Grudges go both ways

Leaving Yuliah’s side Kyle wandered over towards his friends who greeted him as he approached.

“Hey Kyle, so you going to tell us why you’re going along with this farce or not?” Jess asked.

Kyle smirked at the irritable young woman, he could always trust her to say what everyone else was thinking, even if it might cause issues for them later.

“What? I’m supposed to just let Denzel throw his weight around even after I’m gone or something?” Kyle shot back with a question of his own.

Ryan started laughing as his sister scowled, “This is actually turning out exactly the way you wanted it to, isn’t it Kyle?”

Kyle smirked, originally, he had no intention of involving others in this grudge of his, but he couldn’t pass up a chance like this when it appeared in front of him. He had no intention of doing anything against the rules that Yuliah had set out for the competition but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his best to make sure that Denzel lost face throughout the village.

“That’s right,” Kyle said.

Sonia shivered, she had never seen Kyle like this before, not even when she had attacked him as a starving child that had snuck onto his farm in search of food. The others stared at their friend not quite sure what to say about him revealing this side of his nature in full view of the rest of the villagers.

The rest of Kyle’s family and friends felt a nervous tic break out on their faces as they saw the look that had appeared on his face, his eyes glowing brighter than they ever had before as he stared directly at the man that had made all their lives difficult since before he had been born.

As Denzel looked back at the feral grin that Kyle had on his face he felt a small shiver race down his spine. He shook himself, after all there was no way a kid who was still at Level One would be a danger to a Level 31 like himself.

While Kyle wasn’t paying attention the bout that had been going on ended and he quickly started explaining his plan.

“Right, so what I want you guys to do, other than win of course, is destroy the equipment that Denzel has given his students.”

Hal grinned, “You want to make Denzel give them more equipment, proving to the villagers once and for all that this is about his grudge with your family and that he is willing to abuse his position as Farholt’s Guard Captain for the sake of that grudge.”

Kyle nodded, “That’s right, if the other villagers understand what he’s really like, Farholt will be a much more pleasant place to live in.”

“But Kyle, wouldn’t that mean that he’d lose his position as Guard Captain?” Sonia asked.

“My dad isn’t actually that good a farmer, he misses being an Adventurer, but he wanted to settle down when mum became pregnant with me, which is why ‘accidents’ kept happening when he got too into it while we were training. I think that if they asked he would take Denzel’s place.”

The others cringed at the memories they had of training with Jerome, he wasn’t a bad trainer, but he had a tendency to try too hard which had left them all nursing wounds at some point.

“Well, I’d better get out there,” Sonia sighed walking away from the others.

“Who’s her opponent?” Kyle asked as he watched her go.

His other friends glanced at each other, they hadn’t been looking forward to telling Kyle this but, Sonia had picked the short straw. She was fighting Denzel’s favourite student, the young man wearing the high-quality leather armour.

“About that Kyle,” Ryan said hesitantly. “It’s Ben.”

“What!?” Kyle said in a strangled tone of voice, barely managing to not shout out his reply.

“Oh, that’s not good,” groaned Fi, who remembered a previous encounter between Sonia and Ben back when she was new to the village, Ben had been making fun of her because of her dark skin and that she was an outsider with no family in the village. Ben had beaten her up badly back then and he had only gotten stronger even as Sonia decided that she would become a bard so that she could help people smile even in the toughest times.

Kyle turned back to the two teens who now stood facing each other, his heart in his chest as they prepared to do battle.

The villagers watched on as Yuliah stood.

“Begin.”

With this final word the fight began Ben charged forward his long spear flashing out towards Sonia’s frail looking body. Ben’s confident look turned to shock as the head of his spear passed through Sonia without even the slightest sign of slowing down. Ben’s momentum carried him forwards even as the villagers gasped in shock, before Sonia’s body flickered slightly and disappeared.

