Seeking Wisdom

"I can finally get you animals out of my house! Hahaha!" Rook rejoiced as we got back into the military truck carrying all sorts of luggage. I didn't want to say it was convenient that one of us died but… there certainly was more space for luggage now.

We all entered one by one and surprisingly, Kaiser sat at the front. The more I lingered around him the stranger he seemed. For one, he knew too much.

Not from an 'I need to kill him point of view' but rather as in the knowledge he held was too broad for a citizen of Termina. The breadth of his knowledge went from first aid skills to battle strategy. Put like that, they actually weren't that broad. They were military skills.

The drive was easy and smooth. The aftermath of the giant snake was surprisingly small. The news on television didn't speak much of it. All it did was praise the so-called disquisitive party for their bravery in confronting such a vile mutant.

I didn't really buy any of it but I also didn't pay it too much mind. Kaiser's words were still lingering in my head. A hit job.

The drive to Termina was normal, the only striking thing was the prevailing silence. There even seemed to be a trace of disappointment in the eyes of some as they entered the dark underground tunnel and were no longer illuminated by sunlight.

"Kaiser, we'll keep in touch. The rest of you… Let's not see each other again, k?" Rook said with a smile on his face before jumping into his vehicle and dashing off as if to run away from something. That was of course only the impression it gave off, in reality, that was his normal driving.

We thus bid farewell to the… Rook. The guy had quite a personality. And we were welcomed by the other members of this mafia-like gang.

"Kaiser, how did things go eh?" We were welcomed in by another of Kaiser's friends, this was Wesley. The middle-aged man seemed to have kept the gang in a good spot, Termina was split into multiple parts each with usually a ruling gang but that didn't mean that small gangs were non-existent.

The slums of Termina were filled to the brim with all sorts of low lives so even if they weren't part of a gang they weren't necessarily people with nice intentions. The chances of the place suffering from a couple of attacks after word got out that the boss and many of the core members were missing wouldn't be an odd occurrence.

"They went well" Was all Kaiser said in return before leading the charge up the stairs. Jimmy stayed behind faithful to his duty.

As everyone settled back down into their respective positions, conversations of the event started to go around. This was followed by all sorts of boisterous bragging and laughter, this all ended in deep silence, however. This was only temporary.

"So… David… I heard you and your wife divorced hehehe" Someone brought up a different type of unsavory topic. David who didn't expect to be suddenly called out felt his blood pressure rise through the roof.

"Sh- She's just saying things! She'll- She'll come around again" David reasoned. The poor man was clearly broken. I decided to step down from it all. I exited the building under Jimmy's questioning gaze.

"Remember the password and come back in two hours, Kaiser will call a meeting for sure" Jimmy told me afraid that I would stay out too long.

I shrugged off his warning since I actually didn't plan on going very far.

I grabbed a military knife which was holstered covertly at my side and admired it for a couple of seconds. It was weighty. Was it the weight of a weapon of murder?

Maybe, but I wasn't that sentimental. I gripped the knife and performed a couple of simple slashes. Though perhaps rather than simple crude was a better way to phrase them.

I knew something was wrong so I tried to review the grip on my knife. I had taken a couple of knife fighting tips from a wiki page at one point but there was no way I'd remember such a thing in vivid detail.

All I could do was try and get as comfortable as possible while making sure to point the knife away from me at all times.

Knife fighting was all about being agile. Why? Well, with such a small weapon it was impossible to expect much more. Defensive knife fighting required one to be ready to back duck and back away from attacks in a timely fashion. It sounded somewhat obvious and redundant but in a real battle keeping something like that in mind was actually fairly difficult.

One was more likely to simply lunge forward without paying much mind to incoming attacks. Thus, even if the other person was unarmed it was best to remain wary as you could be easily disarmed. If they were also armed with a knife you'd be pretty much screwed.

But knowing these things didn't do me any good. I kept lunging and slashing like a complete imbecile for a couple of minutes before finally giving up.

"I need an instructor…" A couple of names flashed past my mind, this ranged from Kaiser to even Seamus. His dismembering technique was definitely impressive but I was too afraid to ask him how he learned it.

In that case, the only other strong candidate I could think of was… Jimmy. The man was always manning the door but that didn't mean his skills were dull.

On the contrary, he had to be an expert. That alone wasn't what convinced me he would make for a good role model, however. It was the maturity he demonstrated in both the prey prairie and Eden.

"I wonder if he'll agree though" I hadn't fostered any kind of friendship with him so I highly doubted that a busy person like himself would acquiesce.

But after knocking on the door, telling him the password, and asking him directly, I found out that my worries were unfounded.

"Sure I'll do it" He hadn't even hesitated.

"I thought you might be busy" I said to try and create some conversation,

"Busy? Pfft, busy with what? Staring at this fucking door?" He retorted before standing up from his seat.

"Now come at me" He said before cracking his knuckles.

I looked down at the knife I still held in my hand and felt that it was perhaps somewhat unfair.

"Please, you haven't even learned to walk, so how can you beat me in a run?" Jimmy responded evidently looking down on me. I didn't find fault with him though since I knew it was true.

I simply clenched my knife in one hand and thrust out.