31 A Concerned Natalia

"You look quite spent."

It was already afternoon and Natalia was squatting down outside the training ground, staring at the young man lying on the ground next to her whose body was full of bruises. His clothes were dirty and torn in several places, looking like rags instead.

"I am spent. But it's normal after a day of training," Drai responded without moving. He was heavily breathing, trying to recover his stamina and strength after his rigorous training sessions during the Body Transformation 1 class.

"Normal? How is looking like a beggar who just got beaten up normal? You're the only one who came out like this, you know?"

Drai waited until his breathing was a bit more stable before responding to Natalia.

"Well, it's normal for me. That's why I usually train without clothes, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to do that here. After all, some people can overreact when they see too much skin. I remember getting yelled at by some old ladies when I had just started training my fire resistance. They said something like, "Cover up your ass or we'll call the police!" and, "You want to get spanked that badly, Son?" Can you believe it? How was I supposed to train my butt's resistance if I wear pants? Not to mention my pants would probably burn too."

Natalia could only purse her lips in grimace upon hearing Drai's horror story. She even began to suspect that Drai had actually been in jail before due to his lack of common sense.

"Drai… If I could, I'd add 'common sense' as a subject in your private lessons, but I think that's too much for me," Natalia weakly said in resignation.

"Huh? Why?" Drai exclaimed in confusion.

Natalia just shook her head and patted Drai's forehead.

"Forget it. Just focus on recovering so we can head back soon. It's getting dark and we're the only ones left here," Natalia said as she glanced at the deserted surroundings.

Drai nodded and continued recuperating. Meanwhile, Natalia was caught in thoughts.

'This thing is normal for him? Will he even be fit enough to attend tomorrow's classes? Luckily, there will only be theoretical classes tomorrow. Hmm… Maybe the academy had already considered this aspect when they set up our schedule, since the second Body Transformation class is right before the weekend, giving us enough time to recuperate.'

After a few minutes had passed, Drai finally stood up. He moved his body around, feeling every ounce of his muscles.

"Hahaha! I missed this feeling! Ah… My muscles are all sore and my whole body feels painful. This is really great!" Drai exclaimed gleefully.

Natalia looked at Drai helplessly. She waited briefly for her friend to calm down before standing up. The two then proceeded to head back to their dorms through the faculty's main building.

On the way back, Natalia couldn't help but ask, "What did you even do today? I'm sure our group's training wasn't that harsh. Was Professor Olly really that strict?"

"I'm not really sure about the others, but Professor Olly actually let me train by myself. He said that whatever training I've done in the past must've been really effective and he wasn't confident that he could provide a better training regime. After that, I just did some weight-lifting and also slammed myself repeatedly into some huge rocks."

"He let you do whatever you wanted?" Natalia asked astoundedly.

"Yeah, I think something happened during the strength test because I felt that he looked a bit spooked when he was talking to us right after the test. Oh right, I think my group members had similar expressions when they were looking at me weirdly at the end of the class," Drai replied.

"Well, no wonder they were looking at you weirdly; you train like a maniac! Why the f**k would you slam into rocks?" Natalia sharply exclaimed as she finally found out the reason Drai had ended up looking like a thrashed hobo.

'Natalia sure has quite a vulgar mouth considering that she's a Great General's daughter. But I still think that Jian's mouth is unbeatable. I doubt that Natalia has ever tried slapping her mouth to death,' Drai thought to himself.

"Hey, why are you spacing out?" Natalia interrupted Drai's thoughts.

"Ah, sorry. I was thinking about something," Drai hurriedly replied.

"So, why did you slam yourself into rocks?" Natalia once again asked.

"Well… I actually didn't plan to do so. At first, I wanted to slam myself into the ground by jumping off the rocks like I used to do before evolving, but even when I jumped down from the highest rock, I wasn't hurt. That's why I then tried running into the rocks instead, and it actually worked! I'm glad that from now on I don't need to jump off cliffs anymore. It's quite inconvenient having to go back and forth up the cliffs just to jump off, you know?"

"I think you're the only person in this whole world that thinks it's an inconvenience," Natalia curtly replied.

"Isn't it? Why don't other people think so?" Drai asked curiously.

Natalia sighed before answering, "Because for other people, such a thing is either suicidal or tormenting, not just inconvenient…"

"Why though? I think it feels great!" Drai cluelessly refuted.

Natalia suddenly stopped in her tracks. Seeing this, Drai immediately followed suit, albeit confused why the girl had abruptly stopped.

Natalia looked straight at Drai's eyes with her azure irises and vertical pupils as she suddenly said, "Drai, although I've only known you for less than two days, I've realized that you are a really pure person reminiscent of a child."

