The Demon Lord Is An Angel

Chapter 519: Training Owyn - Part I

Owyn stood outside the village gate, chewing the nail of his forefinger as he looked inside at a world he’d never conceived of.

A place where there were only giants.

A place where he wasn’t the tallest child around.

"Move, boy. This is your new home," the gravelly voice of the one who’d taken him from the orphanage commanded.

With slow steps, Owyn obeyed. People greeted his chaperone, but looked at him strangely as he was brought to the largest tent, to stand before the biggest person Owyn had ever seen. A giant, sitting on a throne with a tankard of ale at his lips, whose bald head was bedecked with tattoos of titans-

"I said kneel!" Owyn’s chaperone grabbed him by the neck and forced him down. Owyn had been so busy staring that he hadn’t heard any of what was said.

The man on the throne grunted. "Not the sharpest knife you’ve brought me. Looks like some stone elf dulled his blood." His voice was deep and booming, and Owyn looked up, prepared to defend himself when the grip on his neck tightened to the point of pain. That got the bald giant chuckling. "So... he is not completely bereft of fire. What is your name, boy?"

Owyn remained silent, chewing his nail nervously.

"I think his name’s Owyn. He’s the only orphan I could find with a hint of giantsblood," the chaperone said.

"There will be more," the giant on the throne responded, holding Owyn’s stare. "I am Orda. You will address me as ’Chief.’ Do you understand?" He waited for Owyn to nod before continuing. "We are the Titan Hunters. Prove yourself able, and you’ll be one of the clan. If not, you will serve." The Chief snapped his fingers, and a woman appeared from behind the throne. A slave, Owyn realized. A demonkin woman with lavender hair and eyes like emeralds... she took the tankard onto a tray and looked at Owyn, and he remembered her name was...

"Arc..."

"Owyn..." she said, "Wake up."

"But I am awake."

Suddenly, her face scrunched up angrily and she took the tankard and threw it into his forehead, shouting, "WAKE UP!"

*

As something hard knocked Owyn upside the forehead, he lurched to a seat, shouting, "I’m up! I’m up!" He looked at the source of his pain, hands propping himself up on a too-soft bed as Arc paused with a two-measure quarterstaff mid-swing.

"Stars, I’ve been trying to wake you up for ten minutes. You’re late."

"Late for what?" Owyn groaned.

"For your training."

He groaned again and tried to roll over, receiving another whack from the quarterstaff. "Ow! Okay! Just stop hitting me!" Owyn forced himself up, and as the sheets slipped, suddenly Arc let out a squeak and turned away.

"Why are you naked?!"

"I always sleep naked," Owyn replied, blushing a bit as he saw the adorably embarrassed look on Arc’s face. For modesty he pulled the blanket up to cover his waist and tried to change the subject as he looked out the window. "What kind of training needs me to wake up before dawn?" The first thought that came to mind was hunting, but with a city the size of Norneau, he figured they’d have hunted everywhere clean of wildlife...

"Dragon Knight training," Arc cleared her throat and stole a glance at him before turning to face the door. "I’ll, uh... wait outside."

Owyn had, amongst other things, received some light clothing from his hosts. He donned a simple white shirt and brown pants before slipping into his boots and stepping outside. Arc led him back to where she’d showed him the shooting range, only instead of returning there, they stepped through a door into a wide-open field, the center of which featured a sand pit and various kinds of strange furniture. He realized from the differently-sized stones that this might be a place for training strength, right at the moment when Arc tossed the quarterstaff to the ground, where it disappeared before reappearing on one of the weapon racks that surrounded the sand pit.

Jumping onto one of the larger rocks, Arc faced Owyn with none of her previous trepidation. Hands on her hips like she owned the place. "First things first!" she half-shouted. "Warm-ups!"

To his utter confusion, she demonstrated and then led him through a series of movements that baffled him as to their purpose. When she had him hopping and flapping his arms in the air, he finally found enough of a rhythm to ask her why they were doing this.

"Dragon Knights need to be flexible in order to handle the sudden turns needed for aerial combat. Also it helps prevent injury," Arc replied between hops.

