Chapter 9: Training

Chapter 9: Training

“First, start by hitting the targets with wind magic.”

Well, easier said than done. I had no sense at all of how to boost and compress the wind so that I would actually hit a target with it.

I felt a breeze coming from my palms, but nothing in the gym moved because of it. “Could you stand in front of me? Maybe you can tell me if you feel the wind?”

“Kayla, you are supposed to shoot something like a wind bullet. You don’t need to play my cooling fan.”

Harsh words. She acted like it was totally easy to do that. And she did not hold back telling me how stupid I was.

“Please, I need to start getting a feel for how much mana I need to use.”

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and walked in front of me with her arms crossed, obviously overreacting. Maybe she was actually afraid I was going to hurt her.

“Thank you, Master,” I said with a smile and prepared to blow some wind at her.

Our experiment began with me shooting at her, and every time she felt something, she took a step back. After about four meters, my magic no longer reached her. This was so frustrating that I began to nibble my lips.

“You need to compress the spell; if you throw too much mana into the size, it’s impossible to get the distance and speed you need.”

Thank you for stating the obvious. Has anyone ever told her that she wasn’t that good of a teacher? I knew I wasn’t exactly what you would call a great student, but telling me the solution was wrong when I didn’t even understand the process wasn’t helpful at all.

“Hah! I have an idea!” said Miko, walking over to me and grabbing my hands. “Look, right now, the mana is shooting out of your whole palm, so maybe forming some sort of barrel with your hand will help.”

She squeezed my hand until it showed the desired posture.

“Now imagine shooting it out of there, like blowing a paper ball out of a straw.” She smiled so proudly, and I need to admit, in theory, that sounded so reasonable that it could actually work.

So, I did as she said and tried to hit one of the targets. Of course, I missed, but for the first time, you could hear a swish escaping my hand.

“That sound was good. Try to hit a target from closer range.”

My next attempt came from about a meter away. I looked through my hand scope and aimed at the wooden plank Miko had placed against a bench.

To both of our surprise, I completely destroyed the upper part of the board. “And that’s why I didn’t want to get in the way!” shouted Miko behind me.

From then on, I practiced until I managed to hit a target from the starting position of today’s lesson. It was more luck than skill, but I was satisfied and felt my mana pool slowly running low.

“Ok, let’s stop for now,” said Miko, looking at the clock in the gym. We had only been training for about an hour, but using magic all the time was super exhausting. I didn’t want to imagine being trapped in a combat situation for hours.

We both sat down on the floor, and she handed me a water bottle. “Thanks.”

“Look, you’ve already made good progress. You do look insanely stupid with that hand position, and you’d actually get killed every time you had to peer through the barrel to aim, but we’ll work on that.”

“Haha…” Unfortunately, I could not think of a quick-witted answer because she was right somewhere.

“I really don’t get it; you are able to use healing magic but struggle with something like this…” Miko sighed. “What do you think about when you heal someone?”

“Not that much at all. I just imagine how the person gets better, how the pain goes away, and the wounds disappear.”

“This is crazy. And you can’t imagine an invisible ball of wind?” she giggled.

“Don’t ask me. I would love to know why I struggle so much.”

“Maybe it’s really your age. Kids don’t have such a hard time fantasizing and imagining magic in their heads.”

“Is magic really just depending on your imagination? Aren’t there any limits?” I asked.

“The only limitation you have is your mana pool and your body. I hope one day you will have the opportunity to watch Lilith use her magic. No matter what she does, it looks beautiful. Everything she comes up with is so gorgeous and deadly at the same time.”

Thinking about how magic would create anything you could imagine was really scary. Of course, it opened up the possibility of making useful things. Still, the other option scared me: what if someone created a magical nuclear explosion? Shivers ran down my spine.

“Don’t worry about it. Even Lilith probably wouldn’t be able to use world-destroying magic.”

“Did you read my mind? Is that magic, too?”

“No, I just know you.” She smiled at me, and I felt a tingle throughout my body. It’s silly how happy it makes me when she looks at me like that.

“Why are you grinning like that?” she’s asking, almost as if she feels attacked.

I felt the heat in my face and laughed slightly. “Because of you.”

We ended the break after around 15 minutes, not that my mana was replenished, but Miko had other plans with me. Because, according to Miko, there is a lot to work on me.

“How often do you go jogging?”

“Never.”

“Are you doing yoga?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe some flexibility exercises?”

