Arc 2: Learn, Adapt, Kill - Chapter 12
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Cross-over from various games, books, anime, manga, and movies.
The familiar characters you see here belong to their respected authors and owners.
"Speech"
Arc 2: Learn, Adapt, Kill - Chapter 12
A stab here, a stab there, a stab for every grimm that tries to bite my head off.
I twirl the One Holy Spear to shatter the head of a large ursa about to attack me from behind.
A gap forms to my left; a blizzard is unleashed, freezing dozens of grimm to ice status, then shattering them to shards with a breeze.
I leap over a beowolf, crushing its head with a swift, powerful kick, then briefly land on the back of another ursa before performing a backflip while swinging the One Holy Spear to cut the ursa vertically in half.
Numerous gaps form around me, and muskets briefly emerge from them to shoot down all the grimm, and then the muskets disappear along with the gaps. All the grimm that were shot are frozen in time.
A mini-floating treasure appears next to me, which I open with my free hand, and inside the treasure chest is a crimson hexagonal crystal. Knowledge of the treasure pours into my head as I pick it up, and the chest crumbles to dust.
With a flick of my wrist, I threw the crimson hexagonal crystal across the field and landed in the middle of a pack of beowolves. It burst into a flaming tornado twenty meters high and ten meters in radius. It drew all the grimm nearby, burning them alive and turning them to ash the faster they approached the flaming tornado, which moved slowly, destroying everything in its path.
In no time, I kill all the grimm. Ruby and Weiss have not yet been trained to fight the grimm. Most importantly, they're still training in the fighting styles I've chosen for them. Therefore, Ruby and Weiss are protected by many shikigami, with a third being Divine Dogs.
"Must we live in this land infested with grimm?" Weiss screamed in fear as a nevermore nearly grabbed her from above; if it weren't for the many shikigami that killed the nevermore before it could touch a single hair on Weiss' body.
"So many... sacrifices...!" Ruby drools at all the dead grimm slowly dissolving into black mist, but unfortunately, she cannot leave the protected circle anytime soon.
Weiss gave Ruby a blank look before looking back in my direction, "Please, can we go back? I kind of like living in a rundown building with no windows! Where the only thing we got to deal with is wandering bums that are rapists! And some stray grimm that are easy to kill!"
"Isn't that why we like miles away from Mountain Glenn? You'd complain about the rapists showing up so much and want to go somewhere else for a change." Ruby points out, causing the corner of Weiss' right eye to twitch.
"Of course, you would snap out of your trance now..." Weiss growled softly. "Anyway, does it look like we can kill any of these grimm ourselves?" She waved the grimm around her, where everyone could see multiple large grimm that could easily reach the size of a two-story building. "I was nearly picked up by a nevermore just now! And that wasn't even the first time since we got here!"
Hm. It seems that Weiss has terrible luck with nevermore, as more than dozens of various sizes have tried to grab Weiss nearly every day for the past week since we left Mountain Glenn.
"I mean, the purpose of this whole thing is to let you girls get used to having many grimm attacking us." I said to Weiss, mentally ordering the rest of the shikigami to hunt down the incoming grimm from a distance. I'll give Weiss another half an hour of break, not seeing any grimm. "It has only been a month into your training, Weiss. Same with Ruby."
"Yes. It is very impressive that you were able to teach us in such a short time and achieve such great results." Weiss ignored the departing shikigami. "I still don't know how in the world you trained me in magic. And a strange one at that."
"What's so strange about the magic I taught you?" I raise an eyebrow.
"Well, for one thing. It's the chanting that's weird." Weiss takes a deep breath. "Old Lady of the Pumpkin Wagon, please give me the test of the glass slippers. Please give me the harsh and cruel test of the glass slippers that sent my selfish and dishonest mother and sisters to the bottom of the pit of despair."
As the last word came out of Weiss' mouth, she kicked a large, dead ursa nearby, easily cutting it in half as if a sharp object had sliced through it.
"What kind of chant is this?! My mother is anything but selfish and dishonest. And I only have only one sister, both of whom I love dearly! Why would I want to send them to the bottom of the pit of despair?!" Weiss shouted at me in anger.
"I have told you before. This is from another world with its own magic system. You happen to be a Cinderella-based magic." I replied, wondering if Weiss had forgotten that her mother's and sister's souls are technically in the hands of an Eldritch entity. That alone is beyond the pit of despair.
"That story alone is even more confusing since you told me about it when you decided to train me in this Cinderella-based magic!" Weiss huffed as she walked gracefully beyond what others could achieve in a month of training to become elegant.
