The Training

Jack went to the Adventurer Guild in the cold breezes of an early morning.

He asked to meet the guild master, but the receptionist replied that the man hadn't woken up yet. She also told him that it would be hard to meet the guild master these days. The guild master was not receiving anybody in his office for some reason, which the receptionist remarked as "happens occasionally when he gets inspired". She also said that "it would probably take a week for him to open the door again."

Jack was to deliver the weapon to the guild master, as per the contract. Since he had stated in the contract that the recipient of the prototype rifle would be that man, he could not leave it to the receptionist. And he was too lazy to take it back to the inn. So, he thought he might as well take the gun along for the trip.

Jack brought along 20 shells. Although the trade agreement did not mention anything about the ammunition, Jack still intended to give them as a sign of 'goodwill', despite him having none.

As he was about to leave the Adventurer guild building, he bumped into someone wearing a mask that covered half his face, and red cloth wrapped around the rest of his head.

"Mister Anver?"

"Shh!"

The man in mask shushed Jack in a hurry, then dragged him to an alley next to the building. "How do you know it was me?"

"Ehm, intuition, I guess? I have very good discerning eyes." Jack told him a lie with a grinning face. He couldn't say he asked a chip embedded in his spine to scan the suspicious man. "Are you going to the guild to receive job dispatch?"

Anver pulled his mask down, not hiding his dissatisfaction. "I covered my entire face! By the Source, can you see through clothes?"

[Yes, actually.] Jack jokingly answered in his mind.

"I'm applying for dispatch. We can't spend every day training the girl." Anver diverted his eyes.

"Isn't it too early? Why are you disguising yourself?" Jack asked. He knew the answer, but feigned ignorance to jest the man. For fun. Every bit of fun in this place was a treasure.

"You have to ask?! How do I show my face in the guild after that arm-wrestling match?!" Anver angrily spoke. His face was just as entertaining as Jack had expected.

"You reap what you sow, my dude." Jack patted the man's shoulder, and gotten his hand slapped away as a result. "I hope that you can continue to treat my 'special' girl well." He laughed.

"She is strong physically, but very weak emotionally. Please don't hurt her."

Anver did not have anything to say to that. The girl was nice, relatively obedience, and mysteriously powerful. He held no ill will toward her. If anything, he was looking forward to her development.

He didn't want to return to the days of recruiting naive, amateur mercenaries to fulfill the member requirement. He took no pleasure in their demise.

"Anyhow, it's good that you're here." The man's voice rang up again.

Anver looked up to see his annoying white teeth.

"I heard you intended to train her in the art of the sword. We have considered it and we thought conventional sword styles don't suit her."

"What do you mean?"

"She would break every sword in this world if she strikes or thrusts once. You would agree, wouldn't you?"

Anver thought back to the scene where the girl threw a spear and it disintegrated. He shuddered a bit. Although he hated to admit, he agreed to the man's words wholeheartedly.

"So, we are hoping that you could train Naomi in a style that, how do I say it, isn't so wasteful. I have written a note for her to explain the ordeal to you." Jack said. He flicked two silver coins in Anver's direction.

"Consider this her tuition. I am grateful that you want to train her. It seems that the rumor is not to be believed. You are not a man who would evilly throw young people to their death."

Jack turned around. "I have some businesses to attend to, I'll leave you to yours." He walked away, waving his hand without looking back.

"What is she?" Jack heard the question asked in a low voice full of uncertainty from behind.

"Supergirl." He threw an unfamiliar word to the confused man in the alley before disappearing around the corner.

***

"Late." Anver spoke, arms crossed in front of his chest and annoyance in his voice. The girl who arrived at the village gate an hour after she was supposed to, was repeatedly bowing her head and saying "sorry" in her funny accent.

Lena grabbed the girl's flustered head, smiling wryly. "It's okay, it's her first offence, right? Just don't be late again." She emphasized again for the girl to understand, "Late, bad, okay?", with her finger raised. The girl turned to her, continuing to bow and apologize.

Naomi gave Anver the note written by Jack. Anver skimmed the content, then crumbled the note and threw it away.

"I have heard it from the dude." He took his short sword out from his waist, flipped the handle to icepick grip and shook his head. "Unfortunately, I am not good with reverse grip handling."

"Follow me." He gestured to the young girl and the team walked along the wooden fence surrounding the village.

About half an hour later, they arrived at a poorly-constructed shack, with its back leaning against the wooden wall. The place looked like it could fall anytime. A strong wind would definitely blow the entire thing away, as it was already swaying in the autumn breeze.

"Ken, old man, are you home?" Anver shouted.

After a minute, a middle-aged man lifted the wooden blind, acting as the door to his 'house', and wobbled out. He had long, black hair with many white strands, wearing a strange costume that looked like a dress on his lower half.

It was the first Asian person that Naomi had met on the planet. All the other people in the village were Caucasians.

Since Naomi's dad was a Caucasian American, and her mom was an Asian Japanese woman, she inherited a mixed appearance between the two races. Her Asian look was not strong, and one could mistake her for a white girl at a glance.

But the man that was scratching his sleepy head and slowly walking toward them looked 100% Asian. Naomi wondered where he came from, or if there were also Black people in this place. She did not have such question before, it felt natural for a medieval village to be all Whites, right?

Leader Anver and the man talked for a while. They both looked at her, especially the middle-aged Asian man who was scrutinizing Naomi from top to bottom with gleaming eyes. Naomi felt like covering herself with a blanket, if she had one.

After the discussion was finished, Anver spoke to Naomi. "Morning, train." He pointed to the man. "Afternoon, work." He aimed his thumb toward the forest behind them. "Noon, village gate, meet. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Lena, let's go to work."

A few seconds later, Naomi's two teammates could not be seen anymore. She was left with the man who was scratching his head constantly.

"I saw your sword. Are you from the Island of Eastern Empire?"

A language she didn't think she could hear again came from the man's mouth.

"Ehhh?"

Naomi retreated. She didn't know if she should reply to the man's question in Japanese. If she did, captain Jack's fake backstory about her ears getting cured would be seen through, wouldn't it?

"There is no use pretending not to understand me. I saw your reaction."

The man opened his arms.

"Everybody has their own secrets. You do yours, I do mine. Doesn't matter to me."

"And it doesn't matter to your training also." The man smiled with his eyes. Naomi felt a dangerous vibe from his expression. She held her hands in front of her chest, not being sure what was going to happen to her.

***

[So… tired…]

Naomi was almost crawling. Now she was crawling.

Ken-sensei instructed her to run two laps around the wooden fence. It was hell to her. She had never been so exhausted before.

Her augmentations did not help much with her endurance. She could run faster than sound in short distance, but she would be spent after a hundred meters at most.

"I will die. I will die. I will definitely die. I am dying."

Naomi mumbled in-between her short, ragged breath. She was on all fours and people were walking around her, with whispers and concerned eyes, but she could spare no energy to care.

She had finished a lap and Death was already sitting on her back. If its bony hands could wrap around her neck and break it now, she felt like that would be a more desirable alternative to continuing this inhuman torture.

Little did she know, the days of hellish training was only beginning.