Romulo was sitting in front of the entrance to the cabin when Midday returned, humming a relaxed tune to himself as he watched people come and go down the dirt road on which Slave Quarters #344 was located. The giant was chewing on a piece of raw meat, straight off the bones of what Midday guessed from the color was some sort of bird, as Midday approached.

“Is something wrong?” asked Midday. “Why are you sitting out here?”

“Because I was waiting for you.” Romulo popped up onto his feet. “Now let’s get started with your training!”

“What?” Midday shifted uncomfortably—as he usually did whenever he saw Romulo treating himself to a chunk of uncooked flesh—and frowned. Oh right… I agreed to this in exchange for the peppercorn, didn’t I? He let out a big sigh. “Can’t I at least get a few minutes to rest first? I’ve been busy all day, you know.”

“You absolutely cannot!” answered Romulo, who was now smiling excitedly. “Sunset is less than half an hour away and yet you still have two hours of training ahead of you! Do you really want to be out in the forest any later in the night than you have to be? You know how dangerous it gets in the darkest hours.”

Midday flinched. “Wait. Two hours? I thought it was just one… And why are we going into the forest at night, to begin with? Won’t there be monsters?” He instinctively took a step away from Romulo.

Romulo took a step forward and bent down until he was at eye level with Midday. “Well, you missed yesterday, so you’re making up for it today! And the monsters won’t be an issue where we’re going—at least not the bigger ones, that is.” Romulo chuckled, which made Midday nervous. “But enough chit-chat! We don’t have time to deal with your hesitation!” Romulo swooped down and scooped Midday off the ground before his roommate could react. Now holding Midday like a princess, Romulo immediately started walking towards the thornbushes that acted as the border between civilization and the forest.

“Put me down!” Midday struggled with all his might to break free, but the attempt was laughable at best: Romulo was more than 9 feet tall and weighed over 1000 pounds—with most of that in the form of muscle. Additionally, as if those two metrics weren’t already enough, Romulo also just so happened to be level 9, which was almost double Midday’s level 5. The gap between them was miles across. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“I’ll put you down in a few minutes,” said Romulo. “After we get to our destination.”

Romulo walked to the spot he had carved out in the thornbushes just behind their cabin. It was a somewhat narrow gap, barely wide enough for Romulo to squeeze through if he went in sideways, but it nonetheless served as his personal entrance to the forest—and he generally used it several times throughout the day.

Midday gave up on struggling and sighed, dreading whatever crazy thing he knew Romulo had in store for him. This might have been the first time that he himself was training with Romulo, but it was not the first time that he had seen Romulo training someone. Midday had watched his cabinmate train his beetle, Tomulo, on many occasions, and each time the regimen seemed to get more bizarre. A recent memory in which Romulo had made his beetle walk atop a sheet of hot metal to ‘toughen up its feet’ came to mind. Perhaps even crazier than that regimen, though, was the fact that it had actually somehow managed to work. In any case, all Midday could hope for was that his training would not be something quite so hellish as what Tomulo had to go through.

Entering into the forest it became apparent how often Romulo came here: there was a clear path, defined by the distinct lack of undergrowth that otherwise made it hard to walk in the forest, where he usually walked. It led in a straight line towards a destination Midday could only guess at, for he had always made sure to avoid this place before today.

“So, umm, now that we’re on our way towards wherever you have in mind, can you tell me what the plan is?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Romulo.

The two of them continued deeper into the forest for a few additional minutes, leading Midday to wonder just how deep this trail really went but, before he could find out, Romulo suddenly veered off the path into untamed wilderness. He stepped carefully above exposed roots and small shrubs, not slowing down even slightly despite the rough terrain. After about a minute of traveling deeper into the untamed wilderness, Romulo finally came to a large clearing in which there was a single enormous tree at the center. It was very distinct even at a glance, for it was completely devoid of leaves and white bark with a smooth, almost bony texture. Additionally, the tree had a narrow trunk and yet it was massive all the same—with a height almost double that of anything else in the area.

“S-seriously, Romulo! Where the fuck are we going?” Midday had never seen such an odd tree before, but he knew from the start that he did not like whatever this thing was. Everything from its pale coloration to its total lack of leaves gave him a sense that he was looking at something unnatural. “What is this thing?”

“A Leechfort Tree,” said Romulo. “You know, for someone who spends their days working in the fields, you’re not much of an outdoorsman, are you? I thought you’d know what this is… and that you would be screaming by now!”

“W-what?! Please just tell me outright what the hell this thing actually is!”

“A Leechfort Tree—as you might be able to guess from the name—is a somewhat rare type of aspen tree that has something called a mutualistic relationship with certain species of giant leeches known as Army Leeches. They’re exactly as bad as the name suggests.” Romulo looked up. The sky was getting darker, but he, with the ‘eyes of a predator’ that came from his lineage, had somewhat decent night vision capabilities. It was nowhere near the level of a full-blooded Knight—which was the umbrella term for the variety of posthuman that one of his grandparents had supposedly been—but his vision was still far better than any ordinary human could hope to match. He could see that there were already dozens of leeches hanging from the branch directly above him, ready to drop down for a surprise attack. But they knew that he was watching them and that he could kill any number of them with ease, so they simply waited from the treetops for when he—or the far, far weaker human in his arms—lowered his guard. He grinned at the impressive intuition of the hunters above, seeing them as a worthy challenge for his student.

“And… Why the fuck are we here then?!” Midday, unlike his cabinmate, was a completely ordinary individual with no special bloodline or Abilities or anything else that would have made it possible to see the horde of thirty-pound leeches hiding high above in the treetops. Even so, he understood the words ‘giant leeches’ well enough to know that he wanted to be anywhere but where he was at that moment.

