Training With Ash

"And not the bad ones either. Most of the whiskeys given to me during my missions were all top-notch and filled with aromas that I'd never encountered before. Like, some of them smelt oaky, and some tasted as smooth as butter..."

I shook my head the alcoholic, and perhaps there's more alcohol than blood swimming in his system. Although come to think of it, Bryan does have a stench of whiskey around him, if I got close enough. I haven't noticed, but it was pretty intense now that he pointed it out.

And I never understand how one can smell the aromas and taste of alcohol. My classmates got hooked on those drinks and never returned home sober. Weird times.

"How about Rina? How did she get recruited?"

"We were in Albion on a mission to find out about the disappearance of girls around the area. A Master was selling girls to the brothels there, but they never received them. Prostitute or not, they were still people of Albion, and Baron Tuazon asked Mavislin for help."

"She didn't reply, but she didn't ignore the letters either. Only when there was a letter stating that a Mage was seen on the kidnapping scenes did Mavislin grab Ysabeau and me and sprung into action. At this point, Ash had already passed away, so Rina doesn't know."

"The Mage seen kidnapping the girls was Rina. And to cut a long story short, a mastermind doctor was behind everything. He had used her child to fuel his inhumane experiments, all while tricking Rina that he was finding a cure for her baby. Rina was upset."

Well, who wouldn't be? Now I felt terrible for the poor Flower Mage. It was sick to know that those kids from the Orphanage were born out of the experiments by this madman.

"But to my surprise, when Mavislin bested Rina, the Valkyrie did nothing else but comfort her. Rina brawled her eyes out, and Lady Roydon just kept soothing her hair out. During the fight against the main villain, Rina became the Spearman PIllar."

With all this information being told, the Words Of the World was processing his retellings to see if it checks out. So far, all the stories he said were like copy-paste from the database the voice had. However, the fights sounded so epic and fun, and I truly wanted to get a feel for it.

"Notice. You might get that if you were to go up against Sir Baldwin Noble."

Hush. I wanted to feel the adrenaline of battle, not the cold dead hands of a quick death.

"Back to the times with Ashley, he did tell of the many things that Minwoo used to do when they were younger. So we compared the Minwoo I knew and the one he remembered back in their childhood. One thing was consistent, and he was a smooth-talker."

"He could turn arguments to agreements with just a sentence. Ash was different. He was more violent, relying on fear to govern him. But his teachings were strict enough to mold people to become stronger than before. That's why I preferred to talk to him."

"Minwoo was too much of a smoocher if you get what I mean. Like, he will cushion a bit too much for my liking. But Ash didn't care, even if you lost an eye. He'd say use the other and get on with the mission. But that was better if I wanted to go up the ladder."

I get what he meant but still... Having to train under both of these figures would be such a headache. It's like dipping your foot in lava after suffering frostbite. It's like two opposite ends of the spectrum. Both had good and bad points but still.

Shouldn't someone get them together and tell them about their weak points? It would be amazing to see how everything balances out if they did train people as a duo instead of going against each other.

"I wanted to ask them to train a group of us as a team, but Minwoo declined, and Ash didn't want it either. It was just too difficult for them to be together after what had conspired. And sometimes, when we clashed blades in training, Ashley would mistakenly call me by Minwoo's name."

"After some time, he told me that the way I deflected his bullets using the blades reminded him of his elder brother. My movements were quite like Minwoo's since we both used blades. However, Minwoo used katanas, and I used dual short swords."

"However, after Minwoo's death and disappearance, I was given his katanas. And when Ash died, I was given his rifle. But before that, the moments with him did not last, and after some time, we had to go separate ways."