by Aaron Oster
Grace’s breathing was weak, her chest rising and falling fitfully, and her eyes remained closed. In a way, it was good that she’d fallen unconscious, but at the same time, it only served to make him worry all the more. Morgan watched her carefully, only noticing for the first time how small the girl really was. Perhaps she simply appeared that way because of her injuries.
He sighed, leaning his head back and remembering all of the times he’d come close to death. The difference between him and Grace was that he’d always had a partner while fighting. No matter where he’d been, Sarah had always had his back, and on more than one occasion, had saved his life. Fighting as a team against a single opponent was always far safer, as a teammate could help attack or pull the creature’s attention if one needed a break.
He couldn’t help but run Grace’s fight through his mind, replacing her with him and Sarah at the same rank. He might have taken some injuries in that fight, but with Sarah’s skill to slow the beast and support him with ranged attacks, they probably could have won that fight without Sarah even coming close to the beast.
Using either his mage or super abilities, Morgan was sure he could have succeeded. His Stormforge, which had originally been called Wind Blade, could have punched through the beast’s rocky hide, and his other skill, Tailwind, would have made him nimble enough to avoid most of the beast’s attacks.
Grace, aside from being on her own, had a very different set of skills. That aside, her Agility was far lower than his. If he was honest with himself, it would probably never match up. Likewise, her Strength, which was her greatest asset, had been shoved to the side and neglected as he’d tried to raise her Agility.
He sighed once again, realizing that he’d been training her all wrong up until now. Grace needed to be trained differently than he had been, because her focus lay in a different area. Her skills should have told him as much, but he’d been too set in his ways. Had he focused on boosting her Strength and Constitution, she would have had more than enough power to meet that beast head-on.
He’d been focusing far too much on her ability to become lighter and hadn’t trained enough with her increasing density. Likewise, he hadn’t worked on her skill that increased the size of her limbs and had instead been focused on keeping her at range and out of harm’s way. While this was a great training method, Grace only had a single mage skill suited for combat, and while her super skill, Body Shift, did have some utility, they were both clearly meant for melee.
Though he didn’t say as much out loud, Morgan now understood what Lumia had meant when she said he’d learn something. He most definitely had. This experience, if anything, had shown him how wrong he’d been. Now all he could do was wait and hope that Grace came around soon. Otherwise, they’d be heading back to the Five Kingdoms before nightfall, and his entire plan would fall apart.
39
Awareness slowly started to come back. The first thing that Grace felt was an odd numb sensation spread over her entire body. This was accompanied by a feeling of warmth, as though she were lying under her covers and she’d just woken up. It was like that single, glorious moment before her feet started to become cold and sweaty at the same time in the way she hated, and she’d be forced to get out of bed and put on some socks.
This warm feeling was followed by confusion, as her mind tried to understand why there were birds chirping all around, or why she smelled grass and water, instead of the cold, dark scent of damp rock.
Grace’s eyes snapped open, and she tried to rise, feeling her heart rate spike as the memories of what she’d been facing came back in a rush. Instead of being able to sit up, she found herself unable to rise more than a couple of inches before her chest smacked into something and she fell back to the soft ground.
She blinked several times, trying to clear the blinding light from her eyes and try to make sense of her surroundings.
“Take it easy,” a very familiar-sounding voice said. “You’re hurt pretty badly, and I wouldn’t want you undoing all of my hard work.”
“Morgan?” she asked, craning her neck to the side and squinting at the blurry figure swimming in and out of focus.
“Yes,” Morgan replied. “Now take it easy. You got into a pretty nasty fight, but you’re safe now.”
Grace nodded slowly, the events of the fight finally beginning to come back to her. She’d been facing the beast down, her last attack had failed, then Morgan had come in and saved her at the last second. Shame began to creep in then as the realization hit. She hadn’t been strong enough and had had to be saved. Once again, she’d failed and in spectacular fashion.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, finding herself unable to look at Morgan.
“What are you sorry for?” Morgan asked, sounding a bit surprised.
“For being such a disappointment. All of that training and I couldn’t even fight off a single beast without being rescued.”
“No, Grace,” Morgan said, his voice sounding grave. “It is I who should be apologizing to you.”
She turned, surprised at what he’d said, and saw Morgan looking regretful for the first time since she’d met him.
“I have been training you the same way I was trained, rather than the way that you need to be. Because of that, I’ve neglected to give you the best chance of success possible, and for that, I am truly sorry. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
To say she was shocked would have been the understatement of the century. Morgan, the man who’d never apologized for anything, the man who’d driven her to exhaustion, pelting her with rocks and making her run until she was vomiting, and had done so without so much as batting an eyelid, was apologizing. To her!
“None of this is your fault…” Grace tried to say, but Morgan shook his head.
“As your teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure you are prepared to face any challenges that come your way. If I have not properly prepared you and you are injured as a result, the fault lies squarely on my shoulders.
