WIEDERGEBURT Act V: Chapter 5

For the first time in a long time, Kari woke up early.

Kari did not like getting up early. She preferred sleeping for as long as possible, until it was her turn to drive the wagon. However, this day, she woke up at the same time as Fay and Eryk.

Sitting up in bed, she stretched her body, lifting her arms above her head and listening to her back as it cracked. A groan escaped unbidden from her mouth. She brought her hands back down and rubbed her eyes, hoping to rid them of sleep.

Eryk and Fay were already getting dressed. She frowned at the two who appeared perfectly content to get up at the crack of dawn, running her fingers through her hair as though to make her messy bed head somewhat more presentable. Kari just couldn’t understand how these two could enjoy getting up so early. She had, of course, done the same many times in the past, but that was only when the situation demanded it. Why wake up at the crack of dawn if you didn’t have to?

These thoughts and more eventually disappeared as she finally woke up.

“Looks like someone decided to finally join us.” Eryk grabbed the clothes she had discarded the night before and began helping her get dressed. “Feeling a little more awake?”

“Just a little,” Kari said with a smile.

The outfit Eryk helped her get dressed in was her usual battle gown these days. It was a white and blue blouse that stopped halfway above her knees. Black stockings covered her legs and her feet were clad in leather boots. A small chest plate that only covered her breasts sat against her torso. Some people would have said such a small piece of armor could never protect someone since it didn’t cover an adequate area. However, this chest plate had Runes etched into the surface, which would protect her from anything short of an A-rank Spiritual Technique.

“Are you two ready?” asked Eryk.

“You know I am ready,” Fay said.

“So am I,” Kari added, then glanced at the bed. “But what about Lin? She is also going to be taking part in this, right? Should we not wake her as well?”

“There is no need. This princess is already awake.”

Everyone turned to see Lin rising out of the covers, her mouth opening in a wide yawn. Her droopy eyes were half-closed. She was clearly still sleepy, but she trudged out of bed and put on her wraparound skirt and a shirt that top that showed off all of her stomach and most of her breasts.

“Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s go see those three. This princess would like to kick—erm, she would like to get started on their training.”

“While I don’t mind if you’re a bit rough, please refrain from kicking anyone’s ass,” Eryk said dryly.

“This princess does not know what you are talking about. She never said anything about kicking someone’s ass.”

“Must have been my imagination then.”

“It was definitely your imagination, Darling. This princess thinks you might be sick. Perhaps you should stay in bed. Then maybe this princess could also get a few extra minutes of sleep as she gains warmth from--erm, I mean as she nurses your body back to health.”

“I think you just want to use me as your personal heater.”

“That’s not it at all.”

“Okay. That is enough joking around. Let’s go,” Fay said as she led them out of the wagon. A fire was blazing in her eyes at the thought of training. It looked like she was ready to get things started.

Fay seemed pretty gungho as they walked toward the carriage Erica, Janet, and Karen were sleeping in. Kari didn’t think the idea of training someone was all that exciting. She’d much rather be exploring ruins or unlocking the mysteries of Runes. Even so, she did think the idea of helping her friend was a nice one. If she could make Erica strong enough to dominate this upcoming tournament, it would go a long way toward repaying the favor she had shown her and Eryk in their past life.

As they arrived at the carriage, Fay raised her hand to knock on the door--

“Are you sure it is okay for us to trust them, Erica?”

--When Karen’s voice from the other side caused her to pause. Fay turned her head to look at Eryk, Kari, and Lin. Her expression seemed to be questioning what they should do. Should she knock on the door now and interrupt this conversation, or should they listen in and glean some insights into what those three thought of their little group.

Eryk shook his head and motioned for her to lower her hand.

Fay did so.

“You think they are untrustworthy?” asked Erica. “We have been traveling with them for nearly five days now and they have not once attempted to do anything untoward to us.”

“You mean they have not done anything yet, but they could,” Karen argued. “What if they are waiting for us to drop our guard before slipping something into our drinks? For all we know, that man could be plotting against us. What if those women he claims to have married are actually slaves who have been brainwashed into believing they love him.”

Kari closed her eyes as she felt a swift and fierce surge of anger permeate her heart. Was this really how Karen saw her husband? It looked like she would not be going easy on this little girl during their sparring session together.

“I hope you realize how foolish you sound right now,” Erica said.

“E-excuse me?!” Karen screamed in shock.

“You obviously have yet to realize how powerful those people are, so let me spell it out for you. Eryk Veiger is strong enough that he doesn’t need to use tricks like waiting for us to let our guard down. If he wanted us, he could have taken us whenever he pleases and there is not a single thing we would be able to do about it. His wives are equally powerful. They would not allow themselves to be brainwashed by anyone.”

Kari placed a hand on her chest as a relieved smile lit up her face. The words of her friend did wonders to offset the rudeness her companion had shown her husband. She also remembered that Karen had been just as abrasive back then as she was now.

She still wouldn’t be getting off easy.

“Well… I mean… maybe this is just some kind of twisted hobby he has,” Karen tried to defend her position even though there no longer had any ground left to stand on.

“Give it up, Karen,” Janet said in what sounded like a tired voice. “Not everyone who has entered a polyamorous relationship is evil.”

“But they are! Everyone who sleeps around with multiple women is obviously a bad person!”

The words spoken by Karen made Kari frown again, but she did not have time to dwell on them. At that moment, Fay decided they had heard enough, raised her hand, and knocked several times.

A loud squawk came from inside. This was followed by several thuds like someone had fallen off something and crashed to the floor.

“Just a moment,” Erica said before the door opened to reveal the woman in question. She gave them a surprised smile after seeing who was at her door. “Eryk, Fay, Kari, Lin. Good morning, you four. It’s a little early, isn’t it? Do you mind if I ask what you are doing here?”

“We’ve been talking,” Eryk said, gesturing to himself and the others. “And we realized that we don’t really know what kind of strength we can expect from people living in the Northern Plains. We were hoping to rectify this situation by having you three spar against my wives.” A smile appeared on Eryk’s face. “We hope you would be willing to oblige us.”

***

Kari was adamant on being the one who sparred with Erica. Of course, this was a woman who had become one of her closest confidants in her previous life, so it was only natural she would want to be the one who oversaw Erica’s training.

“Are you ready?” Kari asked Erica as they stood several meters apart in an empty clearing. Fay and Lin had taken Janet and Karen further away to spar. She didn’t know where they were, but she was sure she’d be hearing explosions soon.

“I am ready…” Erica began with an odd look in her eyes. “But… well, I do not mean to be rude, but do you intend to not use a weapon?”

“Huh?” Kari didn’t understand what the woman meant at first, but she realized after a second passed and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh. Right. A weapon. Yeah, don’t worry. I have one.”

Holding out her hand with her storage ring on it, Kari summoned her weapon from the storage space inside. The ring flashed. Then the weapon, a ranseur that was two meters long, appeared in her hand.

The ranseur was made primarily from a lustrous black material. It gleamed darkly in the sunlight. However, while the shaft was black, the two spear points on either end were blood red. The spear point facing away from her front was jagged and gave the appearance as though being skewered with it would tear apart someone’s flesh. The point facing away from her back was composed of two spear points that appeared reminiscent to a tuning fork. Kari often used that end to impale her enemies, lift them off the ground, and throw them.

“I’m sorry,” Kari said, gracefully twirling the spear around before adopting a basic fighting stance. “I barely use a weapon to fight these days, so I almost forgot to summon it.”

“Summon? What… what just happened?” Erica looked astonished as she gawked at the weapon now in Kari’s hands. “Where did that weapon come from?”

“I can tell you after this spar.” Kari slid her feet along the ground. “Please feel free to attack me whenever you are ready.”

Erica looked like she was still uncertain about this, but then she nodded and adopted a wide stance with her claymore held in both hands. Yet even after adopting her stance, she did not move, remaining rooted in place as though held there by external forces. A trickle of sweat ran down her brow.

Kari waited patiently for Erica to attack her. She counted down to three inside of her mind. If Erica didn’t attack after three seconds, she would initiate this spar.

Her countdown became unnecessary when Erica launched herself into a full powered sprint after Kari reached two. The ground underneath the woman’s feet cracked when she began running. Yet even though she was fast for a normal person, to Kari, Erica looked like she was moving in slow motion.

Upon reaching Kari, Erica swung her claymore from the ground upward in a diagonal slash. Such an attack would have cut a normal person from their hip to their right shoulder. Kari merely moved back two steps and to the left, avoiding the attack entirely.

Erica twitched as she slammed her left foot into the ground, once more cracking the earth as the muscles in her arm strained. The claymore ceased moving, then reversed course, swinging down toward Kari’s head—or where Kari’s head had been before she lowered herself into a crouch. The claymore passed over with room to spare.

“Hmmm… your swings are a bit slow,” Kari murmured as she agilely danced several steps back, now out of Erica’s reach. “You have not been training to use a claymore for very long, have you?”

Frowning at the first comment, Erica nodded. “Claymores have been my primary weapon for the past year. I used to use a broadsword before that.”

“I thought as much.”

Nodding, Kari realized her friend was currently nowhere near the talent and strength she’d possessed when they first met. That made sense. In her previous life, she and Erica would not meet for at least another ten years. That was plenty of time to become more experienced with a weapon. Her strength would also be much greater than it was now.

“When you are using a weapon that weighs nearly as much as you do, it is important to not fight against the weight,” Kari told her. “I saw how your muscles were straining while you were swinging that thing. You will tear your muscles if you do that, so please be careful.”

Erica frowned as she listened to Kari’s advice, and Kari was happy to see that she was not dismissing it out of hand. Perhaps she realized Kari was only trying to help. She nodded once, which caused Kari to break out into a smile.

“Okay. Feel free to come at me again,” Kari said.

This time when Erica attacked, she took Kari’s advice under consideration, and instead of just swinging her weapon around, she used the weight itself to increase the speed and power of her attacks. This, of course, required her to move with the weight rather than against it. That required sometimes spinning her body a full 360 degrees. However, not only did her attack speed increase, so too did the power of each swing.

Of course, it was all pointless.

She still couldn’t hit Kari.

Like a graceful butterfly, Kari danced away from every one of Erica’s attacks with complete ease. She would then give some basic pointers to Erica. This was less of a spar and more like an instructor giving her pupil a lesson on combat. Despite this, Erica did not complain as she took Kari’s words under advisement and continuously adjusted her fighting based on the blonde woman’s words.

“Ha… ha… you…” Erica breathed heavily after nearly an hour into their spar. Her shoulders were slumped and the claymore’s blade was digging into the soft earth as she stared at Kari. “I can’t… can’t hit you… at all! How… are you… so strong…?”

“I am strong by necessity,” Kari said with a gentle if sad smile. When Erica frowned, she giggled. “Do not worry. If you wish to be this strong as well, I can help you.”

“You can…?” Erica asked, shocked.

“I can.” Nodding, Kari impaled her weapon into the ground and walked over. Erica frowned at the ranseur, which Kari hadn’t used at all during their spar. As she placed her hand on the raven-haired woman’s shoulders, Kari said, “We were discussing this the other night after learning about the tournament. I’m assuming the Battling Valkyries will be participating and that you will be one of the five selected?”

“That is right.” Erica nodded.

Kari’s smile widened. “We were wondering what we should do about the tournament. At first, we thought about participating ourselves, but we haven’t established our sect yet, and it probably won’t be ready in time for the tournament. That’s why we decided to help you out. Fay, Lin, and I are going to be training you three like this every morning to help you improve until it’s time for the tournament.”

Erica’s eyes widened. “Y-you are?! I mean, that’s great… but why?”

“Why? Well…” Kari crossed her arms and frowned as she tried to think of a good excuse that Erica would believe. She certainly couldn’t say it was because they were friends in a past life. “I guess you could say it’s to establish friendly relations with your sect. If we help you out, you’ll feel grateful and might help us when we need it.”

“I understand. You wish to have our Battling Valkyries owe you a favor,” Erica said.

Kari shrugged. “You could think of it that way.”

Erica looked like she was considering something. Kari didn’t interrupt her and instead quietly waited for the woman to speak again.

“If we do train like this every day… how strong do you think I can become?”

“We won’t just be training like this,” Kari said. “I have an entire regiment planned out for you. This was just a spar so I would know what level you are at. Speaking of levels, I’d like to see your Spiritual Techniques and strength. From this point on, I’d like it if you could use only Spiritual Techniques during our spar.”

“Are you sure?” asked Erica.

“I am,” Kari answered.

Erica still appeared reluctant, but she nodded once and moved a little further away. She readjusted her stance. However, just as she took a step forward, a massive explosion about one or two kilometers out suddenly caused the ground to shake. Erica screamed in surprise as she was knocked off balance. Kari bent her knees to absorb the impact and looked in the direction of the explosion.

A massive cone of fire had erupted into the sky. It was like the ground had ruptured and all the lava flowing underneath the world’s crust had erupted forth. Not only was the cone of fire massive, but Kari and Erica could feel it from where they stood. Erica was shocked as a wave of heat and wind blasted her in the face, her raven locks flying behind her like streamers.

“What… what just…?” she couldn’t finish her sentence she was so shocked.

“Hmm… looks like Fay is getting worked up,” Kari mumbled.

Erica gawked at her. “That was caused by Fay?!”

“Yeah. Didn’t you—oh, right. You don’t know that Fay is a Fire Spiritualist.” Kari walked back over to her ranseur, pulled it from the ground, and turned to face Erica. “Fay is probably the strongest of our group after Eryk. Well, I say that, but I really just mean this in terms of combat, not actual power. Now, I don’t want you thinking about what is happening over there. Come, show me your Spiritual Techniques.”

Erica looked back at the explosion of fire, which was only now beginning to disappear. A shudder traveled through her body. With great effort, she lifted herself off the ground, picked up her claymore, and faced Kari again.

Thus the spar continued.

***

I stood in front of the advanced alchemy kit that Fay and I used when refining pills. Resting on the couch was Siv, who was leaning back as she held the sleeping Raul to her chest, her leather wings curled, long tail hanging off the edge. She was stroking Raul’s hair as he slept. Part of me wished I was the one she was holding right now. My son was so lucky.

At present, I was creating three different pills at the same time. I was sure a normal alchemist would have flipped if they saw this. Thanks to constantly helping Fay with her own alchemy, my abilities had greatly improved. While I still could not make original pills, and didn’t think I ever would, refining three separate pills at the same time was relatively simple.

It just took a lot of concentration and time.

I’d been working on refining these pills since early this morning after Kari, Fay, and Lin took Erica, Janet, and Karen out to spar with them. A good portion of the refining process was already complete for each pill. I only needed to pour the contents into the cauldron and will them into the shape of a pill with my Spiritual Power.

I created the pills necessary one at a time, using the mass refinement method instead of refining individual pills. This would make their quality a little worse, but it saved time, which was what I needed right now. I was also confident one of my pills would still be two times better than something produced by a simple Master Alchemist. By the end of the refining process, I had three bags worth of pills. They were the Body Forging Pills, Three Way Spiritual Widening Pills, and Spiritual Foundation Pills.

“I’m heading outside,” I said to Siv. “Wanna join me?”

“Yes.”

Siv’s response was immediate. She stood up, careful not to wake Raul, and followed me as I grabbed the bags and left the wagon.

The sun had risen quite a bit while I was inside, and it was no longer early morning but probably somewhere around mid afternoon. Kari and the others would be finishing their spar soon.

The clearing we had chosen to park our wagon in was about one kilometer away from the road to Midgard. The grass came up to our knees and swayed in the breeze. I traveled several meters away from our wagon with Siv by my side and stopped.

“I think this is far enough,” I declared.

Siv tilted her head. “What are you doing?”

“I’m building a bathtub large enough for several people,” I answered as I placed my hands on the ground.

The first thing I did was sliced all the grass in front of me for about five square meters. A swift breeze blew through the clear before an arc of power erupted from my hands and swept over the grass, severing it. The wind picked up the grass and blew it away, but I was no longer paying attention as I had already moved onto the second step.

Closing my eyes, I sent my Spiritual Power deep into the earth, feeling the ground beneath them, and then willing the ground to shift. A large hole approximately two meters wide, two meters across, and a half a meter deep formed in the ground. A trickle of sweat formed on my brow as I further controlled the earth, compressing the dirt until it was all packed tightly together. Then I used the fire element to glass the whole thing.

The earth and fire elements was not the affinity I was naturally born with. I had gained earth through my connection to Lin and fire from Fay, but I could only use it to the Second State of Spiritualism. Because of my inhuman origins and abilities, I was able to use it without dances, but I wouldn’t say my control over it was very good.

“Done. Now for step three,” I muttered.

Shifting gears, I switched from using the earth element to the water element. I pulled the moisture from the air and used my Spiritual Power to create water, which I used to fill the hole. Now it looked like a small pond.

Several explosions rocked the wagon from far away. Siv and I turned to the cone of fire that rose into the sky.

“Looks like Fay is getting into it,” I said. Siv didn’t say anything, but she did nod once.

It was at this point that Raul woke up, having been roused by the sound of explosions. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with his tiny hands. Then he looked in the direction of the fire.

“Wassat?” he asked.

“That is… it is a Spiritual Technique your mother created,” Siv answered.

“Spiwitual Tegneek?”

“That’s right. A Spiritual Technique.”

Raul looked like he was pondering this for a moment. It was during this period of thinking that he noticed the manmade bathtub.

“Pool! Water!” He looked at the drakvar holding him and pointed. “Look! Pool! Water!”

Siv smiled. “Yes, that is a pool with water.”

Raul had Siv set him on the ground and tottered over to the pool, waddling with the ungraceful movements of a child who’d just recently learned to walk. I thought he was better at walking than most kids his age. He and Kayli were both fast learners and learned how to walk at a young age.

Siv and I kept an eye on Raul to make sure he didn’t fall in as he tottered around the edge of the manmade bath. About ten minutes later, Kari appeared in the distance, holding an exhausted Erica in her arms. The blonde woman did not look the least bit winded as she smiled at us. On the other hand, Erica’s hair was in disarray, her face was covered in dirt, and she looked ten seconds to passing out as Kari carried her like a princess.

About five minutes after she arrived, Fay and Lin arrived with their respective sparring partners.

While Janet seemed uninjured but exhausted, Karen looked like she had seen better days. Her clothes were black and some areas had been burned away. There was soot on her face, chest, and arms. I also noticed several burn marks covering her arms and shoulders. Fortunately, it seemed Fay had avoided burning the girl’s face. I could heal injuries so not even a scar remained, but no one enjoyed having their face even temporarily ruined.

“It looks like your sparring was productive,” I said.

“Productive, he says,” Karen snarked as she was half-dragged to the pool. “I practically died, and he calls it productive.”

“Don’t complain or I’ll give you more training,” Fay said.

“I’m sorry, big sister!” Karen flinched.

“Your wives are very strong,” Erica said as Kari set the woman on her feet. She swayed for a moment, but Kari placed a hand on her shoulder to help steady her.

“Of course they are. My wives are the strongest,” I said with a grin, puffing out his chest in pride. Erica wore an amused smile, but I decided to ignore that look and move this along. “Anyway, now that you ladies have worked so hard, feel free to take a dip in this bath. I’ll grab some sheets or something to create a partition so you can bathe in privacy.”

“Oh? Thank you,” Erica said, appearing surprised.

I smiled before taking the Body Forging Pills from the bag and dropping four into the bath. The shells melted within the water and the medicinal contents were released, causing the dark red color to spread through the water. Steam began rising from the surface as well.

When she saw this, Erica became uncertain.

“What did he just drop into the water?”

“Body Forging Pills,” Kari answered.

As she began to explain the concept of Body Forging Pills, which made Erica excited, I summoned the extra sheets from my storage ring and used some poles to create a makeshift partition so they could bathe in private.

I wondered how strong these three would grow by the time we reached Midgard.