Derb was strategically retreating as fast as he could from the blacksmith, buying himself some time to think of a plan. That train of thought was quickly shut down as he felt a big meaty hand grab the entire back of his head. “Enough, boy. I thought this was meant to be sparring not cardio.” He was casually thrown aside, to which he caught himself before he fell. He jumped towards Deitre in a surprising show of bravery, attacking in a large swipe. When he felt nothing connect he immediately dodged to the side, dodging the boot coming at him. In a strike of inspiration, he tackled the outreached leg, causing Deitre to become slightly off balance.

It was the first time he’d caught the man off guard and he wouldn’t let it go to waste. He brought the sword back around in a circle to hit the man in the thigh, ignoring whatever would be thrown at him. The sword crashed around with enough speed and power to go through a fully grown tree, using all of his energy in the process. The victory right before him was quickly cut short as Deitre bounced off his other leg far away from him, making him hit nothing.

The momentum of the swing was till there and he spun like a top before throwing the sword into the ground piercing halfway through. “Damnit!” He fell to his knees, obviously distraught at the idea of missing his one chance at landing a blow. How could he have done better? What was he missing to be able to go head to head with Deitre? The brooding was cut short when two giant hands picked him up by his sides. “Astonishing work, boy! You actually had me backing up! You should have kept going and learned how to properly punish someone who retreats.”

Derb looked like a child in his hands, like a kid being picked up by his parents especially considering the side difference. Needless to say it was a bit awkward for him. Deitre noticed what he was doing soon enough, however. “Ah… sorry about that. Guess it was a bit much, eh?” He gently let him down, and Derb felt way too grateful over that little detail. “Not at all, Deitre. It’s just that usually you guys don’t manhandle me without any intent to hurt me… you know?” He scratched his neck and remembered every time someone had gotten him from behind. It was quite traumatic to him and it’d take a while before he could trust again.

Well, that was all a joke either way, but he still flinched whenever he saw both of his teacher’s reach at him purely out of self preservation. The blacksmith continued speaking, obviously excited at his student’s obvious improvement. “What made you have such quick thinking? Usually you’d freeze under that sort of pressure. Even with all the openings I gave you.” the blacksmith looked deep in thought while casually revealing his secret. “Ah, wait.”

He turned to Derb to see him on the floor motionlessly looking up at the stars, his eyes furrowed in self pity. “That’s why you always kick after a swing, huh. I thought that was just a habit.” Deitre could only watch helplessly as the boy turned over, face first into the ground. “I can’t believe I had to use the snake power to teach me how you work.” The blacksmith went to console him but heard something interesting. “Oh? Are you saying that was due to another one of your abilities? How would that even work?”

Derb got into a sitting position, still cursing his earlier folly. “I don’t really know, it just sorta turns on when i need it, I guess? It doesn’t really use mana so I can use it whenever, but I don't know when it turns on. It hasn’t really shown up a lot during our spars and it goes away really fast...” Derb watched on as Deitre stood deep in thought. Did he have a clue to what it did? He’d thought it slowed time for a bit but that seemed to just be because of concentration. He wasn’t even sure those times were from the power itself.

Eventually, Deitre snapped out of his thoughts, looking as if he realized something. “Wait here! I’ll be right back! Hopefully this’ll be worth it.” ‘Worth what exactly’ was what Derb wanted to say before the man jumped directly through the air far into the forest, leaving a huge flaming crater where he stood. He watched on mouth agape as the blacksmith’s body seemed to slowly get smaller and smaller in the air until it got covered in the trees. That was… mind-boggling power…

He reminded himself that Deitre was probably much older than he looked and he’d probably reach that point with enough effort… yeah… hopefully. He looked towards where Tiffany was sitting and found her napping gently against the shade of a tree. It was heartwarming enough that he almost didn’t want to bother her to heal his minor wounds. Almost, the minor wounds always hurt the most after all. He tried jumping over to her using his new bunny power. There had to be a better way of saying that.

Honestly, though this might have been his new favorite power. Being able to soar ten feet into the air was the first time he felt like he was doing something superhuman. Everything else felt like it came through realistic hard work and a price. This power was just being one step closer to flying. While he was thinking stupid things he overshot the distance and landed into a random tree admittedly not too far off the mark. Once he “landed” he turned off the power and walked on over to tiffany.

