Roles

The next day, Tai's shoulder still hurt like hell so he could not do much.

Thus, it was extremely uneventful.

The most the teenager could do was to groan in pain or laze about.

To cut the story short, it was simply extremely boring.

Claire had been ridden by guilt, so much that he had not seen her since the accident.

He was getting a bit worried as she had not even come out to eat.

Nikolah, was off either doing one thing or the other aboard the ship.

Tai himself know much about ships, the much he could tell, was about their history, which he had picked up from his time at the museum.

So the red haired teenager had absolutely nothing to do.

Turning over to the sword wraith, Tai sighed.

"It sure is boring around here, isn't it?"

The sword wraith sighed too.

"Sure is.

Tai gave the wraith an annoyed look.

"Sure, because you're already dead?"

As he stood, however, the change of position got his bandage slightly open as blood began to drip down his shoulder.

The teenager cursed as the blood began to flow freely from the now open injury.

'Damnation.'

However, instead of making a rude joke or chiding the black haired teenager, the narcissistic sword wraith smiled as an idea had hit him.

"We may not be able to teach you sorcery right now, but there's another thing that you can learn."

***

A few days had passed since the spar.

Tai had almost healed by then, but his left shoulder still hurt a bit.

Amirax was currently demonstrating a sword technique to Tai, while the latter followed up bit by bit.

After losing to Claire, the black haired teenager had determined to beat her the next time they sparred.

Since one could never get better than his teacher, Tai had opted not to approach Claire for tutoring.

Instead, he had asked the sword wraith to teach him the theory version of runic sorcery, which somehow ended up with the wraith training him on the way of the sword instead.

Now, Amirax had been slowly teaching him the ancient battle style the sword wraith used while Tai tried to learn.

And learn he did.

He had become a bit potent with the weapon, but not enough to best Claire in a spar.

She was simply a monster with the sword.

Soon, Tai began to notice vague silhouettes in the distance.

They were approaching Black Nest Island.

wiping the sweat dripping from his eye brow, the black haired teenager shouted into the cabin.

"Nikki, Island!"

He could hear her rapid footsteps as the blonde teenager peeked out of her cabin, excitement over her stoic face.

"It really is Black Nest Island!"

***

Black Nest Island was a spectacular sight.

It's surface was covered in massive mountains and was eternally covered in dark shadows, while the top had an ethereal golden light on it's peak.

It may have looked pretty, but in reality it was not.

A divine beast had made it's nest there after all.

Tai, Nikki and Claire had spent the next few hours going through the hills and valleys of Black Nest.

By this time, the red haired teenager had gotten a general idea of the place.

Black Nest was the name of the gargantuan mass of massive twigs and leviathanian bones all twisted together into a hollow circle.

In its center, there was an eternal gleam that glowed brightly during the day, and even more brightly at night.

It's only resident, was a leviathan bird creature called The Covetous Raven.

A beast that had been in existence since before Doomsday, the war between the gods and daemons.

It was a greedy, gluttonous creature that even stole from the gods themselves, ate it's loot, and then regurgitated the loot as a decoration in it's nest.

This would mean that the glowing light in the middle of it's nest was actually treasures gathered over millions of years.

Tai and co had never even thought of reaching the massive nest, as it was situated on the tip of an equally massive hill on a mountain, which was on another larger mountain, which rose from a deep, abysmal, valley in the middle of the Island.

Currently, Tai lay shirtless on the deck of the majestic flying ship.

Nikki was probably somewhere searching for interesting stuff about the island to write in her expedition journal, Claire was.... well, he had been seeing the speech impaired teenage girl less and less recently, and he had nothing to do.

Bored almost to death, and in the heat, Tai had decided to bask in the shade of the enormous flying ship decked on the island.

Usually, Amirax would be taking him on sword lessons, or teaching him rudimentary runic sorcery that he was still yet to master.

But today, even the narcissistic wraith was nowhere to be seen.

With a contented sigh, Tai smiled.

"Why can't life always be this peaceful?"

However, Tai himself knew that life off Island of Man, the only permanent human settlement in the Floating Isles, was always one dangerous, life threatening situation to another.

"Tai!"

Nikolah's voice resonated from the grasslands below.

Standing up, the red haired teenager groaned.

"I spoke too soon."

Ever since arriving on Black Nest Island, Nikki, Tai, and Claire had had their roles cut out for them.

Nikki was the one who would find and document the features, topography, and other important information on the remote island, and interesting stuff while at it, while Tai and Claire were to act as body guards of sorts.

They would fight The Mutated, harrowing creatures that mutagenic miasma left behind by the Doomsday had turned into blood thirsty, ferocious, mindless beasts, they would stand guard, and they would protect the flying ship.

Which, by Tai's standards, was less dangerous than actively roaming all nooks and crannies of the Island searching for interesting stuff to write about.

He did not even understand why she did so.

For grades?

The red haired teenager cared far more about his life than grades.

By the time he had arrived at Nikki's location, Claire was already wiping off the blood on her sword.

She tapped her wrist with her finger and shook her head.

Nikki frowned slightly, then smiled.

"She says you don't have a watc...Oh!, She says you're late."

Tai smiled nervously.

"Yeah, sorry.

I was kind of far away."

Soon after, the small group had a small lunch of monster meat, looked around the area a bit, and retired back to the ship.