Chapter 5: Metamorphoses (1st Phase)
A wooden ceiling greeted me when I opened my eyes. It was an unfamiliar one, with windows placed in a different area than at home.
It took a full minute to focus my eyes, which rewarded me with a wave of nausea.
"You ok?" Lime asked, he was lying on a bed beside mine. "Do you remember what happened after I was hit?" His voice was low as if afraid of knowing the truth of the events.
Images, thoughts, and memories scrolled in my mind, replaying the events in excruciating detail. My heart sped up, sweat poured out of my face and my breath breathing became fast, short bursts. My upper body shot up from lying on the bed, head moving from side to side. Finding two other beds in the room, however, they were unoccupied.
"Reigner was-was..." Breathing in and out a few times helped calm me enough to say it "he was split in half by that Highland Orc." A few more breaths tried to calm me down, "Leyla" I could not even say it, my breathing grew haggard again and this time I could not bring it under control.
"It's ok, I get it... sorry for making you think of her." He said, turning his face away.
We heard footsteps coming from outside the door. A redhead came into the room "How are you two doing?" A smaller girl reared her head around the frame of the door. Same red hair, stylized in a side ponytail.
"We are awake now so that is something, thank you for taking care of us" Lime talked to her some more after thanking her.
As for me, I laid back down on the bed staring at the roof. the image of her head being squashed on the ground played over and over.
"How long were we out?" I heard Lime ask the girl.
"It's been a day since we found you beaten bloody, the one who alerted us of it has since left the base, most likely headed to Tsige." She pointed to a corner of the room, "Your things are over there." When she was about to exit the room she had one foot to pivot and turn back to us. "Oh almost forgot, the healing comes with a bill, do you have enough to pay it, or do we bill it to someone or someplace else that can pay?"
"The Nouzen family will pay it. There is an adventurers guild here right?" I asked her, trying to keep my mind from going back to that memory.
"Ooh, the Nouzen... give me your name so they know who is using them to pay bills, and Yes there is one here. I'm guessing you completed a quest and want to turn it in here." No doubt she didn't want to take the blame for using the name.
"My name is Nouzen Entei so it'll be fine." She sighed at my name, no doubt knowing about the only son of the Nouzens, She turned around and left with the little girl.
"Let's go turn in the ears, get our reward, and get out of here." I got up and moved to get my clothes, broken sword, and a bag of ears." We still need training, the wasteland is too dangerous, too unpredictable."
"Yeah, your right let's go." Lime got up to look for his stuff but first stretched the muscles that were not used for a prolonged amount of time.
We found out we were in a two-story inn close to the guild. After a short walk there we had to report the death of 2 party members and the completion of the quest. A few silver per ear was the reward, we did kill a lot of them but lost a bag that Reigner had.
The way back was peace but they also wanted to gain more experience of the world and jobs. Thus they joined unofficially an escort of a caravan.
"The Demons will soon be on the move, we should prepare and level up as high as we can. In order to grill some demon scum." Naval the silver-haired ogre was telling me about the events outside of the wasteland and Tsige. She came here to train, and get an S-rank or higher to not have guards get in her way of killing demons.
"We need a lot of training and leveling up to be able to go up against them, We will see how our lives play out," Lime said like an idiot and staring at her ass.
"From the way you distracted so easily, I don't doubt it." She placed her hand on her estoc.
"Not to mention better equipment" I held up my broken sword. "There any great blacksmiths you recommend?"
"Best of the best smiths you will ever find is the Elder Dwarfs, but in all my travels I have never met one. This sword was crafted by one of them many generations ago, it has been a family heirloom ever since, and well since I am the last of my I get the enjoyment of gutting demons with it." She started giggling, her knees almost gave out on her at just those thoughts.
We separated at the entrance of the town, and Lime and I separated outside the orphanage. the road home left me with but the sounds of birds, at the moment this left me with a deep hollow in my heart.
I opened the door to my home and made a straight line to my room. "Welcome home Young Master." Lilith was sitting on a pillow with her knees. I gave her a small nod and continued on my way.
Inside I lay on the floor staring at the roof feeling, simmering in the loss.
The next day my father came into my room, more like barged in my room. "Time to train!! C'mon lets go lets go." I wasn't in the mood to train but knowing him, he would drag me out to train.
I once told him I wasn't in the mood, he replied "Mood? what does that have to do with fighting? You fight when the necessity arises." And he proceeded to kick my ass all over the house, when mom got home we both got a stern yelling at, I got grounded but I bet he got no access to it until He got on her good side.
And well I needed a distraction from thinking, just do a physical exercise and lose myself in it, no need to think just beat the sword motions into my body.
I the same motions for attack defense, and some footwork is all we did every time we trained, just like my mother, master a few sword forms and you master everything the sword has to offer.
For months I neglected my magic training in favor of the sword. I was trying to forget something and everybody knew it.
My muscles did not feel tired no matter how hard I pushed them, so started making 12 forms with the wooden katana I still had. Every move I made was as I was told by Lilith beautiful, like a dance. It took me months to complete the forms but I still felt something missing, something at could push my speed and power to the limit.
The smoothness of the actions with the sword kept me pondering it. Like cutting a rock with a sword, going in slow motion with the highest frames possible. That smoothness was my goal, and so I did every movement as slowly as I could and monitored every change, movement, and vibration from every muscle in my body.
It took me days to figure out that it was my breathing that could help me boost my endurance, power, speed, and even reaction to unimaginable levels without using magic. At first, I did slow breathing, took in as much air as I could over 5 seconds, and breathed it all out in 10 seconds. I trained my sword moves along with the breathing in conjunction. Then I would switch it up breathe in for 10 sec, breathe out for 5.
At first, I felt light-headed but the more I did it, the less often light-headed. I also noticed I took in more air since I started.
Lime would drop by to train with me every other day, he trained his breathing with me at the start but gave up when he did not see much improvement. We did however crate forms for his fighting style with a short sword.
My 15th birthday came along and my mother pushed harder for magic training, I kept on refusing, but her relentless insistence made me compromise. "Fine I will start training magic but only once I've mastered those sword forms I created!"
"NO! One can't master something in a year or two, it takes decades, a lifetime, maybe 2 or more. So NO!" Her 'angry' face showed up as she kept shooting Ideas down.
"Okok, how about when I turn 16 We train only magic for a year or two." This would be my final offer.
"OK!!" Her face instantly switched to a bright smile, it was like her body was now glowing with the light of the sun.
Lime had also come by to celebrate my birthday with us. That day I had a long break from training, relaxing under the sun.
The next day I was back to it, simply increasing my air intake while moving and decreasing the time it took to breathe in and out. The more I practiced it, the faster, stronger, and more precise I became. However the faster is breathe, my body gave up faster and faster so I trained a lot in one level. To the point I felt comfortable and lasted hours doing the 12 forms over and over, only then did I increase the speed of my breathing.
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Word count 1656
If there are any grammatical errors let me with a comment on the paragraph.
Thank you guys appreciate your reading so far.
I started playing punish gray raven again and wow new Alpha is awesome!!!
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