Graduation

The moment I walked into the makeshift gymnasium I had been training in for the last two weeks, I could tell exactly what my graduation test would be.

It wasn't hard to guess, considering there was a man tied to a training pole next to Rokharth.

I met his wide grin with a raised eyebrow, drawing a laugh that came spilling out from betwixt his razor teeth. “Bahahahahahaha! I can see you have a good guess as to what’s going down tonight.” He patted the man on the chest, drawing a pained whimper from him, before gesturing to a rack of knives. “Your test is fairly simple; all you need to do is kill this man with one strike to the torso. You’ll be graded on your performance, but so long as you don’t fuck it up you’ll be out on the streets slitting throats by tomorrow.”

I searched his expression without meeting his eyes, looking for any hint of a hidden test to this and finding none. Carefully withholding a sigh, I glanced over the rack of weapons; there were dozens of different varieties of knives and needles and things closer to short swords than daggers, but I eventually settled on a straight, eight inch dagger sharp on both sides. It wasn’t the most threatening or large blade, but it was easy to handle and good enough to get the job done relatively cleanly.

I still hated getting blood in my fur, even and perhaps especially given how often I was coated in my own lately.

I sent one last glance Rokharth’s way before stepping up to the bound man. I could see the fear in his blood shot eyes, though his thrashing against his bonds told me that well enough, but I didn’t care; better him than me. With one quick motion I thrust the blade up between his ribs and into his heart, twisting it as I withdrew it at a slightly different angle just to be that little extra bit sure.

40 Exp Gained

Predictably, blood spurted out directly into my face, though I had teleported behind the man in anticipation of this and managed to avoid catching whatever bloodborne illness the peon may have carried, and (best of all) kept my fur mostly clean! I still scrubbed my scent of course, and thoroughly wiped down the blade in case these bastards intended to use it as evidence for leverage or some such.

Not that such a strategy would work really, my race alone made me a hunted man and I hardly cared about the laws of this blasted land to begin with; nonetheless, I wasn’t about to take the chance anyway.

Rokharth chuckled as he watched me wipe down the blade, “Cautious little thing, aren’t you. Good, that kind of mindset will serve you well in this line of work.” I barely turned my head to look at him, not quite trusting my Extreme Paranoia enough to let him remain outside my direct view. He looked over the slumped form of my test victim, humming slightly as he watched the last weak pulses of blood gush out of his chest. “Well, you did a decent enough job; more than adequate to pass, I suppose.”

He tilted the man’s head up with a finger, looking into his faded eyes for a moment before letting his head drop with a grunt of what sounded distinctly like amusement. “Alright, you have officially passed basic training and are certified to go out and murder people.” He flicked his wrist, pulling a wickedly curved blade from his sleeve, “You can keep that knife for now, we’ll see if you earn a proper burnpike after advanced training.”

He sighed, something so uncharacteristic it immediately drew my gaze to him. For the first time since I had met the monstrous man, I could tell I was gazing upon one so ancient they had seen the rise and fall of whole cultures; he looked tired, a bone deep weariness radiating from his eyes even as he kept a wry smile on his face. The moment passed, and the manic, amused light that always hung around the man returned, “The boss wants you to go out on a mission tomorrow, slit some throats and prove you were worth this effort. Before we send you out, I’m going to show you two- no, three runes that I’ve found to be quite useful in our line of work; the first two are taught to everyone in the advanced course, but you can consider the third a personal gift.”

I didn’t trust that at all, but I wasn’t about to reject anything that might help, even if it required me to pretend I felt anything other than simmering hatred for this psychotic leech. Though, were I pressed I might grudgingly admit that I respect the bastard; for as much as I hated him, I couldn't help but admire the strength he held.

Strength enough that despite the two weeks of brutal training he put me through, I didn't feel any less like a child being slapped around by an adult than I did the very first time we sparred whenever we clashed.

I merely grunted, drawing a laugh from the old monster. He grinned at me, his needle teeth clicking together in a way that made me very uncomfortable. "Ha, fester and groan all you want, but you'd do well to listen closely if living is a priority of yours."

“This first one is more for utility and survival, though it does have its uses in combat.” His arm blurred for a moment before he stopped, leaving a wavy symbol that just screamed water to me slashed into my victim’s head, but the symbol somehow felt… incomplete, wrong even. He tapped the symbol with the flat of his blade, “This is almost the symbol for Water; almost, because once I complete the damn thing it’s going to get very wet in here. Memorise this symbol, but don’t think too hard about it unless you feel like a relaxing bout of drowning.”

While the very idea that this was some sort of infohazard that could be harmful to think about sent a shiver down my spine, I had become very adept at ignoring existential horror and simply did my best to memorise the shape displayed. I could almost feel his grin, "Alright, you got that shit memorized? Good." He didn't wait a second for my answer before slashing one last line across that rune that made the thing feel whole.

And also made it start gushing water like an angry geyser, mist filling the rooms as the carcass was instantly soaked through. In seconds there was a spreading pool of bloodied water around my "graduation test" that felt as deep as the ocean yet my eyes and Paranoia told me it was less than a centimeter deep.

Rokharth laughed even as the pool of water spread over his dull black shoes, "You got that symbol embedded in your mind, ya fluffy bastard? This shit is the cleanest water you'll ever find, but the violence with which it comes out makes it a touch difficult to drink; that, and it's guaranteed to make a damn mess." He shrugged his shoulders after I nodded my head to confirm that I had the symbol memorized.

I ignored being called fluffy, merely adding it to my mental book of grudges and shelving it for later; besides, my fur is slick and oily, not at all fluffy.

He chuckled and slashed through the symbol so fast his arm wasn't even a blur, instantly cutting off the flow of water and removing the wet feeling I only then realized was unnatural. "The Language Of The Universe is a dangerous thing; too pure to make proper spells from and too powerful to write down safely, but every damn word has its uses. Boss always has us start with that one when we teach these things, not because it's all that much safer for the learner but because it's far less likely to cause a huge problem if it goes out of control." His grin was wide and toothy, his incarnadine eyes gleaming with unearthly humour as he spoke, "This next one is far, far less safe; try not to think too hard about it if you don't want to set your brain on fire."

Of course, that was anything but encouraging; unfortunately, I had little time to contemplate that fact before I was punched in the face by a wall of heat so brutal it felt like my fur would have caught fire if not for my oil.