"Allen, ready to go for one more?"
Allen was completely out of breath, his body could barely move, his stomach was on fire, and he was on his knees completely slumped over. The ball rolled over to the soles of his bloody feet that seemed to have sparks of fire burning away at the wound and restoring the skin that was once there. Allen's vision was distorted, his hand spinning as he felt the dragonborn attempting to climb out of his stomach and reach the open air. He held in his incoming vomit, and instead coughed up fireballs, like a cat coughing up hairballs. His face was also distorted, grimacing in pain as he realized that he was scraping his feet against the stone floor for a while.
As Cindy looked down at Allen, he looked up at her with such an intense look that it seemed as though his eye was going to jump out of his eye socket and slap her for even asking the question, "ready for one more," he whispered under his breath between gasps and huffs. "I'm going to master this mana thing, so you can never ask me such an obvious questions."
"Great! You look like you can go another, just pass the ball over, we'll go for another round."
"I'm dying Cindy! Can you not-"
"Oh, Cindy. Letting another person die to Mage Ball."
Allen damn near broke his neck, turning it toward the source of the familiar voice. The hair on his neck stood up, and the veins that were visible from his clearly struggling state, seemed to pop a fuse inside him. Smoke slowly came out of his ears. The source of the familiar voice was none other than the King of Peasants.
"That's so offensive, Peasant," Cindy replied as she walked over to King and his party.
"Uh, is he okay," Richard asked walking past King and toward Allen. He stopped just halfway when he noticed the amount of blood on the ground, and how much was spilling from the soles of his feet. "EEk," Richard jumped several yards into the air, his heart beat was so fast that it knocked his eyes out of his socket. "Are you leaking out smoke? Is that normal?"
"Probably? For him at least," Cindy said as she peered behind King to see Brick struggling to walk with two zebears on his back. Cindy laughed, "I thought you were stronger."
"Well when you spend a month at sea, you can't really weight lift!" Brick wheezed as he yelled out, Cindy's hands glowed and the zebears on Brick's back began floating up. She then coached the zebears to come towards her; her hands trembled, her knees shook, she clenched her fists as though she was pulling a rope. Brick stretched his back out and walked past King who watched with concern. Brick sat at Allen's goal post trees, he set his backpack down, and exhaled.
"Did you use a lot of mana while playing Mana Ball," King asked.
"No. He's not worth all the mana. What the fuck are these zebears eating? Are they usually this heavy?"
"Did I say mana ball, I meant Mage Ball, my bad."
"I don't care if you use the academic name."
"Do you care that I hunted the zebears this time?"
"Nope, had more fun over here anyway."
"You had fun with a freak Cindy."
"I know, do you see how bloody up he is. At first I didn't notice, but he was barefoot playing and dragging his feet against the ground like it was nothing. We-" Cindy groaned as she let go of the zebear at her goal post. "Phew," she wiped the sweat off her forehead, and turned toward King. "We had a conversation on our way over here. He had some weird fixation on having to kill the last dragon."
"Why would he have a fixation," King asked looking over at Allen who looked like a hurt lost shy child, that avoided eye contact with strangers. He held onto his foot while his hand was ignited.
"He told me that he was a dragonborn."
King froze, his expression fell, his mind raced, soon his eyes grew cold, causing CIndy to punch him on the shoulder. "Hey! Peasant, chill the fuck out." She recoiled a bit from the punch, but caught herself. King only moved his eyes toward her, "Cindy, I have a huge plan. After the dragon hunt, we're going to-"
"Stupid name," Allen yelled out toward King interrupting him. His smoking had stopped, his feet were blazing, and his anger was still ever present. He stood a few feet away from Cindy and King, Richard had walked over to Brick and sat besides him.
"Where the hell is Lily?"
KIng looked around Allen, he looked back at the path that they took, he watched the path as he recalled his last moments with Lily. He tilts his head, then spins back toward Allen who looks even more furious. "Calm down, she probably went to go piss. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you Allen."
"I don't want to talk to you. I hate you."
"Hate is such a strong word," King said walking away from Cindy, toward Allen with his arms stretched out. "Thou mustn't hate, my mother taught me that. My father taught- sorry- also taught me the value of money."
As he walked up to Allen, Allen stood firm, and stared down the icy bright blue eyes of King. "A word can't be strong."
"Then you simply don't know the value of a word. Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes you can, but I don't want to answer it."
"You were sold as a slave correct? How much were you worth?"
"Peasant! What the fuck kind of question is that," Cindy screamed, startling Brick and Richard. Ina single motion, she slapped King, and hugged Allen for a few seconds before backing away from his heat. "I'm so sorry."
Allen looked at her confused, meanwhile, Brick and Richard are slowly getting up to see what the drama is all about. "What's going on," Richard asked Brick, "Probably some lover's quarrel," he responded.
