Chapter 68: Training Montage 2

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Training Montage 2

Victor’s quick improvement shocked Kiki. She could not help but imagine what would have happened if he began training from a very young age.

No doubt, he would have long surpassed Popo.

The key point was ’started from a young age.’

Throughout the training, Victor kept Stoneskin suppressed the entire time, never once letting it flare even when a hit from Kiki would’ve genuinely benefited him a upper hand to attack.

He wanted every bruise and every cut, to actually mean something.

He knew that if his body never truly felt the cost of a mistake, he’d never learn fast enough to correct it. And besides, the fewer of his abilities Kiki saw up close, the better.

The battle with Cleavage gang showed that having aces no one knew about, not even allies, provided tactical advantage.

And so the grueling days passed.

On the eighth night, they sat across from each other by the fire, Victor nursing a split lip, Kiki methodically sharpening her blade.

Aside for one Direlion to scare smaller beasts away, Victor let the others go hunt for food.

"Thank you," he said, breaking the silence. "For doing this."

She didn’t look up. "It’s not enough."

"I know."

A long pause stretched between them, nothing but the crackle of the fire filling the space.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You’re going to anyway."

He almost smiled at that. "If I win against Popo. Then I’ll become chief."

"I know what winning means, Milkshake22."

This was probably the hundredth time he was asking this same question.

She sighed. ’Does he think he is going to get a different answer now?’

"Then why are you helping me?" He kept his eyes on her, searching for something in her expression. "You don’t even think I’ll win."

Her sharpening stone stopped moving for a second.

"I don’t." She said it plainly, there was no cruelty in it, just honest assessment. "Not with everything stacked against you."

"Then why."

She was quiet for a long moment, eyes fixed on the blade in her hands rather than on him.

"I don’t... know," she finally said, voice quieter than he’d heard it before. She set the whetstone down, pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, and turned onto her side, facing away from the fire. "Get some sleep. We’re not done training. We wake up early tomorrow."

Victor watched her back for a while before letting the question go, settling in beside the dying fire.

Kiki didn’t sleep right away.

She lay there, listening to his breathing even out beside her, and found herself thinking about the past week despite herself. The way he’d screamed, more frustration than pain, the third time she’d put him flat on his back. The way he kept getting back up anyway, over and over, something stubborn and unbroken running underneath all that incompetence.

It was all very incredible to watch. And it gave her a feeling, like she was polishing a diamond in the rough.

This was a foreign feeling to her.

She shook her head. ’Stop thinking about...’

A memory came.

When she was but a child, her father had told her that it was her destiny to marry the strongest man in the world.

’This was the will of the ancestors’ He said. Considering the boundary and Popo was to become the next chief, and the betrothal, she always assumed it would be him.

But if...

She forced herself to stop the thought. Then it shifted again.

She thought about how he laughed at his own failures instead of sulking over them. How he asked questions without shame, admitted what he didn’t know without flinching, and moved through the world like none of it could touch him too deeply.

Honestly, she envied that, if she was even most honest with herself. She’d spent her whole life precise, and controlled, with every motion calculated down to the smallest degree.

Because that was what being a shaman’s daughter betrothed to the next chief demanded of her.

A betrothal she had no say in. Groomed for duty long before she understood what duty would cost her.

And here was this man, failing loudly, boldly, and constantly and somehow still freer than she’d ever been allowed to feel.

She didn’t understand why that mattered to her. She just knew that it did.

Eventually, sleep took her anyway.

....

The final spar, on their last morning before heading back, ended the same way every single one before it had.

Kiki’s broadsword found the gap in his guard in seconds, the flat of the blade sweeping his legs out from under him, and Victor hit the dirt hard, axe skittering away from his hand.

She stood over him, chest heaving slightly, studying him with an expression caught somewhere between frustration and something softer she didn’t quite let surface.

"It’s not enough," she said again.

"I know." Victor stared up at the sky, breathing hard. "I guess we have to find out either way."

She offered a hand and pulled him up.

Neither of them said much as they broke camp.

Victor pulled himself up onto one of the Direlions, and Kiki mounted another.

There wasn’t anything left to say that hadn’t already been said in twelve days of bruises and beatings.

They turned the Direlions toward the village and rode.

As they did, Kiki stared at him. ’It has already been days. Even now, why does he not look bothered?’

In fact, if anything, he looked more confident.

’Wait, did I hit him too hard?’ She thought to herself.

Victor looked sideways a bit. Don’t tell me she is already falling in love with me.

He shook the thought out of his mind.

Such thoughts should not be on his mind. He had a battle to focus on. Popo would not be an ordinary opponent.

A level 5 barbarian and chief of the tribe.

He would have to first get that thing hidden in the Arena.

If not, he was definitely going to die.

(Author’s note: I hope you enjoyed that. Next is the battle)