"Well, look on the bright side. Another month of training and you won't even need the chant." I try to calm Weiss down while secretly finding it amusing that I gave her the Cinderella-based magic from the Toaru Majutsu Index series since it's the only one I could think of that fits her future fighting style. Although I find it puzzling that there wasn't a Snow White-based magic, but I guess there are several reasons why there wasn't one.
"I thought you were going to teach me how to use the Gokon Tekko as my main fighting method?" Weiss asks me, now calming down. "Isn't that why you gave it to me in the first place? But since that day with that scary demon. The first week, you just made me do more physical training. Then you decided to teach me this Cinderella-based magic for the rest of the month. I am still confused as to how you just explained it to me. Make it possible for me to use it after a nap. A. Nap." Weiss stared at me, eyes wide.
"With the Cinderella-based magic. You can literally move at high speed and slap someone's soul out of their body with ease." I avoid explaining the Supernatural Trainer's ability. "So in a way, I am teaching you how to use the Gokon Tekko. It is just that it is on the side and also meant to be used against anything with a soul. Using Cinderella-based magic alone would be better for you in the general combats. Since you wouldn't be able to cause any harm to grimm right there." I point at the sliced-up ursa Weiss used as a target dummy and to vent her frustration.
"Fine. It's very useful, and oddly enough, it gives me the ability to move gracefully with little effort on my part, and I wasn't even taught to move gracefully, yet I instinctively know that all my movements are graceful." Weiss flicks her hair to the side as she subconsciously adjusts her position to show off her good side while looking beautiful. Plus, the sunlight just happens to be behind her, making her stand out even more.
"It was either this or the other way, which involves a lot of books on your head and among other silly things." I said truthfully, causing Weiss to squint her eyes at me.
"What about Ruby over there?" Weiss points with her thumb at Ruby, who is easily dragging a giant grimm to a nearby summoning circle she just finished drawing. "How is she so unbelievably strong? She has done the same exercises I did and she struggled as much as I did in the beginning."
"I basically taught her the ability to manipulate her own thoughts to do anything she wanted. The power of one's thoughts is released when all the cells in the brain are working at full capacity. Essentially, it is thoughts that manifest in a tangible way as when the brain is overclocked. She is able to momentarily focus all of her five senses, or in other words, her physical abilities, to an incredible degree." I explained what Ruby could do with what I had taught her.
"Is this from another world with its own system? I didn't pay attention to what you taught Ruby back then, too busy with my own stuff." Weiss looks at Ruby throwing the giant grimm as if it weighed nothing.
"Yes. And it's not magic, but from some people's point of view. It might as well be magic because of how crazy it is." I replied.
In retrospect, I could have taught Ruby Nen, but instead, I just taught her PSI from the Psyren manga series. Somewhat similar to Nen, but less versatile and more brain-dead when she overuses her PSI. Something I will have to fix in this second month of training montage.
"Is it possible to teach me something else? Something along the lines of Ruby's summoning ability? Not that I'm saying what you've taught me isn't enough, but I'd like another way to get stronger, even if it's random like Ruby's." Weiss tries not to show that she is jealous of Ruby.
"Lots. I have many abilities for you to learn that could be like Ruby's summoning ability." I replied, pulling Weiss closer into my arms. Her face turned red, and she pushed me gently, but barely, as she glanced in Ruby's direction. No doubt, she is worried about Ruby seeing us like this. "All you have to do is put in some extra work later tonight."
Weiss looks ready to argue. Then she slowly nods her head and continues to stare into my eyes.
Slowly, I leaned in to kiss Weiss, but I had to push her away when Ruby suddenly appeared beside us. And she wasn't empty-handed.
"Look what I got, guys!" Ruby shows off what looks like a white, spiky metal bat covered in barbed wire.
"Did you get this from your first summoning?" I ask Ruby carefully, remembering that she had sacrificed a giant grimm before.
"Yeah, and it does this too!" Ruby swung the deadly bat at a nearby tree, but it wasn't in range. Suddenly, however, the barbed wire unraveled and turned into a whip that struck the tree with enough force to break it. While the barbed wire itself is fine and quickly wraps around the bat afterward.
"I almost, almost feel sorry for any rapist who dares to go near Ruby now. Almost is the key word. They can all die for all I care." Weiss said what was on her mind after seeing Ruby's latest weapon.
"It's nice and all, but I don't think I'm going to keep this." Ruby said to Weiss, causing the latter to squint her eyes and slowly look at me. "I'm going to sacrifice this along with a grimm to see what I get next. Be right back!"
"You can continue to have sex with my unconscious body when I pass out." Weiss said in a serious tone.