8.
2296 Words
One of his lessons was how to use armor efficiently. He doesn't need an explanation to understand it as the importance was shown in the sparring footage he was supplied. Where to redirect the strike? What part needs to be injured instead of dying or how to use barbs on armor to rob enemy weapons. A hit from spikes in metal gloves is also deadly for small-size targets. A helm is important and what kind of gaiter he needs to wear depends on the situation...
He was taught how to use shields and all kinds of weapons defensively in the following lessons. He trained his body in a reasonable way, not in a destructive way. She explained that while doing that could make you stronger, it will damage his potential so badly. Potential is different from talent. Like he pours water so intense that cracked the cup and no matter what he does, the water will never cross that cracked mark so she prohibits him from doing so. Although the question that if he has any talents is still a question.
Of course, there are also other lessons with full kind of variety. After a short morality lesson, in which he received five hits on his head as the '' reward '' for wrong answers, Rhinne walked to a room with a bunch of vials and tools with a depressed mood. He failed in his best regard, morality. There is still a'' Dream '' lesson. But anyway, now he had to learn another lesson.
The atmosphere is still cool as there is water everywhere. Not only fishes, but he even saw some lobsters with a huge body of two meters long - which have the front legs, claws even longer than that like bizarre arms - or a water spider stride in the fog. This room was like a big, dangerous room as he had trained his '' instinct '' - he always proud of this - to its limit. He knew nothing good inside this room.
Creeek.
It opened with sounds of an old door and as always, the gate is still foolishly big. The woman is the one who always opened it, a strike to his pride, although his pride exists or not is still in question. He was kind. The room is coated with dust. She clapped.
- It is cleaning time isn't it?
- Yes!
They jumped into the room with happiness and start to fight. They were workaholics, so both always feel happy when working like cleaning the house or wash the dishes, take out garbages. Grow plants and tend mushrooms are also a great joy to them.
Flushh flusshhh!
The rags were quickly dirtied, so they dipped them into the bucket of water and continue. More cleaning and more washing. Soon, the room was clean as a block of polished granite. She said :
- I will take something so go to that desk and get me two boxes.
- Which color?!
He sat down and pulled the desk. It was hard as it was too old, but he still managed to open it. He asked after the desk was opened. A lot of boxes sat quietly there. Her voice was somewhat small as she talks from somewhere far.
- Yellow and green! - The voice echoed - Get a bucket of freshwater ready too!
- Okay!
He found the boxes and pulled them outside. They were monstrously heavy, as they were made from pure metal and he struggled to pick up just two boxes. Dragged them to the middle of the room, he ran outside with the bucket to a fountain nearby. The can of water was dragged back. She was there, with a few tools spilled outside a case. He clicked his tongue, she was clumsy as always. Rhinne found himself a spot to sit down.
They sat across each other and she asked a question :
- You can guess what I'm about to do with these things.
- Please enlighten me, master.
He raised both of his arms like he was excited, but his face is blank. It is a cute expression of him, and as weirdos as they were, they all thought it was really cute. She nodded and pulled out an injector.
- This would be used to inject you.
- I know.
He nodded and put down his arms. She dragged to yellow box toward her as easy as a sack of rag, opened it. A few tubes of yellow liquid were there. Monera took one out, carefully tilted the tube, and let a few drops of that thing mixed with the bucket.
- Snake poison.
- ...
He fell silent. After a few seconds, he nodded :
- Poison resistance training.
- Precisely. You know about this.
- I know. Other people in my world also practice this and succeeded, so no reason I couldn't. - He gulped when looking at the drops of poison - But... can you be sure I can take on this training? Or the wrong amount of poison would kill me.
- I'm very familiar with this process so... - She pat on her thigh - Lie down here. Believe in me.
Rhinne stayed on his spot for tens of seconds and moved as rigid as a toy, struggle to get close and lied down nervously. She held the cylinder like a nurse and he felt scared. She stabbed it into his arm at an angle that created a certain degree. He sighed, so she was really familiar with this.
- Uhhh?
It isn't hurt at all, he wondered, but the pain comes right away. It is an unfamiliar type of pain that made him knitted his brows in confusion. It isn't violent like a shock, hard to bear like a shallow cut from a knife or burning pain from stabbing, but... it is the pain of having your cramped for too long. It is a paralyzing pain, made him not be able to lift or control the wrist, which is near the place the syringe stabbed into.
- It is uncomfortable.
- It would increase over time, so bear with it.
The room is just be cleaned, so the smell is filled with the smell of water. He tried to ease the pain and the anxiety in his mind by tried to feels the cool floor under his back, but that is the moment he noticed that his back was wet because of sweat. Monera doesn't even move, and that proves her personality. He wiped his forehead with the remaining arm. He felt scared to move the arm that was swollen up.
- You seem to be scared of snake's poison.
- We are all afraid of it.
