“Come on Ali, keep up.”

“Keep up my ass, how about slowing down a little!”

“Come on kid, you made fun of me for getting beaten up by a woman. How does it feel?”

“I am a kid you know, I have the right to bitch about getting beaten up by somebody whom I should run away from.”

Gotta love mornings, after they tried to destroy my watch my parents decided to torture me by making me fight them.

After Kraft destroyed the table we were forced to eat in the bedroom. It’s a good thing that Ellen’s curse was transferred to me because I get to see her smile a lot now. Every time I am with them I tend forget who I was before and seeing them happy makes me happy. Even in my past life I had few friends but I would gladly go to hell and back to help them.

The floor and ceiling that Kraft broke were repaired after a week and a new table was delivered to us by the village’s blacksmith. Kraft had to pay for all the things he broke, approximately 60 gold coins, that was enough for us to last a month. The only things my parents bought since I was born were a bed and clothes for me.

I have a very hard time keeping up with Ellen even though she isn’t fighting seriously. The fact that I was as tall as an eleven year old kid wasn’t helping. I was an easy target to hit and she didn’t pull many punches. Nine out of ten times she is able to hit me easily. The combat style she is using was called “Hay’tok” or something and it involved hitting an enemy’s vitals and weak spots with speed and precision. This style involved a high amount of agility and concentration since it’s used as an all-out style made to last as long as the practitioner has enough stamina left.

“Don’t you get tired of hitting me?”

“This style is not made for people who hold back, the more momentum you build the easier it is to keep going and since I’m holding back this actually tires me out faster than you think.”

This style covered almost everything: the eyes, groin, shin, forehead, temples, neck, shoulder, throat, jaw, forearms, sternum, solar plexus, ribs, and feet. She had at least two different types of attack for every pressure point. Ellen believes that I could learn by watching her and then mimic her way of fighting, she also said that this fighting style can be modified with new attacks. This style was mainly used by assassins, guards and gladiators and it’s not widely known since it doesn’t help against demons that don’t have a humanoid form. I would throw any fighting style away if I knew the “North Star” fighting style, then I would be able to kill a person before they even know I was there.

What I feared the most actually happened. Ellen tried to punch me in the temples, when I tried to dodge I lost my balance and she scored a direct hit on the left side of my head. I could feel my brain moving inside my head and a noise in my left ear and I fell on the ground.

“Ali, are you all right?”

“What happened?”

“When I punched you, you tried to dodge, stepped on a rock that resulting in you losing your balance. It went better than I expected. It’s a good thing you moved your head so I hit your ear instead of temples. If my punch connected it would have been fatal.”

“Does your punch have the ability to completely destroy a person’s brain? “

“No, but it is a fatal blow.”

“Not for me. My body can recover as long as my brain isn’t destroyed.”

“What happens if your head gets cut?”

“My body will regenerate from my head, I think.”

“Well, tell me more once you get your head cut off.”

“When I get beheaded you will be the first to know. Speaking of getting killed you said something about some angel fish for dinner.”

“The village will get some angel fish from the capital as a reward for helping with the demons in this region. Angel fish are supposed to have a heavenly taste and you can call yourself lucky to have the possibility to see one of them in your life. These are the rumours but I don’t believe in them.”

“So I can consider myself blessed now that I get to eat angel fish.”

“Something like that.”

“So you are taking the carriage?”

“I’m going to run there.”

“Since you are going to get dinner that means I have to train with Kraft. I don’t expect anything from him.”

“He fought demons since he was your age so he will show you how he fights one.”

After she said that Ellen called Kraft and then started running towards the village. I think she has more stamina than Kraft and me combined. It seems Kraft is ready to start our training session.

I don’t know what I expected, he fights with no finesse but at least he deals damage. The best method to fight demons was to attack whenever you can, avoid getting hit and dealing as much external damage as possible.

Kraft is faster than I thought and he packs a lot of power. While avoiding his punches I got blocked by the tree behind me. I had to slide between his legs to escape but the poor tree didn’t have the same luck. His punch broke the tree in half, I guess he wanted to show me his brute strength. Basically when fighting demons it’s important to hit them as hard as you can before getting killed.

“Come on kid, how about you let me hit you for once?”

“What for? I don’t want to end up like that tree.”

“Sooner or later you are going to ask me to come at you seriously.”

“Ok, fine I’m not going to dodge anymore.”

Famous last words, every punch he lands sends me flying backwards. Funny thing is that I can beat him easily if I fight like Ellen, then again Ellen’s fighting style require you to be calm and Kraft’s fighting style is more like fighting like the Hulk.

“You are pretty good kid, I am getting tired of hitting you but you don’t seem wounded.”

“The dark magic coursing through my veins can be used to heal me faster if I control it.”

“I think we should train you in concentration and multitasking when we are done with weapons training.”

“You should.”

“Anyway I’m going to take you on an extermination mission in a few weeks you can feel the desperation I never feel when I fight.”

“So funny. Any tips about fighting?”

“For fighting somebody relaying on brute strength use what your mother taught you, I can see that you were able to mimic some of her moves, and pay attention to your opponent’s fighting style, most of them have certain weaknesses. When fighting a mage you might want to get as close to him as possible as fast as you can, if he can’t cast his spells on you it’s your victory. Those magicians can’t fight for shit, don’t even think to compare your mother with the magicians in this empire, most of them can’t even cast a spell while their body enchantment is up.”

“Wait a second. How many spells can Ellen cast at once?”

“Four spells while keeping her body enchantment up. That happened during an expedition. The short version is that she healed me, kept up a fire barrier, shot fireballs at the demons and used wind magic to stop some rocks from falling on us. After she did that she lost conscious and I had to carry her out of the dungeon. That was the first time I felt inferior, seeing her doing more than me with ease really gave me something to think.”

“That was an interesting story, speaking of which Ellen is back.”

“Well kid, let’s go wash our hands.”

“Yes.”

The angel fish was a type of white fish, it really looked like someone took a carp and painted it white. The fish was cooked by cutting it into little pieces and then frying it in oil until the meat’s color becomes brown.

“What is this? If this is supposed to taste good then I would rather not be blessed.”

“What are you talking about kid? This is the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

“Ali, are you all right?”

Both Kraft and Ellen looked at me like I was ill. There was nothing wrong with me but I don’t understand what’s so divine about the taste of this fish. While it’s better than everything I ate so far it isn’t divine. I never liked fish that much to begin with and those people had such delighted looks on their faces. I almost thought something was wrong with me.

After Ellen mad sure I didn’t have a fever we continued our dinner in silence.

Fucking angel fish, those people never had any fish fries, that’s why they adore this shit so much.