The Wish Game

First Day of Mentorship

My training started the next day and it wasn’t even briefly pleasant. Mineva wasn’t even the slightest similar to the cheerful Mineva who talked to me about the mentorship.

It was the first day of her mentorship and she took me and three armed guards. We went to the forest and trekked for an hour. I finally slumped on the open ground for a while and Mineva said, “Okay, we’ll start your training here.”

“Huh…? Here!!!” I asked, almost surprised, and she replied, “Yup!!! Okay now, we’ll begin with that day’s event. You’ll try to escape and the three guards will try to catch you.” She had a strange smile and I asked hurriedly, “Here…but”

I couldn’t complete as her expression changed to scary at frightening speed, “Do you have any objections?” I stopped there, completely frozen in fear but gathered my courage and spoke, “I don’t know anything about this place.”

Her face still had a stern look and she asked, “So?” I sighed and began, “I was used to playing in that forest and so, I had the advantage there, but now…” She gave a smile and responded, “That’s your first lesson. Make yourself familiar with the terrain at first glance.”

I let out a breath of relief, “So, that’s it.” “Yeah, so let’s begin. These three will begin exactly three minutes after you go. And to make things a bit more interesting, if you’re caught within ten minutes you aren’t getting today’s dinner and if these three can’t catch you within ten minutes, they’re fired!!!”

I and the guards shrieked at the same time, “Are you kidding?” “Nopes, I am not. If you three can’t catch this little girl, then it is sure that you can’t be on her guard.” She replied with a smile. ‘It’s so easy for her.’ I thought and probably the guards had the same thing in mind as well.

“All right, let’s begin. You’ll get a three-minute head-start.”, Mineva told me, and as soon as she gave the signal, I sped away. I ran into the forest and, since I had no knowledge of the landscape or any part of the forest, my best bet would be to stay nearby but hidden.

As soon as I got out of their sights, I began chanting a fog spell and climbed the tree next to me. ‘If I just wait them out over here, then…’ I couldn’t complete my strategy when I felt a pull below and dropped.

I didn’t even complete my fog spell when I fell right into the guard’s arms. He smiled, “Now be a good little baby and come with me. Don’t worry; you can have part of my dinner.” He laughed as he carried me back to Mineva.

She smirked, “Caught in three-plus one, four minutes. So what was your strategy? Waiting out somewhere near?” I grumbled, “Yeah, and would you mind putting me down?” I yelled the last part towards the guard who dropped me casually.

I was expecting that and landed on my legs but it did hurt. “Well, I did tell you to familiarize the landscape.” Mineva said and I grumbled, “As you gave me, any time to do so.” However, she pointed to the road we came from and said, “You had enough time.”

“But…But then…” I stammered and I looked at myself, “At the games or even in the prelims, you won’t get enough time for anything and you’ll have to prepare in advance. At least have a basic escape strategy.”

I sat down on the grass in defeat and sighed, “I should’ve brought something to write on.” Mineva, however, pulled me up and said, “It’s not time to slack off, you still have your basic physical training for today. Hope you’ve learned your first strategic lesson.”

I sighed and made a mental note. “Now, you better get ready for the physical training. I’ll be training you in this.” She stood right in front of me and said, “You’ll run with me and your objective is to overtake me before we make a complete round of this clearing.”

I looked around at the clearing and noticed that it was quite a huge area. We started at the periphery and I was relaxed. My plan was to overtake her once she used all her stamina. But at midway, I stopped running and began panting. Mineva ran the full circumference and stopped beside me, her breathing calm and showing no signs of fatigue.

“What happened? You looked so confident when you started.” She asked as the guards joined us and I took the support of the tree and stood up, “I forgot to take my stamina into account and I ran out of it before you.” I sat there for half an hour before regaining enough stamina to move.

She competed with me in several other training sessions, like defending against magic (I was knocked out in the first spell and took a whole lot of effort to get me back up), sneak attacks (I couldn’t land any attack, be it physical or magical on any of them) and defense against ambush (that one cost the entire lesson to be canceled for the day).

“Well, I see, before we go to your combat or magic training, we’ll have to increase your stamina, your spatial awareness, and magic resistance,” Mineva said as she healed my wounds using healing magic and gave me first aid. “I guess we should wrap up.” She said at last and I passed out on hearing the words.

I woke up late at night in my room with two guards watching over me. “What are you doing here?” I asked one of them and she replied, “We had to carry you back after you were unconscious. Aah!!! You were such a pain; people gave us strange looks as if we were k********g someone.”

The other one added, “Miss Mineva had to give a lot of explanation that she didn’t work you to death or kill you. How were you even selected?” I grumbled, “I didn’t volunteer. My parents sold me off without even asking me. Where’s the other guy?” After asking the question, I realized the stupidity of my question.

There were three personal guards assigned to me, more than anyone else. Two of them were ladies while the other one was a guy. Of course, the administration wouldn’t let him in the room when I was unconscious. ‘But why were they inside?’ I thought, and the guards got the sense of it.

The first one told me, “Miss Mineva thinks that she pushed you too far. So, we are here to see if you’re recovering or not. And she’d like to watch as well…” She pointed towards the transmission crystal resting on the table. I looked there through the corner of my eye and nodded.

The duo got up and was about to leave when suddenly I said, “Thank you…” I couldn’t stop myself and was unable to understand why I was doing this. The duo stopped and turned around in surprise. I repeated subconsciously, “Thank you for everything…”

They smiled and one of them said, “You can call me Mira and she is Rita.” “Who’s the guy?” I asked and Rita said, “He’s Sam. Now take some rest.” They left me in the room and went out. I wasn’t exactly sleepy, so I instead went to my desk and had a look at the numerous books. Some were covered in dust as I never even began reading, “I should prepare for tomorrow.”