(Nov 17)

Upon entering my house, what I saw was something I was not expecting.

My wife, who was half transformed into The Grinch with green fur poking from her cloths, was just casually sitting there…sipping tea, and sitting across from her was Alisha, also casually sitting there… sipping tea…

What in the fucking world was going on here?

Since when did these two meet and why do they suddenly seem like close friends?

And most confusing of all, why was my wife half transformed into The Grinch?

“Welcome home Anthony, how was your trip?” My wife, upon seeing me burst through the door, casually greeted me.

“Uh. Good… I guess… what’s going on here?”

Alisha and my wife looked at each other, and then started laughing together as I tilted my head in confusion.

“Hey Anthony. I can’t believe you just left your wife all alone at home by herself when you knew that she could turn into The Grinch at any time. Tsk tsk. How irresponsible.”

Alisha shook her head like she was disappointed.

“Well, William gave us medication, so I assumed… nah, you’re right. I guess I was irresponsible for leaving her alone,” I admitted as I scratched my head.

Alisha was right. I assumed that she was fine now with William’s medication, but it was still pretty dumb for me to leave my wife alone.

Something definitely happened here that I was unaware of that led to this situation.

Luckily, my wife explained everything to me.

“When you left to do your mission, I was kind of bored at home. There’s not much to do at home, so I spent my free time doing as you suggested and mediating. At one point, I felt like I reached a bottleneck, so I cautiously released a bit of The Grinch’s magic to see if I could partially transform without being completely taken over.”

She raised her arm, which was covered in green fur.

“Of course, I had my medication right next to me in case anything went awry, but that wasn’t needed because, as you can see, it was successful. However, I didn’t expect anyone to notice. It turns out Alisha was nearby and sensed The Grinch’s magic.”

Alisha nodded.

“That’s right. It was very subtle, but I noticed it immediately with my sharp senses. I was wholly surprised when I sensed The Grinch’s magic in the middle of the city during the day! If it were anyone other than me, they probably wouldn’t have noticed. When I busted into your house, I saw your wife. I was super confused! Things eventually got sorted out though, William explained everything to me after I visited him.”

My wife nodded.

“Yep. Thankfully, Alisha was understanding and was even offered to help me. She stayed with me and gave me advice. She’s been very helpful.”

These two seemed to have suddenly developed a friendship within the few days I’ve been gone.

Well, thankfully nothing bad happened.

“Thanks for taking care of my wife while I was away. You were right, I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

“It’s fine. I get it, you wanted to go out and test out that new strength of yours. Nothing surprising. Well, I guess I should get going. I’ll give you two some alone time to do whatever things married people do.”

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“Nah, I’m good. Cya, I’ll be back,” Alisha waved goodbye before leaving.

Still can’t really understand what’s going on inside of Alisha’s head, but she seems nice enough.

While I was away, Alisha had trained my wife and now she seems to be able to control The Grinch’s powers to an extent.

If she keeps this up, she’ll be able to control her powers in no time!

I told my wife a bit about my journey to the beastkin village, and we chatted for a while until we picked up Gabi from school.

Gabi jumped onto my face and then started running around the house.

She’s a wild kid alright.

Gabi went off to play with her toys while my wife started making dinner, leaving me alone in my room to write in my journal.

Now that I’m back, I still have like 14 days left until William said that we would go to the meeting with the Kenava.

I’m not sure what to do in this time.

I feel like I should prepare myself, but I’m not sure why or what to prepare for.

Hm. Whatever.

I’m trying out my new mindset of not worrying about things so much.

So instead of worrying, I’ll just forget about it until the day comes!

(Nov 18)

Today, my wife went out to go meet up with Alisha so she can tutor my wife on controlling her magic.

My wife is a lot like me, she’s quite anti social and tends to avoid talking to people. She barely leaves the house and when she does, she usually only goes shopping or to the library to get more books to read.

So, I’m glad she found someone to hang out with, even if that person is Alisha.

(Nov 20)

Decided to pay William a visit today.

We chatted a little about the current situation, he once again reminded me that on the 28th we’ll be going for the meeting.

