RinoZ
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BoD Chapter 55 - Run
🕑 Added 2022-05-26 05:12:56 +0000 UTCI think this'll do it for book 1. Whoo!
And it's nice to finally catch up on chapters, you're back to eight in front. Nice. Chrysalis coming later today.
Stiff and sore, Rufus limped out of the practice yard in pain, but satisfied. He massaged his right wrist a little after he returned his practice blade to the quartermaster and waited on the edge of the pit for a moment. Dozens of pairs of Swordsman filled the training area, kicking up the sand with each step and twist as they duelled back and forth under the watchful eye of the drillmaster.
"Footwork, footwork, footwork!" the grizzled bear of a man bellowed for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. "If you wanna fight with a blade you need the kind of balance that would make a dancer shit with envy! Perfect steps. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. Morrison! Get your arse up and square off. I don't want to hear complaints you mewling sack of sick! Don't say shit until you move your damn feet properly!"
Rufus watched with a smirk he didn't bother to hide as Calan, the former silver ranked Slayer and current swordmaster of the Blue Steel academy descended on the poor unfortunate who had pissed him off this time. The man was brutal in word and deed. The men and women who dropped into the pit, the sand floored training yard given to weapons practice were pushed right to their limits. If he didn't have a reputation for turning out high quality graduates, nobody would put up with it.
His emphasis on footwork was especially grating to many of the newly Awakened sword specialists.
Once Rufus had gained his class, he'd been obsessed with his sword. He didn't feel complete without it in his hand. His swordsmanship skill had practically sang to him as he took the blade in his grip, turned his wrists at precise angles, swung his arms with momentum and felt the satisfying cutof the blade through the air. Only once he started training here, Calan had forced them into weeks of foot drills. The man was obsessed with footwork and didn't let them touch a blade until he was satisfied they could move properly.
Rufus had adapted faster than most, due to the few things he'd managed to pick up watching Magnin as closely as he had. The few times the master swordsman had practiced where anyone could watch him, Rufus had seen how carefully and how much focus he put on his feet, often putting down his famed sword to step through motions with nothing in his hands.
If the Century Slayer could focus on his feet, Rufus could certainly do the same.
"You still rubbing that wrist? Maybe this time you'll guard properly you daft bastard."
Rufus grinned as his training partner approached.
"If you weren't such a low and dirty snake I wouldn't have to be on the lookout for those cheap tricks," he countered.
"Cheap tricks?" Pewar placed a hand on his chest as he feigned a wounded expression. "You simply fail to understand my genius. Not surprising, I can't expect much intelligence from a blacksmith's son. Your sword is like a hammer, straight up and down, no grace at all."
A flicker of anger sparked in Rufus' chest at the mention of his father, but he pushed it down. Pewar didn't mean anything by it, the two often exchanged words after training.
"Now who can't appreciate good technique? You're just jealous my sword does something you never can: get to the point."
"Touche, my muscle bound friend, touche."
The two looked back at those poor saps still in the pit.
"Calan is going extra hard today," Pewar observed, "the man looks infuriated."
"Oh, he's pissed," Rufus said. "I've no idea why. I don't think anyone is doing especially poorly today."
"He might just be trying to see if anyone will break."
Rufus turned to his partner with a brow raised.
"Give up and quit," Pewar elaborated. "I think he wants to weed out anyone who he doesn't think is mentally tough enough. A crude but effective way of making sure everyone who graduates is capable of absorbing an endless amount of vitriol."
"If they can't handle this, they'd never make it as a Slayer," Rufus shrugged and the two began to make their way out of the training area and back towards the dorms.
"Not everyone who gets the Swordsman class wants to be a Slayer, as well you know," Pewar rolled his eyes. "Just because all of you halfwits dream of being Magnin Steelarm doesn't mean I have to."
"You'll be a crap duellist."
"Rubbish, and you know it."
"If you didn't want to be like Magnin, why travel here to train? You know damn well almost every school bases their methods on him in the West. You could have stayed north and trained up there."
"An unfortunate side effect of having every martial Class in the province worshipping the one swordsman," Pewar sighed, "is that you end up with extremely capable trainers. As much as people don't like to admit it, the finest schools for training sword based classes are here in Kenmor. If I'm going to be the best, I need to be trained by the best."
"Aren't there better and more respected schools in central?"
"Run by the finest Blademasters alive, yes. My family might have money, but they don't have that sort of money."
"Fair enough."
The two walked in companionable silence the rest of the way as they allowed the cool air to dry off their sweat. A wash would be needed soon, to remove the grit and sand that still clung to them, but for now Rufus was content. He may not have gotten everything he wanted when he left home, but he got enough. He was here, away from his useless prick of a father, training to fulfil his dreams. He felt as if his life had finally started.
He trained hard, dedicated himself, and soon he would be able to get out into the field to start killing rift-kin. From there it was only a matter of time until he was a full Slayer.
And Tyron would be dead somewhere in a ditch.
"I'll see you later Pewar," he said as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. "I'm going to drop in on Laurel."
The other man pulled a face.
"Really?" he shook his head. "No accounting for taste."
Rufus' smile became lopsided.
"She's an old friend," he said, "I promised her dad I'd keep tabs on her."
"Uh huh. Go on then. I'll see you in the morning."
With a final wave Rufus turned and walked a new path, away from the boys dorms and off to the girls. At first his stride was long, and confident, but as he passed by more and more smirks and pitying glances from the female residents, her grew more hunched and downcast. By the time he reached Laurel's floor, his head was down and a storm was brewing in his eyes.
As expected, Laurels door was locked, though it wasn't hard to imagine why. Passionate moans and the slap of skin on skin could easily be heard through the solid wood, and even down the corridor. Rufus snarled as anger knotted his muscles before he started wordlessly pounding on the door.
"Fuck!" he heard Laurel curse, followed by rummaging as he continued to slam his fist into the wood.
A minute later he heard her voice on the other side of the door.
"Alright, Rufus! Stop being dumb for a minute and I'll open it."
He clenched his teeth and stepped back, giving space for the door to swing open. Laurel was revealed, her hair dishevelled, face flushed, still sweaty from her exertions, dressed only in a shirt that stopped midway down her thighs. She stared at him, irritated.
"What?" she said.
"Who's inside?" Rufus grated.
"Is it any of your fucking business?"
"Who's. Inside?"
"Fuck. Off."
The two stared at each other, anger simmering in both of them before a male voice called from inside the room.
"Hey don't worry about it. About time I made myself scarce anyway," a tousle haired blonde man, skinny and mousy looking stepped forward with a wry smile on his face and his shoes in one hand. "I'm Jer, nice to meet you."
He held out his hand to Rufus for a second and let it hang there while the Swordsman made no move to reach for it until he lit it drop with a shrug.
"Alright then. Nice to uh, see you Laurel. I'll catch you next time."
With a wink and a thumbs up, Jer brushed past Rufus and made his way quickly down the corridor before he disappeared around the corner. Laurel sighed.
"Well, you might as well come in then," she said.
"I don't recognise that guy," Rufus observed quietly as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Don't think I've seen him around the pit."
"How could you? He's a Mage in training."
"A mage?" Rufus nearly spat.
"Why not?" Laurel smirked, "they're good with their hands."
The archer sat on the bed, her legs crossed, the heat of anger still in her eyes as Rufus breathed out and sank into the lone chair in the room. The dorms didn't have much space for each student. A cot, a chair and a table where the limits of the furnishings provided, everything else the student needed to provide for themselves.
With the money he'd taken from his father, Rufus had been able to enrol and get a few items for himself, but Laurel's room was still extremely bare. She'd had almost nothing left over after paying her fees, and wouldn't accept any help from him.
The two stared at each other for a while longer until Rufus broke eye contact and Laurel sighed.
"You need to stop doing this Rufus."
"Doing what?" he said.
"This. Coming to my room all the time. Getting angry every time I'm with somebody."
"You know people think we're a couple, right? The girls in this dorm snigger at me every time we walk past."
Laurel brushed her hair back irritably.
"Well I'm not the one telling them that. We aren't a couple, and we never have been."
"We haven't?" he muttered.
"No," she said, frustrated. "I'm still your friend, Rufus, and I'm still willing to team up when we're done here, but we haven't ever been a couple. The sooner you get that into your head, the happier you're going to be. I'm not going to be tied down, by anyone, understand?"
"I'll have to be, won't I?"
"That's right. You have to be."
A knock came on the door.
"Laurel! Get your pants on. There's an emergency gathering in the quad," a girl, another resident called through the door.
"Perfect timing," she rolled her eyes. "Get out so I can get dressed. I'll see you there."
Dismissed, Rufus left, still frustrated, angry and unable to properly express himself. The quad sat in the centre of the four dorms in Blue Steel, an open grassed area for the students to relax or gather for announcements. Someone had probably been caught stealing from the cafeteria and was about to get their head kicked in and expelled.
When he made it downstairs, he found most of the residents already gathered, talking amongst themselves, bored and disinterested for the most part. It looked as if several had come from interrupted classes. Some of the sword students had clearly still been in the pit when the call came through, covered in sand and dirt as they were.
A few minutes later Laurel rushed up behind him.
"Did I miss anything?" she asked.
Her steps were so silent he didn't hear her approach at all, but managed to restrain his jump when she spoke.
"Nothing yet. Looks like it won't be long though."
He pointed to the headmaster gathering with several other staff near the raised platform on one end of the quad. Most students seemed to notice at roughly the same time he did, the level of chatter dimming quickly to a low mutter until finally the aged head of the academy stepped onto the stage. Another veteran silver ranked Slayer, Ruth Finnar had a long and successful career as a battlemage fighting in the toughest rifts the Western province had to offer. Her appearance commanded the respect of all the newly Awakened students and an instant hush fell.
"I won't mince words with you," she called, her voice easily carrying over the crowd. "Runners have come and brought work of a disaster to the northwest. There has been a break at the rift near Woodsedge."
Rufus immediately clenched his fists as worried voices broke into chatter around him. A break was a rare event, especially one so close. Foxbridge wasn't far south of the border keep. It would be directly in the line of the monsters. He glanced toward Laurel, but her expression was bland, as if this news had no effect on her.
The head held up a hand to restore quiet.
"High ranking Slayers have been dispatched to blunt the spread of rift-kin, but there is a shortage of personnel. We lost over two hundred good Slayers from the local fort as they sacrificed their lives to allow others a chance to escape."
It was a dangerous job, and everyone here new it, but that didn't mean the loss of so many didn't have an impact. Slayers were the strongest, bravest, and most capable of all. Two hundred shouldn't just die, for nothing.
"It's very early in your training for you to be in the field, but this is a dire situation that needs to be resolved quickly," the head continued. "As such, the Academies have been instructed to send out student teams to support the more experienced Slayers in cleaning up this outbreak and protecting as many people and as much land as possible. Only when the kin have been found and exterminated will the villagers and townsfolk be able to get back to their lives."
Rufus threw a hand up and called out.
"Do we know what happened to Foxbridge?" he called desperately.
The moment he spoke up, others began to call out the names of towns or villages to the West of the capital. The students here had come from all over the province and many were filled with worry for their families.
The battlemage silenced them all with a glance.
"We've had no work on any town or individual. If you want to ensure that your people are safe, fight hard once you get out there."
"Can you believe it?" Laurel whispered, an excited gleam in her eye. "We get to go out and fight already? We'll get so many levels!"
"What about your father?" Rufus hissed. "Aren't you worried he's alive?"
She snorted.
"My father can take care of himself. A heck of a lot better than he ever took care of me. He'll be fine."
"Before you depart here," the school head continued, "you must speak to your head trainer, who will have further details on your deployment. This matter is urgent, and you will be sent out before the day ends. There is also this…"
She reached into her pocket and drew out a piece of paper with a portrait drawn on it. Rufus' breath caught in his throat.
"It is believed that the unusual rift activity and sudden destabilisation are the result of foul play. Several witnesses who survived the disaster, including experienced Slayers, have identified this man, the Necromancer Tyron Steelarm, as being near the rift leading up to and at the time of the break. A reward has been issued for the capture of this criminal, a hundred gold sovereigns. Dead or Alive."
Urgent whispers broke out amongst the gathered students.
"Obviously I know who this is. The Magisters have informed us that Magnin and Beory themselves have volunteered to find their wayward son and bring him to justice. You need not have any fear of reprisal."
She leaned forward.
"I have to emphasise. This individual is dangerous and may well be capable of manipulating rifts. If you see him, I expect you to act swiftly and decisively. Cut him down."
She swiped through the air with one hand.
"We can sort the rest out after he's dead."
Comments
chris
i hope he does become his rival and then eventually as u said dies in a moronic way and then becomes a super strong skeleton general, mayb he can even take his soul and make it possess the skeleton making it more powerful mayb with a skill or few rufus used to have and can mayb talk to as eternal torment. best case scenario and im itching to see it happen. that or just as good tyron and rufus eventually meet up and tyron gets the help of the old gods and tyron offers rufus up as a sacrifice. lol
chris
might even turn her on at 1st, till she finds out it has almost zero sex appeal XD lol
Sarah Stillman
Erg. I hate Rufus. I hope he doesn't get super strong and become a "rival" to Tyron. I wish he just goes out and gets himself killed in a totally idiotic way due to his overconfidence.
Axel Isaías itzcoatl García Ruiz
Ésto es una adicción y necesito seguir consumiendo la 😂😂😂
seth dauer
Rufus.
RinoZ
True. Our parent's put us on our path in life and it can be difficult to change it. Effort and time are required. It's a theme of the story, to be sure.
Nathan Patrick
Ok, read through the comments to not repeat people this time. Also had hella lag typing this. DADDY ISSUES EVERYWHERE!!! Rufus had a dad that beat him, Laurel had a neglecting father, Elsbeth had a dad who loved who she could be, and Tyron had a father who loved him but was never there! Am I wrong about this?
Garv
man i need more 😭
Mislandor
I am really looking forward to seeing what Mom and Dad think about the - Kill first and sort it out later - burn notice on their son. ANNNNDDD who would be dumb enough to think they would be fine with that?
