Chapter 134—More Difficulties

AG. Second chapter of the day. It's not really a bonus chapter as I intended all of this to be in the previous chapter but my audio software (last step of my editing process) was stuffing up so I had to split it.

He was up to fifty successful coins out of his target of three thousand. All four of his supervisors were praising his efforts, but he felt clumsy and the fact that only one out of every five that he started met their standards did not feel good.

“You with us Tom?” Kang asked.

He jerked back to the present and first checked that his moment of inattention hadn’t caused any of the mana in his legs to deteriorate. It still looked intact.

“Where else would I be?” he said dumbly back.

Kang chuckled at the weak attempt at humour. Tom suspected that he was just pandering to him, but he appreciated the effort. The girls just appeared confused. He had never had children, but he was old enough that Dad jokes came easy, but they were apparently a step beyond seven-year-olds. Before they engaged him in further distracting conversation, he waved them on to keep walking while he concentrated on the muscles of his legs. All of his dismal twelve points of mana were focused there, and as he walked, the very weak overlay of magic that mimicked his muscular structure reacted to each step. It was beautiful to watch it flex in tandem with his muscles.

Tom was confident that the setup was granting a couple of percentage points of bonus to his leg strength, but he hadn’t heard any dings announcing success, so he assumed his attempts fell well below the level of proficiency necessary to earn the technique. It was probably at a similar state of expertise to his spells a few days before he achieved a perfect cast. Useable but a long way from being good enough to be recognised. He would have liked to be able to confirm his suspicions, but none of the tools he had access to were sufficiently sensitive to allow him to measure leg strength precisely.

Even if he got a terrible result out of crystalizing the technique Tom didn’t mind. It would hopefully count toward a title, and this was practice for when he used affinity tinged mana to boost speed and toughness the two aspects that he wanted to get a useable result for. Strength was not a long-term aim of his.

Kang elbowed him. They hadn’t gone ahead like he had hoped. He startled and then winced as his concentration faltered and the energy aligned with his hamstring fractured. He stopped dead and struggled to control his outward reaction as a third of the muscle was shredded.

“Hey, did you hear that?” Kang asked before seeing his expression and his annoyed look switched to one of puzzlement.

Tom waved him away. “Just a cramp.” He lied. “You guys go ahead.” Touch Heal went to work to fix the problem as the others left him. It was not a great fix, and he had to wait for a few litres of blood to pump through the area before he could walk again. His solution was a bandaid that relied on blood cells being converted into something approximating muscle mass. While it was enough to give him some functionality back, anything strenuous would cause it to burst immediately.

For any watchers, he made a show of massaging the affected leg. As he did so, he focused on the undamaged quads because he didn’t want the pressure from his fingers breaking the hasty fix he had put in place.

Satisfied, he walked slowly forward.

Because he was behind the others, he saw the unfolding drama. 

Kang and Briana had been held up by a pair of ten-year-olds, Eloise completely oblivious to the problem had already collected a plate with bread and was moving to the counter containing the main meals.

Joseph was right behind her with a wooden vial in his hands and an overly too satisfied smirk.

He instantly used his title to connect to all three of them and a moment later, they stood in his system room.

“What is it?” Kang demanded immediately.

“You’re being ambushed.”

“What, who?” the other reincarnator responded instantly. Concern etched on his face.

“It’s Joseph, and he’s about to get Eloise. You guys were screened from her to buy him time.”

“I knew Toby was acting off,” Briana hissed in annoyance.

“What specifically is he planning?” Kang asked, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

“He’s about to throw something at her.”

Kang turned and addressed Eloise. “Don’t hesitate. Sidestep straight away and then turn to face him and try to dodge what he throws.”

She nodded, and that was all they had time for before the session fell apart.

There were no further requests for a new one, as they all knew to keep their charges in reserve for when they were needed.

Time restarted, and he forced himself to stand still because he knew if he got too close to the action, he would be tempted to interfere and with his leg that was not something he could do.

As discussed, Eloise danced to the side and spun to face Joseph. If anyone was watching closely, it would look like she had some sort of danger sense and given the profile of her not-parents that was not beyond the realm of possibility.

Despite the warning he had given, she was too slow.

She was expecting something to target her body and so she lowered herself into a crouched position with her hands ready to react to anything thrown at her but the wooden vial was directed with force at her feet and the side step was nullified as Joseph managed to compensate for the movement at the last moment.

The wood cracked, then shattered, as it was designed to do when it hit the hard stone. There was no noxious gas released like Tom feared, but instead it was like a monster burst from the point of impact. A fast-moving creature that expanded effectively instantly to be the size of a wombat and completely encased her feet.

Eloise went to dodge away and found she couldn’t. Joseph, with a triumphant grin had taken the opportunity to step a couple of paces backwards. His hands dug into his bag, and he withdrew three more wooden vials and a mixing bowl.

Tom had a sinking feeling about what was going to happen.

Time froze, and he got another offer for a conference.

All four of them appeared in Kang’s photo filled system room. “You’re not getting out of that trap.” Kang declared immediately.

“Correct.” Tom confirmed. “It’s quick gel cement. Fast acting, strong but harmless. Lemon juice will disable it.”

The other reincarnator glared at him, and Tom knew it was because he had mentioned a solution.

“I’ll get some to free her,” Briana offered instantly fully justifying Kang’s reaction, not that Tom cared. The other boy was reading the situation wrong.

“No, you won’t.” Kang snapped.

