STAGE SEVENTEEN: A Boy in the Woods

"OWW!"

Freyja cried, falling straight to the ground. Her landing was bad, with lack of footwork, she twisted her ankle. When she tried to stand, the excruciating pain sent her back to the ground.

"Don't force it." Kirin lifted the girl up and carried her to a chair under an open cottage nearby. "You sprained your ankle, don't move it too much." He gently examined her now-violet, swollen left foot. "I suck." She cursed.

"Stop that," Kirin's flicked her forehead. "I often sprained my ankle like that before too. Always."

"Really?"

"Of course, after that, I couldn't walk, or even stand up properly. I even had to endure the pain just to proceed with my next training."

Freyja felt a bit insecure. It's been three months since they left to train for the tournament and she's trying her best to match up to Kirin. But the longer she stays with him, the more she realizes how insane it would be to try to catch up to his level. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally he's composed. Nonetheless, Kirin's words were very reassuring.

"A broken bone becomes a lot stronger once it heals." Kirin uttered, recalling something from he learned in the past. He gently applied cold compress on her foot. "Until this heals completely, do twice as much aura training. Try to reinforce your foot with your aura. It will help the muscles heal. Once you master aura control, you can shift your aura to vulnerable parts easily. You won't get injured as much, understand?"

"Got it."

~ o 0 o ~

Without help from Astrid or any medical practitioner, Freyja's sprain healed in just a week. On top of that, she can now wrap a portion of her aura around her hands for over ten minutes and not faint. Seeing the improvement, she became more eager to train. She did nothing but read books and train her aura for a week, her body started missing the exercise.

"HAIYA!!!" Freyja shouted while kicking the sandbag Kirin made for her training. And just as Kirin said, her foot felt stronger than before.

"Your leverage is not right... when you kick, you have to maintain the balance." Kirin commented. "The footwork is the key. No matter how strong your attacks are, if you can't maintain proper stance, you'll lose...Here, I brought food." He sat on the grass and handed her a basket filled with baked potatoes, roast chicken and some corn. They're all Freyja's favorite foods, her eyes sparkled. She rushed to his side and started pigging out the moment she touched the basket. "A hearty meal after a hard training sure is the best!" She exclaimed. "Hey! Don't eat too fast or you'll choke!" Kirin scolded, handing her a jug of water.

~ o 0 o ~

The fourth month came, and their training became more and more rigorous. Her tasks became more difficult and Kirin became less and less tolerating. For the past four months, they've been travelling only by foot, occasionally spending days in mountain cottages for quick breaks and quiet training and meditation. This time, they decided to spend a week in a small farm village. There, Freyja and Kirin rented a small house.

Every single day, Freyja diligently trained. In her resting times however, she would always read books about science, magic spells and other things that she found interesting. And of course, hammering Kirin with the most random questions has become a norm.

"Kirin, how come you are so rich?" Freyja asked, wondering why Kirin never ran out of funds. "Well, it's a fraction of my personal money..." He replied, as if it wasn't a big deal, making the girl choke in surprise. "F-Fraction!?"

"Did you forget that I am a noble? Don't worry, the Aethelmaer clan owns an entire continent. If in case my money would go on short, which is not likely to happen, they wouldn't even notice if I take some gold from their treasury." His matter-of-fact attitude towards her amazed her greatly. "So basically, we are living under enemy support."

"You can say that."

"And I here thought monarchs live in castles and ride carriages and dance all day... But NO, they must hold a sword and kick demon ass. Great." Freyja whined, but she ended up grinning. "But that sounds cooler! Right Kirin?"

"Come on. Stop daydreaming. Shouldn't you go to the market today?" Kirin asked, putting away the plates. He's the cook and Freyja does the errands. Remembering her chore, she got dressed and headed out right away.

Freyja, dressed in boys' clothes, went to the mountains to gather some wild spices. On the way, she met the old lady next door who happened to have the same chore as her. "Good morning!" She greeted.

"My, you do look like a handsome boy Freyja. But, why do you always dress that way? I'm sure dresses and laces suits you well." The old lady was kind enough to offer clothing to her, but she refused.

"Thank you, but I am under training. So I have to wear the most comfortable clothing. Besides, if bandits see a girl and an old lady, they might take advantage and attack us."

