Cursed Soul: Ch.4

“Ah, you're the young man that saved my Lisa? I must say, thank you! Thank you so much for saving the light of my life.”

“Must you call me that in front of everyone, dear?” Lisa asked with a soft amused smile and her husband simply chuckled as he nodded, with me staying silent as I sat on the sofa opposite of the two of them.

Mr. Matteo Adonna was dressed in a black suit with a thick black moustache with a bald head and I was surprised to see the suit being stretched over his rather muscular physique.

'I guess that's that Rune Knight training showing itself.'

“You are indeed the light of my life. I simply wish for everyone else to hear of it.” He spoke with a happy smile, to which she rolled her eyes before looking over as I took a sip from my tea, freezing as both of them looked at me with an amused smile.

“Uh, oh right! A-Ahem! Thank you for allowing me to stay at your house sir.” And what a big house it was.

I don't know if it was from his work as a Rune Knight or his work as a mayor, but the man had a yard the size of a football field on top of which sat a large & beautiful manor with twenty rooms & twelve bathrooms.

Why he needed that many, I don't know, but I didn't care to ask when he gave me my own room just like that until I had to leave for training camp.

“No need to be so formal, my dear boy. Any boy that my Lisa cares for, I'll do the same.” He spoke with a smile and I gave one back with a nod before placing the tea cup down.

“S-So, if you don't mind me asking and if it's not too personal…why did you decide take me in, Mr. Adonna?” I asked and he smiled as he sat up while clearing his throat.

“For one simple reason. My wife here could not stop talking about you after she arrived back home and while she did seem sad when she thought that you passed away, she was more ecstatic to hear that you still lived than when she was at our marriage.”

“Wait, really?” I asked with a surprised look at Lisa, who smiled & nodded as she looked at me.

“Of course. I've been looking after that 12 year old boy that I saw at the camp for the past decade. Did you honestly believe that I wouldn't developed some kind of maternal love for you? Not that I wish to take the place of your parents if you still wish to see if they're still alive.” She quickly added and I smiled softly as I felt tears stinging at the corners of my eyes before quickly wiping them away.

“You don't have to worry about that. My parents were taken out by those cultists before they took me away from the village I used to live in.”

“And where is this, if you don't mind me asking?” Mr. Adonna asked and I frowned as I tried to remember the memory.

“Uh, Rosemary Village or Rose Village, I believe.” The first one felt as if it fitted more, but both felt familiar as if I should know where they are.

“Rosemary Village. It was a village that was attacked ten years ago and sixteen years ago by Zeref Cultists in order to kidnap children with latent potential to be mages for some experiment. However, I guess you were a late bloomer which is why you weren't kept over at the Tower of Heaven when it blew up.” He spoke, to which Lisa hummed while my eyes widened slightly before I quickly went back to my confused frown as I remembered why the name sounded familiar.

It's the same damn village that Erza, Kagura & Simon were from and it's also the same place where Irene had dropped Erza off to make sure she doesn't kill her daughter off.

'Does that mean I knew them? No, their incident was probably the one that happened sixteen years ago since there wasn't a mention of a similar incident happening before theirs so I was probably taken during the one ten years ago.' I thought before snapping back as the couple turned to me.

“Anyway, if that's true, then you don't have a home, correct?”

“None at all.”

“Then, you can stay in your home as long as you want or until you decide to get your own place. In exchange, I want you to ask you a favour?” Mr. Adonna asked and I was a bit confused at his words before nodding.

“Of course. What is it?”

“Let me train you. I want to make sure that you can get back on your own feet and so I want to give you the power to survive the camp.”

“…Is that even a question? Of course, I would like the training!” I spoke with a happy smile and the man laughed at my response while Lisa giggled as she stood up & picked up our empty cups.

“I'll leave you boys to do your own thing while I ask Evelyn to get dinner ready.”

“Evelyn? You have a maid?” I asked with a confused blink of my eyes as I looked at Mr. Adonna, who chuckled & nodded as he stood up while dusting off his pants before gesturing for me to follow.

“Come on. In order to train you, I need to see how good you are.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you just have training gear lying around?” I asked the man as the two of us stood in his vast backyard, both of us dressed in black tank tops with white shorts & white boots and his response was to simply smirk while pushing a large crystal orb out in front of me.

I immediately recognized the orb as it was surrounded by two golden halos and a four-pronged holder below it that kept both itself & the orb hovering in the air.

“Of course. A captain of the Rune Knights is always prepared.”

“Cool. So, what is that thing exactly?” I asked as I knew that the object used spells to record the strength of someone in the form of numbers, but that was also all I could remember.