“A glass of orange juice will be almost as effective.” Tom volunteered. “Steph has a glass on her tray. She’s right in front of you near Eloise.”

“Did you have to?” Kang complained.

“Yes,” he answered. The other boy might not have noticed, but Briana’s forehead had crinkled in the same way it always did whenever she lost anything competitive. When that happened, she never gave up. She would just keep challenging the person who had defeated her until she won. There was no universe where she would have let this go, so he had done the only sensible thing and pivoted toward harm reduction. They needed to make things as easy as possible to prevent her from revealing too many secrets.

“Don’t reveal anything you shouldn’t.” Kang warned Briana. “We don’t know who’s watching.”

She nodded, but both of them knew it wasn’t a promise. It was a pretend to be good to shut them up type of agreement.

“What’s Joseph mixing?” Eloise asked. “Is it going to hurt me?”

They all looked at Tom.

“Stink die,” Kang surprising everyone answered. The look he gave Tom declared that they were in damage limitation mode. “I’m carrying a ball. I’ll throw it to disrupt him. It might stop him completely, but even if it doesn’t, hopefully, it’ll buy a couple of seconds. That should let Briana intercede using only double speed.”

Briana bobbed her head her blond piggy tails flopping dramatically. That sort of boost was a risk, but if she limited it to just that, others would hopefully assume that it was just a skill with one or two charges a day rather than the much more versatile title based boosts that they had access to.

The minute finished, time returned to normal, and everything erupted into chaos. Kang dodged to the side to get space and threw a suspiciously accurate throw right at Joseph’s busy hands. Briana ducked between the two blockers, moving far faster than Tom thought was humanly possible for someone her age. Thankfully, she wasn’t going all out and hadn’t used the four times boost.

The ball was more of a hacky sack than a baseball, so it was soft, squishy, but with some weight to it and Kang had launched it like a baseball pitcher. It smashed into the bowl Joseph was holding and sent it flying. However, the air tightened around it and Tom watched in horror as the older boy utilised some type of mage hand to guide it back to him so he could pour the final ingredient in.

Nearly half the mixture had spilled, but the boy didn’t care as he dumped everything from the last flask into the bowl.

It smoked, and with an evil grin he splashed it at the still trapped Eloise.

She tried to get out of the way and the air rippled, the same skill she used to step on air, activated and blocked about half the stream of liquid from reaching her.

It didn’t save her. Her entire right side was drenched by the potion Joseph had created.

Then suddenly Briana was there.

She didn’t go for subtle. She slammed into the offending bowl with her full body weight behind the collision. The remaining dregs of liquid in the bowl were knocked into Joseph’s face.

The older boy sputtered in shock.

His face went red. An ugly look crossed it, and he raised his hand to hit her.

“I think that’s quite enough,” Dimitri declared somehow standing right behind Joseph with a hand placed firmly on the boy’s shoulder and the other capturing the raised wrist, together completely restraining him. “It was a well thought out ambush and an excellent counterattack.”

He nodded at the two girls.

Eloise was free as apparently Bri had thrown the orange juice before crashing into the mixing bowl. That delayed freedom however hadn’t helped her to avoid the consequences of the liquid hitting her. Half of her face and a large chunk of her right arm were dyed a bright pink and purple colour. The solution apparently acted on multiple fronts because everyone was moving away from Eloise and Joseph, their noses wrinkling and a look of disgust on their faces. Even Briana was pinching her nose.  

Those furthest away, the ones facing Joseph but far enough away not to be caught in the apparent stink cloud were chuckling, nudging each other and pointing at the boy.

Joseph rounded in Tom’s direction and a wave of laughter spread across the room as he did so. Finally, he had turned sufficiently for Tom to see why. There was a column going from his chin, up his face, to finish on his forehead. It was mostly purple and looked a lot like a circumcised penis. Almost exactly like some of the doodles he saw around the orphanage.

Despite her hand covering most of her face, Tom could see that Briana was wearing a very satisfied expression and he couldn’t help but think she had been responsible for the unfortunate way the liquid had landed. She had clearly borrowed the image from elsewhere, knowing it was a point of ridicule, but probably not how.

“Now,” Dimitri continued quietly, a smile playing on his lips. “You both stink, so go get clean. This will need more than just passes through the loop. You’ll have to scrub with water and soap. And Joseph there’s a one-month truce enforced between them. Also, no one is to interfere with the marks the concoction left. I want you both wearing it to mark your shame at being tagged. What would have happened if this was acid? So no painting extra or using removal lotions and don’t worry the clean loops or soap and water won’t do anything.”

The entire room laughed harder. Joseph probably thought it was directed at both of them. He was wrong.

Once he saw a mirror that would change. Then he would know the truth. Tom personally wouldn’t have cared if it had happened to him, but he could only imagine how a ten-year-old would react to having a dick painted on their face. The reaction was not going to be pretty. The only problem was that it would intensify the feud.

No, Tom decided, a wider feud was not really an issue. It would train their observation skills, which was probably why the orphanage supported and allowed such pranks to be played.

AG. A few things. I plan on working through chrismas but it is summer holidays here for the next five weeks so there will be more draws on my time. I hope to do around 10k words per week versus the 15k I used to do.

Second. I've been worried about the next twenty chapters as I had a lot happened but insufficient plot points linking them together... i.e. lots of progression in a vaccume kind of stuff. I talked it over with my wife and have found a few points to focus on a little heavier to help pull everything together.

I'm now excited about the next couple of months of writing.

Finally, if I don't publish another chapter before chrismas for those who celebrate it merry chrismas.