I was pissed. Really. Pissed. So much potential … wasted. I thought these reincarnators were better than what I perceived as barely acceptable to be used in my plans. Even worse, they behaved like little brats who dreamt of heroic feats like they were in some sort of fairy tale.
Two of those I deemed useful had their head full of hormones and thought about nothing to impress me and in case of Schwarz, sometimes other girls as well. Who in the right mind would pick these two idiots for an important task? Me … apparently.
Objectively speaking they weren’t that bad at fighting. Schwarz was rather good at close combat, even though he tended to use his sword like a blunt weapon sometimes, and Louis was an more than acceptable mage.
But both of them lacked what was necessary in a real fight though. A clear head. Whenever these two did something they perceived as amazing, they immediately looked towards me like some lost duckling in search for their mother. They weren’t focused on the task at hand at all, no matter what I did. It was tiresome to see them failing time and time again at a simple task like catching Hannah because they didn’t learn anything.
I told the cat girl there were some unteachable lessons … which was somewhat correct. Teamwork could be taught, that was for sure, but using their fucking testosterone filled brain … couldn’t be. Well, maybe except through some good beating, but that was apparently frowned upon. Too bad.
And so, all I could do was to let them run against the wall that Hannah presented each and every night we travelled so far. Surprisingly though, they never grew tired of it as if they wanted to proof something … which they already did of course.
Well, at least Ellie was somewhat progressing with her task of mastering her barrier skill, probably given to her by a god.
The thing was … she also didn’t really understand what I wanted her to do. She had realised the two idiots lacked teamwork early on, and then she proceeded to focus her work solely on herself.
I told her to make them larger – she made them cover more of herself.
I asked her to be more flexible with them – she learned to make them smaller to block a. Single. Fucking. Attack.
Congratulations.
Did I need to spell everything out for these so called heroes? How obvious did I need to be so that they learned to work together?
Why didn’t Ellie learn to use her barriers to protect others for fucks sake? Her weapon of choice was a one handed sword with a shield, so why the fuck did she still train her barriers to protect herself? She had plenty protection already!
But Schwarz did not. He was a total glass cannon. I could punch him once and he would be unconscious. Sure, he was fast and secretive – the perfect assassin so to speak - but he attacked head on most of the time.
And that fool of a prince? Not even a bit better. He was slow, not very athletic and fell over normal roots in a fight. Worst of all, he was a mage who didn’t know what spell was usable in what situation.
… well, we did have some progress … I think.
Ellie apparently levelled up her barrier skill and learned what I wanted from the beginning on the side by creating stationary barriers or fixating them onto something else.
Lucky me. I really didn’t want to help them that much, because it didn’t make sense for someone who was around their age to know so much more, so I had to hold back considerably and needed them to figure things out on their own.
Louis and Schwarz … they also progressed somewhat I guess. At least they didn’t fight each other actively anymore which was something. Otherwise, I was disappointed in them. Naturally, I couldn’t show them that at all because frankly speaking, the gentle smile on my face, masking all the rage in me, was the only thing that kept them going every night.
Well, they did make some progress during the last night which we chose to keep rather short though. For the first time, Ellie was allowed to join in and we even allowed her to talk about the fact that everyone who laid hands on Hannah would win, not just the first person to achieve doing so.
I didn’t know if she told them that, but neither did I care much. I started to think of watching over them as some side hobby of mine, not as an actual benefit to my plans which did help in calming down somewhat. And so, I sat on a branch of a tree, letting my legs dangle downwards and watched the three of them starting anew.
At first, there wasn’t much of a difference to the other attempts, as the two idiots started running towards Hannah again while Ellie just stood there, her ears very close to the rest of her head. What a pitiful kitten she was … not taken for full by Schwarz must have seriously hurt her. But that’s what she got for making fun of me at the river.
It all went on like this until the allocated time was nearly over and she finally bit her lower lips.
