Hellish Training

When I woke up early the next morning, I felt the dampness of the ground. These guys didn't even move me anywhere else. They simply left me lying on the ground. That would become a recurring theme with master Irwin. Of course there was a slight change. The two masters no longer hid themselves, but remained in the open. 'He'll teach me himself, at least that's what he said', I thought while slowly picking myself up.

The corpses of the people who tried to enslave me, remained on the ground as well. I didn't feel a shred of guilt when looking at them. If life stood me in front of that kind of choice, I'd gladly kill such people myself. I was no longer a naive kid, who's scared of blood and harm.

My body was in a poor state though. Standing up was already a chore, moving about made my bones rattle. 'That bastard really beat the shit out of me…', I thought. "Did the little princess sleep well?", the voice of master Irwin sounded from behind me. I was about to abuse him verbally, but stopped myself. There was no need for that guy to beat me up again.

'Curse you and your ancestors… Damned bastard, everything hurts me like hell… I'm hungry too'. "Oh! I didn't notice you there, Curly. Are you alright?", I asked the little marten wrapped around my neck. "Arf… Arrf", she barked quietly, visibly afraid of the two master behind us. 'Don't worry, they'll not harm you', I thought while petting her head.

Before anything else occurred, I located my backpack and grabbed some meat from it. Fortunately, the group of bastards didn't remove anything from my backpack. All my supplies were still there. Curly was starving as well. The group didn't feed her much, while the two masters were completely useless in that regard.

"I've waited long enough. If you're done with your food, let's go. We don't have that much time left", master Irwin said. "Yea, whatever", I replied while slowly following after them. Their pace was slow, but it wouldn't matter what pace they had. I could only limp behind them. Though there was some medicine in my backpack, I decided to keep it. Who knew what sort of madness that idiot would come up with.

"...Nex gave us a free hand, but don't go overboard. He might've been our student in the past, but he is no longer a weak student. You can't even beat that…", "Shut up old fool. I know what I'm doing. He told me to make his daughter strong.. You should help her too, we don't have the time to play riddles". The two of them talked to each other, but I wasn't able to hear all the words.

"… Anna… Wow, you are so slow. Anyway, I'll teach you about stealth. He will teach you sword and the control of your anger. We can only hope that you develop your own techniques in the future. Copying someone is never the best solution, remember that", master Yater said. "Today, we will let you rest. Take care of your wounds, your real training starts tomorrow", master Irwin added, before they disappeared.

"Arf… Arff", Curly barked then licked my face a few times. She was happy the two left, but their parting words were not so optimistic to me. "Yea, they wouldn't give me a break for free. Anyway, you seem alright, Curly... You are free as well, the people who chased you are no more…", I stopped for a moment. "I… I'm not going to force you, but how about you stay with me? I live in the North, and we have some other animals there as well. My father likes animals too, I'm sure you'd like him. No one will chase or try to hurt you like that anymore", I proposed.

Curly liked the idea, but didn't want to agree for some reason. "...I understand. Well then, you are free to go whenever you wish", I replied. Curly shook her head and made a few noises. "Hmm? You don't want to leave? I don't get it then". That creature confused the hell out of me. She didn't want to go with me, but didn't want to leave. I had no clue what she meant by that.

Curly pointed at the forest, then barked a few times. "You don't want to leave because you are scared?", I asked, unsure. Curly shook her head, then pointed at herself before looking at the forest again. I had trouble figuring out what she meant for a while, but then asked, "Do you mean family?". That's when Curly nodded. "So you want me to take you to your family? I don't know where that is though", I replied but Curly was a different story. She whiffed the air for a while, then pointed in a certain direction.

"Hmmm, you can smell them? Then we must be close by… There shouldn't be any issues going in that direction for a while. Alright then, stay with me until we find your family", I said. Curly barked a few times, happy to accept such arrangements. Though the thought of her leaving one day was a bit sad, I'd be able to spend a few more days with her.

That day, we took it slow and easy. No hunting, training or whatever. I had to be rested for the following day, and what a day it would be. Master Irwin beat me up a few times, pretty much rendering me motionless again. During the afternoon, master Yater came over to teach me something as well.

"I told you to avoid the light for a certain reason, which I will not explain. You didn't achieve that, which is not that surprising really. Though you learned to be a bit more quiet around the forest, I'm going to show you something else today. All you have to do is follow me. Nothing else", he explained. 'Well, that can't be difficult… Although, he is fast', "Sure, let me just get up…", I replied.

