Chapter 168

168 Chapter One Hundred Sixty Eight

Sweat, hard work, pushing limits and so many other things took place during the training Katie was going through. She still hadn’t gotten closer than one meter to the Mighty Warrior. His arrows were calculated to corner her and make all her running seem predictable. With all the energy she could muster, she hadn’t been able to get closer to the man.

“Is it just me or did you get significantly slower?” the man’s voice sang from the clearing. Katie was panting wildly while she tried to come up with a strategy. If she couldn’t get this part of her training done, she would never be able to move on to the next thing. Frank had so much he could teach her and yet here she was trying to learn how to outrun Jeremiah’s arrows. Something she viewed as a waste of time.

“Oh well, if you don’t stop hiding, I will be forced to use specialised arrows to smoke you out. You know I don’t joke about things like that, so I would advise you to come out and give this another try,” Frank wasn’t joking and Katie knew it... “I’m counting to three. One, two... Oh, there you are...”

The girl was out and aiming for the win. She ran straight at him, robbing him of the ability to predict where she might have flanked when he shot his arrow. Nonetheless, the confident Mighty Warrior let his arrows fly. Four of them, fired in quick succession that it seemed they’d been fired at the same time and straight for the girl. Katie flanked to the right only to switch directions at the last moment and go left. Everything happened so fast that Frank had to stay at his best to keep up with the girl’s speed.

It wasn’t as fast as the Thunderclap’s, but it was definitely a challenge to deal with. Straining his arms, he changed his target to follow the girl’s steps. The girl tapped into something deeper, having driven herself into a corner. Frank fired his arrows and had them strike the ground where the girl had just been. However, his eyes were sharp. He could still see the girl no matter how fast she had gotten.

A smile graced his face as he swiveled on his heel and aimed his bow at the path the girl was bound to take. He hadn’t told her his observations thus far, but she was faster than she’d been the day before. After tapping into her power that much and fainted, she must have made it easier for her to get to higher speeds without noticing how strenuous it was to do so.

Frank was impressed... ‘It’s only the second day,’ he mused while he let more arrows fly, cutting off all of Katie’s routes. She barely dodged some as they were well calculated to hit her by the time she got somewhere. At some point, the man was sure that she could sense where he intended to shoot, or maybe she could merely sense the arrows and avoid danger at the last moment.

However, something was wrong and he could see it. Despite the increase in speed, the girl was making less progress than she had the previous day. He’d seen her ingenuity the day before. Futile as it had been, she was focused on her task and more determined to get to him. Today, she even took rests and asked for breaks, as though she knew she wasn’t going to achieve her goal that evening, “Alright, take a break.”

“You’ve been denying my requests for a break for a while now and now when I’m just about to get to you, you...”

.....

“Take a break, Katie. I won’t repeat myself,” he replied, firing a volley of arrows twice as fast as what they’d agreed for the training. The increase in arrows backed the girl back until she was backed up against a tree. The arrows that continued to follow hit spots uncomfortably close to her body. Frank stopped his barrage of arrows and stared her straight in the eye. He had only used up two of his quivers and wouldn’t be bothered to retrieve arrows from the last one. It was only a matter of Katie defying his orders.

Finally conceding to the man’s demands, the royal dropped to the ground, exhaustion filling her muscles as the adrenaline left her. Her breathing was laboured and her mood terrible. She’d been trying so hard. Her hand kept making a fist and unclenching in frustration, “What am I doing wrong?”

“Well, you are not focused,” Frank confirmed.

Katie looked up at him in disbelief. The look in his eye wiped the defiance from her attitude. He took a seat beside her leaning against the arrow-riddled tree, “So what’s on your mind?” he asked.

Katie sighed, “The junior hunter at the school was giving me a hard time. I’m trying to work through the anger.”

“Can’t you just breathe that away?” the Mighty Warrior asked.