“Now it’s getting interesting.” I whispered quietly and watched in satisfaction how two barriers appeared right in the path of the boys. Both ran into them without any chance to react which gave me hope for some kind of spectacle. But sadly, the barriers were of the bouncy type which didn’t hurt much and so, they merely fell onto their butts.
“I’m sorry!” Ellie shouted right away. “But we need to work together to beat her!”
“I’m not relying on him!” Schwarz shouted back angrily and stood up once more.
“You had six days to do it your way, so this once, we will use my plan!” I really didn’t want to be in Ellie’s shoes, that for sure. I already had headaches with Schwarz and he had a crush on me which made him listen to me somewhat.
“Or what?” Schwarz asked while laughing loudly.
“I will place barriers in your way until you agree.” Tough girl … I liked it. That was probably the only way to reign him in at all and it seemed to do the trick.
“Fine.” Schwarz mumbled unhappily. Despite all, he may have grown a little by hammering his head into the ground so often … which was probably the beating he needed.
“Let’s do this.” Louis was less of a troublesome fellow in this regard and trusted her enough to follow her command. The three of them encircled Hannah who didn’t move an inch yet. She was allowing them to set up their trap, that was for sure.
After all, they needed some kind of success otherwise they wouldn’t join the second part of the training I prepared for the way back.
Anyways, all of them started racing towards Hannah at the same time. Once again, Louis chanted his usual spell, but he surprisingly targeted Schwarz with it who ran faster than ever before. Thus, he was the first one to get close to Hannah and probably the most threatening out of all three as well.
Hannah was still a tad faster than him though and blasted a whole lot of air in his direction, slowing him down to snails pace.
Next to reach her was Louis who directly went for a tight hug to get her, but failed as she simply danced around him by widening the scope of her wind tunnel to include him which made him stumble uncontrollably.
Mockingly, she merely stood there for a few seconds, a bit too sure about her victory if I was entirely honest. Because even though two of them were mostly immobile and fought against the wind, the newcomer wasn’t done yet.
Like always, she created a barrier. But not around Louis nor Schwarz, but around Hannah who was now blocked from retreating backwards.
With her wind in front of her and the barrier in the back, she was boxed in for the most part. Hannah had lost of time to think though as the boys weren’t that close to her yet and thus, she simply cancelled her spell and sprinted forwards, but was quickly blocked off by a very long and tall wall, shining brightly.
Once again, everyone sprinted towards her while Hannah got more and more boxed in. The way back was blocked, the way forwards and her students raced to her from the side.
There was just one way left. Upwards.
Before anyone could reach her, she was already kneeling down somewhat, ready to use her magic to propel her out of reach, but just as she wanted to do so, another dimly lit barrier appeared above her.
I could basically hear her sighing and cursing at the same time. She had no way left out of this which wasn’t entirely unfair. Sure, she could electrocute everyone and walk out of the encirclement easily, but there was no fun in that, was there?
Sadly for them though, Hannah didn’t plan on giving them their much needed success that night either. She went even deeper, one of her knees barely touching the ground and held one hand above her head while pressing the other one on her mouth and nose.
Within an instant, I felt how a hammer hit my chest and pressed me backwards. Barely holding onto the branch, I could see how the dim barriers evaporated as the pressure crashed against them and the students flew backwards a considerable distance. Wind was whipping all the trees with the centre of the storm being Hannah’s hand.
I could feel the air pressure decreasing considerably over the next few milliseconds, until the effects were reversed and all the air came rushing back towards her, this time more in a gentle breeze than anything else.
Thankfully, the students weren’t hurt at all, and stood up while groaning unhappily while Hannah stood there in the middle, grabbing her chin and looking at each and every one of them.
“That was … way more wind than ever before.” Schwarz complained unhappily. Well, that much was for granted considering she used help of the system for the first time since they started their game of catch. Otherwise, she always used ancient magic which she had worked hard on since I woke up from my coma.
“Because you were better than anticipated … so congratulations. My sisters lips are save though, so everyone got what they wanted?”