“Illusion Magic!” Ben hissed looking around in anger trying to catch a glimpse of his illusive opponent. He knew Sonia couldn’t keep an invisibility spell up for long and sure enough there was a short whistling sound as three knives appeared out of nowhere hurtling towards the armoured boy before Sonia flickered back into the visible spectrum.

Snarling he swung his spear back and forth trying to knock down the projectiles, only one managed to make contact, skimming off his leather armour causing an irritated look to flicker across Sonia’s features even as she opened her mouth and to the audience’s surprise started singing.

Golden light surrounded Sonia as she sung, this was a Skill she had received from her Class earlier today called ‘Skalds Memory’ that allowed her to give a stat enhancing effect to certain songs. She was currently singing a well-known Elvish Ballad that her Skill had told her would increase her Agility and Dexterity.

Sonia’s hands flickered as more knives appeared in her hands sending them arcing towards Ben who dodged and weaved under the barrage of blades, lacerations appearing on his skin where he didn’t quite manage to get out of the way in time as he chased Sonia around the battlefield. The knives that missed hitting a barrier that flickered with the Blue light of Mana as Thomas quickly erected it to prevent bystanders from being injured.

Wiping his brow, he glared briefly at his charge as she continued to dance around the field, if he hadn’t known that she specialised in throwing knives to attack that could’ve ended very badly.

Sweat ran down Sonia’s face as she dodged a thrust from Ben’s spear, the song that she was singing was helping but his stats were just too high for her to keep out of his reach for much longer and her knives couldn’t deal much damage through his armour.

Blue light coalesced around her hands as she decided that she would have to try something different, while attack spells weren’t her forte she did have a few that might be able to break this stalemate.

Activating a spell known as Mirror Image her body seemed to split into two and then three as the blue glow around all of them increased they simultaneously charged towards the shocked Ben who quickly activated a spear Skill known as Sweep, his spear blurring as it passed through the first two images and embedded itself in the real Sonia’s shoulder.

Biting back a scream Sonia thrust out both of her hands towards Ben who flinched back as the blue light flared even brighter. “Mana Eruption!” she gasped activating her most powerful spell causing a massive wave of blue energy to burst from her hands engulfing the surprised Ben and causing shocked oaths from the watching villagers.

Mana Eruption was one of the most powerful attack spells in the Mana School, but it could only be used at close range meaning that it was an unpopular choice for most mages.

Sonia hoped that even if this spell didn’t do enough damage to Ben to at least slow him down that it would at least damage his armour a little. But, as the dust that the spell had whipped up settled her hopes were dashed.

Ben had managed to activate a spell of his own at the last minute the dust picked up by Sonia’s spell making it visible to the human eye. A shield of wind surrounded the furious young man who had been hoping that he would be able to surprise Kyle with his own magic later. He hadn’t anticipated having to use it so soon, much less against Sonia, he glared at the smaller girl activating another Skill that launched him forward with extreme speed.

Sonia attempted to dodge the attack but was unable to react in time and the head of the spear pierced her body, activating the protective item she was wearing.

Ben glared briefly at the translucent barrier that had appeared between him and Sonia before lowering his spear and walking away as Thomas rushed onto the field a healing spell already restoring Sonia’s health.

“She did well don’t you think?” asked Hal as he glanced sideways at Kyle who had a grim look on his face.

Kyle’s fists clenched reflexively at his friend’s words before relaxing.

“Yeah, she did,” he replied, as he started thinking about the first time he met her.

It had been a sunny day and Kyle had been training in one of the fallow fields out on the farm with Fi, when suddenly, a scrawny child had attacked him. By the time he had managed to subdue her Fi had managed to go all the way back to the farmhouse and soon had brought back a very worried Emma who had found her son carrying the unconscious girl. Kyle had been covered in lacerations from the small piece of metal that vaguely resembled a knife that the girl had been carrying causing Emma to fly into a panic calling Ai to come and heal him as quickly as possible. To her surprise when she asked what Kyle was planning to do with the girl that was draped over his back he had replied with a confused look on his face.