“This is a little device called the Magic Power Finder, MPF for short, and it is the new modern way of testing out how powerful a Rune Knight is. It works when a person attacks the orb with a spell and what it does is that it analyses & scans the ethernano contained in a spell before giving it a numerical value from 1 to 9999 to show how strong it is.”

“…Okay, so what do I do?” I asked and the man smiled before nodding at the MPF with his head.

“Hit it as hard as you can with a spell.”

“Okay, cool. Just one problem, though. I've only used a staff in battle so I don't exactly have any…spells.” I answered and he simply hummed before nodding.

“That's okay then. Just hit it as hard as you can and the orb will pull ethernano from your body to measure it.” He answered and I nodded as I walked towards the orb, a bit hesitant to punch something as hard as I can before shaking my head as I held my arms up in a basic stance.

Taking a few deep breaths to ready myself, I pulled my right fist back & punch forward as hard as I could, feeling the orb ring as I impacted before hissing as I pulled my hand back & waved it a few times.

“Nice.” I heard Mr. Adonna answering through the pain before my eyes widened as he touched my hand & I felt the pain vanish, looking down at our hands to see them both covered in a light green glow while a light green magic crest floated below our hands.

“Healing magic.”

“Yep, the reason why I became a captain. Also, look at what your score is.” He answered while pulling his hand back and I looked at the MPF before being surprised at the '107' that shone back at me in a dark gold.

“How good is that?” I asked and the man smirked as he walked over with a fist coated in a dark green glow, pulling it back before swinging it into the orb with a wide hook.

I clamped my hands over my ears as a loud gong echoed across the backyard before my eyes widened at the '1200' that shone above the orb, turning to me with a smirk as he shrugged.

“That's how strong I am and remember how strong you are. We have a month before your training starts so before you leave, I'm going to get you to a point where you have triple your current score or more. Do you understand what that means?”

“Intense training and intense studying, doesn't it?” I muttered with a sigh, the sight of the man's smirk growing making me groan for a moment before I shook my head & nodded.

“Okay! Okay, what's up first?” I asked and he grinned while pointing at the far right end of the large wall around his backyard.

“Fifty jogs from end to end with five push-ups & squats each time you get to an end.”

“Fifty? As in I have to go to a wall & back for it to count?” I asked before shaking my head as the man chuckled & nodded as he crossed his arms.

“Don't worry. My Healing magic will restore your stamina & heal any muscle fatigue you have so if it gets to the point that you can't even move, I'll just heal you & we'll keep going. Dinner is in six hours so if you're able to do three of them, meaning 150 end-to-ends, I'll let you sleep in tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”

“Hah, fine. Let's start with this body transformation.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A mage is not just a person that has ethernano inside their body, but a person that has ethernano inside their body and have the ability to manipulate it to produce phenomena by shifting that energy into the phenomena itself.” Mr. Matteo began explaining as we sat in his study, with him pacing in front of me behind his desk while I was busy both listening to him & making my own notes from the books he gave me to read on magic.

“Ethernano exists in every living organism, the atmosphere around us and even the planet itself. The way our bodies work is that we have a metaphysical container inside our heart that stores this ethernano & allows us to use spells and when this container runs empty, we simply absorb the ambient ethernano around us in order to replenish our containers.

Ethernano can also be measured with a term called Edea, which is the unit of measurement used to measure how much ethernano a person have. For example the attacks we used also used ethernano and that is why your spell had 107 Edea units while my spell had 1200 Edea units. Are you keeping up so far?”

“Yep. Ethernano is the ambient magical power in the atmosphere that turns us into mages, with each of us possessing a metaphysical container inside the heart where it is stored and Ethernano is measured in a form of measurement called Edea units.” I repeated his words while writing down how one goes about determining their magic, missing his amused smile before I heard him continue speaking.

“Excellent. Now, Magic is the application & refinement of the Ethernano inside of a mage's body to perform a specific function or spell, which is also how one can create their own unique Magic. To make an example, I created my own Healing Magic by studying how ethernano can be used to accelerate the healing process of damaged cells.”

“Sorry for interrupting, but doesn't that mean that you could regrow a missing limb or something like that?” I asked before frowning as the man burst out laughing while shaking his head.

“Ahahaha! No, not at all! See, if someone still had the missing limb, I could simply regrow the cells missing in between the two & restore that person to perfect health. However, regrowing an entire limb means that I would have to regrow every cell inside that limb and even with all of the knowledge of the human body, the sheer ethernano requirement to do so is astronomical. To be honest, I don't see any healer capable of doing so other than the Four Gods of Ishgar and even for them, I'd believe that it would be a tough struggle.”

