entire snow red.
As the bear had fallen to the ground and was bleeding to death, she returned to the group without saying a single word, much to Caitlin’s dismay. She liked Pearl for her adorable look and thought of her as a quiet and pretty girl, but when she saw her kill that bear without a single change in expression, her image of Pearl also changed.
They continued through the wild territories, with the girls easily dealing with each enemy. Even with Seth restricting their use of their energy, the simple bandits or wild animals were nothing more than a joke to them. The only thing Seth noticed was that with every bandit they killed, as much as they tried to hide it, the atmosphere around the camp grew somber by the day.
Some girls took it better than others, but overall, they were all affected. Even the always indifferent Leora and Pearl. Seth knew this was something they had to deal with themselves and didn’t intervene at all.
As they were taking a break halfway through the wild territories, Seth brought Lisa further away from the rest of the girls. She was also the least affected by killing other humans. Seth tried to figure out why, but not even the system had an answer.
“Teacher?” asked Lisa with a raised eyebrow when they got further away. From Seth’s serious tone, she thought she might have done something wrong and was quite anxious.
Seth stopped and said: “Don’t worry. I just wanted to see how your practice with the space energy was going. I know you girls already told each other your affinities, but I still wanted to have a space energy spar away from them.”
Creating a wooden sword, Seth threw it at the girl before making one for himself: “Come at me.”
Lisa nodded and took a deep breath. The entire space around both of them started vibrating slightly in response to their sources.
Suddenly, Lisa disappeared from the spot she was in. Seth followed her movement and also used space magic to turn around and block the slash that was coming toward him. He didn’t attack at all and kept responding to her attacks.
*Bam**Bam**Bam*
The dull sound of wood hitting wood resounded through the snowy field for about ten times before Lisa fell to the ground with a thud. Her entire face was covered in sweat, even in the chilly weather, and she was panting heavily.
Extending a hand towards her, Seth said: “That was perfect. Good work.”
Lisa’s tired face blossomed into a splendid smile and moved to grad Seth’s hand, but she slipped and fell face first in the snow. Lifting her completely red face, she smiled at Seth and said: “Oops. I slipped.”
“I can see.” Said Seth with a chuckle before lifting her himself and clearing the snow from her thick clothes. “How is your darkness training going?”
“Good. It’s the same as water.” Replied Lisa as she created two energy swords in her hands, one made of water energy and the other out of darkness energy. “Does teacher want to practice?”
“If you were to fight now that your space source is empty, you’ll probably pass out halfway through.” Replied Seth before using space magic to bring out a small warm bun from his storage space.
“Eat something and go back to the others. You can practice with Caitlin.”
Lisa canceled her swords and grabbed the bun before saying: “Teacher, Caitlin told me she can’t gather more energy inside her source, but she was too afraid you will take her food away if she told you.”
“Hehe, I know. Don’t worry about it and don’t tell her I know.”
Lisa nodded and ran away with the food.
‘System?’
<Discrepancy between life and death energy inside her source. The life and death energy is barely found in nature and she’ll need to absorb it from other living beings.>
‘Do these bandits and beasts work?’
<For now, yes, but if she only absorbs it from non-ascended, her progress would slow down.>
Seth sighed, already expecting something like this from his experience with his sources. His lust source progress also slowed down a lot, as did his perception source.
‘Are they here yet?’
<Almost. They will arrive in about one hour and 23 minutes.>
As the girls continued their group spar, Seth perched himself atop a tree and waited patiently. An hour and 23 minutes later, a notification appeared in his vision.
<The shadow corps have arrived.>
