Dawn- An age of Darkness

My days were mostly packed. 

My mornings were full of Ve, literally. She\'d pound all sorts of techniques in me without explaining anything. She was not the best teacher, no. 

The noon belonged to Alisa and she more or less taught me well. I practiced magic with her.

The afternoon however was the half-elf\'s and unlike Ve, she was a good teacher. But strangely she was more patient with training me than Lianne was. I guess comparing her to Lianne over and over again was a bit unfair. After all, they weren\'t the same person and Lianne was a princess. If this girl was related to her, then that meant one of her parents had committed adultery with a god and just the thought alone was kind of weird. 

.

Elves kind of looked similar to me, so I guess this was probably just my imagination. 

By the time the day ended, I was almost always in my bed, barely able to keep my eyes open.

Today was a bit different though. I had some worries as I stared at the wooden ceiling. 

It was pretty dark in here. But I could feel that there was a ceiling above my head: I couldn\'t see it though.

Alisa told me that she\'d already sent letters to Dick and even got a reply back. 

Dick apparently found a nice place to hang out and would spend the whole month in Dracona.

By his nice place, he probably meant a brothel. The guy was going crazy over how he wanted to sleep with women and all. 

He was out having fun while I was stuck here training like crazy while also putting up a front that I was the new leader of this country. 

Whenever I wasn\'t training I was dealing with nobles, so yeah, not the best of life for me. 

I turned to my right. I wanted a body pillow right about now.

I sighed. Once this was all over, I\'d be spending all my nights with Lianne and-

Just the thought brought me happiness and might have raised my wood a little. And that\'s when I realized, my wood was touching something through my clothes. 

It was rather dark in here and- well- now that I looked to my right- forming a small holy ball- Biteria was here, and her butt was rather close to my crotch. 

I sighed and just turned to my left: no one was there. 

If I happened to touch her even by accident, I wouldn\'t be able to forgive myself. And I had no intention of doing anything immoral to my pet of all things.

There wasn\'t anyone else in the room. Both Viola and Biteria were clingy but only Biteria slept with me. 

As for Viola, no matter how much I said that I wasn\'t going to marry her and I had a fiancée and all that, she never listened to me and demanded to become my mistress if she couldn\'t become my wife. 

I also got pressured by the ministers as Viola was too young, she wouldn\'t be suitable for being the leader without me. But I had a mission and I was going to get out of here sooner or later. People just refused to understand that. 

With another sigh, I lied on my back and just tried to sleep. 

I was so tired, and yet, I couldn\'t fall asleep.                       

Something was just wrong with my life. 

***

A week passed. I didn\'t make much progress with either one-handed style or the spear. I did get the basics but anything more than that was kind of hard. 

Alisa recast the spell on the goblin child I was carrying in my ring. Through all the melodrama I\'d kind of forgotten about it altogether. 

I had too many things on my plate.

As for magic though, with Alisa\'s help, I could now use healing magic freely and I could even maintain whole body Imbuition for two minutes before burning out. 

I imagined both my mana as different types of water; like seawater and normal water; and tried to make them combine and flow. So far it was going good and I was improving. 

The condition of the country was also improving. My mood wasn\'t. Too much stress.

And we were supposed to get the reply from Destoa today. A little late but at least it\'d be arriving. More stress.

I really hoped they didn\'t declare war on us like morons or something. But there were morons everywhere, so hoping seemed like a luxury at this point.

We\'d get a response from Dwaram tomorrow. I still hadn\'t received anything from Lianne or Joey though. 

Lianne was probably a bit mad that I was getting married here, but I didn\'t have a choice. And she\'d probably understand. It was a shame we couldn\'t meet again. 

Wait, if this journey failed and I died, wouldn\'t it be that I\'d never get to see her again?

Sigh. 

***

Around the afternoon before the half-elf came for my life, a letter from Destoa arrived. 

I was in the throne room, sitting like a king. Technically, I was the acting king. I didn\'t want the job though.

Alisa first scanned through the whole thing, sighed, and then gave it to me. At this point, wasn\'t having me here pointless or something?

The ministers and Viola didn\'t agree as they were looking at me very eagerly. Viola actually had a throne like me and was sitting right next to me. 

The letter started off by pleasantries but then it got to business. 

"… It would honor us greatly if you were to come to the central capital in one week\'s of time on the holy night festival and receive your rewards…"

It went on and the gist was that they just wanted me at the capital in a week. They were also willing to give me the land I wanted and the mythic blade. Plus they\'d celebrate the end of the war on a holy night- or so they claimed. 

"Is it me or does this sound like a trap?" And it reeked of a trap too! 

The letter kind of smelled good though, probably some expensive perfume.

"Yes, it would seem they are smart. They\'d probably try to force you into a political marriage, making sure they have a connection with you so they can make do of what they have." Alisa spoke like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Can\'t we avoid that?"

I\'ve had it with marriages and all these lands. I just needed one half-dead elf, nothing more and nothing less. 

Alisa chuckled nervously. "In that case, you\'ll have to negotiate a lot."

I sighed. "I\'ll bring you with me. Can I trust you with that?"

After the stuff she did, my trust in her wasn\'t the best. I did trust in her judgment but not blindly. 

She thought for a second and then smiled. "Leave it to me."

"If you\'re done your highness, it\'s time for our training."

Before I knew it, the half-elf was already here and she was grinning rather nicely. 

I had a bad feeling about this.

She proceeded to beat me senseless in the training grounds.

***

The next day, the letter from the earl came, and as promised he wanted to present another mystic weapon to me. 

But instead of going next week, this guy literally called me over tomorrow. 

"This isn\'t a trap, right?"

The sun was still rising and Ve was standing right next to me. 

"I don\'t think so, no."

The letter actually came before my morning practice. 

Now I had a whole day in front of me and a whole lotta worries. I also had to worry about my mindless practice with Ve.

Sigh. 

***

Training for the rest of the day went smoothly and for once I felt like I learned something. 

I guess getting pounded by Ve for a whole week proved to be a bit more productive than I thought: I could at least do a proper thrust now. 

My Imbuition reached the 3 minutes stage and now I could heal the wounds of soldiers in a matter of seconds. But the level of healing I could manage was roughly skin deep. It was good for light cuts and bruises but not enough for deep wounds. According to Alisa, with the quality of my mana, it was possible to one day perhaps even restore lost tissue and perform what were called divine miracles and restore body parts. I didn\'t buy that: after all, even elixirs couldn\'t do that. 

It was progress regardless. 

But the afternoon practice was kind of bad. I didn\'t make much progress and I couldn\'t learn the new style all that good either. My old style kind of messed with the flow of things.

"Let\'s stop here."

The half-elf disarmed me in a flash. She really was a skilled fighter. And she was still only going three-fifth her speed. 

BIteria and Viola had come to see me and were currently on the sidelines. 

I was already out of my breath and sweats kind of poured. "I never thought swords of all things would be this hard."

Even when I basically knew nothing I could learn from Dune all too well. 

The guy would show me a skill, we\'d both practice and then clash. 

Those were actually fun days. It almost made me feel nostalgic but then a bit sad. 

The half-elf however had hardly broken a sweat. "The two-handed style was kind of ingrained in you and that\'s why you are lacking. You are learning the new style and at the same time, you are not learning it. It\'s almost like you\'re contradicting your own actions. Perhaps-" She paused. "You should find a way to regrow your arm?"

"Is that even possible?"