Chapter 17: A New Teacher
Arnik was left jaw dropped, not only was the incredible fighter in front of him the person they had come to meet, but more surprisingly, he just called Olea "sis". The shock was so great on Arnik that he unconsciously said the words "Sis", this made Olea and Sido immediately look in his direction.
Olea let out a sigh as she began rubbing her forehead, before turning to face Sido in front of her,
"Take us somewhere we can talk," she said.
Sido hesitated, his eyes were still fixed on Arnik but eventually he faced Olea and nodded.
He led the way past the crowd and through a door that led to a large room. The room was illuminated by several fluorescent bulbs that flickered at intervals. It contained several lockers and a few benches and a few fighters could be seen cleaning up themselves.
Arnik recognized some of them, they were mostly fighters that he had seen in the other small cages, " This must be the fighter's locker room" he thought to himself. Sido led the way, walking towards the far end of the room, the other fighters at the sight of him would slightly bow or nod their heads at the sight of him as a sign of respect and then would immediately shift their attention to Olea, eyes filled with lust. " Can't blame them? " Arnik thought to himself after observing many of the fighters behaving that way, he looked at Olea who was walking in front of him before slightly nodding, "Yes Olea is a very attractive woman" he decided.
Eventually, Sido stopped walking and sat in front of one of the lockers, unlike the others, however, this locker was alone and larger. " Is this good enough for you sis?" he asked as he raised his head to look at both his visitors.
Olea simply turned to look behind her and saw that almost everyone in the room had their eyes on them, most had their eyes on Olea to be specific, she returned her gaze to Sido and glared at him. The latter seemed to understand and let out a sigh, he rose back to his feet scratching his hair nervously, he cleared his throat for a few seconds before shouting in a loud voice,
"ALRIGHT BOYS, CLEAR THE ROOM".
Although most of the fighters already had their eyes on the trio that had just entered the room, a few had simply glanced in their direction and ignored them, but at the sound of Sido's voice, everyone's head turned in their direction. Arnik could feel heated gazes on his back and the fear of that was enough to make him stay frozen in place. Many of the fighters became irritated, even though most of them knew that Sido had earned the position of top fighter, many still felt that they could take him on, after all his slender frame wasn't anything near their muscular frame and his intimidating presence. A few fighters initially stood up to take their leave, but when they noticed that the majority of fighters remained in place, they sat down. Their reason for this was that they didn't want to lose face and be regarded as weak by the other fighters.
Sido remained in place for a while, scratching his hair, when he noticed that none of the fighters had made any attempt to leave, he let out a tired sigh. Arnik watched him close his eyes for a few seconds and then open them all of a sudden. A sudden cold feeling could be felt rushing out of Sido and it soon enveloped the entire room, in a low but solid voice he spoke again,
"I said, Get Out!".
All the fighters heard him clearly and no one dared to wait for him to speak again, they hurriedly packed their belongings and rushed out through the only door in the room, in a few minutes the entire room was empty. The door opened again and Geiko's head popped through, he had a weary expression on his face as he scanned the entire room before focusing on Sido,
"We good bro?" he asked apprehensively.
Sido simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he let the air out of his lungs and the cold aura began to vanish. He opened his eyes and a smile replaced the emotionless face he had on before, "We good" he answered, Geiko nodded and closed the door.
Sido, Olea, and Arnik were left alone in the room, there was silence for a bit before Sido spoke again,
"We can talk now sis," he said still smiling before proceeding to sit down on the bench behind him while Olea simply nodded as she looked in Arnik's direction.
Arnik remained unmoving, his face was covered in fear and his hands wouldn't stop shaking, he had been in front of Sido when the latter had released his aura so he had felt the full brunt of it and in the face of overwhelming power, Arnik could only feel one thing, "FEAR".
Olea could see her student struggling and couldn't blame him, she simply placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a light squeeze. This light gesture seemed to rouse Arnik from his state of shock as he looked at Olea, she smiled and nodded and Arnik relaxed.
"As I'm sure you've already figured out, this is my little brother Sido," she said gesturing to the man seated in front of them.
"Sido, this is Brid, he's a student of mine from the academy," she said pointing at Arnik.
"Nice to meet you kid," Sido said as he stretched out his hand for a handshake, Arnik hesitated a bit before stretching his hand and slowly shaking Sido,
" Sorry if I startled you before" he continued while smiling at Arnik with the latter simply nodding in acknowledgment.
When the introductions were over, Sido looked at Olea and spoke,
"It's good to see you sis, but I know you're not just here to check up on my well-being, so what's up?" he asked. Olea's response was immediate and firm,
"I want you to train him," she said gesturing at Arnik.
Arnik and Sido both had confused faces as they looked at Olea, at the same time they expressed their emotions," TRAIN?" they both asked in unison.
Sido looked at Arnik and could tell from his reaction and the look on his face that he had no prior knowledge of Olea's intentions. He let out an exasperated sigh,
" You know I don't take stude-" he started to say but Olea cut him off,
"He's got potential, trust me. Plus he needs this and the money of course" she said a little smile forming on her face.
"I don't know" Sido began to speak again scratching his hair nervously,
"I mean does the kid even want to fight?" he asked looking in Arnik's direction, Olea also turned to look at Arnik who remained silent and seemed lost in thought.
From the moment Olea had mentioned training, he'd begun to think. When it came to elemental affinity, even though he had activated his magical circuit at a late age, he'd still been lucky enough to be blessed with not one, but two affinities so he hadn't fallen behind his peers.
When it came to knowledge about magic-related subjects, his curiosity as a child had led to his obsession with studying anything magic-related so he was quite knowledgeable in that aspect too. The only things he lacked as a proper mage would be a teacher and accessibility to magi-gears.
The academy had mostly taken care of some of his gear-related needs but when it came to teaching the practical aspect of hand-to-hand combat, the academy had only gone so far, Arnik believed that this was because only the privileged class of people usually ended up being mages so the academy already assumed that they had already been trained in that aspect and felt no need to go deeper into the subject than on its theoretical side, and to an extent, they were right.
Everyone in his class had been trained or groomed to become a mage from a young age and so had started training when they were quite young, they certainly had teachers that guided them in that process as well as family techniques like the one Gerdi had used during their fight, everyone that is except Arnik.
It had taken a few minutes but Arnik had made his decision, having a teacher was the most important thing for someone like him at that moment, it was one of the most important things he needed for a solid foundation if we wanted to become a strong mage.
"Yes, I want to learn how to fight " he answered Sido with a determined look in his eyes, Olea simply smiled at the sight of this, she was happy that Arnik's determination wasn't fickle.
Sido let out a chuckle on seeing Arnik's determined expression,
"Seems I underestimated you kid," he said while smiling, " I like that look in your eyes, but before I completely make my decision, I need to see what you've got ".
Arnik nodded, the determined look still on his face,
"What do I need to do?" he asked.
Sido's smile increased even more," Ho that's very easy, all you need to do is …FIGHT".
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