A month had passed since the incident with the beast, and the village was more normal and calm, but there was still pain from the deaths.
As always, Vaelor spent that month doing various things, such as trying to make different potions, among which were: Health Potion, Mana Potion, and Stamina Potion.
He was able to try different ingredients, which allowed him to make the three main potions. However, despite making good potions, he also created some bad ones, which had no effect and tasted so terrible that just one drop would make him vomit.
Though Vaelor thought that this potion could be sold to people who ate something poisonous, since when he drank a bit of it, he felt terrible for several hours and had to recover with one of Mireth's potions.
Right now, he was doing something he never thought he would do… Train, yes, train.
It all started after Alonso lost his arm. He went door to door, asking parents if they would allow their children to train, as long as the child was willing. The parents happily agreed.
And how did Vaelor get involved? He just went there because he was bored.
There were a total of seven children, including Vaelor. The first thing they had them do was run a bit to warm up and assess each one's capacity.
Since they were just children, they could only run for 10 minutes, which was already quite a lot. However, Vaelor kept running for 30 minutes, which impressed Alonso, who hadn't thought he could last that long, but he attributed it to the fact that Vaelor lived with Mireth.
They were given some water to rest for a moment while some hunters were talking.
"Chief, are you sure about this?" asked one of the hunters.
"I'm no longer your chief, just Alonso," he said with a smile.
"Sorry. Alonso, are you sure about training these little children?" he asked again.
"It's good to do this since some of them might want to become hunters, so they'll see how hard it is to be one," he gave a small smile. "Although, I don't think I'll have them fight a beast; they're too small."
Alonso saw that Vaelor had already recovered, unlike the others, who were still lying on the ground trying to catch their breath.
Vaelor scratched his head, not knowing what else to do, so he laid down on the grass to look at the clouds.
"I'll have to think of more exercises."
He continued giving them exercises, including squats, push-ups, and sit-ups. All these exercises made the children so tired that now almost all of them were sleeping.
Of the seven, only Vaelor remained, still doing squats, barely managing to keep going.
"T-This is hard," Vaelor said as he continued doing them.
"Alright, that's enough," Alonso said, clapping to signal the end.
Vaelor stopped and sat down to rest, trying to cool off.
"You're quite impressive. You lasted longer than I thought," said Alonso as he handed him a water bottle and a cloth.
Vaelor drank the water and wiped the sweat off.
"You have good endurance," Alonso said, impressed. "I guess being related to the witch has its benefits."
"Thanks?" Vaelor said.
Vaelor looked at Alonso's severed arm and wondered if there was a potion that could restore a body part, so he already knew he would ask Mireth about it when he returned.
Days passed, and training continued as usual. After a week, they had made considerable progress, but the children were now bored with doing exercises and wanted to do something else.
"Please, let us use swords!"
"Yeah! Doing exercises is boring!"
"Let us! Let us!"
The children insisted on fighting with swords, which made Alonso unsure of what to do, since they were still very small.
"F-Fine," he said, resigning.
"Yes!"
The children shouted with joy, knowing they would finally be able to train with swords.
"But first, you have to help me bring the swords and practice dummies. If not, there won't be any sword practice," Alonso told them.
The children looked at each other and ran off to fetch the practice dummies so they could train as soon as possible.
'I hope this is fun,' Vaelor thought as he followed the children.
--
--
{Pov Vaelor}
Finally, I turned 6 years old. The only thing different about me was that I had grown only a few centimeters, like any child at this age, which wasn't impressive at all.
My black hair had grown a bit, and I had no intention of cutting it until the time came to fight the beasts.
Since the day of the hunter incident when I placed that repellent around the village, no beast had approached because it had such a disgusting smell that it kept them away the moment they came too close. However, that didn't take away the fear of everyone that another beast, like the one that attacked them, would appear again.
From what my grandmother told me, the beast they encountered was a Chimera, which was injured, and it was unlikely that another one would appear.
The more I learned about this world, the more impressive it seemed, and at the same time, I felt a strange sense of danger.
The training with Alonso was somewhat fun, as we had to use wooden swords to strike the practice dummies with everything we had, which made our arms get tired pretty quickly.
We kept running and doing other exercises to become physically stronger, although some didn't like being so tired and only had a little time to play with the sword before collapsing in exhaustion. Because of this, the seven children who started out had dwindled down to just three, but that wasn't a problem, as this training wasn't mandatory, just completely voluntary.
Something I can admit is that it's fun to use the sword to hit the dummy, as it felt incredible to move that way, and I felt different, like I could hit harder, even though I couldn't do it now.
When I told Alonso about that strange feeling when using the sword, he said it was probably the sensation of my class not having awakened yet, since he felt something similar when he was young. He explained that my class had to be related to weapons.
The possible classes were Warrior, Swordsman, and maybe Guardian, which intrigued me, although I couldn't say for sure, but if I got one of those, I wouldn't mind too much. Still, I had a feeling I would've liked a class that used magic, being a fantasy world and all.
One of those days, I was returning from training, but it was different that day because it was extremely hot. Alonso noticed the heat and suggested we return earlier.
The sun was at its highest point of the day, and it was beating down hard. There wasn't even a bit of wind to help cool me down.
For a moment, I thought about going to a nearby small lake to cool off, but I wasn't sure if there were any beasts around, so I dismissed the idea.
"Grandma," I said, entering the cabin.
When I entered, I thought it would be cooler inside, but that was a mistake, as it was just as hot as outside.
"What happened to you? Did you fall into a pit of dirt? You look like a dirty rag," she laughed, which annoyed me.
"It's not like that. It's just really hot, and I ended up like this," I said, lying on the floor, trying to lower my temperature.
"It's just heat. Stop complaining so much," she said dismissively. "Look, I made some herbs that help recover from fatigue faster."
"Grandma, why don't you give me a potion to help with this heat?" I asked, sweat dripping from my forehead.
"Why should I do that? It's boring, doesn't help at all," she replied, lighting her pipe.
"Then, why don't you teach me how to make one?" I asked, closing my eyes.
I heard something fall, so I opened my eyes and saw her pipe on the floor. I looked at her face, and she had a stunned expression.
"What did you say?" Mireth asked.
"If you don't want to give me a potion, you can teach me how to make one," I said tiredly, closing my eyes again.
I started to hear a laugh that seemed very sinister, which gave me a chill down my spine. With some fear, I opened one eye and saw her with a huge grin.
"VERY WELL! GET READY! I'LL TEACH YOU EVERYTHING I KNOW!" Mireth said, grinning widely.
'I don't like this at all.'
And with that, she started an infernal training that I never thought could exist, guided by a crazy witch.