The next day arrived and Hugo wasn't feeling as refreshed as he wanted to be. The words Kiter said still echoed in his brain as he dreamt, which in turn led to his severe lack of sleep.
His brain wouldn't let go of those words because he knew they were true:
"You may not know it Hugo, but you're the reason you are not able to get stronger. You may think you have no enemies, but in truth your biggest enemy is yourself."
'My biggest enemy is myself. That makes sense but then again, it doesn't.'
He sat cross-legged on the bed, trying to come across some sort of epiphany while in that stance. His contemplation died at an early age because of Kiter's interruption.
"You can stop your train of thought now and start making some real progress. I'll explain what I mean as soon as you come out."
Kiter's head retracted slowly as he gave Hugo a knowing look. Hugo's eyes hardened along with his determination and he prepared for any sort of insult that might come his way.
He stepped out the door of the guestroom and into a hallway that was kind of clean compared to the outside, but Hugo knew it wasn't always like that. Before he slept the previous day, the entire hallway was littered with darts of different sizes.
With the way his house and compound was, there was no doubt he'd have at least one or two nukes in his private spaces like room.
Sweat appeared on Hugo's forehead as he thought about it.
'Why is a guy like this so focused on humility, anyway? He's the last person who should speak about this!'
The more Hugo tried to convince himself that Kiter was arrogant, the more self-centred and haughty he became.
After some navigating, he eventually reached the yard where Kiter stood among the hundreds of projectiles scattered on the ground.
"Since you're finally here, I can explain to you what I meant yesterday."
Kiter's stop was him waiting for approval from Hugo.
"Go on."
"As I was saying, Archery isn't something you can learn without humility. We can shoot birds down from the sky from the ground and above ground, we can kill from thousands of miles away."
"There are some marksmen who can stay aloof and keep an optimal level of skill, but those kinds are rarely seen. Perhaps you can pull it off, but while you're learning with me, you have to be humble,"
Hugo understood that train of thought and appreciated it even more as he thought about it.
'Then he's one of those who can be arrogant.'
Kiter gave a small smile as if he read Hugo's thoughts and cocked his head over to the piles of weapons littered everywhere.
"Pick a gun and shoot at the centre of that tree over there." The tree he pointed at, had a bullseye symbol on its surface.
Hugo wasn't sure what kind it was, but it was huge.
"Successfully hit the middle and we'll go on to the next step,"
He stopped his gesturing and sat on the chair closest to him.
Hugo stepped forward, about to select a gun from the pile but froze upon getting near the closest one, and Kiter took amusement to that.
"Come on. We only have a few weeks before you go to meet that snob, Liam!"
Hugo shook off the hesitation and replaced it with calm, his next action was selecting the gun he was most familiar with.
"Phew, I can do this."
His hand shivered upon gripping the cold handle of the gun. This was one of the few guns he'd ever seen during his entire seventeen years on earth.
"Nice choice. But are you sure you want to go with that one?"
He'd encountered that old-fashioned pistol the day before, in the hands of the one who awakened his fears.
"I'm certain." He steeled his voice as a show of determination, but his hands still shook from that fear.
Kiter didn't find satisfaction in his performance and reprimanded him, "Hey, I said being a marksman should not involve arrogance, but that does not mean you should be a complete coward either. There's an obvious line between the two."
The Dancer had no qualities befitting a teacher, but he could still knock a bit of sense into his student's brain.
"Alright. Hahh."
His words gave Hugo a strange sense of calm, and he regained the usual cold and calculating demeanour that complemented his fighting style.
He employed a two-handed wielding style and steadied the revolver while his fingers also tightened around the cold metal of the trigger.
"Hu!"
Hugo took a large breath of air and pulled the trigger; a bullet flew forth from the gun amidst the gunfire.
*Bang!*
In the blink of an eye, a huge chunk of the tree's side blew into bits, flying in all directions of the park.
"Hey, hey. That's not bad for your first attempt at shooting, but what a pity, you missed the mark. So, until you get it, you'll be practising your aim."
Hugo dropped the gun at the realization of the gross amount of power the weapon had.
"Just like that, it blew part of the tree to bits. What if it was that kid's head instead?"
"Calm down. It's only because I modified the gun. The bullets are better and I increased its durability but you should feel its recoil right about now."
No sooner than Kiter said this, did his arms start aching.
"Should it be this painful?"
"No, not really. The modifications played a huge role in this, but the pain is still part of my training,"
Kiter picked up an arrow from the ground and used it to draw a cycle that explained it to him.
"It's like this; the more you get used to it, the easier bow-drawing will be for you. A bow, especially strong ones need stronger strings, and in turn, those stronger strings require better strength to draw. I invented this method, by the way."
"Any more questions?"
Hugo shook his head and moved on to another tree within the plethora marked with the bullseye mark.
