Name: Wave breaker spear (rare lvl.55)

Type: Enchanted weapon

Description: A spear made of under water minerals and other organic materials. It has an enchantment to magnify water affinity magic and can thus function as a wand.

Enchantment: Water affinity.

Specs: +50 off, +5 def, + 100 cont (water magic).

The wave breaker spear was perfect for Helare. It fit her hands so well.

And after she'd spent almost ten minutes just gawking at the thing, she'd insisted Rafe, and only Rafe, be the one to train her. So now Rafe was standing closer to her than ever before. And he did not know what to do with his hands.

He had also luckily obtained a chance to push his conversation with Collab indefinitely. He wasn't sure how he was going to instruct the already experienced warrior. So far, Rafe had only been a trainee receiving the most basic training. Although when he thought about it, the foundation building training Liam had told him was a staple of his origin world was not common in the wider multiverse. He kept thinking it through, and maybe that could work. He would see.

And then there was Filoria. The girl had been excited about fighting him - and probably beating him more decisively this time - since he'd told them he'd be training under Collab, but so far she had not gotten the chance. And now she would have to wait as Rafe was busy teaching Helare.

He stood behind her. Her body was rigid in concentration. His was rigid for more banal reasons. A drop of sweat formed on the left side of her forehead. It glinted in the perpetual noon light of the dungeon world even as it rivered down her neck. Rafe found his eyes focused on that shining hint of the princess's efforts.

He ignored how close his front was to her back. He ignored even the still somehow pleasant scent of her body. She would have jumped away from him normally by now, but she was so engrossed in the lesson she didn't seem to notice. So he kept his own body in check and pretended not to notice as well.

It wasn't hard, what with all the gazes he could feel being sent his way, most less than friendly. A lot of E grade level people were watching him carefully. But none more so than lady Filoria. Maybe it was because she was Helare's guard? It couldn't be. Rafe knew they weren't on the best of terms currently. So then why?

"No," Rafe instructed as he leaned forward. "Bend your elbow a little like this. Now loosen up your stance. You are too tense. Yeah, that's it."

Helare followed his instructions to the best of her abilities, but she was still very awkward with a weapon. There was no chance she was going to get better any time soon.

She would have to do the basic drills for months to even reach a basic proficiency level where she would be able to start learning a technique. At least by Rafe's standards, drilled into him by his mentors back in the legacy trial. And her weak physical stats also worked against her, but the princess looked happy.

Especially when Rafe got his own training spear and sparred with her for a bit. She didn't come to visit his camp until much later than usual the next day, exhausted as she was, and they didn't even talk about veils for a while. But she was excited about training together, and that was all that mattered.

****

Rafe rarely had any free time in the days after introducing Helare to melee fighting. He trained her, then sparred with her. He did it every day for almost a week. Now he had only one week to leave this planet, and Helare was proficient enough to do drills by herself while Rafe pursued other things.

She was also no longer knocked out all day after a bout of training like she had been before. She would soon be able to complete the lessons on the veil and aura methods she'd promised before. Now it was time for Rafe to do other things. Like learn a new technique.

He opened what looked like a book after he was done with his quota of forging for the day. He had recently widened his use of the Dash skill to forge even things he wasn't used to like war axes and the like. The first attempts hadn't been that great, but he had made it work in the end. Now he had gained over ten skill levels in one week, although it was slowing down already.

Stolen novel; please report.

The next plan on his agenda was to learn the immutable bulwark defensive technique, the one he had received along with his phantom technique back on the fourth floor of the training tower. The opened technique manual promised different ways to use aura for defense, but even before that, there was the body augmentation aspect of the technique. It would perhaps work in tandem with his physical fitness skill to improve his muscle density.

As he looked on, a technique avatar rose from the manual and entered his soul space. He roughly knew what was going to happen to the avatar after having seen it during his insight formation. He saw the little man disappear into the dark parts of his soul, the ones he could not see yet.

Then he closed his eyes and sat in a meditative pose with his legs crossed beneath him.

