《Bad Boy Next Door》Chapter 7: Old Couples
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I wanted to get Maximus to have his legs stretch out by walking, this cat is so lazy that he would always end up sleeping anywhere and anytime he feels it, and just as expected not long after, I ended up carrying him in my arms.
"You lazy cat, I should have named you Garfield instead" we sat under the shade of a tree.
"MAXIMUS!" A familiar voice yelled I saw Lucy running towards Maximus and I. I waved as she approached. "Hi, Cassie!" She peck my cheeks.
"Hi, Princess!" She's such a cutie. "Can I pet him?" she asked excitedly looking at the cat.
"Sure" I gave Maximus to her to hold "Are you here alone Lucy?"
"Nope! I'm with Chace" she answered not looking at me for her attention was on Maximus, I scan around but see no sign of Chace.
Such an irresponsible brother!
"Your brother is so irresponsible letting you roam the park alone." shaking my head in disappointment.
"I don't let my little sister roam around alone." Chace said from behind me, startling me a little. He was holding 2 ice cream.
"Ice cream!" Lucy squeal as she sees the ice cream, he gives one to his sister.
"And I am not selfish." he offers me the other ice cream.
"No thank you!" I refuse his offer.
"Take it, swear I didn't put any chilies in it or anything else. It's clean" he smirks as he tries to remind me about my unsuccessful plan.
"I don't like chocolate flavored Ice cream" I told him and wasn't even lying.
"What?! Who in the world would hate chocolate flavored Ice cream?" He smally laugh from the information like he thinks I was the weirdest person ever. This is actually the first time I saw him laugh like that.
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"Then now, you knew one." I smiled.
"I love chocolate ice creams!" Lucy said licking her ice cream. "Can I play with Maximus over there?" She asks pointing on the slide.
"Okay, you can, just be careful" he said to his sister patting her head and Lucy went running towards the slide. He turned to look at me seconds after "Do you hate chocolate in general or just chocolate-flavored Ice cream?" He seems to be chatty, he even sat down next to me.
"I eat chocolates but not much, guess I'm just not a huge fan of chocolate like everyone else." I answered.
"Ohhh, I see" he nodded knowing "What flavors do you prefer then?"
"I love Vanilla, it's my favorite and also Dad's. We kinda have most in common with each other than my mom, she likes things too sweet." I grin as I remember Dad and I's favorite Ice cream parlor.
"Good for you" he commented.
Wait! Why is he being friendly all of a sudden?
"Get away!" I moved away from him. "Is this another trick of yours for your payback? gaining information so it's easier for you to plot your revenge."
"No." he licks on his ice cream "Maybe" smirks.
"You are not fooling me again!" I roll my eyes at him, scooting even further.
****
We sat there not talking to each other just gazing at the little girl having fun by the slides and meeting new friends.
An old couple caught my eyes, he was trying to take photos with his wife but totally struggling. I stood up from where I was sitting and approached them.
"Hi!" I greeted them warmly "If you want I can take the picture" I offered.
"Thank you so much, My husband and I are going crazy trying to work this phone." the old lady said laughing in embarrassment, handing me the phone. "Back in the days we didn't have one of these, so it's only been a while since our son got us these and we haven't seemed to work it till now."
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"It's fine" I snap a candid shot of the two smiling at each other, I envy them "On the count of three, okay?" They nodded "one, two, three" I tapped the camera button and a cute photo of them was captured "Here you go." I showed them the photo.
"It's beautiful!" Said the old lady with a giggle.
"No, you looked beautiful" her husband said as he praises her ever lovely wife.
"Such a charmer still after all these years" the old lady said smiling "Thank you, young lady, for the photo"
"You're welcome" I grin leaving the two alone, back to my previous post.
"What was it?" Chace asked looking curious.
"It's totally none of your business!" I answered him back rolling my eyes at his sudden interest.
"Fine!" He raises his hand in surrender.
****
I was playing with Lucy and Maximus on the swing, Lucy holding Maximus as I pushed them up higher and higher at the swing.
"Higher!" Lucy giggling as I follow her command.
"Just hold on tight okay?" I reminded her, she nodded still giggling. I looked back to where Chace was before, now he was not alone under the shade of the tree. He is now flirting with a blond girl, the girl sitting between his lap.
"Such a player" I mumbled to myself and return back my attention to Lucy.
I'm so tired from playing on the swing, then the seesaw, the slide, and the monkey bar but I had so much fun. I've always wanted a sister but never had one.
"Let's go back?" I ask her, she nodded "That was so fun, we should go back here together again" I said to her, while we walk hand and hand. We were near where Chace and the girl was when another guy approaches them, grabbing the girl's arm away from Chace.
"She's my girlfriend" The guy angrily said to Chace.
"Stop!" the girl said to her boyfriend.
"You know she has a boyfriend yet you still went ahead." he was pointing madly on Chace, the guy's voice was growing louder that I had to halt our step towards them to keep Lucy away.
"Dude, it wasn't my fault that your girlfriend's such a flirt" Chace said smirking, the girl's eyes widen from surprise from what Chace said. Poor girl might have thought after minutes of flirting Chace will fall for her, so wrong.
"Asshole!" The guy threw a punch at him but Chace was quick to shift side and miss his punch.
"Come on she's totally not worth the trouble trust me" Chace said with such confidence.
"Let's go! Let's go!" She was dragging his boyfriend away.
"This is not yet over!" The guy shouted as he was leaving, Chace waving teasingly at the guy making him angrier.
"You are so unbelievable" I commented after we finally approach him.
"Thank you!" he winks at me like it was a compliment. "Ready to go?" He bent down to his sister like nothing happened, she just nodded in response.
"Bye Cassie!" Lucy said hugging me quickly.
"Bye, Princess!" I grin at her.
"Bye Cathy!" Chace smirking, I love to annoy me this much. "See you around!"
"Bye, Batman!"
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Hunt and Heroes
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8 188Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. 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But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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