I assured him that I haven’t forgotten.

He was also working on that big strange egg capsule thing again, but it seemed to be far from complete.

Before leaving, I stocked up on some more medical supplies for me (some more spice pills for me and some enhanced Grinch calming medicine for my wife).

On my way home, I saw Briggs on the streets.

Despite being a prince, Briggs casually just walks through the city without any regard for his status.

This is precisely the reason why it took me so long to realize he was a nobility.

I was about to go up to him and greet up, when I suddenly noticed someone walking next to him… it was Cornelia.

I quickly backed away and left the two of them alone.

I wasn’t sure what the purpose of those two being together was, but I knew I shouldn’t disturb it.

Afterall, it might’ve been a date between Cornelia and Briggs, and I don’t want to be a third wheel!

I’m rooting for ya Cornelia, go for it!

(Nov 23)

My wife went out again today to meet Alisha, and I was a bit curious, so I tagged along to watch her and Alisha train together.

Although Alisha is weird, she’s strong and talented, so I thought maybe if I observed Alisha’s lessons, I might learn a thing or two as well.

However, when I got there, I slowly realized it was more like a meetup between friends.

My wife and Alisha just talked about a bunch of random girl stuff, occasionally Alisha would mention and give tips for my wife, but most of the time they were just hanging out.

It’s the equivalent of Sven and I chilling together and talking about bro stuff.

I was about to get up and leave the two of them alone, when suddenly Alisha shouted out to me (I was sitting on a bench nearby).

“Hey Anthony, want to duel?”

Oh boy, another person who wanted to fight me.

Within the last month alone, 3 different people have wanted to fight me.

I’m not against it though.

“I was talking to your wife about some stuff, and I mentioned how her Grinch powers is similar to your dragon essence in a way. So to demonstrate to her what I meant, we came up with idea of us having a spar,” Alisha explained.

To be honest, I didn’t really care about why she wanted to duel, I would’ve accepted anyways.

Luckily as a soldier, I always carried my sword on me whenever I left the house so I was prepared.

My wife backed away as Alisha walked to the opposite side of the abandoned park we were at.

She raised her golden bow, which I remember oh so well, since it was the same weapon that knocked me out during the tournament.

Quite frankly, I was quite confident in myself. I was no longer the same Anthony as I was a few months ago.

“Alright, on the count of three! One… two…”

My wife started the count down from the sidelines.

“…Three.”

Before I could even take a step forward, an arrow appeared before my eyes and aimed straight for my face.

Seriously though, what’s up with all these people saying they wanted a friendly duel and also at the same time use attacks that could kill.

I muttered to myself as I shifted my body to avoid the arrow.

However, I knew Alisha’s attack wasn’t so simple. The arrow I dodged curved around and flew straight for me again.

My sword cut the arrow down.

I launched a few dragon missiles towards Alisha, but as expected they were all shot down instantly.

Seemed like there was only one way to win the duel, which was to charge at her.

I bent down low and bolted towards her.

Since there was a distance between us, she held the advantage, but the moment I get close, she would have no way of defending herself against my attacks.

Of course, she was aware of this as well and did everything in her power to stop me.

Electricity surged through her body, as she rapidly shot thunder arrows towards me.

Not sure if this was her fastest speed, but I counted that she was able to launch around 12 arrows every second, which if you’ve used a bow before, you’d know is an incredible speed.

If I dodged, the arrows would just curve towards me again, so I had to destroy the arrows with my sword.

But the arrows were made of lightning, so the electric current would’ve travel through my sword into my body and shock me.

That’s why I covered my entire body in my web essence!

Web essence has the properties of both rubber and gum, and since rubber are insulators, it resists the arrow’s electricity.

It doesn’t 100% block the electricity, so if I took a direct hit from her arrows, it’d still hurt but as long as there’s no direct hits, I’d be fine.

I continued my charge towards her while slashing apart any incoming arrows.

After realizing her attacks were ineffective, she changed her strategy.

Suddenly, the arrows no longer flew straight at me. They started to bend and curve, making sharp turns mid air.

Her arrows swerved away from my sword causing it to miss.

