dragon Outpost was said to be one of the most bloody land to exist in this world it was a small Outpost that existed deep in demon beast territory. this was a place that gathered almost fifty percent of the black wind empire's military resources, just from the beasts that attacked that area. their bones are made into weapons and fur into armour. some of their organs could be used to make medicine too.
this world of ours was divided into four major powers. there were two empires, one army and one organisation, at least with the humans.
one of the empires was called as black wind empire, which is where we were. the other was called a phantom world empire. the army was called as tiger-slaying army. while they were called an army, they were a mercenary organisation. and as for the last, they were called the phantom city( they have no relation to the phantom world empire ). nothing was known about them. what their goal was, nobody knew. their main members, nobody knew.
anyways, this was the place we are going to, the dragon Outpost, considered to be the bloodiest place In the world. while I don't know whether it was as bloody as they say it was, the path there was already making me cry.
I am an upstanding citizen, or I used to be one. for the last few months, I have killed more things than I can count. ( actually, I had a count of exactly how many, but I liked to exaggerate too much then. )
I was undergoing military training, under a very scary girl of my age, but man she seemed like a ghost the way she seemed to read my mind. In the last few days, I have learned the basics of combats, basic strategy, and the basics of everything related to the military. I knew how to deskin and cook animal flesh ( while the result is less than savoury, it is eatable. ). I knew the levels or stages that each ability user could go through (I will keep an explanation at the end )
I knew basic strategy and everything that I needed to survive well I have to say goodbye right now because I have the training to complete. I really should plan this thought record thing more carefully
(after a long and exhausting while )
I was lucky that what I was studying was at least interesting, otherwise, I would have stopped studying a long time ago, no matter who threatened to take my life.
well, there were enough threats to my life as it is. the number of times that I almost lost my life was ridiculously large in the last six to seven days. before that, it was pretty safe. the only reason that I could still speak was due to the armour. I don't know if I have learned many things in the last few months, but I do know how to repair that armor, at least
both my mind and body have been pushed to the brink for the last few months. it begins early in the morning, which I think is better called as night itself, and being drilled on the basics of the military. when that is over, I have to keep doing patrol duty. due to blood vision, patrolling came pretty easily to me. that's why they kept me on patrol duty. while it was easy, it made a person completely sleepy, and no matter what happens if I were to go to sleep that lady would kill me or at least make me wish that I was dead. luckily I was up a tree so I could appreciate the scenery around me.
yeah, I have yet to tell you how we were going to dragon Outpost also no. the dragon Outpost was deep inside the demon beast territory. if an ordinary person were to try to reach it, he would have to go through the territory of hundreds of demon beast clans.
even we could only reach the dragon Outpost by a special route which greatly decreased the number of attacking demon beast clans. that along with the ability of miss mist dragon and dragon slayer we would reach dragon Outpost.
up till now, there have five attacks on us by demon beasts of varying species, three of them in the last week, each at least thirty members. each time each of the beasts was killed except a few, which I had to fight and kill. you see miss mist and dragon, both had taken the responsibility of training me, preparing me for dragon Outpost.
that's the reason both of them had been pushing me to the brink, while I was annoyed and pissed off, to be honest, I do it because I got that feeling that what I was doing was important, that's part of the reason that I have put in all my efforts in learning.
anyways, I could feel myself becoming better. during the very first attack, dragon slayer left one of the wolves for me to hunt and kill the second attack, two dog-like beings .third attack, three snakes, and so on.
if there was a sixth attack I will have to face off against six of whatever was going to attack. honestly, I hope it is not a snake because those things are hard to hit.
( after a while, because patrolling is a very boring business especially if you have to sit in one place )
we were surrounded, by a group of some kind of wolf. I think I should just inform the two people sitting down. if I were to shout to warn them of the danger they were in, the beasts would attack us immediately or retreat. naturally, we had our way of communicating. In my hand, I had a bag containing bottles of perfumes. a single drop was enough to spread its smell all over camp. each scent had its meaning. the one I was about to drip over meant an attack was imminent.