“Feed her of course,” as he continued towards the house even as his injuries were healed by Ai. “She only attacked me because I was having lunch and she was starving, so we feed her and find out what happened to her.”

Emma had previously been confident that Kyle was safe training out in the fields as she and Jerald had set up Ward Stones around the whole property which deterred monsters from trying to enter their area of effect. These Stones were very expensive and they only really worked for small areas like Kyles’ families farm as if someone tried to use them on something the size of a town not only would it be expensive but the wealth required would attract the more unsavoury types of people in the world who were often more powerful than the people who lived in the safety of villages.

When they got back to the house Emma managed to bathe her and get her into some of Kyle’s old clothes before she woke up, as she looked around with wide frightened eyes Kyle sat down at the table opposite her a bowl of soup in his hands, her eyes instantly locked onto the steaming bowl and with a smile he placed it in front of the salivating girl who grabbed at it like he was going to steal it back from her and started slurping away at it without even using a spoon causing her to wince as the scalding hot liquid to burn her tongue but she was too hungry to stop and she quickly finished off the bowl and started licking it out.

“Mum, can you get her another bowl of soup?” Kyle asked giggling at the sight.

Emma glared at her son, she didn’t really want to feed this wild child any more than she absolutely had to but when she looked at the far too skinny girl who watched her with wary eyes her heart softened, and she poured another bowl of soup which soon followed its predecessor.

As the girl put down the now empty bowl Kyle asked the question that had been on his and his mothers’ minds.

“What’s your name?”

The girl flinched at the sound of his voice remembering that he had beaten her unconscious mere hours ago, she glared at the boy in front of her meeting his softly glowing eyes. The two continued to stare at each other for several minutes.

“Sonia,” the girl rasped, her voice had gone unused for anything meaningful for months so even she was surprised by how it sounded.

Kyle blinked, and a smile appeared on his face, “Sonia,” he murmured. “That’s a pretty name.”

Sonia blushed, it had been a long time since she had heard anyone speak her name out loud and it had been even longer since someone had said anything about her was pretty.

Emma calmly sat down next to the girl and quietly asked her story.

Sonia had been the only daughter of a family of traders, her and her parents had travelled form village to village buying and selling various goods, it had been a hard life, but they had been happy. That was, until they were attacked by a group of monsters, her parents had fought bravely as Sonia had run for safety with only a small knife for protection, the same knife that she had used to injure Kyle earlier.

Since then she had been wandering the wilderness from village to village stealing food where she could and hiding from people and monsters alike. When she finished her story, Emma reached over and hugged the small girl to her chest and was shocked by the feel of Sonia’s ribs digging into her flesh. Sonia’s story had reminded her of a pat that she would rather forget, and she swore to herself that she would do whatever she could to help the girl live a better life than the one she had been living.

Later that night when Jerald returned home he was surprised to see that they had a visitor and once the situation was explained to him and Digby the conversation turned to what they were going to do for Sonia, whose expression quickly turned worried, she had been treated poorly by people who had found her before and she didn’t want to risk that the same thing would happen again. Emma and Jerald quickly reassured the girl that if no-one in the village would look after her she was more than welcome to stay with them, they were only talking about this because of their own situations in the village.

The next day they took her to Farholt but sure enough none of the villagers were willing to take in another mouth to feed much less a child from outside the village, just when they were about to give up and go home Thomas offered to take her in, being a priest looking after orphans was something that was expected of him to do meaning that the villagers wouldn’t say anything. Sonia wasn’t sure about the idea at first but was soon assured by the family that she would be safe with Thomas and that they would come and visit as much as possible, so she grudgingly agreed to stay with the old man.

As time passed she became more at home in the village and became friends with Kyle and the gang and was soon liked by most of the villagers due to her beautiful singing voice, Al had hired her to work at the inn as soon as he had discovered her talent and she had spent many hours there learning the skills which she had been able to put to use in the battle with Ben today.

“Really she’s come a long way,” Kyle murmured, a look of pride appearing on his face.