Rafe was somehow disappointed he had not yet gotten the meditation skill he'd been working for sometime for, but he had known for a long time he wasn't suited for it. He would need it though, in the end. Devila had told him of its value. Heck, he had known of its value before he had even left the war in his early days on Aeon.

By the time he rose from the meditative pose, he hadn't made any inroads in regards to his meditation skill, but he had gotten most of the basic information for his new technique. Rafe rolled his shoulders, popped his neck twice, popped his knuckles one by one. There was a lot of grueling exercise in his near future.

****

"What are you doing?" Helare asked Rafe.

"My own training," he answered her. "I've got to exercise. It's annoying as hell, but oh well."

"And what about me?" she asked, and he could hear the pout in her voice.

"I think you are ready to start drilling on your own. I will spar with you at the end, and I will watch to make sure you don't make any mistakes or learn any bad habits."

She complained a little, but her heart wasn't in it. He could feel her pride at being deemed ready. And perhaps she'd known she wouldn't be able to take up Rafe's time forever.

Rafe watched her do a few thrusts while he rested in between sets of what looked suspiciously like burpees. Every technique had its own basic requirements, and this one required he torture himself exercising in somewhat similar, but different exercises from ones he was already familiar with from his time as a highschool athlete.

He wondered how he'd managed to keep himself in check a whole week while being so close to that girl. She had bought a training outfit that hugged her body tight and showed off her soft feminine figure. Rafe had somehow not made a fool of himself after the outfit had almost caused him to black out the second day he'd trained her. Now that he was watching her from a distance, he could let his fantasies run wild without fear of embarrassing himself.

"Pretty neat spear you got the princess," Filoria's voice surprised Rafe, causing him to squawk as he turned toward her.

She was just far enough away his retracted racial ability was unable to sense her. She was also looking towards Helare. More towards the thrusting spear than the girl, but still.

"Yeah," Rafe said, his voice somehow questioning, eyebrows arched. "It is a pretty nice spear."

"How much did it cost?" she asked.

Rafe frowned at the girl. At first he wondered what her problem was, but then he remembered Hestus telling him about how her father wanted to become a quest system user. According to Hestus, the man would probably want Rafe's credits for himself. It was no wonder Filoria was interested in how much of them Rafe had spent already.

Rafe shrugged. "I do get a salary from my work with the princess and the merchant. I haven't had to touch my credits yet, if that is what you're thinking."

Filoria seemed surprised by Rafe's answer. She turned to him with a frown.

"What are you… ah! The credits. My father. Hmm, I see you've gotten close to the gnome."

There was something in her voice, perhaps a hint of bitterness? Rafe had been particularly adept at reading both Helare and Filoria early on when he'd first encountered them, but Filoria was becoming more and more of a mystery. He knew she did not like him, as he did not like her, but recently some drastic change seemed to have come over her.

Helare was a lonely princess whose only friend didn't realise she was hurting. Filoria was this friend who was also a murder happy psychopath. As time went on though, new depths to both girls were revealed.

Now he couldn't quite decide if Helare genuinely liked him, or if she was still trying to play with him. There was something genuine there. And there was something from his side as well.

And Filoria. There was obviously something wrong with the girl. He hadn't at any point been close to her. To be exact, he had never liked the girl. She had almost killed him once, and she was the stuff of his worst nightmares for more than a few years.

A beautiful face that almost killed him to look at.

He wondered what was wrong with her, but he soon decided it wasn't something he cared about. He had decided he'd try and fix Helare and Filoria's relationship, but now he wondered if it was something he could, and should, meddle with.

Rafe shrugged. "So what if I have?"

The girl looked him in his eyes. He didn't try to hide the animosity he still carried toward her. She looked away, her facial expression too complicated for Rafe to read.

"The princess is delaying it for some reason, but she will have to leave the dungeon soon."

Rafe wanted to ask her what that mattered to him, but she turned and started to walk away.

"And you'll be left in here with me and me alone," he heard her say.

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