“Aside from that, I was there to witness your entire fight, but instead of intervening, I chose to stand back and watch. All of your injuries right now really are my fault.”
“Wait…You were there the whole time?” Grace exclaimed, then winced as pain flared in her side.
It was only then, as she looked down, that she realized her current state of undress. Aside from all the bandages wrapping several parts of her body, she was clad only in her underwear. Her face went from pale to beet red in the span of a heartbeat, terror and embarrassment warring with one another.
“Morgan…where are my clothes?” she whispered.
“I had to remove them to tend to your injuries,” Morgan replied, not sounding at all apologetic. “I know that you may feel embarrassed or ashamed, but let me assure you that there is no need to be. I may as well apologize for that while I’m at it, though. I couldn’t risk covering you with anything while you were unconscious, lest I miss one of your injuries reopening.”
Grace wasn’t embarrassed. No, being practically naked in front of Morgan, a man who made her feel all kinds of weird wasn’t embarrassing. No, Grace was mortified. Completely and utterly mortified.
“Can I please cover up now?” she whispered, still not daring to meet his eye.
“Of course,” Morgan replied.
A moment later, she felt the heavy material of her cloak drop over her, and she breathed an internal sigh of relief. Still, the fact that he’d seen her in her state of undress wasn’t just going to go away. Not only that, but if Morgan had been the one to wrap her wounds, it meant that he’d not only seen her but touched her as well.
Grace didn’t know if dying of embarrassment was a thing, but she felt like she probably could. So, to combat that, she tried to move the topic back to the fact that Morgan had been watching her fight but had done nothing to stop it.
“Why didn’t you help me?”
“Because I needed to let you stand on your own,” Morgan replied with a sigh. “I won’t al
ways be around to help you, and I can’t allow you to grow complacent or assume I’ll be there to rescue you every time you’re in trouble.”
“But you already made me stand on my own against those gazelles,” Grace said, finally turning to look at him. “Why make me face this beast, too?”
“Because, when you faced those gazelles, you knew you could win,” Morgan answered. “Aside from that, you also had the knowledge, even if just in the back of your mind, that I was nearby and would come save you if you were about to fail. You needed to face a beast of unknown power, knowing that you could lose and that I wasn’t there to save you.”
“I…still lost, though,” Grace replied, feeling the small amount of rising anger fade away. “And now look at me.”
“Yes, you failed,” Morgan said bluntly, not bothering to deny it. “But you’re still alive. Sure, you were knocked around a bit and will likely carry the scars for the rest of your life. But you’ll still have that life. It was my fault for not training you the right way, but you adapted. You used your head instead of your fists, and very nearly came out on top against a beast that was all but impossible for you to kill.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, her brows wrinkling in confusion.
In answer, Morgan hefted a small core, glittering with blue and red energy.
“Why don’t you have a look for yourself and see.”
Grace reached up with her good hand, taking the core from Morgan and pulling up its information.
Name: Stonehide-Rhino Core
Rank - 9
Total available energy - 2,780/2,780
This core was taken from a stonehide-rhino and has no special properties.
“Wait,” Grace said, eyes going wide. “You mean that the beast I fought was rank 9?”
Morgan nodded.
“Rank 9,” Grace continued. “As in ‘run away from anything over rank 8 because you’ll die?’ That rank 9?”
“Yes. The one and only,” Morgan replied. “And seeing as you almost did die, that piece of advice still holds true.”
Grace nodded, looking down to the core once more. The amount of available energy was incredible, more than she’d ever seen in a beast core before. And judging by the fact that Morgan wasn’t asking for it to be returned, it was hers to keep.
“So…what happens now?” she asked, finally looking away from the core.
“Now,” Morgan replied, “we wait. You’re injured, and it will take at least a few days for you to recover. So, during the day, we’re going to stay put, and at night, we’re going to keep traveling. Seeing as you can’t exactly train physically, we’ll be working on bringing your Intelligence and Wisdom up a bit. When you’re fit to train once again, we’ll start working on your Strength. In the meantime, I’d like you to check something for me.”
Grace wanted to ask how they’d be traveling, seeing as she didn’t think she’d be walking anytime soon, but had a feeling she just didn’t want to know. She’d already gotten her embarrassment under control, and thinking of Morgan carrying her in his arms would make her start blushing again.
“Sure,” she replied, both berating herself for continuing to ignore Lumia’s advice and curious as to what he wanted her to check.
What could she even check in her current state?
“I’d like for you to open your status and try to select your skills with the intent of improving them.”
“Can I do that?” Grace asked, wondering if that were even possible.
“That’s what I’d like to find out,” Morgan replied. “You see, you’ve been gaining attribute points with each rank you’ve gained, but as far as I can tell, this stops at rank 9. Likewise, I and most others, are able to upgrade their skills using energy. While the world hasn’t always worked that way, things have changed in the past couple of years, and that seems to be the new norm.”