"You look miserable, come here for a minute", he said out of nowhere, then grabbed my shoulders. "Ungh, hey! Everything hurts like hell already. Why are you doing this?", I asked angrily. I thought he simply wanted to inflict more pain, but he actually massaged my shoulders, back and legs. "Better?", he asked after the massage. "Huh! Yea, it's actually much better now", I replied. "In that case, follow me", he said with a smile.

'Hmm, he's going rather slowly…', I thought, but that was nowhere that simple. He didn't have to speed up at all, his movements became weird all of a sudden. Keeping up was a huge task, but then he simply vanished in front of me for a while, then appeared again. Like that a few times, until I lost him completely.

All he required from me was to follow, and I couldn't even achieve that. He wasn't even fast, his movements were simply too weird. "What's wrong?", he appeared next to me. "I can't follow. You simply disappeared from my view", I replied. "I did? We can go a bit slower". That didn't change much. He still disappeared from my eyes a while later.

No matter what though, he told me to follow. That was the whole training. No one to fight, nothing to lift, just simple 'follow me'. Yet, I couldn't even achieve that. "That's because your sight isn't that great. Your sense of hearing and smell are stronger, therefore you'll work on your sight now. Actually, that is the hardest sense to improve. With time, you'll learn something. Don't worry about it too much right now", he assured me.

That wasn't the end of my training that day. I had to go through another round of beating with master Irwin, before they let me sleep. Fortunately, my shelter was already there, otherwise I'd sleep on the floor. Curly became really concerned about me. She'd lick my face and wounds, after the beat up from master Irwin. "I'll be fine, don't worry. Are you hungry? I have some food with me", I asked while retrieving a few chunks of meat.

She looked at the food, then back at me. "Hehe, I'll eat as well. Let's eat together, alright?". Curly didn't leave my side for the night. She cuddled up in my arms, and slept with me. We became attached to each other, but she'd leave one day. Though letting her go would be even harder, I hoped she'd change her mind and remain by my side.

The hellish training continued from that point on. Besides being beaten up and running around trying to follow master Yater, we were constantly on the move towards the south-east. A weird direction, but everything became clear once we were deep inside the forest. That was when their challenges started once again. They didn't ask me to survive on my own, or anything that simple. No, they asked me to wipe out a huge pack of animals. In the first case, they were wolves.

Fighting against fifty or sixty wolves would be difficult. Fighting against such numbers with the state my body was in, almost impossible. Almost, because there was no other choice for me. I had to go there, and actually fight the animals.

Of course only idiots would rush in, and declare a war on such a huge group. They probably wanted me to think, and figure out a way to come out alive from that sort of situation. I had to improvise, lure a few of them at a time. The plan was going well, until the silver variant caught the wind of it. Suddenly thirty odd wolves rushed towards me, under the leadership of a few silver ones.

I didn't come out unscathed from that battle. Bite marks, and more rips appeared in my already broken leather armour. Perhaps only thanks to anger and the Aura was I able to survive. No matter what, that was only the first challenge they threw at me.

Other challenges were more intricate. During one of them, me and Curly were left without supplies. Though happy about Curly accompanying me there, I had a bad feeling about it. My feelings came out to be justified. There were no animals anywhere. We searched for a day, but no animals ever appeared on our path.

Curly acted a bit weird though. She looked around all the time, seemingly confused about something. The evening was even weirder. She barked at the surroundings, then pulled my hand towards somewhere. Curly figured it out, before I even caught the wind of it. Everything we saw was an illusion created by master Yater.

For some odd reason, Curly managed to figure that out, and lead us out of the illusion's range. In reality, there were no animals, because we were walking around all the time. I was too focused on food and water, that possibility of an illusion never crossed my mind. "To think all of that was an illusion… Thanks to you, we managed to escape that vicious cycle. Great job, Curly", I patted her head.

"To think that this marten had such good senses. I'm not sure why, but perhaps she doesn't trust anyone except you. She's always vigilant and observing. That can be used, and even trained to much better results", master Yater said. "Arf, Arf!", "She's great, eh? Little Curly helped me out a lot", I praised her again.

"I have a proposal. Though Arts were designed by people, there are things we can teach others, even animals. If you are willing, I can teach you a bit more about illusions. Interested?", he asked Curly directly. She didn't like the idea of someone else getting close to her, but the idea was really great. "You know, this might actually help you out. Besides, he's a master. I'm sure there's loads of things he can teach you. Why not accept, since we are on this journey anyway?", I tried to encourage her.

"Arrr… Arf!", Curly agreed to the proposal. Master Yater grabbed her off my shoulder, and disappeared somewhere. I had no clue what he wanted to teach her, but he wasn't a lunatic who'd harm her.