“That’s unfair.” Schwarz said, but shrank back as electricity started to appear all around her. It was obvious for everyone she held back considerably, even with this blast.
“Okay. Okay. Thank you for holding back, mam.” Schwarz said meekly.
“Great … that’s it for today. Have a good night.” Hannah said and shooed the tree back to the camp right away.
I didn’t follow them right away though and waited a little until I jumped down from the branch.
“What do you think?” She asked once I nodded to her. Nobody was listening in.
“All in all? A failure. But we might be able to salvage something from this.” I presumed and thought about the next steps. Maybe we should break the group up and take only those who were actually capable of something?
“I thought they were doing pretty good in the end.” Hannah said, which ran completely opposite of what I had seen. Ellie could have dispelled her barriers and created stronger, smaller ones to protect her and her teammates, Louis could have tried to dig a hole he and Schwarz could jump into and Schwarz … well, he was probably the only one who wouldn’t be able to do anything.
“… pretty good for teenagers. Don’t forget they are all around thirty at this point. Looking at them though, they really might have regressed to being children.” I complained unhappily. They were far from being capable of standing against strong foes.
“You should stop looking at everyone the perspective of a 411 year old vampire who already has one foot into godhood, but rather from a more … grounded perspective.” I clicked my tongue unhappily. Truly, they were just at the beginning of their journey, so there was a lot of room to grow for them. And I had to admit my perspective was rather flawed indeed.
“I suppose you are right …” I commented, agreeing to everything she said about this flaw of mine.
“So? Proceed as planned?” Hannah asked.
“I suppose we should. Maybe we find more suitable candidates for the job, maybe not. There is no harm training them either way.”
“Ohh, you took a liking to them?” She asked which made me question her sanity a little.
“Certainly not. The only reincarnator I like is Sofie, and that’s because of her patron goddess.” I said and realised instantly that she was just making fun of me.
And so, I boxed her shoulder. Lightly.
I was pissed. Really. Pissed. So much potential … wasted. I thought these reincarnators were better than what I perceived as barely acceptable to be used in my plans. Even worse, they behaved like little brats who dreamt of heroic feats like they were in some sort of fairy tale.
Two of those I deemed useful had their head full of hormones and thought about nothing to impress me and in case of Schwarz, sometimes other girls as well. Who in the right mind would pick these two idiots for an important task? Me … apparently.
Objectively speaking they weren’t that bad at fighting. Schwarz was rather good at close combat, even though he tended to use his sword like a blunt weapon sometimes, and Louis was an more than acceptable mage.
But both of them lacked what was necessary in a real fight though. A clear head. Whenever these two did something they perceived as amazing, they immediately looked towards me like some lost duckling in search for their mother. They weren’t focused on the task at hand at all, no matter what I did. It was tiresome to see them failing time and time again at a simple task like catching Hannah because they didn’t learn anything.
I told the cat girl there were some unteachable lessons … which was somewhat correct. Teamwork could be taught, that was for sure, but using their fucking testosterone filled brain … couldn’t be. Well, maybe except through some good beating, but that was apparently frowned upon. Too bad.
And so, all I could do was to let them run against the wall that Hannah presented each and every night we travelled so far. Surprisingly though, they never grew tired of it as if they wanted to proof something … which they already did of course.
Well, at least Ellie was somewhat progressing with her task of mastering her barrier skill, probably given to her by a god.
The thing was … she also didn’t really understand what I wanted her to do. She had realised the two idiots lacked teamwork early on, and then she proceeded to focus her work solely on herself.
I told her to make them larger – she made them cover more of herself.
I asked her to be more flexible with them – she learned to make them smaller to block a. Single. Fucking. Attack.
Congratulations.
Did I need to spell everything out for these so called heroes? How obvious did I need to be so that they learned to work together?