“I see.”

'Well, there goes my dream of learning his Magic & becoming an immortal like Ban.' I thought with a frown before shaking my head & going back to writing, hearing Mr. Matteo clear his throat before he continued pacing.

“Now, back to the usual program, the different types of Magic out there is going to take us a while to go through so we're going to stick with Holder & Caster magic. Now, the key difference between the two is…”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Combat training?” I asked with a frown and the man smiled & nodded as he held his hands behind his back while looking at me.

“Yes, hand-to-hand combat is a very essential skill for every Rune Knight to learn as you'll be dealing with subduing & arresting those that try to run. I understand that you spent some time on your own in the forest around our city?” He asked and I nodded as I raised my hands up into a basic guard, not missing his amused smile as I tried to adjust myself in the best way.

“Yeah, but I had the staff to fight with.”

“Well, now you're going to have to learn to fight without it. Whenever you're ready.” He answered and I nodded as I bounced on the balls of my feet, swaying from side to side before hopping forward & feinting a jab.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have seen right through it as he stayed still while raising an eyebrow at me, to which I frowned before committing to the attack & lashing forward with a harsh jab from my left fist.

What I didn't expect was for him to catch the punch & push it to the right while also dropping to the floor with a spinning kick, making my eyes widen as I was sent falling to the floor with a cough & a loud thud.

“Oh, we have a lot to do, don't we?” He muttered and I rolled my eyes as I grunted & pushed myself back up.

“Try again.” He proposed and I did the same, watching as he grabbed my hand before surprising him as I spun with his toss & tried to do a spinning heel kick.

Unfortunately, I forgot who I was dealing with and found myself lying on my back with a fist held up to my face, Mr. Matteo leaning over me with an amused smirk as he stood up while holding a hand out.

“Nice surprise at the end, but you hesitated in committing to the kick, which gave me the opening I needed to take you out with ease. If you had committed, I might have had to try to take you out.” He advised with a smile and I nodded with a groan as I took his hand, letting him pick me up before shaking my head as I walked back a few paces before going back into my stance.

“Again.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Welcome to your first day in Hell, bitches! I am Lieutenant Draco, but from today on, I am your god!” The large burly man dressed in the white & blue uniform of the Rune Knights barked out with a grin as he stood at the front of the group, with me standing in the middle of my row while five rows were spread out on both sides of me.

“For now, there are 121 of you in your platoon, but by the end of the three months, we'll have 20 or less of you that are actually here to service our country! Do you hear me, bitches?!”

“Sir Yes Sir!” We all barked out, the man grinning & nodding before pointing at the far right of our camp where I noted a large flagpole with the Ishgar Magic Council flag swaying in the light breeze.

“That is the flag of our great country! The last one there will be forced to do a full physical regime along with your row! Am I clear?!”

“Sir Yes Sir!”

“Good! Now what the fuck are you waiting for, bitches?! Move! Move! MOVE!” The man roared and I took off towards the pole, surprised to find nearly half of the people racing in front of me towards the pole before I grinned as I picked up speed & passed all but a few of them.

'Looks like this place is going to be harder than I thought.' I thought with a smirk as I slid to a stop next to the flag, not having to worry about my row as most of them had already finished before me.

“Good work to most of you that passed! From now on, that row of people you started with is your platoon for the rest of your time here. These people will be your friends, your brothers and your fucking lovers! You will bathe, eat, sleep, shit and even masturbate with these people from now on until you all pass my fucking test! Is that understood?!”

“Sir Yes Sir!” We all saluted and the man nodded before gesturing towards the eleven barracks spread out in our camps with a wide grin.

“Good! Now go to your barracks and meet your new brothers & sisters in battle!”

A/N: And the new life is on its way as Eric joins the Army!!

Next chapter, the first month of boot camp to become a Rune Knight!

Also, other than his Hell Dragon Slayer magic, Eric is also going to have another form of magic, i.e. his own personal Magic that he's going to develop over time.

Another also, for those wondering, here is the ranking system for the Rune Knights:

Private -> Corporal -> Sergeant -> Sergeant Major -> Captain -> Lieutenant -> Colonel(5) -> General(5) -> Chief General(1) -> Rune Knight Army Commander(1)

The number in brackets is how many there can be at a time and this is based on their strength, their mission success rate and their social standing. You guys don't have to worry about it as I won't be focusing so much on it, especially since he's going to leave the Rune Knights to join a guild...or not if you guys want.

Anyway, as always, read, enjoy, review and until the next one…

Ba-Bye~!!