The bushes started moving as if something hideous is hiding over there. Quickly, Freyja pulled the short sword stashed in her belt and stood in front of the old lady. "Stand back! I will protect you!" She shouted, which was quickly followed by a smug. "I just said something cool, didn't I?" Just then, the mysterious animal appeared. It was a humongous wild boar. But it's unusually large and it has big, curved horns like a bull's. "What the- this is no ordinary boar!" She thought, running away from the beast. "OVER HERE PIGGYBANK!" She taunted the boar to keep it away from the old lady. It was effective, it went straight after her, and never gave her the chance to attack. Freyja kept on running, desperate for a plan. Before she could even think of one, the gigantic tree roots on the ground made her trip. The boar caught up and charged at her fiercely. It tried to hit her with its horns, but she rolled to one side just in time, evading a lethal attack. She quickly stood up and went on the offensive. She charged at the beast head on. "YOU ARE BARBECU---" Just as when Freyja was about to heroically stab the boar dead, the winds blew very hard that she was blinded for a second. In the blink of an eye, a boy, with black hair and matching black eyes, just a bit taller than Freyja, appeared in front of her. On his hands were twin daggers engulfed with an awfully familiar kind of aura. Just as when she started concentrating to see his aura color, he disappeared.

Looking at the other side, she found the boar already dead. "Woah! This kid stole my heroic moment!" She was disappointed, but also relieved.

"Hey there!" She called him, seeing him up a tree. "Thanks for helping us!"

The boy glared at her, which reminded her very much of Kirin when they first met. "I didn't do it for you, it was in the way." He curtly said before jumping to another tree and soon disappeared like a phantom. Freyja was about to hate him when she noticed traces of dripping blood on the ground. "He's injured?"

Curious, she tried to follow him. But all of a sudden, a group of hunters armed with arrows and swords came rushing from behind her. "After the demon!" Freyja ran to the old lady to make sure she's unharmed. "Are you alright? You're not hurt?" The old lady shook her head. Freyja sighed in relief before asking the old lady to return by herself. "Please tell Kirin that I'm going to explore the place a bit. I'll be home before dark, I promise." With that, the old lady hesitantly headed back, leaving Freyja in the woods by herself. Now that the old lady is gone, Freyja followed the traces of blood on the ground, as well as the group of hunters in a chase.

After a few minutes of running as stealthily as she could, the blood trail led her to a small cave deep within the woods. For whatever reason, the hunters couldn't seem to see the blood traces the boy left, much to her curiosity. Freyja took out an illuminating crystal from her bag, while her other hand firmly on her short sword. Shortly after she entered, she shrieked, finding the boy lying on the ground bathing in his own blood.

Freyja checked his pulse first thing, he's still alive. She ran outside to fetch water from a nearby river and gathered medicinal herbs she learned about while travelling with Kirin. She returned to the cave and again, she checked his pulse. "His pulse is fine." She thought while tearing a piece of cloth from her big shirt. First, she cleaned the wound on his side. It was quite a deep wound, but not deep enough to injure his internal organs. The wound still had a trace of someone's aura in it, leading her to the conclusion that the one who wounded this boy is a skilled fighter adept in manipulating aura: someone almost the same as Kirin, if not as strong as him.

Remembering how she used her white aura to reinforce her ankle injury, she channeled a portion of her aura to his wound. Slowly, she wrapped her aura around his injury, dissolving the remnants of the scorching aura around the wound. It looked quite effective, as the boy started twitching less. Then, with the herbs she gathered, along with the medicine pills that Kirin asked her to carry around, she dressed the wound the best she could.

The boy opened his eyes.

"Hi. Are you alright?"

The moment he saw her, he reached for the dagger on his belt and threatened her not to come any closer. Freyja backed off as fast as she could.

"W-wait! Hold on! I'm not going to do anything bad to you!" She was startled, but tried to explain what happened. "You were injured, so I thought you needed help."

"You should have left me alone. My aura could dissolve the rune that injured me."

The ungrateful boy stood up and hurriedly ran out of the cave, without even leaving a single word of thanks. Freyja saw a small silver locket that the boy must have left behind. She picked it up, put it in her pocket and ran back to the house.

~ o 0 o ~