Grace nodded, excited at the prospect of having stronger skills, and pulled up her status to check. Navigating down to her skills, she mentally tried to do as Morgan had instructed. She was partially successful, in that she managed to open it. That was as much success as she had. Once the skills were opened, she was met with a very strange message, something she’d never seen happen before.
Insufficient rank to upgrade skills.
Grace told him what she saw, and though Morgan seemed a bit annoyed, he wasn’t at all surprised.
“You’ve yet to combine your cores. I don’t know if it’s simply because you have the potential to be a supermage, or if it’s the same for everyone under rank 9. For now, we can start working on the former. I’d also like you to use the energy from the beast core to bring your mage rank up to 5.”
“And what should I use the points for?” Grace asked, already pulling the energy into herself and shuddering at the feeling of the increase.
“Put 3 into Strength and 2 in Constitution,” he said, much to her surprise.
“Not Agility or Wisdom?”
“We can train Wisdom when you’re not fighting, and as I said before, I’ve been training you all wrong up until now. We’re going to work on making the best of what works for you, not what I think would be best.”
Grace was a bit confused by this logic but decided to just let it go. She did as she was told, bringing the attributes up by the amounts he’d ordered. Almost immediately, she felt some of the encroaching pain lessen, and her body felt stronger. She could swear her muscles had grown a bit as well, though there wasn’t a visible effect that she could see.
As she lay, staring up at the sky beyond their small shelter, she began to relax for the first time since she’d been lost. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. It was hard to believe she’d been through so much. But it was all over now. Morgan was here, and she was safe. Despite herself, Grace found her eyes fluttering closed once more. She had no idea why she felt so tired, as she’d slept plenty the night before.
“Sorry,” she muttered as warmth flooded her body and her mind began to feel heavy.
“No need to apologize,” she heard Morgan say, as though from a great distance. “The medicine will make you sleepy for a bit. Rest now. I’m here, and no one will hurt you.”
Grace felt a small smile touch her lips before the world faded around her. This time, she slept far more peacefully than before.
40
Marcus was beside himself with rage, which was quite uncommon for one of his kind, as he received yet another report of failure.
“What do you mean, ‘you can’t find them?’” he demanded, shaking the crumpled report at the hapless scout.
“Exactly what I said, sir,” the scout replied, swallowing nervously.
“He killed ten of our warriors, destroyed half a mile of woodlands, and killed one of the most notoriously difficult beasts to face, and you can’t find him? How difficult can it be?!”
“It would help if we knew what we were looking for, sir,” the scout replied, cringing inwardly at the statement almost as soon as it had left his lips.
Marcus rounded on him, eyes flashing and rage clearing written in every line of his face.
“Get out,” he said.
“You want me to…”
“OUT!” the gnome roared, hurling the crumpled paper at the scout and reaching for another, heavier item on his desk.
The scout didn’t ask any questions this time, immediately scurrying from the room and managing to slam the door just as a lead paperweight crashed into the wood, leaving a sizable dent in its place.
Marcus debated throwing something else, but instead simply sank into his chair and put his face in his hands. Things were not going well for him, it seemed. It had been nearly a week since they’d contacted the invader but had had no luck in tracking him since then. The report he’d received from the Council of Five had been vague at best, simply informing him of a powerful enemy agent in the Wilderwood, one that needed to be eliminated.
He’d sent his forces out, thousands of them, sweeping the forest in a l
ine and using tracking and detections skills. He’d even been told to watch the skies. And still, the enemy had somehow slipped by. He’d received another report, one of the agent’s exact location, somehow miles away from where he’d been told to look.
Forces had once again been sent, but when the rest of his men had shown up, all they’d found was a swath of destruction and dead bodies. It took the trackers nearly a day to pick anything up due to all the smoke and confused scents, but eventually, they’d tracked a second agent to a waterfall basin.
There, they’d caught wind of two more, before they’d simply vanished without a trace. Now, here they were, floundering about like fish out of water and desperately trying to find them before they did more damage. Worse, his spies on the human continent were dying. Less than half had reported back in the last week, and more than one had confirmed the death of a comrade.
Suffice it to say that if he didn’t start showing results, and soon, he’d be losing more than his job. The Council of Five, while seemingly scholarly and wise, were also cunning and utterly ruthless. If they checked in and saw how badly things were going, his body would be rotting in a shallow grave come morning. He let out another sigh and wondered if he should simply give up and make a run for it. Maybe he could get away before they caught up to him.
“That sigh sounds awfully like a man at the end of his tether.”
Marcus jerked, chair nearly toppling at the unexpected voice. He looked up to see the goddess, the same one who’d been paying him visits ever since he started working as the head of the Guild.
“I really wish you’d warn me or maybe knock on the door,” he said, careful to keep his tone respectful.
The woman simply smirked, brushing a strand of bright pink hair from her cheek and taking a seat in midair, crossing one long leg over the other.