"Uhm, okay?" Drai responded, confused by Natalia's statement that came out of nowhere.

"Not only you're so pure, your body is also very strong. You're a very special person, Drai."

Drai didn't know how to respond, as this conversation felt strange to him, so he ended up saying, "Uhm… Thanks?"

Natalia's gaze turned more serious, then she slowly raised her hands and clasped Drai's face by his cheeks, causing Drai to become even more puzzled.

"You are a blank slate, Drai. And someone who is both pure and powerful is a dangerous person."

Natalia's words shocked Drai. He couldn't help but question her statement.

"I'm dangerous? How? Why?"

"Because you're gullible, Drai. Like a child, you still have much to learn about people, about the world. And because of your particularly strong body and lack of knowledge, something normal may look absurd, and something absurd like your cliff-jumping may feel normal or even good to you.

"If you apply your sensibility, or lack thereof, to others, you could end up hurting them; that's the first thing that's dangerous about you," Natalia said.

Drai reflected on Natalia's words and felt that it made some sense. After today's class, he had seen how disparate his level of strength and toughness were compared to his peers. Drai was naturally self-centered with his outlook, so everything was usually considered through his own perspective, including the aforementioned cliff-jumping. And since Drai wasn't used to the company of others, he lacked the sensitivity to view such matters from others' perspective, which made him subconsciously dismissive of them.

Drai suddenly had an epiphany as he recalled the moments when he almost smashed Jian with a bed and a chair. He wondered if he had done so, would Jian have ended up badly hurt? Even worse, would he have become disabled or dead? During those moments, Drai was driven by instinct instead of reason, not that he was a very reasonable person in the first place. He naturally felt that such smashings would feel like a hard slap for him, but he didn't think how he would likely pulverize Jian instead.

Drai suddenly shivered upon thinking that he could have unintentionally ended his roommate's future or even life. He looked at Natalia with quivering eyes, realizing that once again he lacked the prudence that seemed so natural for his friends, such as Natalia and Christo.

"I understand," Drai resignedly said, smiling bitterly. "Then I guess it's better if I avoid other people from now on. I don't want to hurt my friends."

Natalia shook her head as she said, "No, Drai. It's not your fault that you're unaware of how things usually work for others. It's just who you are. There's no need for you to run away from the people who care about you. I don't know if you've made any good friends since arriving here, but I definitely won't let you struggle on your own.

"You'll just have to learn along the way, okay? I'll make sure you won't end up crippling anyone, or at least anyone you care enough about," Natalia assured smilingly.

Drai looked at Natalia's peculiar eyes and felt her sincerity. He also thought that there was no reason for someone like Natalia to play mind games with him. Natalia would likely only need to bad-mouth Drai one time for Alancho to rush here and beat him up for bothering his daughter.

"Thanks, Natalia. I'll follow your advice. I hope that I can learn a lot from you and my other friends," Drai gratefully said as he didn't feel too bad anymore. However, he was suddenly reminded about something that Natalia had said.

"You said that my lack of sensibility is the first thing that's dangerous about me. Do you mean that there are other things that also make me dangerous?" Drai asked worriedly.

Natalia opened her mouth, but before she could speak, someone from a group of upperclassmen that was walking through a nearby corridor shouted at them.

"Get a room, you two!"

Following which, the whole group laughed as they continued walking toward their destination, slowly disappearing from the duo's sight.

"Uhm, should we get a room like they said?" Drai asked.

Natalia blushed as she futilely tried to squish Drai's stalwart face.

"Ignore those perverts. I'll teach you about double entendres later on, but don't mention anything about getting a room to a woman, okay? Especially if you have no intention of getting laid."

Drai wanted to ask what she meant by "getting laid", but he wasn't sure if he would anger Natalia whose complexion was currently deep red which he assumed was from being angry, so he decided to just quietly nod.

Seeing the obedient Drai, Natalia calmed herself down before continuing, "So, there's another thing that makes you dangerous, Drai. But it's a risk that you cannot totally avoid, as it is closely tied to your learning that we've mentioned earlier.

"Like I said, you're gullible, not by nature but by your current circumstances. You've now realized that parts of your outlook on the world are extremely skewed and can end up hurting those who are close to you. So, you're now eager to learn from others in order to prevent the worst from happening. Whether it's the gap in your knowledge or your peculiar thoughts, your mind is in a rather malleable state, so to speak.

"This malleability carries a great risk. If you can learn about common sense, general knowledge, and whatnot, then good for you. But what if the things that you learn are actually untrue? Or worse, what if they are not lies but deliberately conveyed in a way that makes you perceive them differently for the convenience of others?" Natalia solemnly said.