Why didn’t Ellie learn to use her barriers to protect others for fucks sake? Her weapon of choice was a one handed sword with a shield, so why the fuck did she still train her barriers to protect herself? She had plenty protection already!
But Schwarz did not. He was a total glass cannon. I could punch him once and he would be unconscious. Sure, he was fast and secretive – the perfect assassin so to speak - but he attacked head on most of the time.
And that fool of a prince? Not even a bit better. He was slow, not very athletic and fell over normal roots in a fight. Worst of all, he was a mage who didn’t know what spell was usable in what situation.
… well, we did have some progress … I think.
Ellie apparently levelled up her barrier skill and learned what I wanted from the beginning on the side by creating stationary barriers or fixating them onto something else.
Lucky me. I really didn’t want to help them that much, because it didn’t make sense for someone who was around their age to know so much more, so I had to hold back considerably and needed them to figure things out on their own.
Louis and Schwarz … they also progressed somewhat I guess. At least they didn’t fight each other actively anymore which was something. Otherwise, I was disappointed in them. Naturally, I couldn’t show them that at all because frankly speaking, the gentle smile on my face, masking all the rage in me, was the only thing that kept them going every night.
Well, they did make some progress during the last night which we chose to keep rather short though. For the first time, Ellie was allowed to join in and we even allowed her to talk about the fact that everyone who laid hands on Hannah would win, not just the first person to achieve doing so.
I didn’t know if she told them that, but neither did I care much. I started to think of watching over them as some side hobby of mine, not as an actual benefit to my plans which did help in calming down somewhat. And so, I sat on a branch of a tree, letting my legs dangle downwards and watched the three of them starting anew.
At first, there wasn’t much of a difference to the other attempts, as the two idiots started running towards Hannah again while Ellie just stood there, her ears very close to the rest of her head. What a pitiful kitten she was … not taken for full by Schwarz must have seriously hurt her. But that’s what she got for making fun of me at the river.
It all went on like this until the allocated time was nearly over and she finally bit her lower lips.
“Now it’s getting interesting.” I whispered quietly and watched in satisfaction how two barriers appeared right in the path of the boys. Both ran into them without any chance to react which gave me hope for some kind of spectacle. But sadly, the barriers were of the bouncy type which didn’t hurt much and so, they merely fell onto their butts.
“I’m sorry!” Ellie shouted right away. “But we need to work together to beat her!”
“I’m not relying on him!” Schwarz shouted back angrily and stood up once more.
“You had six days to do it your way, so this once, we will use my plan!” I really didn’t want to be in Ellie’s shoes, that for sure. I already had headaches with Schwarz and he had a crush on me which made him listen to me somewhat.
“Or what?” Schwarz asked while laughing loudly.
“I will place barriers in your way until you agree.” Tough girl … I liked it. That was probably the only way to reign him in at all and it seemed to do the trick.
“Fine.” Schwarz mumbled unhappily. Despite all, he may have grown a little by hammering his head into the ground so often … which was probably the beating he needed.
“Let’s do this.” Louis was less of a troublesome fellow in this regard and trusted her enough to follow her command. The three of them encircled Hannah who didn’t move an inch yet. She was allowing them to set up their trap, that was for sure.
After all, they needed some kind of success otherwise they wouldn’t join the second part of the training I prepared for the way back.
Anyways, all of them started racing towards Hannah at the same time. Once again, Louis chanted his usual spell, but he surprisingly targeted Schwarz with it who ran faster than ever before. Thus, he was the first one to get close to Hannah and probably the most threatening out of all three as well.
Hannah was still a tad faster than him though and blasted a whole lot of air in his direction, slowing him down to snails pace.
Next to reach her was Louis who directly went for a tight hug to get her, but failed as she simply danced around him by widening the scope of her wind tunnel to include him which made him stumble uncontrollably.
Mockingly, she merely stood there for a few seconds, a bit too sure about her victory if I was entirely honest. Because even though two of them were mostly immobile and fought against the wind, the newcomer wasn’t done yet.