"Now, keep practising."
. . .
Somewhere within City A of Alpha
A loud commotion took place within the bustling roads of City A and the people hoping to go about their normal activities noticed the obstruction.
Multiple barricades prevented normal civilians from going onto the road, and only personnel with high enough clearance had access to the situation.
Another type of person that had access to the area were people who were indirectly involved, like victims relatives.
"Madam, calm down! Our team is looking for your boy at this very moment." A police officer dressed in bright red spoke held back one victim's relative.
"He didn't get lost. I know because the kidnapper sent me this note!"
The woman held up a tiny slip that had a line of blurred words on it.
"There's nothing here ma except a bunch of ink smudges. And with all due respect, I find it hard to believe that our suspect uses such an old fashion method as writing notes."
The mother tried her best to justify the smudges, but the officers wouldn't hear a word of it.
"Come on men, let's move out!"
A select group of officers hopped on hover cycles and went on their patrol.
The woman was distraught, unable to even think straight from the sudden disappearance of her child.
The chief of security of Alpha walked over to help her up, "Don't worry Ma'am, we'll find your kid."
But his words were little more than empty consolations to the woman.
'Hmm. Why did this psycho kid resurface? Goddamit, Cluez! I spent all that time getting your traces erased, and you had to come back and make this mess. I can't really blame him, though. His nemesis reappeared in these parts of Allegro.'
Though the chief had a look of somberness on the surface, once stripped off, the exterior would reveal a smiling face.
Though he had an alliance with the villain, the chief of security still needed to fulfil his role in society.
"All units search for traces of Cluez!"
"But, sir. Isn't he already dead?" A low-level officer asked, knowing well the status of the horrific man.
The chief of security frowned and issued another order.
"For this mission, all of you are to treat Cluez like an alive man armed with multiple weapons. I don't want anyone dying because of carelessness!"
"Yes, sir!"
And for the first time, the hopeless woman looked at the chief of security with a hint of trust in her eyes.
"I'll repeat my earlier words, Ma'am. We promise to find your son."
With those last words, he departed to fulfil his duty as the chief of security. Perhaps maybe the last one before old habits resurfaced.
. . .
Somewhere unknown
"Hoho, they should be on their way by now. I left one little clue on the roads, though. It won't be easy to get here."
It was the terror of the man with an A-level threat rank; Cluez!
No chapter yesterday because it was my birthday.
While the events went down in City A, Hugo was still working his way towards learning archery. He was still in the gun part, but after a while, he only did it to improve his familiarity with the gun, not that he wasn't able to do it.
Kiter noticed but didn't stop him, claiming it was good exercise.
*Blam!* *Blam!*
Two gunshots rang out in succession towards different trees. The repeated exercise had improved his proficiency with guns. He could shoot more than once after a while of practising, though the recoil still hurt like hell.
"Alright, Kiter. I'm done with your task."
"Oh? Scoot a bit and let me see!" Kiter adjusted the position of his chair and peered at the two smoking holes.
"Nice, but I would have appreciated it if you didn't take so long feeling the gun,"
"Well, it's not my fault that it's so interesting to fiddle with,"
The tired Skydancer got up from his chair and even gave a subconscious nod at what Hugo said.
"You've completed the first training, now onto the second."
"Before we start, I'd like to tell you that Archery is the last thing you'll be learning here. We're going to cover the basics of marksmanship before you learn how to shoot some arrows. If you have any problem with that, speak up now."
"No, I'm cool."
"Good."
Saying that he grabbed the gun from Hugo and threw it to the ground.
"Gunnery is only one part of marksmanship, we have archery too, but as I said before, that is the last thing I'll be teaching you here. As a marksman, you need to be skilled with the use of various kinds of projectile weapons.
From here on out, you'll be improving your skill with those weapons like; Spears, Kunais, Shurikens, Darts, Chakrams and even more firearms like cannons, rifles, grenade launchers and so on."
"And I suppose it isn't legal for someone your age to wield large firearms, but it doesn't matter to me. After all, if they let you kill monsters and fight bad guys, this shouldn't matter much."
Kiter shrugged and picked out three sets of projectiles.
"Shuriken, Blowgun Dart and Rifle. Depending on the ways you use them, these weapons have similar purposes. Back in their eras, these weapons were tools of subterfuge and assassination. So, you will learn how to use them first."
'Subterfuge, assassination? That's not the way I fight at all!'
He soon realized he couldn't complete the task in a few hours and would take a few days or perhaps even a week to get the hang of it.
"But before you waste time on those weapons, I wish to ask you something," Kiter spoke as he retreated to his seat.
Without waiting for an answer, Kiter collapsed onto his chair and dished out a question
"What do you want?"
It was an existential crisis right off the bat. Hugo provided him with a reluctant answer, while he tried to remember.
"Right now, what I want is to learn archery."
