Chapter 280 - A terrible name (Patreon)

As we walk through the streets, I continue to observe the small girl by my side. She still refuses to look towards me, and when our eyes meet for a split second, I can see anger behind them. Surprisingly, that anger doesn't seem to be directed at me, so that makes me confused.

Does she not hate me? I mean, I wouldn't blame her for it. After the first fight, I forced her into a few more similar ones, and this time we didn't even go to the healer. Even now, she is bruised, her clothes bloodied and torn.

Yet, every time I ask her before every fight: “First, second, or third option?”

And as the first time, she answers simply: “Third.”

There is no hesitation in her answer and no hate towards me. Still, she doesn't invite me to have food with her, she talks less, and she delves into training, usually not responding to my teasing.

Well, it's fine. I just need to make her as strong as possible. Because of the floor quest, because of the fact she is currently my disciple, and my Pride won't allow for her to be weak.

“I have noticed that you stopped being aware of your surroundings lately,” I tell her.

Immediately after, a dozen or so veilshriekers rush at us from the fallen building near us. [Redistribution] encompasses them all, and I stop all of them other than the one with level twenty-one. That veilshrieker reaches my disciple and crashes against her before she has a chance to react. A pained scream escapes her mouth, and I force myself to stop myself from helping.

I watch as she pulls out the dagger, but the monster hits her hand, sending the dagger away. For a short moment, a look of panic appears in her eyes, and she looks toward me as if asking for help. I just return her gaze.

Her expression changes, the panic disappearing from it, replaced by a blank expression. She twists her head, avoiding another punch at her, and then she bites into the monster's hand, drawing blood.

In her hand, a weak, smoke-like mana forms, slowly taking the shape of a dagger, and she stabs it into the monster's neck. The dagger dissipates, not even piercing the skin, and the monster throws my disciple away, and she rolls on the ground until she hits the side of the building.

The bloodthirsty monster screeches and rushes at her again.

Meanwhile, my disciple pushes herself back on her feet, grabbing a piece of wood from the ground. That wood gets surrounded by pale blue mana that turns into a pointy shape. Her red eyes are calm, yet full of emotion held back by her will, and she charges the monster as well.

She dodges the swing and stabs the piece of wood deep into the monster's thigh, and the monster screeches in pain, reaching towards it to pull it off.

My disciple, not wasting a moment, jumps on the monster and stabs her fingers into the monster's neck, them being coated in pale blue mana.  Again and again, she repeats the movement, even as the monster falls to the ground and weakly swings its arms at her. She ignores the weak hits and only stops when control over her skill slips up and her fingers slide on the monster's skin, unable to pierce it.

Her chest moving heavily, she stands up and looks towards me.

I weaken my Mantle and then slowly move my mana so she can observe the process. A dagger made out of mana forms in my hand and then dissipates.

When I do it for a second time, I feel her senses touching me and observing the process. Now, after a death or life situation when her senses are heightened, I create another mana dagger. I do it slowly and in a way that is extremely wasteful and inefficient. I do it because it's much easier to observe this way, and she can take care of the rest later. First, she needs to learn it.

When I feel like she has had enough, I stop doing it so she can explore the rest on her own.

I turn to the veilshriekers, still unable to move under the hold of my skill, and with a high pitch, a concentrated blast of kinetic energy hits every one of them. Half of every monster's body explodes into a vapor of blood, bones, and flesh without any damage to the surrounding area.

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 16]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 38]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 19]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 27]

…

Again, side by side, we start walking through the street.

It takes only a few minutes, and a weak voice next to me says, “I'm sorry that I’m weak, master.”

It being the first time after a day or two she talked to me, I think about it a bit more. In the end, I just ask, “Weak?”

“Yes…” her head is down, yet I can feel her using her mana senses to scan the area around us, something she stopped doing after I was taking care of it.

I stay quiet, and after a moment of silence, she continues, “You want to help, you let me decide for myself, yet I still… I was looking for help from you. I got scared, I got angry at you when you didn't help. Angry at you even when you were so nice to me.”

What life did she even have to consider what I'm doing nice?

“Minion, that's your problem,” I say, and she looks up at me.

When she tries to avoid my gaze, I grab one of her horns and force her to look at me, “You should be angry at me, I'm an asshole,” I declare proudly. “I said I would help you, yet you keep bleeding under my care and even risking your life. You are so young, yet I forced you to make such a hard decision. What else am I other than an asshole?”

I sense a few monsters beyond the range of my displace, and before they can interrupt us, I create an anchor near them and send a blast of kinetic energy through.

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 61]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 12]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 7]

[You have defeated Veilshrieker - lvl 9]

Still holding her horn, I shake her head. “My silly disciple. It's not you who is wrong. It's the people around you. Everyone is an asshole, everyone is annoying, everyone is a weirdo. You are the only one normal; that's how you should look at it.”

At my declaration, she wants to say something, but I shake her head more.

“You are weak? So what? Do you plan to stay weak forever? I don't think so. Just do the best you can currently do and give it time. Make decisions and then follow through. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Who cares if people call you things or laugh at you? Just nod, smile, and agree with them. And then, when they least expect it, come back when you are stronger and fuck them up.”

Isn't it all simple?

“Have pride in yourself, my minion.” I let go of her horn and get on my knee so I can look into her eyes, “You will fuck up, you will make mistakes, terrible ones, but such is life.”