( after a few more minutes )
the beast group struck suddenly or at least that's what they thought. we had been waiting for them to strike for the last few minutes already. for a second I thought they were going to retreat. I have never seen a more indecisive batch of demon beasts.
then it looked like they decided to strike as the group moved almost instantaneously. their coordination was very good. it looked like they had their style of communication among themselves.
but the sad thing was we were ready for them. the instant that they began to move a couple of holes appeared in the compartment. man, I will have to repair that after all this fighting mess is over.
now to protect myself. while I was thinking all this, a red blood-like substance had gathered on my body, flowing about and taking the shape of round circular shields just a bit larger than my hands. the remaining bloody liquid formed my armor ( I don't need my entire armour to use blood vision. just the gloves from which I derived the armour was enough. to be honest, even if I wanted the gloves removed, the gloves would not leave. it was stuck to me. it was somewhat similar to the book that I had on me. I have thrown that book deep into the forest and by the next night, it somehow appeared in my arms, the time that I slept. though I did not need to keep it attached to my body like this. )
there were five wolves after me, though right now my job was to only live. I jumped from the top of the tree onto the ground in front of me. two of those wolves caught up to me, within the time I stabilised myself. I couldn't dodge their attack. one of them jumped up, most likely targeting My neck. the other targeted my leg. knowing a strike to the neck would be fatal, I ducked down the one above me missing me by inches.
the one below managed to bite me, but the wound was not serious, though this armour could not handle another bite like that, kicking away the wolf whose bite had somewhat loosened, I jumped backward freeing my leg from the wolf who had loosened its grip. now my job was to run and not get injured.
the other four wolves, were not slacking off. my speed naturally could not be faster than this wolf so I had to be trickier. while they were faster than me, I was in a forest and a monkey( a human can be considered to be a more evolved monkey . I like being weird a lot then ) can escape anywhere in the forest, especially when he has a grappling hook. (again an explanation, my armor could manipulate blood and also store it. so I could create stuff from this blood. this was an ability that I had discovered just a couple of days ago. while these 'blood crafts ' of mine were not that sturdy they could hold my weight ).
throwing a blood whip upwards, the whip got entangled on one of the trees and I swing upwards, landing safely on another tree )
normally I am not idiotic enough to jump off a tree just to get on another one. it was training, believe me when I say that type of things are painful to learn. you had to get the timing right or smack, my face would be on a tree. on the trees, the wolves held no challenge to me.
I could escape from them for hours. in the forest, as long as my armor held blood, my escape skills were considered pretty good.
( I wish I could tell you that something dramatic had happened, but nothing happened. though this time the six beasts that were supposed to be left, so that I could kill them had not been left. every single beast had been killed. )
while I tried to ask about it to dragon slayer miss mist is a scary lady to talk to, dragon slayer is much more gentler than her, though he generally doesn't talk to me much even he was like something big was going and that I had a big test in front of me and something about needing my rest.
with such uneasy thoughts, I went to sleep.
( now I will talk about the stages or levels that one can go through with their abilities. abilities are in essence very similar to each other. there are three ways that a muscle can grow stronger and be effective in a fight. these three can be called strength, skill, and knowledge.
strength simply means making your ability stronger, much like how we exercise to make our muscles stronger.
skill means how effectively we can use our ability. it is much like how a soldier will be able to use his body better than a normal person. they have something called ability arts, which allows its users to use their abilities better.
lastly we have, knowledge. this is a bit confusing to me, but it means that I can change my abilities and my powers if I gained enough knowledge about it.
according to them, the books were methods for the readers to acquire new abilities, though that was something quite risky since two abilities can't coexist.
though even they didn't know how exactly it is that I am doing so. they seem to be unreceptive to the mana conversion theory that I had been telling them either. )