58. Eating too much is bad for your health

I jumped on the water. It covered me to my knees.

“Toya, thanks for the ride!”

“No prob, shoriaf!”

When I noticed Toya’s expression full of curiosity about the group of trainees on the beach, I made the boat turn and pushed it away, smiling.

“Have a safe trip back.”

As the kid began to row away, he yelled:

“My home teacher says bullies are nincompoopish nimrods!”

I laughed.

“Your home teacher must be a nice person!”

“She is!”

Zeeta grumbled under his breath.

“We’re doomed. They’re glaring at us now.”

“It’s alright,” I said as we were getting out of the water. “If they try to steal our badges, we just have to run, don’t we? Besides, I just got a brilliant idea.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about that.”

I grinned.

“Heehee. Just play along with me, Zeeta.” I raised a hand and yelled: “Good morning, everyone, shoriaf! We’ve been sent here by the Phoenix’s governor to talk with the Soft Queen. Please don’t stop your training activities, we’re just passing by! Shoriaf!”

Looking sideways, I saw Zeeta’s painful expression. Both he and I walked toward the weird colored wood and the stairs that led up to the Academy. When the group was about thirty meters away from us, I could see more neatly the faces of the five Independent trainees doing push-ups—I recognized one of them: Sasha Salazar, the merfolk. Zeeta snorted.

“Good try, shoriaf, but it won’t work. The four-armed guy just asked the Independent trainees if they know us.”

“They won’t betray us. Why would they?”

Zeeta glanced at the group and grimaced.

“They did. Run!”

The four-armed guy was chasing us. Shoriaf. He ran fast. He caught up with us before we could even reach the strange woods made of orange and black sponge cactuses. Suddenly, a rope fell around me and tied me tight. A rope? No, it was more like a tentacle or… an arm?

“Straw Head!”

“Zeeta! Don’t stop, keep running!”

I had barely shouted that when another arm stretched and curled like a tentacle, grabbing Zeeta, tightening around him, and making him moan out of pain.

“Zeeta!”

The four-armed guy made us face him. From up close, his appearance was… not what you would call normal. He was nothing like Woon: he was taller, more muscled, and his lips were green and swollen as if they had been stung by a swarm of bees.

“Both of you,” he chuckled, “Charles-Ping is most regretful, but he will have you give up on your badges and do some push-ups, pretty please.”

What was the polite tone for? Also, why was he talking in the third person? I used my telekinesis and shut his eyelids by force, but his arms didn’t release us. Rather, Zeeta let out a scream of pain. It seemed that our bones were about to break… I blinked and panicked.

“Stop that, my friend’s in pain!”

“Oh, sorry, you surprised Charles-Ping with your telekinetic power.” He had reopened his eyes. “Should Charles-Ping stop? Then say ‘pretty please’, pretty please.”

I smiled with anger.

“Pretty please, let us go.” You damn octopus…

“No can do. But Charles-Ping will be nicer, do not worry. He does not enjoy seeing polite people suffer. Now, there, there, let’s go back and do some push-ups, okay?”

I stared at the four-armed guy while he was heading back to the group, carrying us as if our weight wasn’t bothering him at all. I confessed:

“Armen is bad at doing push-ups.”

“Hoho. Is that so, che? Then all the more reason for you to come. The young lady will be happy to do sports with you.”

The young lady? What young lady? Zeeta was struggling and cursing:

“Damn you, you’ve got five people already, how greedy are you guys?”

“There, there, don’t be scared. Will you two be so kind as to help the young lady over there?”

He pointed. What I thought to be a pile of golden clothes suddenly moved as I heard it scream with joy:

“Five! Charles-Ping! Mackenzie! I did it! I did it!”

“Oh! Well done, miss! Let Charles-Ping praise you, pretty please!”

The boy in a white lab coat bowed with a hand on his chest.

“You did well, miss.”

What the hell was wrong with that weird duo, really? I raised an eyebrow as I landed on the sand, and I said:

“Charles-Ping. Armen is having a hard time distinguishing the young lady among the big pile of clothes.”

Zeeta burst out laughing. The young boy, Mackenzie, was taking his badge. He threw a glare my way, then stepped towards me when Charles-Ping was answering:

“Actually, the whole pile is the young lady, caballero.”

“Charles! Watch your tongue,” Mackenzie snorted, then barked: “And you, Indie trainees, keep doing push-ups! The young lady needs to do five more.”

I heard a long moaning coming from the young lady.

“Five moooore?! I can’t do that! I’m about to die!”

Then it struck me. The long golden dress I had seen was in fact the young lady’s hair. Once I understood that, I could see her chubby feet, her fleshy thighs, her broad shoulders, her wide trunk, and even her fluffy and golden fox tail…

She was the fattest human I had ever seen. Compared to her, Kimberly was skin and bones. Well, she was big too. Maybe she would be over two meters tall if she stood up. She was also the first real fox girl I had seen in my life.

“Six!”

I gaped at her in admiration. Her push-ups consisted in moving slightly her upper body. Her skin was red from the effort. I felt bad for her.

“Where’s your badge?”

Mackenzie’s question made me remember he had been searching my boardshorts and shirt. I worried. My badge, he said? I didn’t lose it, did I?

“I put it on my headband, with the flashlight. It’s… not there?”

The boy in a lab coat shook his head. I swallowed. What was going on? Did I lose it? But where? During the night? How? Kim wouldn’t have touched it, and it couldn’t have dropped off the headband, then the only possibility was…

I cursed:

“That damned bearded old hag!”

