From Idiot to Madman

Bryan's mind was still racing as the young witch beat him hysterically, adding more pain to the soreness he was already feeling all over his body.

At first, Lisa had been really scared when she saw him swinging outside her window, but she quickly used her magic to confirm that he wasn't dead. Then the fear turned into anger and she immediately threw a porcelain ornament at him with such accuracy that it hit him in the nose, being that the first pain he experienced. Instinctively Bryan had pulled himself up in pain and his head hit a branch above him, which brought several tears to his eyes and caused him to fall out of the tree in a rather pathetic fashion. By the time he came to his senses the furious witch was already at his side, ready to give him a well-deserved beating. So, all Bryan could do at that point was curl up like a ball on the ground and present the young woman with an easy target for her kicks... his ass.

After a while of suffering the miserable punishment, Bryan realized that the small fragment of Magic Essence was no longer moving all over his body, but was now moving over his buttocks, relieving some of the pain and even strengthening the area that was hurt. When Lisa again unleashed a new round of kicks, he no longer felt the blow so much.

In fact, all the parts of his body, which until a moment ago made him cry because of the pain, began to feel quite relieved the moment his Magical Essence passed over them. He actually started to feel a bit... comfortable.

Bryan was sincerely amazed by the powers of this mysterious substance, but also a little disgusted because now he was seriously considering his earlier theory that the techniques of the Solid Realm must have been developed specifically by hardcore masochists. Suddenly the Magic Essence began to concentrate rapidly on his right buttock just as the tip of Lisa's foot crashed into that area again and hit exactly where the substance accumulated.

"Auuuh!"

"Ouww!"

They both let out a high-pitched scream and a low growl respectively. The violent mage had suddenly felt Bryan's right buttock become harder than iron. Her foot immediately shuddered and she began to jump up screaming.

For his part, Bryan had not been hurt at all by Lisa's kick, instead, he felt it like a massage. Surprise at the stark contrast between this new sensation with the pain he had experienced so far had caused him to let out an involuntary grunt. In all fairness, his scream had sounded slightly obscene... almost as if...

"Damn, you Bryan! Did you put rocks in your pants? You idiot!"

Lisa complained loudly while rubbing her delicate foot. At that moment some of the students of the necromantic school came out of the building attracted by the scandal. In a short time, Bryan and Lisa arrived around, each one looking at him with sleepy and grumpy eyes.

His nose had stopped hurting and his tears were under control. Bryan took the opportunity to shake it off a bit before plopping down on the grass. When he looked around, he recognized the trainees Amy and Athena, as well as another student named Bella and of course, the enraged Lisa.

"I can feel the danger in the air"

All of these girls were moderately attractive, but their beauty paled a bit when compared to Lisa's appearance. These students ranged in age from sixteen to seventeen, but they were not as pretty. They were also in a very bad mood, as their sleep had been interrupted and that did not help their image.

"Hey asshole! What are you looking at?! Why are there rocks in your pants?! My beautiful foot has a huge bruise! Ooh ooh. it hurts!"

Lisa placed her hands on her hips and spoke in a choleric manner as she glared at Bryan, but the intimidating effect was spoiled a bit because from time to time she couldn't help hopping on her left foot.

"I'm supposed to be the asshole? Your mother is supposed to be! Huh? Wait a minute. I think that suits me..."

Thought Bryan smiling inwardly, but he put on an innocent expression and replied in a rather slow tone "huh, huh?" then he himself stood up with some difficulty and said.

"Noooo eh, I don't have any stones in my pants!"

He then turned around so that the senior necromancy students could get a direct view of his backside and began to pull down his pants as he spoke. Four panicked screams echoed through the air before he finished unfastening his garment and soon after he heard the frantic sound of several footsteps running away.

"Bryan, you idiot! Pull up your pants right now or I'm going to kill you!" Lisa shouted at him hurriedly, but a note of panic could be heard in her voice.

