(Oct 13)

“The murderer that has ended dozens of innocent lives in horrific painful deaths, also known as...”

I held my breath.

“The Grinch.”

The moment I heard that name, I just felt something inside of me.

A rush of thoughts flashed through my head.

“I’m sure you have all heard of the rumors. We are currently investigating and tracking down the culprit of whom we have labelled as The Grinch, but until then, we won’t be able to stop the murders from happening. More people will die in horrific ways by this murderer.

Not only that, a while back, a wyvern attacked and destroyed parts of the city and there are still some people suffering from the effects and aftermaths of it. Now we have this situation with a serial killer on the lo0ose and these recent events made us realized how lacking our security is.

That’s why we decided to host this training event. You guys are the soldiers of this city, the ones who will protect the people. Work hard, because the lives of many are on your shoulders.

With that in mind, the first day of training is over. I’ll see you all tomorrow and I expect you all to work harder.”

Alisha had briefly mentioned “The Grinch” and moved on, but my mind and thoughts were still focused on it.

The cause of so much of my recent stress.

The Grinch.

I needed to find out more, how did I not know of this? It seemed like most of the other soldiers had already heard of The Grinch and yet I hadn’t. Was I that out of touch with the current gossip and rumors?

It wasn’t only once, but a series of murders… more people have been killed… and the murderer, called “The Grinch” is still on the loose.

After people started heading home, I approached Alisha.

I wanted to ask her about the situation with The Grinch.

“It’s…. you. The dragon dude.”

“Yeah... that’s me.”

“So, what do you want? I’m sort of busy so make it quick.”

“The Grinch, can you tell me more about The Grinch?”

Alisha looked at me confused.

“The Grinch? I don’t know much about The Grinch either, it’s just the name that the investigators and the rumors decided to call the murderer of these recent murders. I only brought it up during my talk early as an example of the situation. I just said what I heard from the gossips.”

“Is there anyway I can help catch The Grinch?!”

I had tried to forget about the murder scene because of how traumatic it was, and I had assumed that whoever it was ran away, but now that I knew that the murders were still happening, I couldn’t just do nothing.

Alisha just shook her head though.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing you can do. The investigators are doing the best they can, and before they can find the culprit, there’s nothing anyone can do and if we try to interfere, it can alert the murderer which will hinder the investigation progress. Plus, we have other things to worry about.

Briggs told you about the war, right? We don’t have time to focus on a murderer when a war could potentially break out at any moment, we need to prepare and so do you. The Grinch will eventually be caught.”

“But then why did you mention The Grinch in your speech earlier?! If we don’t find the murderer, more people will die!”

“The public doesn’t know about the war. The higher ups have decided to keep it a secret from the soldiers and the civilians. I don’t what they’re thinking but that’s their choice. We need the soldiers to get stronger, and I needed to find a way to motivate them and decided to use The Grinch as a recent event to fuel their desire to get stronger. Give them a reason to train and work harder.

In reality, the king doesn’t care about The Grinch. The Grinch is a serial killer that just happens to be known to public and like many others, he or she will eventually be caught. We have the most skilled detectives at work so it’s only a matter of time. People will die, and that’s unfortune, but more people will die if this war goes wrong”

What?

The king decided to purposely hide the fact they could go to war from everyone?

That’s stupid!

Sure, there may be some good reasons to not make it public but at least tell the soldiers! What happens if they find out?!

They will lose their trust in the kingdom.

This is a stupid move on the king’s behalf.

Plus, the Grinch is still going around killing people and that adds to the general public concerns.

There is so much to worry about now.

With The Grinch on the loose, my family is also at risk. Gabi is going to school and my wife goes shopping occasionally, I can’t protect them at all times so they are potential targets…

When I got home, I told my wife about The Grinch and warned them to only leave the house when needed, and when they do go out, never go alone, always travel in busy areas.

Well…

Hopefully things turn out well.

As Alisha said, there really was nothing I could do. I hope The Grinch does get caught eventually but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I will do whatever I can to help, but if not then there’s no reason to stress about it.

I was quite shocked at first when I heard that The Grinch is a serial killer and not a one-time thing, but there’s nothing I can do.

Things will probably work out in the end, The Grinch will be caught and things will be back to normal.

Nothing to worry about at all.

Hopefully…

(Oct 14)

Day 2 of training.

Today… was a lot more intense… than it was yesterday…

Let’s start from the beginning of the day.

I woke up, ate breakfast with my wife and Gabi and then brought Gabi to school after kissing my wife goodbye.

After dropping Gabi off at her school, I headed to my training group where we were supposed to meet up.

Alisha was already there, and she was talking to some other soldiers, probably instructing them to do something.

Soldiers slowly trickled in until everyone in my training group was present and the training began.

“Good morning everyone, it’s the second day of training. We’re going to skip the warmup and start immediately. What we’ll be doing today is to learn to control our inner energy, I do believe that all of us here are human, so today we will learn to control our chakra.”

Alisha started our training, yesterday we trained our physical body but today we’re training our inner energy and how to control our chakra.

It fits quite well because I was learning to control my magic with Cornelia yesterday as well!

Most soldiers in our city were E – C ranked and most of them can’t control their energy. Most of them can’t even sense magic much less being able to control and use it in battle.

My training group focused this entire day on meditating and sensing magic, most of them had never done this before and was totally new which resulted in only one-third of all the soldiers being able to slightly control their magic.

There was also a point where I was like that too, and it took me a while to sense and control my magic.

But now I’m pretty good at it so I spent most of the time just meditating and improving my current skills.

Then, lunch rolled around and Cornelia came to pick me for my training…

That’s when hell began…

The worst training I’d ever done…