“What? No.”

I was sure I had the physical fitness of an 80-year-old lady. Fortunately, I never had to use my body that much, which would change from now on.

“Ok, let us start with a warm-up,” Miko said, looking at me in disbelief.

“Just get your blood pumping, swing your arms around or something like that. I will get some equipment.”

Never before was I so happy about the fact that we were in this stuffy gym instead of outside. I am unsure if I would survive other people’s looks while I move around like that.

A minute later, Miko came back with a jumping rope. If I remember correctly, I liked to play with one as a child.

“Ok, jump for around ten minutes… I build a small parkour to simulate climbing and jumping away from attacks.”

Jumping for ten minutes sounded easy, but I had never been so wrong before.

Five minutes later, I was lying on the floor in a massive puddle of my own sweat, breathing heavily and almost suffocating.

“You wipe that yourself, you understand?” Miko said, looking somewhat disgusted. I wasn’t sure if it was my sweat or my utter failure that led to that expression.

After cleaning the floor, I felt like tackling her self-made parkour. It reminded me a lot of gym classes in school. Why exactly did we run parkours in school? When I think about it, it seems senseless.

“Ok, first you run it some rounds alone. Later, I start chasing you.”

“Understood.” I saluted and turned my attention to the beginning of the parkour. As a start signal, Miko whistled with her fingers. OMG was what I thought about that great skill of hers. When I tried to whistle with my fingers, I simply covered my hands in saliva.

Running through this construct alone was pretty easy. Of course, I slowed down before jumping on the boxes and was careful not to bump my head before crawling under the benches.

“You are so lucky that I am not stopping your time. You are a disgrace to every athlete.”

Hey, hey… wasn’t she a bit mean? If that was some strategy to motivate me, it definitely worked! I increased my pace, and so did my heart frequency.

“After you pass the start, I will chase you.”

“Ok,” I said, panting.

In fact, as I passed her, she didn’t move at all. Ah, she gives me a head start. So kind.

I looked at her face for a moment. Her eyes were still blue. So, she wasn’t planning on using magic. Why would she? Her fitness is on another level.

But then I heard the loud squeak of her shoe soles on the gym floor. I was startled, and the flight mode inside me activated. I just started running without minding my surroundings that much.

“Hey! Kayla? You left the parkour!” Miko screamed behind me.

But I didn’t care; I was in a dungeon and had to flee from this scary monster, so I simply ran away.

“I WILL GET YOU!” Oh God, did she just sound angry?

There was no chance for me to look behind, but I heard her stomping, coming closer and closer. My life flashed before my eyes.

Just when I accepted losing the race, I heard a different kind of sound, as if someone had fallen very nastily on the ground.

I stopped and looked behind me. Miko was lying on the ground, not moving. Concerned, I ran over to her to notice her trembling.

“I slipped... I slipped on your sweat!” her voice was a mixture of anger and shame.

She slowly turned around; I knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of pain, but luckily, she started laughing. “I guess you’ve won. Great job.”

“Do you need healing?” I asked cautiously.

“No thanks, I’ll wear the pain as a lesson.”

Sometimes she was really dramatic, but I liked that.

“Just leave me here and run a few more easy laps, then we’ll call it a day.”

“Yes, Master!” I shouted before breaking into a huge grin.

After I finished the workout, I actually mopped the floor. Miko assured me that it was completely normal to sweat so much. In the past, she had to do the same for the whole squad when they trained indoors.

“I’m so excited for the shower,” I said, smiling, not thinking about the obvious.

“Same.”

What did she say? Same? Like she was going to take a shower, too? In the shower room for the female students? The one without booths, where everyone can watch each other?

Calm down, Kayla!

Don’t ask me why the thought of Miko naked makes my blood boil just a little.

“Are you all right? You look a bit reddish.”

“I am great, thank you for asking.”

We were already standing at our lockers, and Miko took out her shampoo.

“Why are you watching me? Can you just take your stuff?” she raised her eyebrows, looking at me like I was a criminal.

I directed my gaze to the locker and looked inside for far too long. I silently listened to Miko undress until she entered the shower room next door. Finally, I could breathe again. I was ashamed of my behavior. Never before had I felt so stupid. Was I a woman who sexualized another woman because of her naked body?

I lightly slapped my face with both hands, undressed, and went into the shower room as well. It was full of steam. I looked up briefly to see Miko. Not because I wanted to catch a glimpse but because I didn’t want to stand too close to her.

