Heaven to Hell

Noah had to rest so he ended up lying in bed the whole night thinking of ways to talk to Alice the next day. He was thinking of ways to convince Alice to open up to him again.

...

The next morning Noah got out of bed early, the wound was fine had mostly healed and he could still go for training.

Downstairs he ate an apple, as he started cooking. The kitchen cupboards were still filled with food, they had barely made a dent in it. As Noah put breakfast down and started to eat, Alice came down.

"Alice perfect timing..." Noah bright smile ceased looking at Alice's face.

Alice was completely serious as she came to him. She grabbed a knife in the kitchen and walked to Noah.

"Noah, I want you to stay completely out of my sight from now on."

Noah was focused on the knife didn't expect her to say that.

"Did something happened? Why do I have to do that?" Noah asked.

"I should have been a bit more clearer two days ago. I want you to stay far away from me, never talk to me and don't show your face in front of me anymore. It doesn't matter where you are, try your best to stay away from me and I'll do the same."

"Why, I thought we were getting better?"

"I told you, you shouldn't have protected me. It was my fight and I might have gotten injured but I would have handled it."

"You expect me to watch you get injured and not do anything?"

"Stop treating me like I'm going to break!" Alice shouted. "I said I'm not the same person I used to be, I've experienced pain and hardships you can't imagine, getting bitten wouldn't have mattered, I can handle it. So stop butting in, your efforts and aren't appreciated."

Alice saw that Noah wasn't convinced.

"I know you won't be convinced by words so I hope this works." Alice brought the sharp knife to her wrist.

Noah instinctively moved forward to grab the knife.

"Stay away! If you come any closer I'll cut myself."

Noah stopped and started walking back step by step back with his hands up.

"I'll do it, I'll stay out for your sight from now on, you won't see me again. So you can move the knife away." Noah said softly. At the moment he could only agree to whatever Alice said, he knew even if he stopped her now she could just try again later.

"From now on I'll cut myself every time I see you, so make sure to stay away from me," Alice said, seeing Noah was complying she put the knife down and walked out of the house.

She didn't want to use such extreme methods but Noah wouldn't listen to her unless she did this. She wanted him to stop involving himself with her.

Alice was sure she was destined for a life alone, she knew Noah would leave her eventually even if she got back together with him. At the moment she was a complete mess, covered in mental and physical scars. She didn't have that bubbly personality she had before and turned reticent.

For the longest time, she saw Noah only through a TV screen, which distorted her reasoning, into thinking that Noah was someone untouchable to someone like her.

Even though Noah liked her, she thought it was best to end it now when he still liked her, because if she got together with him and his feelings for her disappeared after getting to know her. No one would know that she had even existed.

Alice walked straight to the training ground. She trained the whole day until the sunset like usual, the only difference was she didn't see Noah at all the whole day.

After training, she entered the forest again. Last time she had left early because Noah had gotten injured for her. This time she needed to properly practice.

...

Noah sighed as he watched Alice leave from a hidden spot.

The whole day he had avoided her, He skipped the theory classes and didn't even eat lunch. Now he watched Alice leave for the forest. He waited until she was gone to come out and made his way to the forest as well.

...

In the forest Alice trained crazily, she continuously fought wolves and moved around as if was skating.

Noah watched her from a distance, much further than before. He sat on a tree branch with the black pistol in hand. A wolf was passing by. He aimed and shot twice.

*Bang* *Bang*

The wolf fell to the ground, dead. Noah came down from the tree, picked up the copper coins. He looked in Alice's direction and saw that she was fine. Then moved along.

He simply hunted Grey wolves with the pistol, he wasn't going to use his sword today. He wanted to practice shooting by hunting grey wolves.

Noah opened his Explorer Map, he quickly found the location of monsters on it.

'This map shows the location of monsters nearby, sadly it doesn't show humans.' Noah saw three dots that represented wolves on his left.

