Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 9

Mortimer was rather depressed at school Thursday morning. He’d had an impressive start to his combat career, slaying a player and even a rabbit, but he had ended up dying after each time. He would need to actually work his way up in levels and personal experience. This was not something he was used to doing, at least not in any way that felt real. In other games he had leveled up a character, but it had not been virtual reality, and thus, not him.

In real life, everything had been given to Mortimer, whatever he wanted. As mentioned, video games, as well as other entertainment at his whim. He didn’t even have to provide much of a return on his parent’s investment- just a bit more effort in the things he did. Mortimer was naturally suited for learning in school, when he tried. Thus, his parents had been easy to please when he needed to.

Royal Road, however, seems like it would come hard. Somehow, Mortimer was looking forward to it. Something he had chosen for himself, and would put the effort into. He was excited to start playing again as soon as he could. On the ride home, he was thinking about getting back into the game. That is, until just before he arrived. He had died. Specifically, just before he had gone to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. He couldn’t actually play again until tomorrow.

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Mortimer arrived home and found a strange little man in the lobby. They stared at each other. Mortimer, in a rather quizzical fashion. Who is this guy? The man, who appeared to be of east asian descent, perhaps Filipino, observed him more like a cat eyeing a mouse. Maybe. He certainly felt intimidating, for all that he was shorter than Mortimer by a good few inches. Since this encounter was going nowhere fast, Mortimer took the initiative. “Umm...”

Fortunately, his initiative became unnecessary quickly, as his father walked into the room. “Ah, Mortimer, I see you have met Master Valarao (pronounced like balaraw). He is to be your instructor.”

Mortimer thought for a minute. Instructor in what?. He stood there like an idiot. He pondered. He thought about his life. Then, he remembered. The thing. Exercise. Sports. Or in this case, martial arts. In the case of this particular man, highly likely to be Filipino, Mortimer could assume he was a practitioner of Eskrima, or one of the other arts that fell under the same blanket category. Mortimer had asked for someone from something he thought was obscure enough for his parents to not find him any way to participate in. Mortimer had obviously underestimated the obscurity of this. He looked at the suitcase by the man’s feet, with a luggage tag that showed he had been flown in from somewhere. Apparently, he had also underestimated his parents.

Mortimer went back to thinking about Master Valarao, and Eskrima. He had chosen it because, if he had to learn it, he wouldn’t mind. That is, it was knife fighting. Well, at least partly. It wasn’t exclusively that, but such would be included, and Mortimer had taken up a liking to his dagger in Royal Road.

Mortimer decided he should stop standing there like an idiot and finally introduce himself, although it was a bit past the proper time he should have. “Greetings, Master Valarao. I am honored that you would consider taking me as a student.”

Master Valarao’s mouth twitched at the corner. Perhaps a smile, or a smirk, or a sneer. Maybe he just twitched. Maybe Mortimer was overthinking it. Then, Master Valarao said, “I will be happy to work with you, young Mortimer, if you are willing to work with me. Even your parent’s generosity won’t keep me here if you don’t put in the effort, and quite a bit of it.”

Somehow, Mortimer felt like those were the most words ever spoken by Master Valarao at once, although he had no idea why he felt that. At this, Mortimer’s father left with a gentle wave of his hand, and Mortimer helped Master Valarao carry one of his suitcases to the room where he would be staying. He was prepared to help him unpack, but was quickly dissuaded from that with a look from Master Valarao. Specifically, he looked like he would stab Mortimer with the knives that were found within if he touched them. Of course, there were also training sticks and various other weapons, as well as clothes, but Mortimer really only noticed the knives. They were very nice, and quite varied. They also seemed like they would be pointless to training, but they were here anyway.

Then, in a short time, Mortimer was training. He was given a short bamboo stick, with a grip on it. Presumably an imitation dagger that was much safer. Other than visual demonstrations of stances, Mortimer was given little instruction. “Stand like this.” “Attack me like this.” If his grip was wrong, Master Valarao shifted it for him until it was right. Then, “Now we spar.”

Sparring consisted of Mortimer attempting to attack Master Valarao, failing, and getting hit. Hard enough to show that he would be dead if there were anything real going on, but not hard enough to cause any kind of lasting injury to anything but pride. Then, he would be shown and told what he did wrong. Then, he would try again. And again.

Mortimer was not in the best shape he could have been in, but he actually managed to last several hours before collapsing in a heap on the floor. He learned about muscles he didn’t know about. Well, that’s not quite true. He had been learning anatomy, after all. Instead, he learned what it felt like for muscles he had never felt at all before to hurt. He was also bruised, slightly. Interestingly enough, however, he felt good. He slightly knew what he was doing now, and the ache in his muscle was a good ache. Well, no, not really. It hurt. It was a bad ache. Only when he was holding completely still could he pretend it was good. Still, he felt good at his progress.

“Tomorrow, we continue.”

With that, Master Valarao left.

After dinner, Mortimer collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.

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In the morning, Mortimer half expected to be awakened at an unforgiving hour and forced to spar again. Instead, he awoke at an hour that felt unforgiving, but was just the normal time for him to get up and have breakfast before school.

At school, Mortimer avoided moving as much as possible, and even forsook some of his usual activities to avoid movement.

Then, at home again, he was somehow back to training. His muscles actually started to hurt slightly less after a bit of a warm up and some lighter work. Then, he was back to the real deal. He collapsed after less time, because his muscles were already tired from the day before.

There was no comment from Master Valarao about this, just, “Tomorrow, more.”

Today, however, Mortimer didn’t collapse straight into bed. Instead, he managed to collapse into the capsule. He was going to play Royal Road, and he was glad that he wouldn’t feel the muscle aches.

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“Well, took your sweet time, didn’tcha?” said a familiar voice when Quietus woke up.

End Chapter 9

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