"But I’m not trying to be a Dragon Knight," Owyn puffed. "How do you even know how they train?"

"My Mother and Dad helped design their curriculum. Father helped too," she puffed back with a hint of annoyance before suddenly stopping. "Alright. Running time. Ten laps around the track, no enhancing. Should be about ten-Ks, then we’ll finish out with a hundred pushups and situps."

"What do you mean by en-"

"No using mana," Arc cut him off. "You need to train your real body without it or you might grow dependent. And trust me, you don’t want to know what happens to people who over-train while enhancing."

"I don’t even know what you mean by ’enhancing!’"

"Reinforcing your body with magic."

"You mean internal spells?"

"What do you mean by ’internal spells’?"

"You know. Magic. Like, ’Let me be swift as the wind!’" Owyn felt his inner magic glow through his body as he held onto the visualization of himself moving as fast as a forest strider.

Arc, far from being impressed by his display, smacked her own face. "Stars... you don’t need to say spells to cast magic! Enhancing just means you can push yourself towards conceptual levels of ability in proportion to your actual body. Or at least that’s how it works for normal people."

"What do you mean normal people?" Owyn crossed his arms.

"People who haven’t reified. Or who aren’t evolved enough."

"Reif-what?" Was she making up words? "You’re not making any sense to me."

"Ugh! It’s basic knowledge! You go from mageling to mage to archmage. And to get to archmage, you reify. That means bringing your body, mind, and soul towards unity."

"You’re still not making any sense." Owyn huffed. "Aren’t they already together? How can you unify them?"

"I don’t know! The method’s a secret you have to qualify for. Just-" Arc’s frustration was actually kindof adorable. "Just start running! And stop enhancing. I can feel it."

With a little reluctance, Owyn let go of his spell and joined Arc on the track. He started off pretty well, even lapping her once, but towards the fifth lap he started lagging. And by the eighth she had lapped him. He scraped across the tenth lap to find her standing at a plinth by the door, filling a cup with water that appeared from a glowing light in the air. She handed it to Owyn, who gulped it greedily before handing the cup back for more. "You’re... quite swift..." he complimented. "How’d you get so fast with such small legs?"

Arc’s face twitched with annoyance. "I’m not small. You’re just large." She started filling the cup again. "And to answer you’re question, I’ve been doing this almost every day since I turned thirteen."

"Why would you do that to yourself?" Owyn asked before he could stop himself.

"Because I am going to be a Dragon Knight." Arc almost splashed him as she shoved the water into his hand. "So try to keep up."

Owyn frowned a little, realizing he’d hit a nerve. He didn’t want to antagonize her, but there didn’t seem to be a point to all the running and exercise other than to do it. If someone was riding a dragon - the sort of being even Titan Hunters steered clear of - wouldn’t the dragon be doing all the work? He tried to backpedal a little, without completely changing the subject.

"Since you were thirteen, you said. How old are you now?"

"I’m seventeen," Arc said, still miffed. "You have to be at least that if they’re sticking you in the Academy with me."

Owyn shrugged. Then he realized that they were going to be in the same environment together. "Wait. Does that mean you’re going to-"

"Be watching you at the Academy? Yeah. That’s the deal I made with the Chancellor."

Owyn felt a little disappointed to hear that. But knowing she was the same age also gave him a twinge of emotion he hadn’t really felt before. "So-"

"Don’t expect me to be able to look after you all the time, though. I’ll still have my own classes and stuff, so you better get good at defending yourself in case something goes down."

"Goes... what?" Owyn felt he almost understood what she meant, but he couldn’t be sure.

"Ugh... Students get in fights all the time. There’s nothing official to it, but magic duels are common. Overall, most people are pretty tolerant, but don’t think people won’t give you some shit for being different." The way she spoke, Owyn didn’t just think she was talking about him. "Which is why we need to finish up here. The sooner you’re done warming up, the sooner we can figure out what needs fixing."

Her tone was so intense that Owyn couldn’t help but think that she was like a force of nature.

The twinge of unknown emotion became an uneasy flutter.