Romulo chuckled. “You’ve got the wrong idea, Midday, we still aren’t at our destination yet…” The giant then proceeded to manhandle Midday until the terrified young man was hanging with his arms wrapped around Romulo’s neck as though he were a backpack of some sort. “We’re going… up!” Romulo then held up his hands, showing Midday the process of his fingertips slowly transforming into large, beastly claws.

“You can do that?!” Midday was too taken aback by the metamorphosis to realize that now would be a good time to let go so that he might fall to the ground and try his luck running away from Romulo—not that he could have succeeded in the attempt though.

“Yeah! It isn’t a natural, instinctive thing for me like I imagine it probably is for full-blooded knights, and I couldn’t do this at all until just a few months ago—just before I came to the plantation—but you’d be amazed how much you can accomplish with enough training. I’ve gotten pretty good at it by now!”

“Man… Being a transhuman sure does have its perks.” Midday shuddered. “I do wonder just what the hell a full-blooded knight would be like. Seeing as you’re 75% ordinary human and only 25% knight, I imagine that the genuine-article purebloods must be ridiculous.”

“Well, my mother, who was half-blooded, was more than 15 feet tall from what I’ve heard. And they say that full-blooded adults average like 25 feet tall and can weigh almost 20,000 pounds… But stop trying to distract me here! You’re stalling for time, aren’t you?”

“What? No… Why would I do that?”

“Hard to say. I don’t know why anyone would willingly skip out on training!” Romulo, with his claws now fully drawn, stepped toward the tree and stuck one of his claws into it, penetrating the bark with ease. He then did the same with his other claw. Midday, now realizing what was about to happen, understood that he needed to let go before Romulo moved any further, but fear kept him immobilized for just half a second too long.

By which time Romulo had already started climbing. The giant climbed with such ease, his claws giving him a nigh-flawless grip on the tree, that he was able to rise maybe a few feet per second. Midday understood immediately that he would fall, probably to his death, if he let go, and so all he could do was close his eyes and hold on for dear life as a terrifying ascent ensued.

After about 30 seconds of utter terror, the journey came to an abrupt stop. Romulo plucked Midday off his back and set him down on a branch just barely large enough to support his weight. “We’re here,” said Romulo. “Open your eyes.”

Midday hesitantly did as he had been told only to find that he and Romulo were atop some of the highest accessible branches of the Leechfort Tree. It was a nauseatingly long drop to the ground, he discovered upon making the mistake of looking down, and Midday reckoned that they were more than a hundred feet up at that moment. Even more horrifying than the height, however, was the presence of dozens of utterly monstrous leeches slithering up from the lower branches toward him and Romulo.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” He screamed at the top of his lungs upon seeing the wormlike beasts. “What the fuck! What the fuck! What… are those things!? Kill them, Romulo! Kill them, I beg you!” As much as he wanted to run away, the fact of the matter was that doing so was entirely impossible. His heart was racing as stared at the slithering masses of flesh and their gaping maws.

“Alright. Your training begins now!” Romulo remained calm. “Your task… is to climb down to the bottom from here! But before that, catch!” Romulo took a small pouch out of his pocket and tossed it down to Midday, who just barely managed to catch it. “The leeches are weak to salt. In high enough quantities, it can kill them outright but, in smaller amounts, it just paralyzes them momentarily! This bag contains enough to kill maybe 1 individual at the absolute maximum—and even that is iffy. So your best bet at survival is to carefully ration the salt and use as little as possible to traverse the tree so that you don’t run out before reaching the bottom! Good luck! I’ll be leaving now!” Romulo started descending the tree, using his claws to trivialize the otherwise difficult task.

“S-survival? SURVIVAL?!” Midday forgot his fear for a moment as anger swelled up inside him. “You mean… I might die here?!”

Romulo stopped for a second to reply. “Well, I’d say there’s probably only a thirty percent chance of that happening at the most, but yeah! Training works best when there’s risk involved! Again, good luck! I’m off to the cabin to have dinner now! Bye! I’ll come back to check on you in two hours!” He resumed his exit, disappearing down the tree at a frighteningly rapid pace. Before long, he had made it to the bottom and disappeared into the forest. Midday felt his heart sink as he realized he was alone in what just might have been the most blatantly lethal situation he had ever been in. This was not training, he thought. This was just a glorified execution.

For a moment, he sat there on his branch, staring at the utterly horrendous army of leeches slithering up the tree trunk with terrible ease. They moved slowly, no more than a few inches per second, but they never stopped moving. Midday felt completely defeated as he gazed upon the ever-enlarging horde of aggressors coming to suck his blood. Given how large they were, he reckoned just a few of them would be enough to suck him completely dry.

Midday felt completely hopeless as he gazed upon his encroaching doom. By no means was he a fighter or a climber or a naturalist or anything that possibly could have made it possible for him to survive this situation. He had the salt, sure, and the scythe on his back too, but neither of those did anything to instill confidence in his sullen eyes. Was this really the end? Dead to some sort of cruel excuse for a training exercise? For a while, he believed that the answer was yes. That he would die a meaningless death that night and that there was nothing he could do about it.

In all likelihood, his initial view of the situation was probably correct, but the thought of the ring stirred up something in his fast-beating heart. Death was not an option, he remembered, for he had something to live for. If he died now, the opportunities inherent to his possession of the Elvanerean Ring would be wasted and never come to fruition. The thought of all that potential disappearing into thin air for such a stupid reason ignited a fire in his chest. He to live, somehow. That much was certain. He could not let it end here.

With that sudden burst of zeal at the forefront of his mind, Midday struggled to his feet, using the tree trunk to support himself, and looked down at the leeches. Survival was unlikely, sure, but he resolved to do the best he could. It was time to make a plan.