He spent a few moments acknowledging how she was always there for him. Always there to heal him whether it be a small bruise or that one time when Deitre went too far and they had to push one of his ribs back in. Man, he was lucky to have been passed out that time. Tiffany couldn’t even look him in the eyes for a few days after that whole debacle. Good times… good times…

“Tiffannyyyyy my arms were cut in the battle please heal me….” Derb shamelessly whined as he shook Tiffany awake. She slowly opened her eyes in that half-delirious state you can only get when you sleep for only a few minutes. “Huh, wazza want fromee…” a fully delirious sentence that Derb had no idea how to decipher. “Um… heal me. Please?” derb guiltily asked. Without a second thought, the sleepy Tiffany grabbed his hair and pulled on it like a punished kid.

“Ow! Wait, Tiff we can talk about thi… oh, nice.” She was healing him through his hair, which he thought was kind of funny. It felt nice to feel the magic coursing through his body instead of just in one spot in particular. It was slow to heal but he always felt way better than before. After a while, she fully woke up and started actually assisting. The concentration wasn’t really needed since all derb had was scrapes even toddlers wouldn't cry at but they could finally talk a bit while Deitre was off probably destroying the forest.

“So what happened to the imp? Usually they'd get a lot bigger and, uh, uglier.” He grinned at the offhand compliment given to Connor. If only that demon wasn’t so stupid he’d be grateful for the face. “I read up on it and apparently he thought I was big enough on my own or something.” He flexed his comparatively unimpressive muscles. “Usually summoners don’t have guns as big as these.”

She nodded in thought. “So the imp saw your lack of magic abilities compared to your strength and decided to help you in the smarts department. I guess that’s why it gave you such an easy magic to start with.” Derb opened his mouth to argue, but quickly closed it again. Shit, was the imp really smarter than him now? He knew it had better magic in general but he was sure he’d beat it hand to hand…

“Oh no, I’m really turning into a meathead, huh...” She nodded in grim acceptance. “Also, what’s a gun?” she asked, turning to the man reevaluating his life. He shooed her away with his hand, not wanting to tell another soul about something so stupidly dangerous. She responded with a light punch to his shoulder, neither wanting to put too much effort into anything in this comfy moment. It was a beautiful day, with the light barely shimmering through the leaves under the shade.

He hadn’t spent much time taking in the scenery for a while. There was too much to do, so much pressure in the past few days. His imp was no longer recognizable and his teacher was nowhere to be seen. All he had left was Deitre to beat training into him. It was nice to move his body more and even nicer to stop thinking while doing so… That sounded a bit like what an idiot would say, not a super awesome smart magic person like himself.

“You’re thinking something stupid, aren’t you?” Tiffany snarkily interjected, looking at Derb’s smug face. “No… I was just thinking it was nice to look at the scenery for once.” He said, breathing in the pure air. “Everything around here is so beautiful, it was nothing like this back home.” He looked back at Tiffany, surprised to see a complicated expression. “This is all I ever knew, I wouldn’t know how it’d be any different. This has always been my home.”

He froze, not sure how he screwed up, but instinct never failed him before and it was telling him to choose his words carefully. She called this place home so she had no resentment towards it… no resentment towards him either because, well, he was too cool. That left only one thing. “You want to hear how it was where I lived, I've told a bit to your teacher so I don't really have any secrets to keep.”

“Really!” She shouted, getting near him like a child who’d find a treasure chest. “Teacher told us not to worry you about it, are you really fine with that!?” Derb closed his eyes, momentarily grateful for his teacher’s deep generosity. No doubt Tiffany, or most likely Hannah, would torture him into revealing everything in the beginning. He still didn’t trust Hannah all that much but Tiffany was basically his livelihood. She was the only reason he ever even dared look at Deitre.

“Just don’t tell anyone. They’d trap me and use my knowledge for evil.” He half-joked, really not sure if the gun was as useful as his teacher said it was. She didn’t take it too lightly, however. Her eyes sharpened and she frowned, taking this like it was bigger than it really was. She nodded anyways, however, ensuring him her lips were sealed. Rolling his eyes with a grin he explained to her the things that might have some effect. Skyscrapers and roads, lights and airplanes. Even the gun.

