Chapter 120 (1/2)

Randidly was distantly aware that Donnyton sent squads to help out their sister village, which apparently was a thing, but ultimately decided to ignore it. He had his own work to deal with, and they were adults. It was no longer solely his job to defend the village. And these opponents seemed to be on their level.

Under Mrs. Hamilton, with Lyra’s occasional assistance, the training continued to escalate. His footwork drills came under increasing strain as Lyra used more and more mana birds, moving in strange, beautiful patterns to encircle him. The weights he was forced to train with grew and grew.

Afterwards, he would have sometimes short, sometimes long conversations with Lyra, answering her one question a day for her assistance. The longest day, was, of course, when Lyra had wormed out his intimate relationship with Ace and Sydney, and asked him how he had met Sydney.

There was a short answer, that they were born next to each other in the hospital, on the same day, and there was a longer answer, that he hadn’t learned her name until his best friend, Ace, had brought this girl back to their apartment after a party, and their eyes met, both filled with recognition.

Strangely, as Randidly told this story, he found he couldn’t stop, and he told her about how the three of them had grown so close, and how a shadow had come across Sydney’s life, and it made him realize some things about his own life, culminating in him breaking up with Tessa and walking home in the underground tunnel, when the world changed.

Lyra had simply nodded, and walked away. The next day she asked him what his favorite meal was, and he answered honestly; veal cutlet with spaetzle and red cabbage. In the same manner she nodded again, and the training continued.

For the accuracy test with the hanging loops to thrust through, the spinning speed increased. Then he was no longer allowed to touch the hoop, but had to thrust through it without disturbing its motion.

The strange exercise with letters on the spinning poles grew more complicated, as a second set of letters were scrawled on the sides of the pegs, painted with a different color. Sometimes he could use both, but increasingly often he would need to use just one, or need to alternate between the two. Or Mrs. Hamilton would make up an esoteric and pointless order for the colors, and he would need to memorize that, while calculating how he could move.

Soon there were 4 colors, and more often than not, his movements led him into a dead end, where he couldn’t move forward at all. But eventually he could push through, retrying his exercises. By the end of the day, he had managed to fit in everything Mrs. Hamilton had planned, barely, and Randidly turned his focus to spells, or to meditating on his Soul Skill.

Around 2 AM, he would then go to work with Sam, slowly learning Engraving. His skill improved gradually, as he mastered, or at least managed to achieve moderate success, at controlling the flow of his mana through the needle. He successfully completed one of each type of rune they had available, slowly nearing 40%, which Sam told him would be the line to become an uncommon quality item, and therefore much more useful to the village.

Still, Randidly remained just a hair away from that line, even after several repetitions.

From dawn until Mrs. Hamilton had prepared the day’s exercises, Randidly went out by himself and created avatars of roots to practice the spear with. Form by form, detail by detail, he carefully examined how the system guided him, seeking to understand why those motions improved his skill with a spear, and to improve on that.

After two days, Randidly was forced to make a more sophisticated root avatar, so his grip and stance were more realistic, so he could continue to refine his form. A few days later, Randidly had enough control and mental strength, barely, to manage two Avatar’s at once. He pressed and pressed, working tirelessly even in his “rest” hours. After all, there was no other way for him to follow his own path of strength.

When he was called over to train, he went slightly begrudgingly, bitter and yet excited to see the impossible feats that Mrs. Hamilton would set for him. Although he hadn’t yet been physically unable to complete anything, some had come very close. And often, he would fail, and be forced to restart the exercise.

At first these failures didn’t mean anything, until one day, when a new individual arrived at the scene; a strange, hunched over and wrinkled man who looked like a turtle. For a long time, while Randidly struggled through his exercises, the man stood with Mrs. Hamilton, listening to her talking animatedly.

He spoke infrequently, but when he did, Mrs. Hamilton’s smile, which Randidly had somewhat come to dread, spread ever so slightly wider.

Finally, he completed the assigned task, and after a brief water break, walked over to the two individuals.

“This is Bert,” Mrs. Hamilton introduced the man simply. “He is from Kith Klark. Due to our assistance with a little pest problem earlier in the week, he agreed to do one favor for our Village. We have chosen to have him give you some guidance. He is, I am told, an extremely accomplished fighter.”

Randidly felt it too, there was something… slippery about the turtle man, as his eyes slowly blinked and glanced at him. When he finally spoke, what he said surprised Randidly greatly.

“You… have created a skill for yourself?”

Randidly blinked, then nodded.

The turtle smiled, and it was a small, twisted thing, and suddenly Randidly swayed, slightly dizzy, struck but a wave of battlelust from that old turtle. But then it disappeared. “I will show you the exercises I used to develop the skill that made me the most powerful warrior in Kith Klark.”

So the old turtle did a strange, scuttling dance, waving for Randidly to join. And under Mrs. Hamilton’s approving grin, he did. There were three basic exercises, each more strange and impossible than the last. They involved squats and tiptoes, and spins, and rotations.

After a single time through the first exercise, Randidly stumbled almost falling on his face, despite his high stats and his Grace skill. He shook his head in wonder.

Bert just grinned and completed his demonstration. Luckily, Mrs. Hamilton’s training had familiarized Randidly with memorization, so it was quite easy to follow the steps. They weren’t complicated, they were just designed to be impossible for legs to actually perform.

“Strength comes from the base. Do these, and your base will be strong.” Bert grunted, turning back to Randidly. “But remember, to form a skill, most important is-”

“Image.” Randidly whispered, and Bert grinned at him, and then turned and left.

