Chapter 21

A movement just beside him caught his attention and he opened his eyes to find another guard sneakily moving closer.

The guard froze up when Dante’s eyes fell on him, pausing with a leg raised, slightly upsetting his balance.

“Need something?” Dante asked calmly.

The guard that had been creeping up on him hadn’t been expecting him to speak so it startled him, making his topple over.

Fortunately, the mat he fell on broke his fall so other than being shaken up, he turned out just fine.

When Dante ascertained that the training guard hadn’t broken anything, he closed his eyes again.

“You’re new here aren’t you.” He finally mustered up the courage to speak up, righting himself up again.

The other guards around just ignored them, going about their businesses.

Dante realized that the other wasn’t going anywhere till he talked to him, his moment of peace was ruined now.

“Yes.” He answered shortly.

“I’m Jeno.” The lively guard said with a smile that revealed dimples, a hand scratching at his short wild hair that was also in a ponytail. “What do they call you?”

Dante just watched him blankly as he came closer, settling on Dante’s mat, just across from him.

“Dante.”

Jeno was unfazed by how cold and forbidden the newbie came off as. “I see you don’t have your sword yet, you’ll need it for the midday training session.”

“I’ll take you to the Smithy after lunch, you can stick with me, I’ll help you adjust quickly…”

Dante let him ramble on, listening. As irritable as it would be having a hyper person constantly flitting around him, Jeno might actually prove himself quite useful.

“You might want to watch out for patrol guards, they go out of their way to bother guards in training like us even though most of them just finished their training.” He grumbled, his brows furrowing in his upset.

Even though Dante’s response to his ramblings was emotionless silence, Jeno just forged on ahead like they were both having a titillating conversation.

“You’re not from around here are you?”

“You can tell?” Dante lifted a brow.

Jeno just shrugged. “Just an intuitive guess, not that it changes anything.”

“Are you?” Dante asked, curious now.

“Yeah, born and raised in the slums of Talfen.” He admitted proudly, his chest puffing out.

Dante could see how that happened, while he wasn’t on the large side, there was wiry strength in him.

“We should get going.” Jeno noted, getting to his feet first.

Dante looked around for the first time since they started their conversation and noted that most of the others had already gone and the rest left where making a move to leave as well.

Jeno might have underestimated just how tall the new trainee was because when Dante stood up, he found himself looking up to look him in the face.

Not to mention that his hair was impressively long, Jeno’s hair barely stayed up when he tied it back so there were wild locks of dark brown hair constantly in his eyes.

Not to mention how intimidating he looked even with the loose fitting robes, there was no missing how well formed his build was.

It made Jeno quiet down a bit, he should be more careful of the people he approached, if Dante hadn’t been who he was, he might have gotten a couple bruises from not knowing when to stop running his mouth.

The truth about it was that he had no friends among the other trainees, they all gave him the cold shoulder because of his background but Dante had been unfazed when he told him he was from the slums.

He could tell that even if Dante was from Talfen, he would have treated him no differently after finding out that he was from the slums.

He was the kind of person that treated everyone the same and that was with a cold detachment, it didn’t mean that he was a bad person though.

They both started out, Jeno getting over his initial terror and soon succumbing to the happiness of having someone to keep him company.

Jeno would admit that his new friend was quite good looking but he might have underestimated it because lunch was filled with servant girls throwing themselves at him at every chance they got and Dante being impossibly dense about their intentions.

Which was terrible for Jeno who was a nervous wreck around women but he wasn’t giving up his only company for that fact only. Besides the girls all but saw right through him, which was perfect.

“We need to go now if we are to collect your sword in time for training.” Jeno spoke up timidly after lunch had gone on for a while.

The flock of servant girls who had surrounded Dante turned in his direction to give him the evil eye, it was the first time they had acknowledged his presence and it was to glare at him.

Jeno was unfazed though, he was more worried if Dante would want to leave.

His fears had been unfounded because as soon as he spoke up, Dante rose to his feet, uncaring of his tittering swarm of female fans.

Jeno got to his feet, knowing that the silent look that Dante had given him was all he was getting out of the other trainee.

Fortunately, the Smithy wasn’t far from the training grounds so they would make it back in good time.

“Do you have experience with swords?” Jeno asked as they started their journey to the Smithy.

Dante glanced at him, “Some.”

Jeno looked at him doubtfully at this response but decided to say nothing of it, he would get to find out during their training anyway.

They were made to have spar practice every single day because they had to have battle experience in the case that they were required to protect the palace.

The Smithy was a large imposing building cut out of stone, they didn’t have to go to the main parts of the building.

Dante wished that they could have, he was curious to see how the weapons were made but instead they stopped at one of the many buildings scattered around the huge workplace.

Getting a sword was quite easy as the swords for guards were mass produced, Dante took the sword from the blacksmith in charge of assigning swords.

He bowed respectfully and then made his way out with Jeno in tow, Jeno had been the one to do all of the talking and the shorter trainee was starting to realize that it would become a common occurrence.

He stepped out of the shed after Dante, in time to catch him take out the sword from the sheath that had also been given to him.

He flipped the sword around like an extension of his hand, tossing it up so that it glinted off the sunlight before catching it smoothly.

Jeno had to remember to close his mouth after Dante slipped the sword back in its sheath and glanced behind him to motion Jeno to lead the way to the training grounds.