Chapitre 25: New Acquaintance
Soon the leader from the Red Eyes left along with Bruno and some sort of calm settled over the room once more. Now that the immediate threats were gone though, my mind started to cloud over as my body protested in pain. I was about halfway through my meal, so my body was starting to recover from my day long discipline training, but this new injury wasn't healing at all.
I wolfed down the rest of my food as soon as possible, but even though I felt my blood working hard to fix my injured body, this new pain continued to persist. Thinking about it, I guess it would be described as a soul attack or something. Everybody did mention that the Red Eyes were something like soul magicians after all.
Left with no more food and no other way to fix the aching pain spread throughout my whole being, I decided to just rest. I pushed my tray away and just slumped down onto the ground. Despite being on the floor and in a still crowded cafeteria, sleep had never come easier to me than that night.
I woke up to the loud conversations of the trainees while still feeling a dull pain. For a moment, I thought that I didn't even sleep at all. I looked around in confusion and was eventually able to spot some differences. Most importantly there was now a woman sitting next to me on the ground. She was dressed in what I assumed to be casual clothes, looking a lot like the peasant clothes that I myself wore and just sat to the side while throwing me some glances every now and then.
This only added to my confusion as I had never seen a girl in these training grounds. I always just figured that they either didn't recruit women or that they trained elsewhere.
I looked over at her and asked the most obvious question.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Adele. Nice to meet you."
Um, I guess I did only ask who she was, but I was hoping to get a lot more information than that. She also just looked at me, apparently observing the expressions on my face.
"I'm sorry, why are you here again? I can't really think clearly right now, but I don't remember a woman sitting next to me before I went to sleep."
"Ah, that is why you are confused. I've been assigned to watch over you as a replacement for that incompetent fool. I'm sorry for his behavior."
With that, she actually bowed her head to me. I was still quite bewildered by this situation, but slowly connected the dots. If she were a replacement, then that had to mean she was also with the Red Eyes. Thinking this far, I frowned at how slowly I made that connection. Did receiving a soul attack effect my ability to think? Hopefully that would fix itself shortly.
"Are you frustrated with your condition right now?"
I looked at her in shock. Was she able to see what I was thinking now?
"No, I still can't read your mind very easily. My only goal right now is to get to know you better, so I wanted to try guessing your thoughts. Was I right?"
Couldn't she read between the lines at my shocked expression just now?
"Um, something like that I guess."
She smiled after my response. Did she really guess my thoughts earlier just to be confused about confirming them with an even more obvious expression? I wasn't sure if she was actually a fool or not.
"I'm glad. Master will be pleased with this development."
No, wait a second. Her master would be pleased with just this? I was starting to think more and more that I was accompanied by some sort of air headed person.
"Who is this master person?"
She looked at me with sparkling eyes. I started to feel fairly uncomfortable with that gaze.
"You should have already seen him. Master Zoran saved you from that incompetent fool yesterday. If not for him, you might have received unhealable damage to your soul. You should be happy that such a wise and kind man looked after you like he did."
Uh huh. So, we had a hopelessly devoted and somewhat air headed person looking after me now. I actually started to feel like this situation might be one of the worst. Sometimes it was very hard to understand the thought process of this kind of person.
"So, what's your goal then? Are you just going to observe as I go about my daily life?"
"Oh no, not at all. I'm going to do exactly what you do. I believe the key to understanding someone is to simply walk in their shoes. I won't stand on ceremony and just copy whatever you do. Whether it be training, eating, accepting punishment, or even bathing. I will copy everything in an attempt to understand you."
I gave her a strange look.
"Um, did you say bathing? That's a little unsettling to be honest."
She looked incredibly confused at my words.
"Unsettling? Why? I was convinced that you would be happy having a maiden such as myself around. It's not like I'd let you see anything though."
I let out a sigh and rested my face in my hands for a bit. How old was she again? She definitely looked young enough to be my daughter. Well, whatever. Her goal was to see through me, so I kind of didn't want to explain.
"I'll let you figure that out for yourself. Anyway, how long will this soul injury thing last anyway? I don't feel like doing anything right now and I think that's a problem."
She still looked confused about our earlier conversation, but quickly turned into nodding in understanding.
"Yes, I know what you mean. Although I'm not entirely certain, we should recover in a day or two."
"Uh, did you just say we?"
"Yes, I asked master to give me the same injury that you received yesterday. I really will never forgive that incompetent fool for doing something so unsightly. For a mere adept to go all out in teaching an initial stage a lesson."
She looked very angry while thinking about her coworker. I thought over her words for a bit longer than usual and eventually spotted some key information. She said a mere adept. Did that mean she was even stronger? Was she also a core stage like Bruno? More than ever, I thought my new babysitter would be quite challenging to deal with.
"Well, I guess I should grab breakfast or something then. Maybe the food will help."
"Yes, I agree. It has been quite a while since we've had food."
I just shook my head at her antics. Wasn't she going a bit too far with this copying thing? Regardless, I just ignored her and went about my morning routine. I did have to panic a little when I stepped away to go to the bathroom though.
This world had a very primitive version of a toilet which reminded me more of an outhouse than anything, but most importantly, it was basically just a one person at a time kind of thing. Yet, she moved as if wanting to walk in with me.
"What are you doing? Can't I have some privacy?"
She gave me a sly smile. What was she just trying to tease me now? I couldn't figure out her thought process.
"Just a joke, don't worry. I will wait until you are done and similarly hope that you will wait for me."
I felt like she was intentionally messing with me at this point.
I quickly finished and then naturally proceeded to abandon her when it was her turn. She kind of freaked me out with that whole thing so I wasn't going to be considerate.
I walked over to the training grounds and started to think about how I should train for now. Even though I asked before, Bruno still hadn't given me a training routine to follow. Maybe it was because I kept making him mad.
I went over to the weapon rack and found my wooden practice polearm there. I doubted that I would really be relying on using weapons in the future, but for now I figured that it would help. At least for now, my blood couldn't really give me any combat abilities. Therefore, it made sense to practice with a weapon.
I had no idea how to go about this kind of training, so I decided to just go with the flow. To start off, I would go on a jog while holding my weapon. Maybe this would help me get used to its weight and maneuver better while holding it.
I did a few stretches while preparing for my run, but was distracted by an energy wave spreading out into the environment. I was starting to recognize this as some sort of soul mana, so I had a pretty good idea of who it was. As soon as the soul mana reached me, it lingered around while everything else was recalled. Shortly after, I could see Adele running towards me from the distance.
Seeing her run, I was quite surprised at how normal she looked. In fact, I thought she was actually quite slow by normal standards. She eventually caught up while breathing hard.
"Why did you leave me?"
"Um, you were kind of being weird and it's not like I have to be considerate or anything."
Despite everything, her eyes lit up at my words.
"So that's why. It makes sense now."
I shook my and prepared for my run. If that was her max speed earlier, then I could probably easily leave her behind. Anything to get some time away from this weirdo sounded good to me.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone