JohnWillStab sat on a partially rotten log that drifted in a circle around the small island-like clearing in the wet forest.

“Man… you guys suck…” John remarked.

“Did you actually practice your weapons skills at any point?” he asked.

Sepukku4me_n_u was constantly getting tied up in his own chains.

Alistard was a terrible shot, he managed to miss every target he was given despite spraying it with hundreds of bullets.

WeabooMike was the best of all of them, at least he could hit his target, that said he took up to thirty seconds to grab an arrow, adjust its position and draw it back.

“What do you mean practice?!” Sepukku4me_n_u demanded.

“Aren’t we meant to get better when we level up!?” he asked.

The other two didn’t comment but looked to John awaiting an answer.

“A little, yeah – but without proper training, it’s like giving someone who can’t drive a bike a motorcycle since ‘it’s easier because you don’t need to pedal it’” John replied.

“For my first few weeks, I trained almost every day, if you rely on your starter strength those who put even a little effort into fighting will overshadow you!” John explained.

“…”

“…”

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER AT AIMING IF I CAN’T AIM!?” Alistard demanded.

JohnWillStab scratched his hair.

“Well, the simple trick to aiming better is to increase your perception stat,” John explained.

“My theory is that your weapon is too strong for your pathetic levels of perception, so try throwing rocks or sticks at me,” he instructed.

“…”

Reluctantly, Alistard reached for some rocks and tossed them at JohnWillStab, they still missed, though he was getting better.

“Since your perception is most likely really low, you’ll probably see it increasing in no time!”

JohnWillStab turned to WeabooMike.

“In your case, I’d say you lack dexterity,” John explained.

JohnWillStab picked a relatively dry stick off the ground and cut it up with his dagger.

“Here, try doing one of those pencil-spinning tricks,” he suggested.

JohnWillStab tossed him the stick, WeabooMike desperately tried to catch it in mid-air but he was completely off.

JohnWillStab turned to Sepukku4me_n_u.

“Well, the chains are definitely something you need to look out for, but above all, I think you actually lack weapon-skills, so…” JohnWillStab handed him two sticks off the ground.

“Here, try and hit me with them, no chain means you can practice without immediately falling down!” John exclaimed.

And so, the practising continued.

JohnWillStab was able to dodge the stick-strikes easily, though with time they evidently improved.

Eventually, something strange happened, a rock struck JohnWillStab on the head.

He turned around to Alistard in shock, seeing he looked equally shocked.

That same second, Sepukku4me_n_u finally struck John on the gut with his sticks.

“I DID IT!” both of them exclaimed at once.

JohnWillStab fell down into the murky water, he sat up, coughing up some of the mud.

“Nice!” he remarked.

“Not exactly battle-ready, but definitely getting there!” he remarked.

After they finished, JohnWillStab led his group back to where they started, seeing Bonifacius and Crown already there.

“Thou have returned!” Bonifacius exclaimed carrying a large pile of firewood.

“Yeah, we made some decent progress!” John exclaimed.

“Heh, well, if you’re the teacher I can’t see them getting very far,” Crown remarked.

“Jokes on you, I’m too satisfied with my efforts to take emotional damage from your comments!” John announced.

A few tents Bonifacius got from the jGuardian base were set up, they weren’t sure how many people to expect so they brought ten of the magic super-foldable-tents that could fit in one’s pocket, meaning everyone could get their own private tent.

The fire was lit with the use of a sparkle-stick, a level-one engineering “toy” that created sparks.

Since people raced to develop their professions there was a load of level-one items out for sale and the prices plummeted.

Basic healing potions that did little but cure bruises, the level-one tailoring socks, leatherworking patches that could be sewn onto clothes for extra defence.

Even basic, one-use scrolls and enchantments with spells like ‘light’ and ‘defence’.

The group of ten people sat around speaking about their new skills and plans for the future.

Over the fire was a metal rack with a pot of soup prepared by Pedecree, it was slowly heating up as Bonifacius occasionally stirred it.

“I suppose we all have gotten the basics covered, then!” Bonifacius exclaimed looking over to Crown and John.

“Yeah, I explained the basics of healing order, first you heal the tank, then you make sure no healers are running low on health while healing others, then you heal DPS in order of damage dealt,” Crown replied.

She yawned.

“They’re surprisingly good healers…” she remarked.

Bonifacius nodded.

“Indeed, my group was great tanks-material! I look forward to seeing them in a raid or dungeon in the future!”