Like always, she created a barrier. But not around Louis nor Schwarz, but around Hannah who was now blocked from retreating backwards.
With her wind in front of her and the barrier in the back, she was boxed in for the most part. Hannah had lost of time to think though as the boys weren’t that close to her yet and thus, she simply cancelled her spell and sprinted forwards, but was quickly blocked off by a very long and tall wall, shining brightly.
Once again, everyone sprinted towards her while Hannah got more and more boxed in. The way back was blocked, the way forwards and her students raced to her from the side.
There was just one way left. Upwards.
Before anyone could reach her, she was already kneeling down somewhat, ready to use her magic to propel her out of reach, but just as she wanted to do so, another dimly lit barrier appeared above her.
I could basically hear her sighing and cursing at the same time. She had no way left out of this which wasn’t entirely unfair. Sure, she could electrocute everyone and walk out of the encirclement easily, but there was no fun in that, was there?
Sadly for them though, Hannah didn’t plan on giving them their much needed success that night either. She went even deeper, one of her knees barely touching the ground and held one hand above her head while pressing the other one on her mouth and nose.
Within an instant, I felt how a hammer hit my chest and pressed me backwards. Barely holding onto the branch, I could see how the dim barriers evaporated as the pressure crashed against them and the students flew backwards a considerable distance. Wind was whipping all the trees with the centre of the storm being Hannah’s hand.
I could feel the air pressure decreasing considerably over the next few milliseconds, until the effects were reversed and all the air came rushing back towards her, this time more in a gentle breeze than anything else.
Thankfully, the students weren’t hurt at all, and stood up while groaning unhappily while Hannah stood there in the middle, grabbing her chin and looking at each and every one of them.
“That was … way more wind than ever before.” Schwarz complained unhappily. Well, that much was for granted considering she used help of the system for the first time since they started their game of catch. Otherwise, she always used ancient magic which she had worked hard on since I woke up from my coma.
“Because you were better than anticipated … so congratulations. My sisters lips are save though, so everyone got what they wanted?”
“That’s unfair.” Schwarz said, but shrank back as electricity started to appear all around her. It was obvious for everyone she held back considerably, even with this blast.
“Okay. Okay. Thank you for holding back, mam.” Schwarz said meekly.
“Great … that’s it for today. Have a good night.” Hannah said and shooed the tree back to the camp right away.
I didn’t follow them right away though and waited a little until I jumped down from the branch.
“What do you think?” She asked once I nodded to her. Nobody was listening in.
“All in all? A failure. But we might be able to salvage something from this.” I presumed and thought about the next steps. Maybe we should break the group up and take only those who were actually capable of something?
“I thought they were doing pretty good in the end.” Hannah said, which ran completely opposite of what I had seen. Ellie could have dispelled her barriers and created stronger, smaller ones to protect her and her teammates, Louis could have tried to dig a hole he and Schwarz could jump into and Schwarz … well, he was probably the only one who wouldn’t be able to do anything.
“… pretty good for teenagers. Don’t forget they are all around thirty at this point. Looking at them though, they really might have regressed to being children.” I complained unhappily. They were far from being capable of standing against strong foes.
“You should stop looking at everyone the perspective of a 411 year old vampire who already has one foot into godhood, but rather from a more … grounded perspective.” I clicked my tongue unhappily. Truly, they were just at the beginning of their journey, so there was a lot of room to grow for them. And I had to admit my perspective was rather flawed indeed.
“I suppose you are right …” I commented, agreeing to everything she said about this flaw of mine.
“So? Proceed as planned?” Hannah asked.
“I suppose we should. Maybe we find more suitable candidates for the job, maybe not. There is no harm training them either way.”
“Ohh, you took a liking to them?” She asked which made me question her sanity a little.
“Certainly not. The only reincarnator I like is Sofie, and that’s because of her patron goddess.” I said and realised instantly that she was just making fun of me.
And so, I boxed her shoulder. Lightly.