Mrs. Hamilton stepped forward. “I have good news! Not only did he provide that, but he also had some suggestions as to how we can add some leg exercises to the other activities. Oh, and whenever you fail one of these training activities, you will do Bert’s dance as a punishment before continuing.”

‘God I’m tired.’ Randidly thought, eyes bright, nodding seriously at Mrs. Hamilton’s comment, his posture one of barely controlled excitement.

And although his body truly was approaching its limits, he weirdly didn’t feel tired at all. So he continued, his feet carrying him further, following his own path.

****

Glendel closed his eyes and reached for his ghosts, feeling their strange whispers all around him. It had been almost 3 weeks since the portal to Kith Klark opened. In the wake of Annie’s actions, all of the monsters from the slain Raid Bosses in the area attacked Kith Klark with a vicious anger. Donnyton decided to intervene, sending their best squads over to help the defense.

It was a long battle, but one that resulted in the villages’ victory.

More importantly, it markedly improved relations between the villages, and now people could travel freely between them. After several profuse apologies, the turtles actually led the way with lavish gifts of armor and crossbows, some reparations for their previous shortsightedness. Above all else, the Turtles appeared to value martial prowess, and had a great respect and reverence for the squads of Donnyton, especially the numerals, after their performance in the defense of Kith Klark.

Meanwhile, the Rabbits appeared more focused on cleverness and arts, and took very quickly to coffee and alcohol, two of Donnyton’s luxury exports. All were glad when Razor’s grandma was to inebriated to remain conscious at the end of every day. But unfortunately, she leapt up again in the morning, the alcohol burnt off by her vitality, to start the process again.

There was still the strange incident involving the attack against Razor, but neither side wanted to bring up the issue, so those who hadn’t forgotten simply filed it away for later. As Kith Klark slowly regained use of the surrounding areas, they provided Donnyton their own special wares. Fish, Honey, and most importantly for some, Spider Silk, which they used to create beautifully soft clothes. Even now some of the more intrepid farmers were trying to Cross Breed plants to create flowers for dyes.

Like a zombie, it looked like the fashion industry was determined to rise from the grave that the arrival of the system had placed it.

During this time, they learned a lot more about Kith Klark, their world and culture, their strange species, and the practice of choosing who you wanted to be at 15. Most interesting about their choosing a breed was that even the system recognized it; they were given a Soul Skill based on which they chose, which gave them a stats advantage in the long run.

1 on 1, it was likely that a Classer from Kith Klark was more powerful, if they were at the same level. But after weathering their tribulation and dealing with the Raid Bosses’ harassment, Kith Klark had only around 150 Classers, with about double that of NCCs. Meanwhile, with the influx of people from Franksburg, and the slow trickle of people who wanted to find out what the light pillars and villages meant, Donnyton now had around 1200 Classers, and almost 8,000 members of the village.

The Council finally found a group of decent architects, and was currently designing plans for a larger city area, if just for the market area that they needed, what with traders from both Franksburg and Kith Klark.

Franksburg had successfully weathered its own tribulation, mostly due to a monstrous effort by Lucifer, who apparently had to cut out the heart of the tribulation and eat it, in order to prevent it from regenerating.

Although their tribulation wasn’t particularly gifted in magic or illusions, their tribulation was large and almost unkillable. It took 3 days and almost 1000 lives, but Franksburg made it. And Lucifer, for his actions, earned the strangely specific class “Avenger of Franksburg”. The Freedom Fighters were very tight lipped about the details, but from the secrecy, it was easy to see that it was a powerful class.

Glendel breathed in and out again, listening to the reports from his ghosts.

Kiersty was finally released from the house arrest she had been placed under by her mother upon her return from Kith Klark, and was dancing with several children, and with most of the traders who came from Kith Klark.

For whatever reason, the Rabbits especially were fascinated with the tree, especially the 20 ft tall original planting, which was wreathed in flame most of the time, due to its boughs being thick with leaves. Although a leaf withered and fell every time someone used a skill, there were currently 8 sproutings in Donnyton, and 2 in Kith Klark, and the rate of Arbor’s Blessing spawning had increased greatly. So they came and danced, enjoying the immaculately kept park that surrounded Arbor.

Another ghost whispered, distracting Glendel. As it had been for the past weeks, Tykes stood at the base of the mountain path, gazing upwards, but still unable to muster enough Willpower to walk up and approach Raina, who went up there every morning to draw.

Her drawings were actually very popular, for portraits and scenery, but especially for the changes that she recorded over time that demonstrated the rapid evolution Donnyton was experiencing. Some painters involved in the design and construction of the new Donnyton had taken some of her sketches in order to make several great murals. They had even interviewed Donny, Sam, and some of the original Classers, getting an idea about how the valley originally looked, almost 2 months ago.

But of course, the most popular items were the sketches of the Ghosthound. These were always done in charcoal, but there were several different varieties. There was even one where he was cooking, which made people dubious, but when you looked at his eyes… Raina had a gift for shading, and in those eyes, there was darkness, rage, intensity, and more than anything, concentration. The scenes around him seemed to fade, but those eyes remained the same. And for that, people wordlessly bought the drawings, until most people had one such within their home.

What was even more shocking to people was that this masked woman, who they had thought of as a skilled drawer, announced she would be performing a musical concert. The whole town buzzed with excitement, even Kith Klark’s population was curiously optimistic about this strange “concert”. A sound system was imported from Franksburg in preparation.