chapter 27

Hey, don't worry about it." Lubbock waved it off.

"Well, I'll leave you two alone to catch up. I still need to take care of something." Lisbeth said as she walked back into her own little workshop.

"I suppose we should catch up since we didn't hang out for a long time. I suppose the first thing to start off is offering you something in this room, free of charge." Lubbock offered, making Takeshi blink in surprise.

"W-What? Lubbock, while I appreciate it and all, you don't have to-"

"Oh save it. Most of the stuff here are random stuff I collected over the years. I usually get these items from the compliments that my parents' customers gave them after a sucessful business trade, and the stuff I have is either sold cheaply or just plain out collecting dust. So really, I don't have much use of them other than cheap money." Lubbock explained to him.

"Oh. Well, thanks a lot Lubbock."

"Don't mention it."

Takeshi walked towards the shelf and looked through the items Lubbock collected. Some were interesting antiques from different mythologies and cultures, some were decorated daggers, and others were just random items. Takeshi hummed a bit, before he noticed a particular brown box sticking out. Pulling it out, he used his sleeve to swipe off the dust.

"Oh you interested in that? It's some complimentary kit we received from some Magician's association after a successful trade with them." Lubbock told him, making Takeshi look at his friend beside him.

"Do you mind if I have this?" Takeshi asked.

"Not at all. It's not that much of use to me of Lisbeth anyway. We don't even know how to pull off magic, so the best thing it'll do is just collect dust." Lubbock said while waving it off.

"Well...if that's the case, then I'll take it." Takeshi said with an small excited grin.

"Heh, sold. Now then, why won't we catch up a bit since we didn't really hang out over a year?"

(Home - Bedroom)

After spending a good amount of time catching up with his middle school friend, Takeshi decided to make his way home before night could fall. Takeshi set down the box on his desk. Flipping off a couple locks, Takeshi opened the box and looked inside its contents. He raised an eyebrow upon seeing the contents, interested and curious about the materials he is seeing.

He reached inside and took out a particular book. Deciding to use his power, Takeshi closed his eye and concentrated on the book in his hand, absorbing the book's contents and information. A short moment later, Takeshi opened his eyes with an interested look.

"Well this is rather interesting. This is something I should check out." Takeshi said to himself with a great amount of interest.

"What's interesting?" spoke up a voice sounding curious.

"Oh, I just finished reading this book about..." Takeshi started, before his voice slowed down upon realizing the voice. He slowly turned around while breaking out small sweat. Erika leaned against his door frame with sly smile on her face.

"U-Um..." Takeshi nervously stuttered, as he realized what this situation is leading up to.

He has been Lubbock for quite a while now, and he missed his beginning time with Erika's training session. So left Erika waiting for a good amount of time before he came home. And Erika wasn't the type of person who can be patient with late people.

"You know, it's kind of rude to keep a girl waiting." Erika stated while a dangerous glint appeared in her eye.

"W-Well, to be fair, I was catching up with a good friend of mine that I haven't seen over the years..." Takeshi explained a bit nervously, hoping that Erika isn't too mad at him and amp up the torturous training session.

"Ah, I see..." Erika said while nodding in understanding. "Well, I guess it can't be helped. Teenagers these days couldn't help but hang out and enjoy their youth. This is weird saying it, considering how I'm your age." Erika said with a small sniff.

"Yeah, it couldn't be helped." Takeshi said while scratching the back of his head, feeling a bit relieved that Erika understands. That is, until Erika grabbed him by the back of the collar and began dragging him out of the room.

"It also couldn't be helped that since you've missed out a lot in our daily training session. So I guess we have to make this session short and intense." Erika said with a casual tone, getting Takeshi to break out into horror as soon as he heard this.

"P-Please don't..." Takeshi whimpered as he was being dragged out of his room. He then spotted his cat Blair sitting on his best while swaying her tail around. Takeshi held out his hand to her.

'Help me.' Takeshi mouthed out to his cat, hoping that it could save him in this situation.

Blair simply tilted her head in response, much to Takeshi's horror. The cat watched as Takeshi disappeared from the door as it closed.

(Training Room)

Takeshi groaned pitifully as he lied on the floor exhausted, while Erika was sitting on his back while flipping through the pages of a magazine.

"A-Are we done?" Takeshi groaned in soreness and pain.

"Eh, give or take 30 more minutes." Erika said casually as she flipped through another page, resulting in hearing another groan from Takeshi. "Oh stop being such a baby. You can't miss out on your training to become stronger."

"It would be nice to improve in the magical aspect..." Takeshi muttered, but Erika heard him as she sighed while closing the magazine.

"I honestly can't help you there. I've tried to help you with the magic I know, but for some reason, you just can't cast the spells. Even the most basic spell of Fortification Magic is out of your reach. The closest thing you've reached to it is your Keen Edge, but that falls under the Enchanter category. Fortification is separate in this particular case." Erika told him.