“Well…-” JohnWillStab scratched his head and noticed the gazes of the three DPSs on him.

“M-my group’s great too! They mastered throwing rocks and stuff like pros!” John explained.

“R-rocks?” questioned Crown as JohnWillStab got hit right between the eyes with a rock causing him to fall backwards off his stool.

“Hey! What was that for?!” John demanded, Jumping to his feet.

Alistard looked just as confused.

“That wasn’t me…” he remarked looking towards the woods behind him.

Everyone went silent as from the woods emerged a group of over thirty people.

“Good evening!” Nouvel, the white-haired leader of TradeRash said stepping out of the darkness.

“Greetings…” Bonifacius said standing to his feet.

“I fear thou may have mistaken us for a training target,” he added.

Nouvel smiled, “No, no, of course not!”

He placed his hands behind his head.

“I simply wish to bring across all of my teachings to those I have taken under my wing!” he explained.

“And as a merchant, I wanted to make it clear that we don’t tolerate any competition,” he said with a disturbingly wide smile.

JohnWillStab patted his clothes clean, he looked over to Bonifacius and Crown.

“Not to mention, I really dislike liars… to take credit for all those things…” Nouvel shook his head dramatically.

JohnWillStab, Bonifacius and Crown drew their weapons.

The group of seven did the same.

“Thou need not worry about this,” Bonifacius assured them.

“Yeah, you guys did all the training you had to do for today,” John said looking up and seeing the night sky.

“Should have attacked during the day!” John thought.

Nouvel smirked.

“Still acting tough?”

He snapped his fingers as all thirty armed people began making their way towards John and the group.

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’ll back you guys up!” Chaz exclaimed.

“Yeah, you guys keep going on about how hard things out there are and now you’re trying to shelter us? Make your minds up!” Abutron grinned taking out his massive scythe.

JohnWillStab shrugged.

“They got a point,” he nodded.

Bonifacius let out a sigh.

“A-alright… do be careful though!” he instructed.

In an instant, the battle began.

JohnWillStab shadow-stepped away.

Bonifacius cast master charge, flying into the enemy lines, smashing no less than five low-levels out of the way.

Their limp bodies went flying, landing in the shallow water.

“What the hell! I thought they were weak!” one of the TradeRash tanks exclaimed as he was grabbed by something in the darkness, he looked down and saw a long-necked goose, almost snake-like as it dragged him off into the darkness, never to be seen again.

“A-Adam!” cried one of the healers seeing another swordsman get pulled off into the canopy by the geese.

He broke into a sprint, seeing Nouvel himself,

Seeing the charismatic leader as a source of safety he ran towards him only to feel the fluffy feathers of a goose’s neck tighten around his neck before pulling him up and hanging him.

Abutron held his scythe in hand, any attempts at striking him were met with his weapon, the big weapon itself served as a shield.

Any minor cuts he got were immediately healed by Heike who monitored the entire fight.

On the other side, Dun and Chaz did the exact same thing.

Chaz’s sword and shield pushing the foes back as Alistard sprayed the small army with bullets a few of which even hit someone.

“Healers, heal our fighters! Quickly!” Nouvel commanded, he saw a few of them begin to cast spells only to get their heads pierced by arrows one-by-one, they fell to the ground, bleeding as the water slowly turned red with blood.

WeabooMike carefully swung his chain-scythes, careful not to get tangled up.

“Everyone retreat!” Nouvel commanded, already running back to his camp as Bonifacius cast severing slash a group of no less than five people got severed in two horizontally.

“W-what the hell are they!? I thought they were just a group of show-offs!” Nouvel though running through the unlit forest only to bump into someone.

He fell back, landing in the water.

“W-what the hell are you doing back here?! Doesn’t matter, quick, we need to get back!” Nouvel exclaimed.

Nouvel felt the man grab him by the scruff of his shirt.

“What the hell?!” he demanded.

He shadow-stepped off to where he trained with the others earlier, the sound of massive mosquitos replaced the sound of the massive hornets that flew around during the day.

Carefully, JohnWillStab checked the struggling man’s pockets for healing potions.

After finding a handful, he smashed the bottles in his hands, tossing the broken glass into the water.

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this!” Nouvel said with a look of clearly-forced smugness.

JohnWillStab looked at him with a look of disgust.

“You picked a terrible time to go after my allies…” John said with clenched fists as he grabbed the man’s arm, breaking it with a loud crack.

He let out a shriek of pain.

“AH! FUCK!”

JohnWillStab let the man take a few breaths.

