Chapter 23

Day after day, the gruelling training continued. Draco's muscles ached, his hands were calloused, and his body was covered in bruises.

But he never complained; rather, he couldn't. He was warned but still agreed to it regardless.

He was also seeing some results from his training, so everything was fine for now.

One afternoon, as Draco was practicing his melee arts, his other grandmother Rita came by for a visit.

"Oh, my poor dear!" she cried, rushing to Draco's side.

She had been away from home for a while, so she was feeling a cuteness deficiency from her grandchildren.

"What have they done to you?" She gently brushed the dirt and sweat from his face, clucking in disapproval.

Anita just scoffed. "The boy needs to be strong if he's going to survive in this world," Anita said.

"Survive?" Rita gasped.

"He's just a child! He should be playing and having fun, not being beaten senseless!" Rita complained.

Anita glared at her.

"Rita, you've always been too soft. He needs to be forged in the fires of adversity if he's going to become strong." Anita replied.

'This smells like trouble,' Draco thought. Rita's face flushed with anger.

"I won't stand by and watch you destroy him! Didn't you learn anything after what happened with our kids?" She countered before scooping Draco up in her arms and stormed off, leaving Anita shaking her head.

Draco wanted to say that he asked for this, but seeing even his grandpa John kept quiet, he decided not to speak too.

Later that evening, as Draco lay in bed nursing his aches and pains, Rita fussed over him.

"Don't you worry, my darling," she soothed.

"I'll talk some sense into that old woman. You shouldn't have to go through such torment," she said while messing with his body, experimenting with his reactions.

'Sigh, just as I suspected. She just wanted to mess with me and needed an excuse," Draco thought, surrendering in resignation.

But the next day, Anita was back at it, pushing Draco to his limits.

Rita tried to intervene, but they refused to listen.

She wanted more time with her grandchildren too, but they were being monopolized by Anita, John and Marcus most of the day, something she didn't like since she was bored.

"Here is what will happen; we will reduce the training time a bit so you can cuddle them all evening before and after dinner, alright," Anita relented after Rita insisted on pestering.

"Yay, come see grandma after training, my little Dragon, don't make grandma come find you," Rita said, leaving happily.

'That sounded like a threat,' Draco thought.

And so the training continued, day in and day out.

Draco's skill in unarmed combat and basic weapon combat had improved dramatically.

Rita would often come by to check on him every evening, trying to convince Anita to give her more time with him.

She did the same with John and Marcus, who were training the other kids; because she was simply just bored.

..........

4 years later...….

Just like that, 4 more years had passed since training had begun.

The physical training program for the children had been mostly completed; all that was needed was constant repetition.

Everyone was working towards discovering their style of combat; Draco had discovered his own.

He preferred using his natural claws most of the time, but his actual preferred weapon after his claws was a heavy spiked club.

He was influenced by Anita and her heavy hammer; he also liked John's combat style, but he used a sword, the most cliche weapon that existed.

"Ha, ha, ha," the sound of children shouting while hitting dummies made out of straw echoed the surrounding.

Snap!

"That's enough for today," Draco muttered after hitting his dummy with a tail whip, a form from his self-made 'Dragon combat arts.'

The years had gone by awfully fast, and before he knew it, Draco realized he was now 8 years old.

Marcus had been right; Anita and John were really crazy.

Rita was the one who treated him and the others after each day of training.

Treating was a stretch as his natural healing helped him recover faster; she just used the opportunity to mess with his body, soothing her curiosity.

Talks had been made about his magical training, but no word had come over the years from the elf Anita had written to.

It was only last week that a reply came, stating that she would be arriving today.

He could have trained himself, but after listening to some repercussions of non-falna based magic, he refrained from messing with it.

He still had a few more years before heading to Orario; after learning the proper way, it wasn't too late to create his own spells.

He only had one life; there was no need to risk it because he thought he knew better.

"Sigh, since I am 8, no 7 and a half since my birthday is in December. That means it's about 12 to 13 years before Canon. Around the time the Zeus and Hera familia are wiped out," he pondered.

He planned heading to Orario when he hit a wall in his training.

"Draco here," Clair called out, handing a piece of cloth for him to wipe his sweat.

"Thanks," Draco replied, snapping out of his thoughts.

Clair had been struggling over the years to keep up with the others but couldn't.

Draco had helped her bounce back with his daily advice and encouragement.

Somehow, she became attached to him, something he didn't foresee.

The whole Rose and Mark thing had come to an end, but it did end up putting Clair in a weird position.

Perhaps that's what aided her attachment, he thought.

"Draco Nii, Nii," he heard his name being called. Looking at the source, it was Vasiliki.

"What is it?" Draco asked; she looked so excited.

"Grandma is calling you," Vasiliki said, she seemed restless, hopping like a rabbit while talking.

"What has you all riled up?" Draco couldn't help but ask.

"I saw an elf, one of those beautiful long-eared people Grandpa John talked about," Vasiliki said excitedly.

"I see, let's go," Draco said; there weren't any elves in the village, which had now become a small town.

'Hohoho, finally my elf waifu arc begins,' Draco playfully thought.

The village was mostly filled with a variety of beast people and some humans, at least from the little he had seen.

The children weren't really allowed to go out without supervision since the kidnapping incident.

Additionally, they were training most of the time, so there were only a few chances to interact with most of the other villagers.