"Ooh!" replied Bryan using the same jerk tone, but inside he continued to laugh sinisterly as he thought, 'You're just a bunch of naive little flowers, you're going to see how easily I take care of you.'

After he had adjusted her pants again, Lisa looked closely at Bryan and when she noticed that the four girls were still standing next to her, she regained her courage to speak to him again with ferocity

"I can forget about you hiding rocks in your pants. But what were you planning to do climbing up the tree outside my window in the middle of the night?!"

"Heh heh" Two loud stupid guffaws were the answer to the question. Bryan pointed to a piece of grimy cloth that had become entangled in the branches of the tree and said "To get that down!"

"Why the hell are you looking for garbage in the middle of the night?!" Lisa shouted angrily and seemed on the verge of exploding with rage as the volume of her voice rose.

At that moment Bella let out a soft sigh and intervened "Hey Lisa, can't you see that Bryan has gone crazy? It seems that, instead of killing him, your spell ended up decerebrating him completely. Why are you wasting your time getting mad at a madman?"

Athena seemed to be quite sleepy and spoke while covering a yawn "Oh... we still have class tomorrow. I'm going back to bed. Lisa is already a senior and can handle this!"

Amy seemed to commiserate a bit with Bryan as she thoroughly shook her head, but simply sighed without saying anything to him. Then she mumbled something and also turned to go to sleep along with the others.

If Bryan hadn't acted like the village idiot, he would have faced the wrath of these three girls, as well as the irate Lisa, but since he had "lost his mind," the three girls didn't plan to waste their time arguing with a madman. So they left him alone and returned to their warm beds.

When the three students left, Lisa and Bryan were left alone again. The young witch looked at him fiercely for a moment longer, but then spat out a few words

"Get out of my sight, I'm coming for you in two days! But if you dare disturb my sleep again, not only will I beat you black and blue, but I'll torture you with my magic until you end up dumber than a slug!"

Lisa gave him one last flare before turning to leave. She was now walking with a slight limp. Before she was out of sight he could hear her exclaiming as she passed through the door "Oh, this hurts! I can't believe that idiot put rocks in his pants. My Gul [1] definitely drove him crazy."

Silence reigned again after the witch left. Bryan felt a late tremor of apprehension as he watched her enter. It was a good thing that Lisa hadn't used her magic on him or he would have ended up in serious trouble. The Dark Creatures that the Necromancers commanded emitted an aura of death that wasn't dangerous to someone with some training, but on a malnourished person like him, they could cause irreparable damage. In fact, Lisa's Gul didn't even really touch him when it killed the original Bryan, it simply kept chasing him for quite a while until naturally, its proximity caused it to suck what little life was left in the miserable slave's body.

But for now, this fateful adventure was over. Bryan decided it was time to say goodbye too, so he muttered a curse at Lisa's mother as he dragged his frail, battered body with difficulty back to the warehouse.

After returning to his "burrow," he threw all the garbage on his bed on the floor and fell into a rather confused deep sleep, in which he thought he saw the fuzzy shadow or perhaps the outline of a small child looking at him smiling as if he were contemplating a younger sibling or a naughty son who did not understand a lesson.

He saw the boy move his lips and try to warn him of something, but then he woke up for a moment and when he fell asleep again he had forgotten all about it.

****

The next day.

Bryan was sleeping soundly when the storeroom door suddenly opened and a loud scream echoed through the room.

"AAAH!"

Bryan opened his sleepy eyes and twisted his body to see a fat boy wearing the apron of a servant errand boy. He wore his hair short and the area around his left eye was bruised as if he had taken a direct punch. Now he was looking at him with a horrified expression "You!... You!.." Before he could finish his sentence Bryan spoke.

"Oh, it's you, Jack, what are you doing in my room?"

Jack's chubby little boy was the same age as Bryan and was one of the few people in the necromantic school who had treated the late slave kindly, possibly due to a shared sense of misery.