“A-alright… w-we’re even…”

JohnWillStab grabbed the other arm and proceeded to do the same.

“FUCKING HELL! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!?”

Nouvel gritted his teeth as JohnWillStab glanced down at his legs.

“C-come on! Now you’re just being sadistic! Are you even fucking human?!” he demanded.

JohnWillStab looked up to meet the man’s gaze.

“Tell me, were you going to just bruise us up and let us go?” John asked.

“I WASN’T GOING TO FUCKING TORTURE YOU!” Nouvel exclaimed.

“You were going to kill them!” John exclaimed.

“…” Nouvel looked away, still gritting his teeth.

“You couldn’t have known if that was their last life!” he continued.

“And you came with a god-damn army, knowing we’d be unable to beat your sheer numbers!”

“I bet that’s what you thought back on the stage too!”

“If you should be questioning someone’s humanity, it should be yours!” John scoffed reaching for the crossbow on the man’s back and breaking it by bashing it against the tree.

He tossed the man aside as the sound of mosquitos grew louder.

“Your camp is half an hour in that direction…” John scoffed pointing into the dark forest.

Aside from the clearing they stood in; the entire forest was pitch black.

Nouvel got to his feet, his broken hands at his side.

“If I’m inhuman then what the hell are you… you won’t even take the responsibility for killing me yourself!”

“You’ll send me into the forest, unarmed, with broken arms and in pitch darkness just to feel better!” he laughed.

Nouvel grinned a wide toothy grin as he looked over to John.

“Admit it! You’re hoping I get drained of blood by some oversized leech or something!” he taunted.

JohnWillStab clenched his fists seeing the bloodied man before him.

“I’m right, amn’t I!?” he walked up to the tree, resting his back against it.

“But I don’t mind!” he said, almost of breath, his voice getting higher as he spoke.

“As soon as you leave, I’ll just bash my head in against some rock or drown myself, I’ll make sure your guild is known for being bloodthirsty savages,”

“Try and stop me and I’ll say you’re threatening me with violence,”

“Defend yourself publicly and I’ll use every last member of my group to speak out against you,”

“Improve your image and I’ll make sure everyone knows your real nature!”

He took a second to take a deep breath.

“Know this, JohnWillStab, I will get my pound of flesh from you,”

“Even if you skin me, break every bone in my body,”

“I will make sure you suffer!”

“I will make you BEG for me to break your arms so we can call it even!”

He squinted his eyes in ecstasy.

“And I’ll make you walk through the metaphorical swamp of monsters with broken arms!”

He continued to laugh to himself as he finally stopped talking.

“Fine…” John relented.

“I’ll give you one chance,”

With a smug look, Nouvel looked up.

Back at the camp…

JohnWillStab appeared out of the darkness.

“I’m back!” he exclaimed holding his hands behind his back.

The seven unharmed trainees sat around the fire, all visibly exhausted.

Crown and Bonifacius were collecting the corpses and throwing them off into the deeper waters in hopes of not attracting the crocodiles.

“…what… did you do?” asked a few of the seven in unison.

JohnWillStab smiled.

“Well, after some conversation, we have finally cleared up this misunderstanding,” he exclaimed proudly.

“…”

“We heard a load of screaming coming from the swamp,” Heike remarked.

“You must have been hearing things,”

“Anyway, my now good friend, Nouvel said he wanted to issue an apology for being such a colossal failure as an instructor and as a human being!” John explained shadow-stepping away for a second before reappearing with a visibly beaten up Nouvel.

“Alright, go ahead!” John exclaimed.

Nouvel lowered his head slightly, his limp hands handing down.

“On behalf of all of TradeRash, I wanted to apologise to you for this misunderstanding, you see, I don’t eat many carrots and as a result, I didn’t see well in the dark, please forgive me for my terrible sins…”

JohnWillStab nodded along.

“And…?”

Nouvel sighed.

“And, JohnWillStab is my greatest hero, one day I wish to be as cool as him…” Nouvel visibly cringed at his own words.

JohnWillStab let out a satisfied sigh.

“Well, I can’t blame him for this kind of misunderstanding!” John shrugged.

“I’ll go drop him off at his camp, I’m sure one of his healers will come to the rescue soon!” John replied shadow-stepping away before returning moments later.

The seven looked at him in complete shock.

“…”

“…”

“I thought they’d find the speech funny…” John though looking around the group seeing everyone except Crown and Alistard look completely taken back.

Crown and Alistard however tried and failed to disguise wide, satisfied smiles.