There was a silence in which I could feel the tension level up ten times at least. The five ‘Indie’ trainees stopped doing push-ups and stared at me in fear; Charles-Ping’s expression darkened; Mackenzie looked daggers at me, then stood on tip-toe, and pierced me with his dark eyes.

“What did you just call our young lady?”

He didn’t give me the time to explain the misunderstanding: his vision power activated, and I was suddenly surrounded by the emptiness. No sound, no color, no smell. I was as if dead.

No, it’s not ‘as if’: I’m dead, that’s a fact.

So that was Mackenzie’s power: he could isolate his victim from his human senses. Fortunately, besides my hearing, my eyesight, and my sense of smell, I had one more sense, specific to undead people: lifeforce’s taste. Hence, I could immediately tell when Charles-Ping—maybe not to be affected by his comrade’s power—loosened his grip on me: I rushed forward.

I was aiming for Mackenzie and the badge he had stolen from Zeeta. I felt a surge of lifeforce, lunged forth, grabbed something, and screamed:

“Let my friend go with his badge, or you’ll regret it!”

The spell broke into pieces, and I could see the beach again, the sun, and hear the waves… Just when I thought that my random threatening had borne fruit, a detached fist smashed my chest, and I was sent flying. I landed on something that made me bounce. That detached fist… I raised my head, hopeful.

“Erma!”

A group of people was heading toward us. Ray, Linah, and Lei Sunclaw were among them. Joy filled my heart. Then something else filled my body. It was yummy… no, it was delicious… no, it was out of this world. The lifeforce that I was absorbing through my hands was making my core and my heart beat like crazy.

“You heathen!” Mackenzie shouted. “Get away from her!”

“Charles-Ping won’t forgive you!” The four-armed guy stretched his hand to catch me…

“Stop!”

The voice came from under me. Then I finally understood what was going on: somehow, Linah’s fist, on freeing me from Mackenzie’s power, had also made me land on the young lady. What I was absorbing was the young lady’s lifeforce… How could someone’s lifeforce be so exhilarating? My mind was wavering, my senses were numb, and my excited core was asking for more and more…

Could I make it stop? I didn’t want to…

‘Armen. Stop eating.’

Ray’s order was absolute. I stopped right away, and crawled backwards, then looked up at the young lady who had sat up on the sand and was staring at me, red like a tomato.

“Wh-Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was soft, beautiful, and a bit frightened.

I was breathing hard. My core was disrupted, asking for more lifeforce than it really needed. My movements, my hearing, my breathing, even my vision were being disturbed. I huffed:

“S-S-Sorry, miss, when I talked about the old hag, I didn’t mean you but an old fakir-witch I met last night. Also… I’ve been punched. I didn’t touch you on purpose… I swear.”

Though now I’m craving to touch you again…

“I-I saw that,” the young lady stammered. “It’s not your fault. Did it hurt?”

I widened my eyes, surprised. Was she worried about me? Not only her lifeforce was incredibly delicious, but she didn’t seem to be a bad person. Although I was feeling like I was barely conscious of my surroundings, I smiled at the enormous girl.

“No. It didn’t. Thank you. Say… Are those guys forcing you to do push-ups?”

Her blue eyes trembled for a moment. Then she began to cry as she sobbed:

“I have to do sports, or I won’t ever lose weight! That’s what Daddy said! He sent me here for that. Charles-Ping and Mackenzie are only doing their best. But I’m a bad daughter. I can’t slim down! Because I’m always hungry! So, yes, please help me! I want to eat!”

Whether she wanted me to help her slim down or eat wasn’t clear. Charles-Ping had begun to shed tears of solidarity, while the kid, Mackenzie, was glaring at me. Erma, Lei, and Ray didn’t know how to intervene. As for me, I didn’t know how to console the girl, and not even daring to touch her despite Ray’s order, I just smiled at her, my mind going astray.

“Ah, yeah…” I mumbled. “Eating too much is bad for your health, ain’t it…”

I wasn’t sure if I was saying those last words for her sake or mine. Lei Sunclaw chimed in:

“Aya-aya, cheer up, my lady! If Armen wants to help you, I’m sure others will. How about a competition of Indie trainees to see who can make you lose more weight? In exchange, you will give the winner any wish. How about that?”

I vaguely saw everyone turn at him as if he had gone crazy. Lei didn’t avert his cunning eyes from the young lady.

“I-I like the idea, but any wish?” she echoed. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Then, put your limits. I’m sure that, given your status, nobody will complain about your reward.”

“What are you plotting, Sunclaw?” Mackenzie hissed.

“Th-Then… For someone who would help me and relieve my dad’s worries,” the young lady said, her eyes lighting up with determination, “I would gladly give that person one of my flowers.”

Her fox tail thumped the sand with determination.

She just said “flowers”, didn’t she? Mackenzie’s eyes were wide open, but I couldn’t understand what he said. My vision was growing dimmer.

Flowers, I thought. That was… a beautiful reward…

My body fell on the sand like a rag. I blacked out. Or something very similar to it. I still could hear Ray’s voice yelling at me, both out loud and through our necro-bond, and I could feel his delightful lifeforce when he touched me, as well as Linah’s when she tried to slap me awake. But I couldn’t eat their lifeforce, because Ray had ordered me not to eat. I was, overall, unresponsive.

Was I going to die for good? My mind couldn’t even worry about it. All I could think was:

‘Stop eating, eating too much is bad for your health, stop eating…’