Trauma

"I'M GOING TO TEACH YOU IF IT'S THE LAST THING YOU DO!! KEEP! GOING!"

Zeeth ran again, this time tossing the knife up for a second and jumping to grab it, plunging it into the man's chest. Or at least he thought he did. Just as the tip touched his vest, a hand grabbed his arm and threw him against the wall.

"DIDN'T I SAY JUST THE LEGS?!! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU!?"

The man charged in, kicking Zeeth just as he stood up.

"I don't think his instincts are going to kick in." He muttered into the mic. "He has to be in real danger."

"Use the tasers." Someone replied.

The wall opened up, revealing a long black rod with a red button. The man took the rod and pressed the button repeatedly, each time creating a little blue shock at the top. He plunged the rod at Zeeth, whose world slowly went slower. His breathing steadied, his swollen eye didn't feel so annoying, he simply ignored the ringing pain and the defeating silence. He could see the rod slowly and he moved to the side, allowing the rod to slip past his head. But there was something he didn't take into account.

As he dodged, his arm flung up and landed in the trajectory instead, shocking his arm. It felt like a bat was swung at his arm, and then his entire body. He realized he couldn't move anymore, the floor hit his face and his screaming voice echoed. It was the longest seconds of his short life yet when it was over, the pain rapidly subsided.

The man looked at him from above and muttered, "it worked."

He was shocked back to reality, sharply inhaling. Zafrakos kept talking, "so transformation circles aren't a circle on their own, they must be attached to larger, fundamental circles first. Some examples include the typical sword-to-shield or armor circle. It's the most common type used by nations all around the world for their best people, groups like 23rd, or IIA. Discrete and multifunctional, the creator, Sir Johan III, has been paid handsomely for the creation.

Maybe one of you can be the next Johan."

He turned around to hide it but he was clearly holding back a large grin.

Dan was asleep on a desk, holding a book over his face. Zafrakos created a circle with symbols on the floor, tapped it with his shoe, and caused a bolt of electricity to erupt.

Zafrakos looked around, hoping to see fear in their faces. But nobody made a sound, not a single person twitched, the little girl that Ed tricked stared at the electricity without blinking and yawning.

'Stupid special class kids. Never get scared. Works in every other class, they just HAVE to be special.'

He then said, "that was a typical B class Bolt. Do you notice that empty section in the circle? That allows a transformation circle to be drawn and connected in."

He continued drawing on the floor with a shiny, metal wand, creating a smaller circle inside the original one and connecting all the symbols to the other squiggly characters effortlessly and seamlessly. Zeeth stared intensely at the circles. Something about it seemed both off and correct at the same time.

It was both wrong and right, he just couldn't tell why.

Zafrakos tapped it with his shoe again and smirked. This time, the electricity split into five straight bolts, spreading through the room like a disco. But they kept going, each end split into two and came dangerously close to Zeeth's forehead.

Time slowed down and he suddenly got tunnel vision. the bolt was the only thing he could see, everything else was a blur. But just as he began to dodge, flashbacks of the torturous training came back and the electricity began to fade. It vanished just as the heat reached his head, like a flash.

The sudden flash again reminded him of Ed's face in the chair. A mixture of pain and fear all while enduring the most painful moments of his life. He was forced to watch the entire ordeal from above due to his poor positioning. Ed wasn't a long-time friend but he was close. Zeeth only knew so many people, many of whom were harmful or rude, and lost a lot of his memories. Everyone who was nice to him was a close friend and Ed was especially nice to a complete and rather ugly stranger, not knowing who he was. He didn't want to see him injured. Yet he did.

Losing his foot hadn't hurt as much since his adrenaline kicked in and body-fixed it so fast. But he had no resistance to such a strike.

'That's why it looked wrong.' He didn't know much about transformation circles but his basic knowledge of the characters and circle design vaguely informed him that it was partially directed at his face. 'He is a dunce. Why is he a teacher?'

"We will all be creating that circle until completion using rock circles."