She didn’t seem impressed at all. “Couldn’t you just… fly? And why would you need houses that tall, how big is your family?” She was confused about it all, of course she’d be. It didn’t stop him from being disappointed at the reaction. He explained how they were more than one family, and how the plane allowed many people who couldn’t fly everywhere they wanted for money. The more I spoke the more she questioned. Like about how people couldn’t get a house and how they made travel so expensive. at some point, he was left curled up wondering if it was truly that bad.

He shook his head. “Wait, no. It was way better before. Look, I know it looks like all sunshine and rainbows in this little village but this… power you guys have. That anyone can have… it seems like its such a huge gap between the strong and weak.” he memorized how angry Deitre was when he entered the shop. How easily he could have turned him into chunks all because of some albeit extremely annoying ignorance.

“I was lucky to be here, or else I'd have been killed in the forest. This place is so dangerous, staying here is nerve-racking.” it was scary to think about, honestly. Being in this new world. He’d kept himself busy with training and riding Adalia with Hanah, but eventually he’d have to come to terms with the fact that he had no idea what to do. He only went deeper into his destructive thoughts until he heard the calm voice of Tiffany bringing him back to life. “Guess that life must have been really fun for you.”

She abruptly stood up in a huff. “I’m sorry you had to meet us.” she snarled, angry all of a sudden. “Wait, what? No, wait. Tiff.” He couldn’t explain himself in time before she walked off, leaving him all alone under the shade. Ugh, why’d he say all that? He acted all better than her just because he felt homesick. He knew both the girls were insecure about their real-world knowledge, why’d he have to hit where it hurts? Now he was all alone and guilty, with nothing to keep him from his thoughts.

...Yeah, nope. “Connor, get over here goddamnit.” A simple thought and a good chunk of his mana had his incubus appear in a purple shimmer. “Uehh?” was all Connor could let out before Derb tackled him. “Connor… I screwed up real bad. Spar with me or something while Deitre comes back” The incubus was shocked, scuttling away from his master in both fear and respect. Attack the one who gave him such a powerful opportunity? To grow beyond a thoughtless void, and then further beyond?

“No… no...” It was all he knew to say. But he hoped his master would understand the reason behind it. He had too much respect for him to fight him head to head- “Oh come on, it’s an order, so stop being a big baby and let's fight. I promise I won't hurt you or nothing.” He stood up, grabbing his incubus by one of his legs and dragging him to the middle of the field. Connor had no choice but to willingly obey so he stood up and took a stance.

“Ok, ok. No real dangerous things, I won’t use my sword because… I can't promise you won’t get chopped. You can use magic as long as you don’t uh… kill me. Ok?” The incubus nervously nodded. He wouldn’t use anything that’d hurt his master, he’d just… play along. “3… 2 1 Go!” With that Derb launched himself forward, ready to tackle the unprepared incubus. That was how it was supposed to go at least, but the incubus deftly dodged the charge and floated to the side.

“You can fly!? Wait, you could always fly… shit.” He didn’t have wings anymore but when he thought more clearly it’d be weird to just downgrade like that. He decided to get creative. He charged forward and jumped to the side, turning on all three of the symbols on his chest. The incubus jumped back but didn’t expect the sudden change in direction. Derb landed on the side of a tree, just as planned, and used it to launch himself at Connor.

Things got really weird after that. It was like all he saw was Connor, every little movement and opening he had. It was the perfect moment to strike, which was lucky because he was barreling right towards him. Connor tried to block but left his right side completely open. With a twist of his body, he moved past Connor, grabbing his right shoulder and bringing him down. It was perfect, he was full of openings to the point of idiocy-

And then he fell to the side, completely out of mana. His head was pounding, his chest was on fire. Nothing that normally happened with normal mana, so it was quite alarming. He felt the hands of his incubus gripping the sides of his head and before he could yell at him for doing so he immediately felt a surge of energy rush into his head. It immediately soothed his nerves and he fell into a deep calm. “Ahh, that feels nice. Connor, you know you’re my favorite summon right?” He said, much to the Demon’s gratitude.

Derb didn’t know how long he stayed laying there but eventually, Deitre came back, slamming into the ground with a massive thud. He felt him more than heard him, the shockwave shocking him out of his half-sleep. “Oh, what the heck, Deitre. You know you can walk baaa-” He trailed off, who could blame him after seeing such a spectacle. “I think I figured out what that snake tattoo might do.” Deitre said, carrying a massive tree with an unconscious 30-foot anaconda hanging limply from its branches.