'Isn't that the direction Alice is in?' Noah looked in Alice's direction but couldn't see her through the trees. He ran in her direction until he saw her fighting three wolves.

Noah didn't join he simply watched from far.

Alice fought well but she couldn't handle three wolves without getting injured. Noah covered closed his eyes as he saw a claw scratch Alice's thigh, he couldn't do anything.

He wanted to run to her, but he had to stop himself. Alice was serious about what she said today, he knew if he appeared it would just make it worst. Unless it got life-threatening he couldn't help.

Alice successfully put down the three wolves, she then got up and started walking back. She was injured now and couldn't fight with the same intensity.

Alice unlike Noah hadn't killed many monsters and didn't have much copper, so she had not bought any potions.

Noah watched from far. Alice moved forward using trees as support with one hand while holding down the wound on her leg with the other. She slowly walked through the forest.

'This has to be some new type of torture!' Noah felt his whole body shake as he watched Alice in pain walking. He wanted to jump in give her a potion or at least carry her back. But he couldn't, Alice wanted to do this on her own and he had to let her.

Alice arrived at the training ground where she got treated and then went back home. Noah didn't go back home he just watched Alice enter then went back to the forest.

...

In the forest, Noah entered a new area, following the Explorer Map.

It was still part of the forest just had different monsters.

Noah looked around and approached the monsters. It was wolves with silver fur. Their bodies were thinner and more lithe than the grey wolves. They also moved faster.

[Silver Wolf]

F Class

Level 2

He ran into a pack of these monsters. He got mentally ready and jumped in. His right hand held his sword while his left had his gun. As he ran towards them he shot at them.

The six silver wolves noticing Noah charged at him, the fastest one had bullets go through it and fell. The other five didn't seem to care.

Noah used his sword to defend from their attacks and used his gun at point-blank to shoot another one down. Noah then jumped back and started running. The four silver wolves left chased after him.

They quickly caught up to him, and one jumped on to Noah. Already sensed it, Noah activated 'Flash Step' and appeared in the middle of the four wolves. His hands spread out as his sword sliced and gunshot. Two more silver wolves were down. The silver wolf at the front looked back at Noah and attacked again. while the other closer was already about to bite his leg.

His leg moved a little and he disappeared again, he was already beside the silver wolf that was about to bite him. He shot his gun then changed target to the other wolf and shot again. He had killed all of them.

He collected 30 copper and sat down. He had used 'Flash Step' twice by limiting the distance moved to decrease the mana usage. Now he needed to recover his completely used up mana.

10 minutes later Noah got up and continued hunting.

Keeping the pace he killed two more packs of silver wolves. One with seven and another with six earning a total of 97 copper. He kept the copper and went back to the training ground.

He had already finished the sword training for the day in the morning so he didn't have to do that. Rather he came for the horse-riding test. He went to where the stables were and found a young man washing a horse.

"Excuse me, I would like to take the test," Noah said.

The young man nodded, "Sure, follow me." He got up and brought Noah to a fenced-off area. "Pick a horse and show me that you can ride it, stop only after I give you my approve."

Noah looked at the horses in the stable, it had quite a few. He simply picked a brown horse that matched his temper. He led the horse to the area, put on the saddle and jumped on. The horse huffed and took a few steps forward.

Noah held the reins and had the horse start walking.

"Go faster, if you want my approval." The young man said.

Noah listened and had the horse speed up. The horse started running in circles. Noah showed that he had complete control and high-level skill.

"Enough, you can come out now."

Noah came out and dismounted the horse.

The young man put his hand out and said, "My name is Jenner, you've passed."

Noah shook his hand, "I'm Noah."

"Noah since you've passed the test you can now rent a horse. It costs 5 copper a day, and if you return the horse late you will be fined."

Noah lightly nods, "Can I come and rent at any time?"

"Yup, the stable is always open."

Noah then left and went back home.

He slept for a while then tried meditating and getting a better feel for mana.