Chapter VI - Progress (part 2)

"Hai. I brought something for you."

She said as she entered the room, and I quickly lifted my body from the bed. She closed the door behind her and sat down at the chair, by the table.

"I remembered you couldn't read our language, but you can speak like us. So, I thought you might want to learn how to read?"

Oh my god, yes. I would kiss you if I'm a man. I mean, I am. But, not with this body.

I spent the whole night learning the language of the people here. How to read, write, and do grammar stuff. It's like learning a new language except you are already fluent in speaking it. It's hard, but at least it's so much easier than learning Arabic.

Klane left the room after the lesson, and she was surprised at how I learned so quickly. She came back with two bowls of dinner a few minutes later, and my eyes couldn't have gone wider.

I didn't realize how hungry I was, even though I just ate only a few hours ago. I guess sword fighting really does take a lot of energy. 

The food itself was very simple and traditional, but it tasted really good for the super hungry me. Klane can only watch in awe as I gulped down an entire bowl of potatoes and chicken in less than two minutes.

After eating, I continued the study at full speed. Klane was a good teacher, but that was only because I am her student. The studying session went so fast, that almost half of the book was studied in just an hour or so.

After that hour-long study session, I finally got sleepy. My weakness has finally reached me, my limited energy magic thing that she mentioned to be my condition.

Klane left the room after saying good night. She left the book with me just in case I wanted to continue studying it. 

And as I was watching her leaving the room, that's when my anxiety hit.

What if they are helping me only to use me in the end? What if they want to do bad things to me? What if they come in the middle of the night to kidnap me?

What do they want from a sickly young ma-woman??

All these negative thoughts are popping in my head as I try to sleep. Then, I found the perfect idea.

I have always been good at sleeping while sitting. When you sleep while sitting, you can feel your surroundings as if you are awake and seated. It's weird how I could describe it, but it's good for spotting things when you are asleep. 

I decided to place my gamble on that ability for now, since I can't fully trust this place just yet.

I'm going to sit-sleep on top of the bed. You may call this act of being overly cautious, but in this world, I don't even know what's real. It is a new place, a new language, and a brand new world to me.

It's never wrong to be cautious.

So I began trying to sleep, and by the time I realized, I already fell asleep.

When you are stuck in another place, far-far away from home, you tend to wish for home. Even when the departure wasn't that long ago, you would still be wishing for home. And usually, the first thing the wish is going to do is showing you a dream.

I dreamt about my home. My family, friends. I wondered if they were okay. 

Did the ghoul do anything to them? Are they still alive and well?

My worries just kept on flowing in the dream. I saw their smiles, the memories, the things that I went through with them. 

Of course, there's nothing I could do about it. I am currently in another world, and there is nothing that both me and them can do to one another.

The only thing I can do… is survive, so that one day I can find a way back home.

As I dreamt, I kept my senses on the outside to stay active. Everytime there's a sound of footsteps, I get alerted. And when there's the sound of the door being opened, I heard it clearly.

But reacting to that, is something else.

The door is opened, and the sound of a person walking into the room can be heard.

Wake up, me!!

I began to slowly open my eyes. Standing at the door is Klane, looking at me in perfect confusion.

"Why… are you sleeping like that?"

.

Apparently, people don't sleep on the bed while sitting down.

Apparently, they sleep by laying down on the soft and comfy bed, and placing their heads above the pillow.

And since I arrived here like an alien, Klane was very much surprised to find me sleeping on the bed in a sitting position.

After I got up, Klane invited me to have breakfast at the diner below, the one right next to the receptionist table. 

She said this is still early in the morning, and explained to me about how the time system works here. 

Times work differently here. They used 'bells' as a measurement of time. 

The bell from the middle church sounded at a certain amount of time, which is during sunrise, at noon when the sun is above our head, and during sundown which was the bell that I heard last night. 

It only rang three times, and only during those times. Which is inaccurate as fuck, by the way…

If only I wore my watch when I die… No, that would've been too luxurious.

I came down from the bedroom to the diner just a few minutes after Klane woke me up. She woke me up when the first bell was still ringing, which was at sunrise. 

Maybe I could start pinpointing time during 12pm, which is when the sun is above our heads. That's the simplest way to find time, while the rest are inaccurate.

Sunrise and sunsets can happen at different times in every country. It also happens differently at different seasons, so they are pretty inaccurate to be used as time measurements.

Maybe I can try counting the time by other measurements. If I can count how many hours have passed starting from sunrise to noon, then maybe I can find exactly at what time the sunrise happened.

Which is a lot of work… but I had to do it at some point.

At the diner, Klane ordered me a morning meal, which I ate in less than a minute. 

She told me that I was being edacious, but come on… I'm hungry.

I'm not sure if it was this body being a factor, but I wasn't this big of an eater back then. I would eat and enjoy the meal, but I wouldn't eat that fast.

Hmm… More pickle of thoughts to the pile.

After eating, she brought the crystal magic tool thingy again to check the progress of my sickness's condition. 

Seeing it made me realize that if I get the chance to use magic, that would be very epic. But right now, the goal was to get me healed.

"You trained yesterday, even though Jrake told me it wasn't very long. But, let's just see how much effect that short training had on you."

She placed the crystal on top of the dining table. As usual, I placed my hand on the crystal. After the crystal glows, symbols come out on the bottom of the smaller magic crystal.

Thanks to the learning session with Klane last night, I can read it.