David Johnson
I dunno, between the two of them I much prefer Laurel. Sure, she's a high-functioning sociopath, but at least she doesn't really try to hide it or deceive people about where they stand with her. She's not a good person, but she is a fairly stable and reliable one (honestly she's not that unlike Magnin and Beory in that respect). Rufus, on the other hand, is a seething bundle of arrogance, jealousy, resentment, daddy issues and inferiority complexes, who absolutely WILL pretend to be a Nice Guy, while actually caring only about himself. His only saving grace, if you can call it that, is that he himself is easy to manipulate, on account of just not being very smart.
crue
Your just jealous my sword does something you never can: get to the point.". Ought to be "You are", or "You're."
Macronomicon
As always, you write an excellent hypocrite. Guy uses sex to ruin someone's life, gets angry when someone else does it and it hurts his poor little feelings. I should take notes.
Greyg
Laurel would betray Rufus if her life was on the line without a second thought i could see her going evil without a brand Rufus is gonna be a roadblock for our mc i was half expecting him singled out by the magisters since it would be known he tried to stop tyron back in the farmers tomb i would think sending people that know his face would be more effective than posters though they assume his parents will accomplish it once forced. Rufus is gonna chase after our mc while out on their mission as rats for other slayers. Rufus even with training is likely sub level 5 still so mc is ahead on levels and feats i assume laurel is likely lvl 5 or higher as she seems more determined and hunts solo she is likely sub level 5 too being rats at the most
Nathan Quitugua
Rufus: rapes girls, beautiful shade of envy green for tyron...really seeing that hate boner on him. Whereas Tyron, absolutely doing the skinny captain America stick where he knows he's barely more then cannon fodder but still wanting to try to save people. Even tried to save the people who robbed him and beat him the 1st time around but contacts ...morally questionable entities...and uses morally questionable abilities...
Michael Hughes
Of course they blame the necromancer. I can't wait for the reaction from the population when the truth comes out eventually. Do you think bone repair will work on himself? I think it would be cool to write a hidden necromancer story that has the MC use necromancy to enhance their own skeleton to present as a typical warrior. TFTC and see you next book. Oh you also use her instead of he when Rufus was walking to check in on Laurel.
Conor lennon
Laurel is going to be really happy about the slayer brand that allows people to control you lol.
ManguKing
Wow to even blame him for the rift. These guys sure love to exaggerate. Thanks for the chapter and the hard work
stubs
I actually think Rufus, besides being a bitter mean asshole who hates MC, has more redeeming qualities than Laurel. He wants to be a hero, even if its for somewhat selfish reasons. Laurel on the other hand seems like a cold hearted utilitarian adrenaline junkie who just seems to be in it for the levels and the thrills. @RinoZ - you wrote "work" instead of "word" twice. You seem to have work on the mind xD
Aclys
Kind of curious when the necromancer is not only the good guy, but arguably one of the most moral characters in the story...
Touch
Now magisters those bch....😡😡
RinoZ
Numbered wrong
Amelgar
huh, a Rufus chapter. explains why I feel like taking a shower
Codered999
You're missing the point, the Magisters don't care if he was actually in the area or related to what happened, they're just using him as a scapegoat to get everyone to ignore how the magisters fucked up. The official story being sold is that his parents are willingly hunting down their son for his actions and using the riftbreak as an excuse to convince everyone else to want him dead.
David Ford
Feels a little abrupt tbh, particularly as the only person that recognised tyron was dove. I cant remember any hints in the chapters previous that anyone saw him.
Lictor Magnus
Did we miss 55 or is this just numbered wrong?
Al
lol what
Apotheosis
You've gotten elsbeth and laurel mixed up, laurel was the ranger that went along with Rufus the whole time and elsbeth was the priestess
Killer Pickle
I REALLY HATE Rufus And Laurels, Rufus for obvious reasons such as being an incredibly selfish, amoral and just general bad person but what I hate about Laurels is that for one she continues to be friends with Rufus After he bloody Rapes her or at the very least got her raped (but its pretty obvious that he did it himself after how long he's been lusting and obsessed after her for so long). Now I do like seeing Laurels delve into the old magics long forgotten but just her staying with Rufus after what he no did just no, maybe she could forgive him in the future but not right after or a week I suppose as she didn't really believe it for awhile but then there was that argument between the two where he told her why it was 'so important' for him to do it. In the future she could of forgiven him maybe after being forced to work together, survive and maybe him learning not to be a selfish piece of shit but I could also see it going the opposite way as well were Laurels pretends to forgive him so that she might get True revenge on him by true I mean truly painful something that cuts deeper then flesh you know, you could also have her dark patrons be egging her on to do it as well
Crimsonkap
I think Rufus would make a great skeleton, js :)
Patrick
Funny how propaganda is that parents "Volunteered"