He led them out to a field and lined them up in two lines. "Draw the circle to create a sturdy rock pillar. That should be simple enough for all of you."

"How boring." The little girl said. She stood next to Zeeth, turned to him, stuck her hand out in a fist, and said, "I'm Deger. Nice to meet you."

He bumped her fist and said, "Zeeth."

A sudden flurry of words popped up from God's Eye saying [you have just fulfilled the requirements to a one-way contract. You are now Deger's friend, she can terminate this anytime.

She can ask one question a day and can tell if you are lying. If you tell the truth, she is obliged to tell you the truth to one of your questions that day.

She can tell you one secret a month and you must keep it for at least a month.]

'What the-'

"Do you know what I just did?" She whispered.

He didn't say anything. 'What if I just don't answer?'

"So you do know."

'This is a child, she still has chubby cheeks. Who is she?'

His earthling mind told him that she was weak but having started off in this world with a clean wipe, he knew physical looks didn't matter. Slimes were cute but incredibly strong and humans, who looked down on them, might've looked muscular but were weaker than his slimes. It was how their mana looked and how they used it that truly mattered.

But she could force friendship contracts on anyone that fulfilled her requirements without even asking. The contract wasn't strict but he had never even heard of anyone who could do such a thing.

Far away, in a distant tavern, a lean kid in sleeveless leather jackets, long, spiky Mohawk, and spiky pants sat lazily on a stool, one leg propped up on the table.

"ANOTHER!" He yelled, having the barkeep pour him another glass of green, transparent liquid. The five other customers whispered away, disregarding his attitude.

A young girl with long, wavy black hair, in the same leather jacket and pants, leaned her head on his.

"Isn't that enough?"

"No. NOT ENOUGH!" He shouted, gulping down the drink and slamming it on the table. The bartender didn't flinch, he only held up the bottle suggestively. Dog nodded.

A fat, larger woman kicked open the doors, breaking one-off, and barked, "I'm THIRSTY! Get me something!"

She wore a leather jacket just like the other two and sunglasses that barely fit his head. Her eyes wandered around the tavern and finally focused on the barkeep, who only stared back in silence. The other five glanced over then went back to their hushed conversations.

"I SAID I WAS THIRSTY!!" She roared, flipping over a table, "GET TO IT!" Waving her fist around.

She finally saw the girl leaning on the drunk kid and sauntered over, "Girl, lean on me."

She only moved her eyes to look at her then back to the broken door where she was originally looking.

She tilted her head into her view but she seemed to look past her. "Hey, it's not that hard. You're already doing to this loser, do it to me now."

This time, she didn't even bother to look.

Her face turned red. She raised her fist and shook it in front of her face, "woman, you better listen to me. My light punches hurt like years of accumulated torture all in one." She smirked, "I'm the infamous Dog."

This time, she picked her head up and looked her dead in the face with her dark, half-open eyes.

She was attractive but her expression looked dull, even lifeless. But she didn't seem to mind, only smiling at the satisfaction that her threats worked.

"You're new here, aren't you?"

"Hah?"

"Punch me then."

"What? Did you not hear me?"

"If that was a threat, you better follow through. Because this is the last chance you get to move."

She had a quizzical look that was quickly replaced by trembling fear as she looked up. Above her head was the furious face of the Mohawk boy.

"Dog, don't go too hard. We don't want to clean up blood again," said the barkeep.

The fat woman stammered, "Uh, the, uh, what? Dog? Did-did you say, uh… Dog? Dog is a-a man? Ha…a."

The fat woman stepped back, realizing that her foot felt sticky when she lifted it. She looked down at the floor where patches of old, dried blood littered the area.

"Yeah, yeah."

He stood in front of her and whispered, "try to sleep."

He swung forward and gave her a solid uppercut to her gut, causing her to foam and cough, staggering back until she fell to the floor.

Hours later, she was up and kneeling on the floor with a swollen, bloody face, trying to put the prices of the door back together.

The barkeep handed him a small bag of money, saying, "thank you for the service, Dog."