“That doesn’t always work. Sometimes I can, others... It’s not that simple,” Katie replied with a defeated sigh. Ever since she’d awakened her wolf side, she wasn’t able to reign in her emotions. In fact, it had proved to be one of the hardest things she could do. She felt emotions strongly and didn’t know how to handle all of them considering she’d never even had the time to interpret them.

“Oh, so you mean the wolf inside you makes it hard to interpret your own emotions or does she deny you the peace of mind when you try to achieve it?” this was unknown territory for anyone in the world. A hunter that was a werewolf had never been seen and hence dealing with one had never happened either.

“No, that’s not it. It would be so easy to get over it, but I can’t seem to do so. With everything that’s going on, he’s an extra nuisance that I seem to have the desire of taking out my frustrations on,” she explained.

“With everything that’s going on? What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Katie realised he was never in Brigadia and needed a rundown on most of what she was trying to explain. If it could help her get better and improve, she was willing to give it a try, “Well, to put it in simple terms, I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with Kyle so soon, and in a way that’s as weird as what’s happening now. Not to mention Jeremiah whom I’m now sure is always watching my every move.”

“There are a lot of holes in that explanation. Explain to me who this ‘Kyle’ is and exactly how you figure Jeremiah is watching your every move,” Frank asked, trying to sound polite. The girl went through the short version of the story to explain who Kyle was. The Mighty Warrior couldn’t help but grimace at some of the parts of the story. When she was done with that she moved on to Jeremiah’s case.

“I can tell Jeremiah is always watching me... That is basically just a feeling that I am sure of. After all, the moment Lina was tired, the rogues seemed to get her at the right moment. Catching a wolf that fast is bound to be impossible and yet they were able to do it. I know that’s not enough proof, but I know what my adoptive parents taught me. I follow my gut on that...” she replied.

“Do you mean to tell me that he could be watching you at this very moment?” the man asked her.

“Yes, although I don’t think you will be able to find him. A job like this can only be given to someone who knows what they are doing. Maybe Jim Gordon could have been able to find him. His speed is incredible,” she commented.

“I’ll take your word for it and say that he won’t attack as long as he knows he can’t succeed or that he might lose his life even if he does manage to kill you,” the Mighty Warrior took a stab at summarising the situation.

“Well, basically, yes... Although I don’t think he can pin me down,” she replied, leaning against the tree with him, finally breathing normally. The two of them stared to the far side of the clearing where Katie took Lina through unorthodox drills of self-defence. It was amazing to find out that not only was the princess fast, she was extremely flexible as well. It wasn’t long before they were building up her agility.

Frank was quiet for a bit before he finally spoke up, “I think I get the gist of it now. Although there are a lot of missing bits of the story that you are keeping from me. I will tell you something though. The boy at the school... It wouldn’t hurt to humour him. He’s in charge of all the hunters-”

“Junior hunters...” Katie interjected...

“You do realise that includes your friend, Sandra,” he replied.

“I am her mentor. She doesn’t have to do anything that I haven’t told her to do,” Katie tried.

“That only counts if she has an assignment that you’ve given her. While she’s free, she is obligated to follow the boy’s orders. I do not want to get in between anything that’s happening here, but if I would, life would be much easier if you let the boy think he was controlling you. That way, you get to keep Sandra and everyone goes home happy,” Frank replied.

“What about his unending insults and quips? They are frustrating,” she groaned. Somehow this conversation was easing the anger she had developed towards the head hunter at the school.

“You’ll be surprised how people change when everything starts to go their way. It’s only to keep the peace. I don’t want to have you come here and lose focus during training...” Frank replied with a smile on his face, “Now, are you ready to give this another go?”

“Yeah, let’s try this one more time...”

'

As expected, the girl was focused this time and much tighter with her turns, giving the Mighty warrior a rough time. If it wasn’t for the four arrows limit that he had set, she wouldn’t have gotten to him, but he had set it and she did break through his seemingly tight defence and place her hand on his back. It had happened faster than he could follow. A smile graced his face, “Would you look at that? You caught me.”