"Sylver told me that I was worth 282 gold. That is how much I was sold for!"
Cindy's jaw fell to the floor, 'He actually answered that.'
"That's quite a small amount," King replied while holding his chin.
Cindy infused mana throughout her body, the instant King finished her sentence. It was almost a conditioned response to King's statement. "Peasant... Shut the fuck up please."
"That's small," Allen replied to King completely ignoring Cindy's plea to King.
"We're about to hunt the MErlin Crapper, which is worth about 7000 gold, if I do quick maths. You're about," he paused for a microsecond, "25 of you would be a Merlin Crapper."
"That can't be true," Allen's eyes sharpened.
"I know, it shouldn't be true! You're a dragonborn, and dragonborns are worth a lot more than that. So I have to ask Allen... How strong are you?"
Cindy, angrily walked over to the mage ball, Richard and Brick decided to keep quiet.
"Strong enough to kill the last dragon."
"Sure, but dragons alone aren't worth a lot of gold, so they mustn't be that strong. Am I right or wrong? You were sold as a baby so it's only natural that you'd be worth a lot less. So let me rephrase my previous statement, 25 baby yous would be as strong as a Merlin Crapper. So I once again ask, how much are you worth?"
"100,000 gold. That's the reward we are going to get for the Dragon Hunt. The dragon is worth that much. Why do you keep asking how much I'm worth? Are you trying to buy me?"
King stared at Allen, he held his expression for a moment, before laughing. "You're right. Maybe I am-"
BAM
The mage ball slams into the side of King's face, a cracking boom could be heard behind the ball. The ball carried King's head away from the conversation, following his head was his body as he was completely knocked down. Allen, Richard, and Brick froze, then turned toward Cindy whose body shone with blue, from the mana, and her face flushed with red, from her anger. Her eyes dilated, and her breath was heavy.
"I hate when you ask these offensive questions to a stranger! He was a slave, he's clearly traumatized! First it was that Xyoinian samurai, now it's a dragonborn. Aren't you ever aware of yourself."
King was on the ground holding himself up with his left arm while Cindy screamed at him. He felt the area in which the ball hit, and felt the pain of getting hit by an empowered mage ball. He rubbed his cheek, his eyes dilated, taking in every bit of the situation. He looked around, then pushed himself up from the ground. "You know-"
BAM
In the time it took King to get up from the ground Allen moved along with the breeze. He left behind a streak of flames as he crouched low to grab the ball that was rolling away from King from the ground. While he picked it up Cindy's words echoed throughout his mind, "I hate", it brought back memories from before the Truman Incident.
About a week before Allen and Lily reached the Truman Farm, when they were tired from training their own mana, as well as hunting for some food, they sat around a campfire. Lily was deep into her spell book, while Allen was resting and doing pushups.
It was silent, "Allen," Lily began peering over her book, "Do you hate anyone?"
"No. I don't know what it means to hate."
'If I didn't know you ate a fucking baby I would call you a fucking saint.' Lily thought as she watched Allen stop exercising to sit and look at her. "Do you at least understand the purpose behind hating."
"Is it important to this Emmphatea. You've been telling me about?"
"Empathy."
"Isn't that what I said?"
Silence rose between them, it caused Lily to dart eyes away from Allen and back into her spell book. "Yes," she said after a few seconds of thinking, "You should understand the values of emotions. I-I-It's key to gaining em- empathy," she paused for what seemed like a minute to Allen, but only a few seconds for Lily, "Understand your own emotions," she continued, "then understand other people's emotions. Hatred is one of the most powerful emotions."
In present times, Allen frowned and screeched a sound belonging to roughly dying giant lizard coated with the voice crack of a boy in the middle of puberty. He turned around after running past King, he applied mana to his hand that passed into the ball. Immediately after applying the mana he threw the ball with all his remaining strength at King's face.
King got hit on the opposite side of where Cindy hit his face. Once again he fell to the ground, this time rolling off the ground and grabbing the ball. "Darn you Dragonborn," he yelled as he applied mana to the ball and threw it at Allen. Allen watched the trajectory of the ball, he took a step back, and crouched low. Allen and King were only a short distance away from each other, by the time Allen had crouched low, the ball was already where his face used to be.
With both of his hands, he cupped them and applied mana to them. Following that he smacked the ball back towards King. "Nice rebound Allen," Cindy yelled. The ball soared through the sky, hitting King dead in the face. This time he wasn't knocked back, theory is, he applied mana to his feet and core to keep himself steady.
There was silence between the party, as Allen got up gasping for air, but celebrating his own accomplishment with each breath. Richard and Brick looked awkwardly at the situation, while Cindy covered her mouth with her hand. She broke the silence first, by laughing.