“Master…”

“Yes?”

“I'm not a minion, I'm a disciple.”

“I don't remember my disciple being such a crybaby.”

“Master is mean.”

“I didn't hear you.”

“Master is an asshole!” she shouts at me.

I feel a small smile crawl onto my lips, “Yup, I am, so what are you going to do about it?”

“I will become stronger and beat you up.”

Damn, I'm almost proud of this silly disciple of mine.

As a reward for her dedication, I grab her horn once again and shake her head. What makes me even more proud is that she actually tries to kick me, and I let the hit land. There is barely any damage, but I appreciate the spirit.

I let go of the horn again and sit on the ground, and she joins me. In the middle of the street, surrounded by empty skyscraper-like buildings overgrown with vegetation, she takes out a few clean pieces of cloth and puts them in front of both of us.

“Will you eat with me, master?” she asks shyly. Once again, a custom of hers.

“Gladly,” I answer.

She smiles and takes out a few pieces of fruit and a bottle of water she offers me. As always, she does it only with her food, food she got from me for information, or completing tasks. She never does it with the food that I gave her access to.

Gradually, I realize that she wasn't angry at me at all, nor had any ill feelings towards me. No, she was too ashamed and maybe even scared that I would ditch her if she didn't do well. Then there was anger too, but that one was meant for herself only.

I watch as she uses a bit of water to clean her bloodied hands and then takes a sip. When she grabs a piece of sweetened dried fruit, she takes a bite quickly. Her favorite snack, as I found out as of late.

As before, we don't talk during the meal, and only when we are done, she grabs the pieces of clean cloth then she carefully gets rid of leftovers or any dirt that got on them. She carefully folds them and puts them into one of the bags I gave her.

Observing her and her mana for a bit, I reach out and form a small dagger out of [Regalia]. I attempt to imitate the mana frequency of my disciple and constantly change it with my [Resonance]. It's not perfect, but similar enough.

“You will be using this mana from now on. You can train with it as well.”

She takes the dagger from me thankfully and starts to examine it.

The dagger is dark blue with streaks of light blue mana. I used quite a bit of it, so I'm sure the dagger won't dissipate anytime soon. A week or even more should be without a problem. I didn't make it extremely strong or anything. No, the dagger is mostly normal, and the only exceptional thing about it is the mana circuits I left inside. Pathways she can use to train and for inspiration for her weapon.

The circuits are the only part I'm somewhat worried about, so I will make sure to check them every time.

“Next, your detection is lacking. Starting now, you will be using it constantly and will focus on making it as efficient as possible. Even if we talk or train, even while you fight. Constantly. Understood?”

“Yes!”

“Good. I like how you fight, so for now there is no need to change that much. Some might tell you that you should focus more on defending, but they are wrong. You can defend as much as you want, but if you don't have enough power to kill someone, it's a waste of time. No, you are lucky to have me as your master. I will teach you some powerful attacks, and I will help you to avoid some of the small mistakes I made.”

The way she listens to me and nods to everything I say feels heavy. No matter how she behaves or what she went through, she is still very young and naive. But no worries, I'm here!

“We will make the most powerful half-demon out of you.” I somehow find it fun. Is this why people liked the games where they were raising pets so much?

This kind of trust she shows also feels undeserved, but I will make sure she won't regret it. It will be hard, it will be difficult, and I'm sure there will be times when she will want to cry, but in the end, I'm sure she won't regret it. Because if you are powerful enough, you can do whatever you want and not be swayed by anything.

“Then I will also teach you where to kick to make it hurt and what to be aware of.” She looks like she will become pretty when she grows up, so I will teach her where to kick a man or woman who becomes too… touchy. A few broken arms and well-aimed kicks should show the limits.

There is a bit over two weeks left, but there is so much I can teach her.

“Master?”

I cut off my line of thought and look at her, “Yes?”

“I lied to you,” she starts, and this time her voice sounds weak, but she is not using her skill to escape the emotions, “I don't have a name, they always called me… things. The most often it was…”

“No need to say more.” I interrupt her. It's clear that it's not something nice.

“I'm sorry for lying that it is forbidden.”

“I don't know… breaking our deal like that right away. Is that how you treat your master?”

“I'm sorry,” her voice becomes even weaker.

“So to punish you, I guess I will have to do something. Maybe I can give you a terrible name, right?”

She looks up, her eyes big and shaking.

“Maybe Pipsqueak? Or how about Minion? Nathaniela also doesn't sound bad,” I wonder.

“Master?”

“We already have Biscuit and Noodle, so how about Mochi or Omelette?”

“I…”

Not letting her speak, I continued, “Vega... I will call you Vega. It's decided and there is no space for refusal."

For a short moment her eyes cloud and become wetter, but she quickly blinks a few times and wipes them off with her sleeve.

Poking her cheek I continue, “It has a little bit of meaning behind it, but for now you will have to suffer without knowing. Maybe I will tell you one day.”

The smile she shows is the biggest one I have seen on her face yet. Gone is the calculating expression or attempts to trick me to get my pity. The little half-demon just seems to be happy.

“I'm Vega?” she says.

"Yes, because I said so. Make complaints if you become stronger."

She wipes her eyes with her sleeve again, "Master is an asshole."

"Yup."

***

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