The arrows bounced around, ricocheting off the air and flew at me from all directions.

Below me, behind me, above me, in front of me, there was no angle that the arrows didn’t attack from.

I had to stop running and focus on deflecting the arrows.

Dragon’s mind activated as I used my instincts to predict the arrows trajectory and cut them down.

However, Alisha continued shooting the arrows at a speed faster than I could knock them away.

It wouldn’t be long before I would’ve been overwhelmed.

I quickly gathered a portion of my dragon essence to summon a dragon missile and sent it flying into the distance.

This caused most of Alisha’s arrows to turn away from me and chase after my dragon missile.

During my fight against Alisha in the tournament, I had figured out her magic arrows would home in towards her target’s magical powers like a magnet.

When she shoots her arrows, she manually controls them for a brief moment, like how I would with my dragon missiles, but it’s extremely difficult to manually control dozens upon dozens of high-speed projectiles at once.

So when she finds a suitable angle for her arrows, she stops controlling them and lets the arrows automatically home in on the target’s magic while she then focuses on sending out more arrows.

This way, she can efficiently manipulate as much arrows as possible to attack me from various angles and home in me while still being able to produce more.

That means when she stops manually controlling her arrows, I can split up my magic and divert her arrows away from me.

Although having homing arrows is good, it can also be exploited!

With less arrows to fend against, I once again started moving towards Alisha.

Upon seeing her arrows being diverted away, Alisha stopped firing more arrows and concentrated on controlling her arrows again to attack me.

This was the exact moment I was waiting for.

I raised my arms in front me and charged forward.

A few arrows struck me but dealing minimal damage due to my web essence.

Since she was no longer firing more arrows, I didn’t have to worry about fending off against hordes of weaving arrows.

As I grew closer to her, I suddenly felt something was off.

Alisha was no longer controlling her arrows, nor was she sending out more arrows… so what was she doing?

Instead of backing away as an archer would do, she took a step towards me. Not just one, but multiple steps.

She was running towards me!

But why?

The distance between us quickly shrunk and it would’ve been mere seconds until she was within reach, and yet, I had a bad feeling.

Time slowed as Alisha took another step forward, her foot slowly descending onto the ground.

What was going on here?

That’s when I noticed it.

The ground… it was littered with broken arrow shards!

When I had knocked away the arrows earlier, they didn’t simply disappear, instead they shattered and scattered across the field.

Her arrows were made from her magic, so it meant she was actively supplying the broken arrow shards with magic to keep them materialized… but why?

As Alisha’s foot touched the ground, I finally realized what she was trying to do.

All the arrow shards started shining brightly, and then exploded releasing a wave of electricity!

She had purposely scattered out her broken depleted arrows all around the field. They were completely harmless and had no electricity, that is until she stepped onto and supplied them with magic again, causing all the decile arrows to recharge and explode.

The reason she started running towards me was to get close enough to pour her magic into the field of arrows!

The arrows then became like a minefield all blowing up at once!

I realized this too late as the world flashed white, blinding me.

Even with my web essence, the electric current rushed through my body from the ground.

It hurt, but the damage subsided quickly.

However, my entire vision was blinded and the explosion caused dust to cover the area.

I tried sensing where Alisha was, but the field was covered in electric magic and clouded my senses.

By the time my eyes returned to normal, Alisha had already prepared her final attack.

She on her golden bow and unleashed a massive flying lightning projectile in the shape of a dragon (ironic because I am a dragon).

My dragons instincts instantly warned me to dodge out of the way. But that’s when I noticed that this attack was not one giant electric arrow, it was instead made up of dozens of tiny arrows combined together!

Which meant… it was far more mobile and agile than I expected, and as I dodged, all the arrows in the lightning dragon instantly turned towards me.

“Well fuck.”

My entire body lit up as I was bombarded by the dozens of thunderous dragon arrows.

Because of my web essence protecting me and my dragon instincts forcing me to jump back, I was able to minimize the damage to not heavily injure myself.

But it still hurt like hell and knocked me onto the ground.

When I looked up, I saw Alisha pointing her bow at my face.

I had lost the duel.