- It is funny that a man who never joins a battle endured such a wound on his ears without even a groan scared of this much pain.
He laughed and answered :
- I'm scared of another thing.
- Hmmm... let me guessed. - Monera still let her hands stayed on the floor - The trial after this, I suppose.
- The greatness of the world.
- ...
She looked aside and nodded :
- I bet no one can understand this except for me.
- I bet that no one can understand this except for you.
-...
They said at the same time. Rhinne touched his swollen arm and asked when a pain equivalent to a hornet's sting attack him when he touched his skin.
- This would need about three days to completely neutralize, isn't it?
- Here is another thing.
She opened the green box and take out a tube. Rhinne looks at it.
- Isn't it the thing that neutralizes weak poison with a bit of pain?
- It is. But as you know...
-... that in such condition...
-... the poison would be killed...
-... but...
-... we all know what came after all of that.
They played the game they sometimes play. Rhinne nodded and asked a question that on another topic:
- What do I like?
- Sea. Water.
- What do I hate?
- Garlic. What do I hate?
- Matter moved from the first generation to the third generation. No needs to leave a matter to the third if you could leave it for the second.
- What do I like?
- Contradiction.
It is just a game that they had played for a long time. It is just a few lines but the difference between them was exposed fully. Rhinne ignored a hot sweat that flowed into his right eyes and continued :
- A man has four tiles of land to plowed for food, a dog, a dead wife. He also has a son who moved to the rubber forest under the supervision of a company far from home. Light of the world favors the believer. Crabs moved away from the river, a plant that survived the history received the richness. Why the man suicided with the poison for dog?
- The man doesn't have grandchildren. - Monera still observe the condition of his arm while saying - The grass was dying, along with the movement of animals means that the sun was being at its mightiest. So, the son left home for money to seek a wife. It is humiliating for a man to be denied for being weak and having no property.
She put back the tube of antidote. Rhinne closed his eyes because of the weakness he felt and tried to ease the pain.
- Anyone with normal intelligence could see that the man, who absolutely old based on these details, are poor, as the son had left for just money, the thing held no value in our views. Four tiles to farm, yet hungry in years as there was no stored food.
- Uhm...
The pain now has reached an unbearable level and he can't hide the painful expression even though his level of self-control is absolutely good. The woman doesn't move at all, again, prove her personality.
- Can you bear with it?
- I can.
- Then, ... I'm sure that the old man's country had been invaded by an experienced yet foolish invader country.
- Yes.
Rhinne felt his throat dry. The answer continued while his stomach suddenly felt a stabbing pain.
- Isn't it foolish?
- I know, ha.
- They forced the farmer, in this case, the old man as the representative to not grow food but rather plant that benefit industrial-like cotton or rubber tree, coffee, tea to earn money and it led to the famine. The man's wife was dead.
She stopped. After another minute of silence, she continued :
- So, he is alone. He is the keeper of all properties that his clan had left.
- Uhm.
- He was old, the country is poor, so no one would hire him for work. He is old so can't eat much as he doesn't have to work, but the dog is different. It can eat a lot, yet he kept it. Isn't it an important friend of him in place of his son?
-...
The pained man sang a small and sad song. The woman continued :
- They must love each other a lot as master and pet. It is his life at such age. But he doesn't have any food left to feed the dog.
Even knowing that this time would indeed come....
- The man sold his only family member away.
He refuses to accept it....
- He sold his friend with the determination for his descendant.
...and he simply put his grief down...
- He can sell the land he owns to eat and to live, still remain a pure man, an honest and good farmer. But he sacrifices his own life for his son that still being stripped away his fate by the master of the invaders.
Ruin. Collapse, vanish and die...
- He sold the dog for a small amount of money. He sent this money to a trusted person, asked them to handle his burial without borrow any money from his neighbor and a letter for his son. Truly an honest man, isn't he?
Where would you return to?
- Then, finally, he returns with his dead friend with a dose of killing poison for dog. Slow, torturing dead, let others see he was killed by poison for dog. Let all his neighbors see the punishment for killing his friend.
It may stay unimportant, my friend...
- No one would have care, but the world would know. His son would collapse when he returned. He would cry and regret leaving his old father behind for a bag of money, returned with blinded eyes from lack of nutrition and skinny, a bag of bones. The girl of his dream had been married to another man at that time.
...I just want you to know that I regret what I have done to you...
- He never can shake off that regret, but another stab came to him as he received full four tiles of land from his dead father. His father had left him with all his possible treasure possible, and even though the pitiful old man has tried to hold on to wait for his son, the son never returned in time. Without any money to survived, the father killed himself and can only say goodbye to his child through a letter he had left to that trusted person
If you can hear me, my friend, I want you to smile again... If you could see this...
- Is it the right answer? My friend?
- It is.
Rhinne's arm lies quietly on the floor without moving.
- Writer