Drai's eyebrows furrowed as he contemplated Natalia's words. After a moment, he said, "That would be bad."

"Exactly. For example, if I were a bad person who wanted to hurt you, I could feed you lies so you would end up getting into trouble, such as telling you that you should go to tomorrow's class in your underwear because the professor said so. I could also have you do some dirty work for me, such as instigating you to kill someone."

"Uhm… I don't think I'm that stupid though," Drai couldn't help but refute. Even someone as dumb as him still knew that wanton killing was a bad thing.

"You don't think I can instigate you to murder someone?" Natalia questioned.

"Yeah. I might believe your words about going to class in my underwear, but I don't think I would agree if you told me to kill someone."

"Maybe not if I directly told you to, but what if I hid my intentions and phrased it differently?"

Natalia stepped closer; her face was only centimeters away from Drai's. She then moved her head toward Drai's ear and whispered chillingly, "What if I told you that Jake wanted to train his reactions, and he had asked me to find someone who could help ambush him for that purpose? Then I would ask you, half-pleadingly with an irresistible smile, to hide in the restroom on the fifth floor that Jake often frequented between classes and smack the back of his head with all your might whenever possible. What do you think, Drai? Wouldn't you gladly help Jake?"

Natalia's cherry lips curved into a smile upon sensing that Drai was totally speechless, seemingly too stunned to answer her. She pulled her head back, eager to see Drai's stunned face, as she was quite proud that she was able to get her point through Drai's extremely thick skull.

However, Natalia was surprised to find that Drai's face didn't show astonishment but was instead frowning deeply. If it weren't for the gravity of their conversation, the scene of Drai's frowning face between Natalia's hands would've been quite an amusing sight.

'Did I offend him by insisting that he's so gullible?' Natalia anxiously thought.

Seeing that Drai was still frowning and ignoring her, Natalia hurriedly apologized as her hands furiously rubbed Drai's face in an attempt to relax his frown to no avail.

"Drai, please don't get mad at me. I'm sorry if my words hurt you. I was just trying to make my point, okay?"

Drai's frown immediately disappeared as he looked at Natalia questioningly.

"Why would I get mad at you?"

Now it was Natalia's turn to look at Drai with raised eyebrows.

"You're not mad? Then why didn't you answer me? Why were you frowning?"

"Frowning? Ah... I was just thinking about the words that you whispered to me," Drai replied.

"Oh? And here I thought you were mad, but you were actually contemplating my words so deeply that you were frowning so hard? Hehehe," Natalia gigglingly remarked.

"Yeah, and I get what you were trying to say earlier. Because I'm dumb, I may do something that I think is good but I'll end up doing something bad instead."

"Hey! I said that you're gullible, not dumb. It's not the same. I know that despite your shortcomings, you're a smart guy, Drai," Natalia immediately refuted.

"I'm smart? Hehehe… Natalia, do you think having six points in intelligence makes me smart?" Drai asked smilingly. He was already past his four stages of grief. Now he had fully accepted his presumably low intelligence while looking forward to its improvement thanks to the hellish Mondays.

"Of co—What?!? Six points?!?"

Natalia's jaw dropped as she stared blankly at Drai, slightly wondering if his whole existence was fabricated and this was actually a deliberate prank.

"It's okay, Natalia. I know I'm dumb. You don't have to pretend otherwise," Drai said shruggingly. It's actually quite remarkable how he could ignore Natalia's hands on his face for this long.

"I-I'm… Anyway! What were you talking about earlier? Oh right, contemplating my words, hahaha…" Natalia awkwardly laughed as she attempted to change the subject.

Drai just smiled at her. He truly didn't care if others thought that he was dumb, since he already made peace with that particular number that was more than five but less than seven. Even so, Drai still appreciated those like Natalia who tried to avoid hurting his feelings.

"So, if you already got my point, what were you thinking so hard about?" Natalia hurriedly asked, hiding her embarrassment.

"Well, there's one thing that I can't seem to remember no matter how hard I tried. It even made me think that I have no knowledge of it in the first place. But if I really didn't know about it, how would I agree to the lies that you whispered to me?"

"Huh? Is there such a thing?" Natalia asked surprisedly.

"Yeah," Drai said noddingly.

Natalia recalled her words of whisper but couldn't find anything that felt extremely confusing or difficult to comprehend. She eventually gave up figuring it out by herself and said, "I don't know, Drai. I think that everything I've said was pretty clear. So, tell me what's the thing that you can't seem to figure out?"

With his face unsquashed between Natalia's hands, Drai's eyebrows furrowed once more as he uttered the question that had truly been bugging him.

"Who's Jake?"

"…"

***