"What does it say?"

"It says... Magic points... 56?"

I tried reading it, using my few hours of language knowledge that I learned from her last night. Surprisingly, I can read it just fine.

"What??"

But from her expression… it's like I read it wrongly.

She turned the crystal around so she could see. Her face turned to shock as she saw the result. 

I wonder why. The normal is 130, right? I'm still far from normal, so why is she that surprised?

"What's wrong?"

"This... This is good!!"

Her face turned really happy.

"Emm... How so?"

She turned to me, and she pointed her finger at me.

"For you to progress 46 points in just a day, that's a very good progress!!

A normal person could probably raise only five or a maximum ten points a day when they trained. But you did 46 in just a day!! Not to mention the training session wasn't even that long. You can be healed in no time at all!"

Now that she mentioned it, I rose 46 points in just a day, making the number 130 in just another two days of training. I thought for sure I was incurable, but I guess even miracles happen to the unluckiest.

"You know what this means, Rize?"

She asked me cheerfully, which surprises me because she normally wasn't this cheerful.

"What is... What does this mean?"

"Keep training."

Hearing that, I can feel something blooming within me.

Aha… I think I smiled for real now. What a battle creep I am...

After breakfast, she went to the front desk and joined her fellow secretary friend in the piles of papers. I went back to my room to lay down for a while and clean myself up, and thought about what I must do from now on.

Become stronger. If I'm strong, I can overcome any mission.

Become rich. With money, I can create relations that may make my life here easier.

Do a ton of adventure missions. I can't just stay here and sit around like a jobless lady. I have to keep striving forward.

Once all of my goals here are achieved… I can start focusing on my true goal. That is, finding a way back home and to beat the shit out of that ghoul.

With those three missions in my mind, I walked downstairs to the arena. Jrake wasn't there yet, so I picked up my sword and practiced swinging by myself.

But the moment I lifted the sword from the weapons rack, I realized something.

The sword… it's so freaking light.

To describe how much easier it is for me to lift it, I felt that the sword weighed at least twenty to thirty kilograms when I first lifted it. And now... it feels like it's only five kilograms!!

It's gone lighter, far lighter. What the hell?

Does raising your magic points do this much? There's no way simply five minutes of training can make this much of a difference, right??

That number, I have to keep raising it. More and more, until I can get extremely powerful.

I practiced swinging for at least two hours until my body felt a little tired. I guess there is always going to be a limit on how long I can train. 

But, this is still really good. I can swing the sword for two hours straight now. It was only yesterday that I couldn't stand normally for five minutes. Now, I feel like I could conquer a mountain.

I sat down at the bench Jrake used to sit on to rest. I thought about how much I should train for today, since the day has only just begun. But a few minutes after I sat down, Jrake arrived.

"Hey, little lady! You're up early."

As usual, he's bare chested. The only difference is he wears this sword holder on his back now, with the belt going through his chest. Inside the sword sack is his massive sword. 

Now that he is placing the sword behind him, I can see exactly how big the sword is. It almost touched the ground, all the way to his bald head!

And that's only the blade. The handle itself is around 25 centimeters, which should be more than enough for four of my palms to fit on the handle. That sword is insane.

"Ah, Jrake. Emm..."

"Oh yeah, she hasn't told you. I have an assignment for today. There will be some tests that I must conduct, just like what I did with you yesterday. But this time, there will be a few people."

He suddenly cuts me off and explains.

"Oh, I understand."

I kind of felt let down by that, not gonna lie. Even though I shouldn't be, because Jrake is training me without asking for anything in return. I shouldn't be disappointed. 

But deep down, I really wanted to train and rack up my magic points. I just… wanted to get stronger.

My feelings must have showed up on my expression, because Jrake immediately noticed something out of me.

"No, no, no. I want you to stay. I want you to see what the other adventurers looked like."

Oh…? 

Right. This could be a good opportunity for me to see what other adventurers are like. I will also get to see some combat techniques from the test takers, things that maybe even Jrake couldn't do.

"And if you want, you can fight one of the contestants."

"Eh... Hahah, I'm not too sure about that."

Jrake chuckled as he sat right next to me at the bench. It's like we are father and son already. Though totally unrelated. 

I'm sorry, I meant 'Daughter'. Forgot I don't have a stick between my thighs, geez.

After a few long minutes, the test takers arrived one by one. After they arrive, Jrake tells them to wait for the other test takers to arrive, and the test may begin when all the test takers have arrived. The test takers sat and waited at different places of the arena, since the only bench on the arena was taken over by me and Jrake.

There should be 5 people coming today. Boys and girls, coming from all sides of the kingdom, from all ages, and with different capabilities and personalities.

I'm not that excited to meet them, but I'm very curious about their capabilities.

After waiting for around 15 minutes (rough guess, there's no clock here), all the five test takers have arrived. 

It consisted of four males and a female. The young lady who came is wearing a very wide hat, what I guess is a hat that only magicians wore. The rest of the males are just simple sword users, and they all have a sword on their hip.

Bunch of losers looking, LOL.

They all looked young, none of them looked like they were adults. It's almost like a teenagers party here, with Jrake being the only old person in the arena.

I'm so confused. Are all adventurers below the age of thirty? Is that why Jrake is the Office guard and not adventuring?

After all the test takers had arrived, Jrake stood up from the seat next to me and turned to everyone.

"Now that everyone is here, let's begin."