Jack came from a poor family and his father sent him to Babylon Academy about two years ago to work for a few silver coins each month. But, even though he was a servant errand boy, chubby Jack didn't "belong" to the Academy. He was a free person, unlike Bryan. He also suffered his fair share of mistreatment and indifference, but his situation was not as bad as that of a slave. They could beat him, yell at him and even carry out some small experiments on him, but they would never torment him to death as if he were an animal.

In truth, the late Bryan had always envied chubby Jack, because he could eat real food three times a day and was not subjected to inhumane mistreatment on a daily basis. What hurt him most, though, was the fact that Jack had a chance at a future, however difficult it might be. As for Jack, well he considered Bryan his friend because with him he could find some much-needed self-confidence and he didn't feel threatened by the slave. So the two got along fabulously.

"Oh, gods... Hoo... Hoo!... I almost died of fright. Bryan, you're not dead, that's wonderful!"

"'Wonderful' my ass Jack, I'm starving, don't you have something to eat? Please give me something! I promise I'll pay you back later!"

Chubby Jack didn't reply immediately. In fact, he had been dumbfounded as he stared at "Bryan" in a daze as if it was the first time he had seen him. Two small, timorous eyes, similar to bean grains, were watching him curiously. Bryan frowned and asked with a touch of impatience

"What's wrong? Have you fallen in love with me or something?"

Hearing this, Jack's look became even more confused until he finally said.

"You've never asked me for food before, not once in all these years. You only limited yourself to eating when I gave you. You hadn't spoken to me like that either, in fact, I don't think I've ever heard you say so many words at the same time. Bryan, you're changed!"

Bryan was a bit surprised because he clearly remembered that neither Lisa nor her friends were able to notice that there was something different about him. On the other hand, the chubby and not very smart of Jack had noticed immediately with just one sentence of his.

After a while, Bryan refocused on the deceased's memories and discovered that the young slave basically never spoke to the necromancy students. He just did what people told him to do without any retort, but Bryan and Jack occasionally chatted. Of course, most of the time Jack was the only one talking and Bryan just listened. The two had spent a lot of time together, no wonder Jack had quickly discovered the differences.

Bryan ignored his moment of carelessness with a smile and said, "Well, Lisa's Ghoul sucked the life out of me until I was dying. I guess the experience has changed the way I see things a bit, but I'm still the same."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief at Bryan's explanation and nodded his head. "I see. I was beginning to think you had turned into an idiot!"

"..."

"Here you go, this is some black bread that I managed to hide. Go ahead, eat it. I'm so glad you're still alive. Since everyone thought you were dead, they gave me all your homework because they haven't found a new guy yet. That's why I had to come here very early this morning. I was in such a hurry that I accidentally bumped into Bach and because of that, he hit me very hard. I even have a bruise on my left eye."

Chubby Jack started talking happily as he handed him a piece of bread. He seemed delighted that he didn't have to do the extra work.

Bryan bit into his food greedily as he stared at the bruise on his friend's back. Then he spoke angrily. "So that idiot Bach hit you again! That cocky guy who thinks he's a big deal. Come on! Let's go get revenge!"

Jack jumped in fear and then rushed over to try and restrain Bryan with his massive body weight as he exclaimed in terror, "Bryan, are you crazy?! Aren't we used to being treated like this?! Besides, Bach is an apprentice in necromancy! It's not the first time he's hit us! It's good enough if we can get him to leave us alone. What revenge can we get?"

Bryan laughed coldly and proudly exclaimed. "Don't worry, I have my means. Yes, I'm crazy. Or at least that's what all students of necromancy believe. Can't I take advantage of this to get my way? You'll see what I plan to do!"

Saying this he dragged fat Jack out of the warehouse with him. The Magical Essence within his body was flowing at full speed!

[1] Gul: A ghoul from Arab folklore (Ghul) who inhabits inhospitable places and prowls cemeteries to feed on corpses. There is also a female variant called Ghouleh or Algola