I waited until Miko left the room. “I’ll see you in a minute. I’ll be waiting outside the gym.” She said as she walked past me. Had she noticed my strange behavior?

“Sorry that you had to wait,” I said after I arrived at Miko.

“Don’t worry, and next time you want to shower alone, just tell me.”

“I am sorry.”

“Hey, don’t mention it. Let’s get something to eat and chill in our room for the rest of the day.”

“Sounds great.”

“And we need to write your training plan. I think I have got a good idea of what you need.”

“Yeah.”

We walked towards the cafeteria building and passed some other students who surprisingly smiled at us. Some even greeted us. Hannah definitely did a good job discussing their hostile behavior with them.

“What I wanted to ask… did you have similar training to mine when you were younger?” I was asking that myself the whole time. She had to have some experience.

“No, not really similar. If you want to know about my backstory, wait until we get to our room. I don’t want to explain everything as we walk.”

“Of course, but you don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It was not that traumatic...” She giggled.

Her eyes looked a little sad for a moment, although she was smiling.

We ended up getting some sandwiches and a bottle of chocolate milk. Don’t judge me for having something like that for dinner. There is no rule that milk is just for breakfast.

We ate and wrote Lilith our daily text message in our room before Miko started with her story.

“When I got my first contract for a guild, I was not paid any money until I had completed training at a very strict school. Since I was still young and had great magical potential, a considerable amount of money was invested in my training.”

“Back then, I still had some issues… with my temper? So getting along with other students was hard, so I was taken out of the school pretty fast.”

“So, you got kicked out?”

“Right. But that was the best for all of us. I could start working inside the dungeons some years earlier as originally planned.”

Although she spoke with a smile on her face, I had a bad feeling about this story. It can’t be good to send a teenager to a place where she fights monsters. I don’t care if she became super strong and successful. Just because it worked for her doesn’t mean dozens of kids her age didn’t die because of these methods.

“You actually just wanted to know how I trained, didn’t you?” she giggled, “I’m sorry I drifted off right away.”

“Don’t worry. I’m happy to listen to your stories.”

“I appreciate it, but let’s get to the point. Almost all of my training was literally fighting all kinds of creatures. I don’t know if it was my own stupidity or the enthusiasm of youth, but I wasn’t afraid of dying at all. I feared pain a lot, so I focused on dodging and killing everything that wanted to hurt me.”

That would explain her fight against Elliot. She would have won the battle without taking a single hit if she hadn’t been distracted several times.

“So, you want to say it would be best to throw me into a dungeon right away?”

"No, as I have said many times. You are far too important to fight enemies directly. But taking you to missions like that last one was perfect. You did not have much time to think about anything. Despite your lack of experience, you saved a life because you had to.”

She began to look a little sad.

“It’s a cliché to say this, but I envy your magic. You save lives; I take them. I’m not saying I want to start sparing these creatures’ lives or that I want to quit. It’s just... I don’t know what I was getting at.” She started laughing.

"But you're taking lives to save others, don't start talking yourself down. And if you want to quit, I would support you. I'd help you find another job.... to start a new life." I meant every word, but she just looked at me and sighed.

“Kayla, you are starting to talk about the depressing stuff again…”

“You started it!”

“Nope, never.” Her smug face was so punchable. I wonder where she had that from.

“Sometimes I just want to squeeze those cheeks of yours!” I threatened her.

“Try it, but I won’t go down without a fight!”

She jumped on the bed, securing the high ground. I looked around for any weapons but found nothing suitable.

“Ok, I give up… I can’t win.” I said, letting my head hang.

“I won’t let you deceive me, hands behind your back.”

I did as she said. My chances of winning diminished, but I didn’t want to give up. But I got a bad feeling when she started unbuckling her belt.

“Wha… what are you doing?”

“Shut up, and don’t move your hands!” She went behind my back and tied my hands with her belt.

“I feel much safer now,” she said as my heart pumped at a frighteningly high rate. I wish I could say I was scared, but no. I wasn’t scared but excited in a way I never expected.

“Do you surrender?” she asked, pulling slightly on my shackles.

“I…I…Yes, I do.” I couldn’t hear my own words, as I had to concentrate on breathing.

Meanwhile, Miko walked before me and looked concerned into my face. She seemed confused and lost in thought until her face suddenly turned red.

“Damn, Kayla, I didn’t realize you were so horny!”

I am not… Am I?