Flint attended the academy three days a week.
The teachers and students were weary of him. But none of them picked a fight with him, anymore.
Meanwhile, he trained with Archivis or rather… Albert for the basics of how to be a chaos knight every afternoon and some days the whole day.
He thought Archivis would train him personally, but no, that wasn't the case.
After all, Flint knew nothing about how a chaos knight would move.
But the butler did.
And so-
"Ar- agh-sigh- hah-" Panting, Flint fell on his behind-
He had to at least make it to the intermediate stage of a Chaos knight before Archivis would even bother with him.
Dripping from sweat, totally out of breath. "You're too strong…" He managed.
"No, I have much to learn," Albert said, standing with pride. Not a bead of sweat. Was he even warm blooded?
He didn't wear any armor- there was no need.
"If you've got much to learn what does that make me?"
"Well, don't discredit yourself. You have improved significantly. If anything, I'd say, you're improving too fast…"
And he was right.
Flint had actually noticed how strong he was getting.
However-
He flung back up-
Given how he was wearing that armor, it was slightly hard to move. But not hard enough for him to slow down.
"It's not really enough." that small shield in one hand- slightly forward, while the black sword on his right hand a bit behind-
Glowing faintly in purple- he took his stance.
'And in just two weeks…' Albert's grin widened- as he swiftly closed in swinging his sword fiercely- without fearing if he'd hurt the boy-
After all- he knew-
The boy would be fine.
Even if he didn't know- the boy was a literal prodigy and as long as he kept this up-
'In a year- who knows…'
"HAHH!!"
Clang!
***
On a certain day of every week, Flint also spent time with Amanda.
He went on easy quests with her.
Mostly to hunt the rapidly expanding goblins.
"Have you ever wondered where these things even come from?" Amanda said, slicing off one of their heads.
Lately she'd been slicing off things with her knife far too often.
"Nope." Flint meanwhile, blocked an arrow headed straight for Amanda.
"Thanks!" She giggled, swiftly closing in on the sniper just hiding in the grass- giving it a firm kick before slicing open its belly. "And that's eighteen!"
Flint chuckled, slamming his shield on a nearby hobgoblin's face.
Goblins were small creatures, barely half the size of a typical man.
Hobgoblins meanwhile were almost the size of a grown man and definitely stronger than a typical man.
Compared to a knight though-
Yeah- they weren't that much.
So- taking a knight's charge head-on- the hob rolled on the ground, concussed. And before it could even manage to get a grasp on reality- Flint had already punctured its head. "Phew. That's the last one."
"You know when you were freaking out over how you couldn't kill the trolls. I thought you wouldn't be able to kill again."
"That's not true. They just reminded me of that knight. However, this is different. These things- they're attacking innocent farmers and merchants. We can't just leave them be!"
"That's my man!" She snickered.
"Please don't say embarrassing stuff…" he sighed; a little red. Flint cleared his throat. "Well, you were saying something about wondering where'd they come from and stuff?" Flint started picking up the goblin's corpses, bringing them closer to one place. he also surveyed in case one of them were still hiding-
"Well, yeah. I always wondered, where monsters come from. Back when I was a kid, I'd been told I'd become a goblin if was greedy and stuff-"
"That's so dumb. How would people become goblins?"
Amanda snorted. "True. But- yeah, then, where do these things come from?" She wondered, staring down. Storing the corpses, one by one.
"Does it matter? They attack us; kill us. We kill them."
"It kind of does actually. To me at least."
Flint didn't have an answer.
He couldn't find one.
And honestly-
He wasn't really all that interested.
He had better things to worry about.
Get stronger.
Get better.
And- get revenge.
***
Turning the corpses in, bidding Amanda goodbye, Flint got back to the academy.
He already had dinner with Amanda, so there wasn't much for him to do.
He, as usual, got a lecture from Erveine on how that woman was bad news and Flint was too good for her.
But yeah-
Flint did have one comeback- "She was the one who chose me, so…" And it would be a lie if he said, he didn't like her.
Given how he couldn't really look away from Amanda's chest every now and then… yeah- he did like her…
But after that lecture, Erveine did teach Flint a thing or two about magic.
Even so- Flint never really managed to have much progress.
He secretly told Erveine about that particular thunder spell he knew last week.
But Erveine didn't quite understand the spell or how it worked or why it even worked. She prophesized, that spell was perhaps ancient magic… magic with consequences.
She couldn't figure it out but-
But she did warn Flint not to abuse that spell.
After all-
The consequences were still unknown.
"Alright then, I'll be off-" Flint said, heading out once again.
"Try to be back before 3," Erveine said.
"I'll try."
Flint headed to his final destination for the night.
One particular mansion in the city.
No, not Archivis' place.
Rather-
The Paladin's.