Kiter shook his head and elaborated, "No, I mean, what do you want in life? What is your goal?"
"I... I-"
"Answer the question, Hugo. There is no need to think about it,"
"I... I want to rid the world of all evil, corruption and sin."
Kiter didn't ask him how he expected to do that, and instead just followed up.
"Why do you want to do so?"
His reply was smooth and concise, "Because of the vast injustice I'd suffered as a child and I don't want to see others suffer anymore from that kind of injustice."
"Then why did you become a Skydancer? What did you want to do as a Skydancer?"
But the smooth and concise answer wasn't enough to satisfy Kiter.
"I became a Skydancer to change the world, and the only way to do that is to reach the pinnacle of the world in terms of strength."
"Does your power not satisfy you? You already have enough to change the world."
That question stumped Hugo because Kiter was right. And then, he just did what Kiter said to.
'Remember, don't think!'
"I do, but I still feel the power isn't enough. With that amount of power, I'd be able to do things without fearing people. As it is now, I know people that could wipe me out in a flash, people like Ruki, Gaia and so on. There are even more people like that that I don't know about."
The string of questions stopped after that, and Kiter nodded with a bitter smile.
"You are right. There are tons of villains and Dancers more powerful than you, and even more, are smarter. It would be stupid to think you are strong enough just because of your God Grade Awakening. And besides, yours has far too much power and potential."
"If you stopped training now, there's no doubt your body will explode into little Black Matter Particles from all the internal collisions your body and power experience."
Hugo understood what Kiter was saying. This was the reason his parents had kept him locked up and in constant training for all those years, and they had forced him to understand it at an early age.
Kiter let out a small laugh and reclined the chair, making it stand only on the two hind legs.
"Well, it's such a shame. I pity you, boy. You're forced to train your body and increase your power otherwise you'd die, but in exchange, you become more and more empty inside, unable to feel threatened nor danger."
The recipient of his observations sighed in response, "I won't accept your pity, but I won't reject it either,"
Kiter cocked his head at the statement and laughed even harder.
"I don't expect you to. And I will let you in on a secret, you're not the only overly righteous nut job I've met. The ones I met before never had good endings. They always lacked one key factor, and it's up to you to figure it out."
Hugo frowned for a moment, then took up a neutral expression the next moment.
'I hate mystery and clues.'
"Now that we're done discussing, let's get back to work," Kiter pointed at the weapons and continued, "For each of those weapons, there'll be a primary exercise and a few secondary ones. You cannot move on to the secondary exercises before completing the primary ones,"
"The primary exercise for shuriken is precision throwing, and the secondary exercises might include accuracy, concealment and so all."
"I will only divulge that information for now," He smirked and shot a casual glance at the youth. "I will only give information on the other weapons until after you're through with the shurikens,"
Hugo nodded and picked up one of the blade-edged metal stars, observing its structure then throwing it at one tree.
*whoosh!*
The weapon spun through the air to reach the tree but fell flat upon coming into close contact with it. Hugo nodded and took a few more tests ending with the same results as the first one.
"There has to be some aerodynamics to this kind of weapon, I'll figure it out and try again."
He studied the curves and lines of the weapon for a while and took more tests with throwing vertically, horizontally, slanted, curved and even zig-zagged.
The last one proved stupid and dangerous, even for Kiter.
"Stop messing around and start throwing towards the trees, not me!"
Hugo snickered then put on a serious face, "Pfft, calm down. I'm only trying out some things, we're all analysts here so let's try our best to get along."
"Get along with a dumb boy 30 years younger than I am? Not a chance!"
"Age is just a number, Kiter!"
"Yeah, and Death is just a word. They mean nothing."
They continued their banter and this time around, there was a sense of familiarity between the two.
So Kiter was no longer idle while Hugo trained, he had to maintain a full focus on making up comebacks to use against Hugo.
"Better watch yourself, Hugo. Who knows, I might just decide to cancel archery of your training schedule."
"Your threats don't scare me, after I've learnt the rest of this stuff, I reckon archery will be easier to learn. Even if I still need a teacher after that, there'd be no need for an archery grandmaster."
Hugo's words were meant to be playful, and Kiter knew that. But, his last sentence woke something up in him.
'He's right. After the boy leaves, I'll probably lose my use for good. I don't want that to happen. But then again, what do I even want to do. Teaching isn't for me, I don't want to educate, I don't want to be the strongest and I don't want to eradicate all evil!'
'I know everything I don't want, yet I don't know what I want. And without want, there is no need. I guess with that train of thought, it makes sense that none of those civilians cared for me. What do I want and what do I need?'
The question bounced around his head and would not leave until he figured out his purpose.
****
Author's Note: We might not be able to reach 70 chapters before the end of the week, but we have made good progress and I still strive to reach at least Chapter 60 before the given time.