Zeeth drew in a clean circle and completed it, a very rudimentary thing for him. Everyone else in the class created similar circles, some larger and some smaller. The twins had the exact same circles and Sieda had a perfectly clean circle like his, drawn by wrapping their fingers with a sharp piece of metal.

White and Black had similar ideas.

When Zafrakos tapped mana into them, each created a pillar of varying sizes and shapes. Zeeth's and Sieda's made a straight, cylindrical pole. The twins had a fatter pile, the little girl had a sharpened one, etc.

Zafrakos then swung his wand and forced all the poles back down. "Now, get the textbooks and copy the transformation circle."

Zeeth sketched the circle in and as each line connected, it only felt more right, he just couldn't tell why yet. The transformation circle had a center pattern of drawing the shape with the same number of angles as it does lines, connecting those angles to lines to the characters on the outside and drawing a triangle on it. As he finished the last thread, it hit him. Was this the circle he needed to complete the shield?

'If I recall, there was a tiny empty space in the center of the shield surrounded by a complex circle. But that circle has over 130 characters and each has a line stretching to the center. It would take hours of steady, careful carving to get it right.

But it was the best lead he had so far. In a hurry, he ran off, shouting, "I have to use the bathroom!"

He ran into the building, to his room, popped open his coffin, and yanked out a stone slab with the center circle of the shield copied in. He tried copying the entire thing but it took too long. In a hurry, he drew in the lines, using dirty water and a ruler with a slot cut out of it to create straight lines. The center rapidly filled in line by line, completing the center evenly like a sped-up drawing.

After a few minutes, he held it in the air, looking at his finished results. He pushed the paper against another sheet, creating a copy, and activated the copy. For a moment, nothing happened. The mana circles around a few times and dissipated. The paper folded 130 times like cupcake paper, pressing against itself neatly and became a long pole, forcing the lines in the other circles to connect and change it again. Spikes kept forming and new circles kept being made and the end result was a weird umbrella.

"Is that it? No way," He muttered, "Maybe I should copy all the circles. Oh man, how many hours will that take?!"

He placed everything back and ran back to the field. Everyone's circle was activated except his. Everyone else had rocks shaped into five symmetrical branches like a bush.

Zafrakos growled through his teeth, "Never. Do. That. Again. Do you understand me, Weld?"

"Yessir," Zeeth said lightheartedly. He couldn't care less of what he thought. As soon as he found Dirt, he was leaving.

In fact, 'I'm not sure why I'm participating in class. I guess not to be found or kicked out.'

He held the tiny spider in his hand tightly, pushing the image on the back to activate and deactivate it repeatedly.

His casual reply irked Zafrakos but he said nothing wrong so he had no reason to punish him. "Activate your circle then. Let's see what you can do."

Everyone watched on, already finished with their work. Zeeth noticed a few wonky lines near the end when he realized what it was and rushed off to his coffin so he tapped his foot on the ground as he walked near it, acting like he was choosing someplace to activate the circle. But he was actually just moving the floor around little by little, fixing it.

"It doesn't matter where you activate it from. It will run its course faster than the rocks develop. I won't ask again."

"You got it, prof."

Zafrakos didn't even know how to react to his relaxed behavior, he inhaled deeply with his nose thinking of something to say when a barrage of clean rock shafts exploded up. Dust rose from it and shone like polished metal. It looked like a cleaner version of Sieda's.

"Woaah…" the twins muttered.

Zeeth was equally surprised. 'Why was it so polished? What did… Black?'

'We need to show White who's better! We can make a better structure so clearly, I'm better than she is.'

'Seriously?'

"Who told you to make it so polished, Mr.Mith?"

"Not a voice in my head, that's for sure."

He gave a guttural, "What?"

"Isn't it prettier this way?"

Some students chuckled but Zafrakos blasted the structure with a swing of his wand and yelled, "NO!"

Dan stepped between them, quietly yet dangerously said, "watch it, both of you."

"You're pushing the limits, boy."