Chapter 106: ~Chapter 37~ Part 1

"Ooow! Fuck!" Josh let out what could be generously called a rather 'undignified' yelp as he rolled on the ground while cradling his left shin, his horn repeatedly clanking against the concrete floor with an oddly metallic noise.

"Oh please! I didn't even hit you that hard this time!" I grumbled as I set my training spear against the ground and offered him a hand. "Come on, next round."

"I don't want to train anymore!" my friend whined as I dragged him to his feet with one mighty tug. "No, this isn't even training anymore! It's just an excuse for you to beat me up! What have I ever done to you to deserve this?"

"Don't be a baby," I scoffed while dusting his shoulder. "I told you, it's for your own good."

"And now you are sounding like an abusive father! How do I get out of here!?" Josh exclaimed in (what I hoped was) mock despair before he abruptly froze in his tracks and turned to our left.

"I think time's up," he called out to my assistant. At the moment she was sitting on a makeshift bench in the company of Angie, and she was documenting their own little experiments using the class rep's golem as a glorified training dummy. She quickly entered something into her phone with the grace of the virtuoso touch-screen typist she was, probably related to the giant freaking icicle sticking out of Petra's chest, before she gestured for Josh to repeat himself

"I said, I think time's up!" he reiterated, and less than a second later his body began to visibly deflate. His solid muscles slowly shrank back into more human proportions while simultaneously his curly horn swiftly retreated into his head, or at the very least that's what it looked like. If someone put a gun to my head and demanded to come up with an analogy for the sight, I would have probably said it gave me the same impression as watching one of those sped-up footages of plants growing, except in reverse. Then I would've grabbed the gun and kicked their butt, but that might be just the adrenaline-high talking.

Anyways, after Josh stopped being horny, Judy walked over to us and stated, "Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds on the fifth transformation."

"So that means each transformation lasts about ten percent longer as the one before, right?"

"Precisely," Judy confirmed with a nod.

"If so, the next one should be around… let me see… Sixteen minutes, I think?" I ventured a guess after flexing my genius mind with some highly complex arithmetic.

"Roughly, yes," she agreed, but then just as I was about to call Snowy over, she quickly added, "You should take a short break."

"Why? I'm not tired."

"Maybe, but Joshua looks exhausted after all the bullying you put him through."

"Hey! Don't you get started too! I'm not bullying him, this is training!"

My assistant looked entirely unconvinced by my protests.

"Ammy also needs to resummon Petra after our last test, so it should be a good opportunity for everyone to rest for a bit before we continue."

To be fair, I wasn't entirely against the idea, but on the other hand, I was kinda riding on an adrenaline-high at the moment, and I wanted to capitalize on it to test my limits… though again, Josh wasn't exactly the best opponent for that.

Okay, let's be fair and objective for a moment. In his Abyssal form, Josh was granted a tremendous power boost, and he somehow had an instinctive understanding of magic that allowed him to pull off some neat tricks, yet he had little to no control.

Now, if this sounds familiar, I guess it's because that's pretty much the starting point for most battle-shounen protagonists. If I was forced to speculate (which I wasn't, since I had sources on the net to tell me, but I'm going to do so anyway), it's so that there's a clear sense that they possess great potential, yet at the same time they have room to grow by mastering their powers and learning how to use them more skillfully. That description actually fit Josh like a glove, as he had access to a lot of raw strength, both physical and magical, but the only combat training he had was from a few judo classes in middle school.

If I made these observations a couple of days ago, I would've brushed them off with a disinterested, 'Well, that's a given', but with my recent revelations about this world being closer to a genuine battle harem universe, they created a little bit of incongruity.

Unlike battle shounen protagonists, one of the most common characteristics of battle harem protagonists (aside from being ungodly chick-magnets) was that they were usually weak but very skilled. They also typically had unique abilities that were unassuming and weak at first glance, often getting them constantly underestimated, but those same abilities would end up game-breaking in the long run. While Josh's capability to adopt the powered-up forms of other races was certainly unique, it lacked the finesse expected from a battle harem protagonist's powerset. In short, shounen battle protagonists usually tended to be unskilled, but strong, while battle harem protagonists tended to be weak, but skilled, and for some reason, Josh didn't fit the new world-hypothesis I was developing.

But then again, maybe I was overthinking this. After all, this world was plenty complex, and I was in no position to declare it only adhered to the tropes of one genre or the other. Maybe it didn't even adhere to any. Or maybe all of them.

Anyhow, let's put my ponderings on the meta-level aside and return to the previous topic: me kicking Josh's butt. To be perfectly transparent here, I was really, really tense before our first sparring match. I had no idea how powerful he'd be, so I felt no shame when I faced him with my full attention and a weapon in my hand. That quickly changed when it turned out Josh was… how should I put this gently? Let's go with 'a total simpleton' when it came to combat.

Don't take me wrong, I'm not saying I'm some kind of heaven-sent melee genius or anything, but even without memories and only a single night's worth of intensive Dominance training with Brang, I was dancing circles around the guy. Granted, I couldn't actually cause him any lasting harm (even though he was acting like a prima donna every time I smacked him with my training spear) because of his higher specs and barrier, I never even felt in danger from his advances. On one hand, this made me seem like a bully, but on the other hand, it vindicated my decision to have him spar with me instead of Elly or one of the Fauns, as they would've completely destroyed him in seconds, and then I would've had to spend who knows how long nursing his wounded pride, not to mention possible actual injuries.

Ah, speaking of Elly and the Fauns…

"Hya!" the princess let out a high-pitched cry as she lunged towards Brang. She was in her Draconic form, and I expected that she would utilize her claws in a fight, but instead she was using an actual martial art stance and techniques. As far as I could gather from her stray comments, it was some kind of Chinese martial art designed to enhance 'external techniques', whatever that actually meant in this context, and she told me she'd been practicing for years. She said she was still at a novice level, but based on her movements, I'd say she looked just like a bona fide expert to me. In fact, I kinda wanted to see her perform those moves in a traditional Chinese dress, just to further crank the dissonance up a notch.

But back to the duel at hand: Elly dashed forward and her right arm lashed out in a straight line, her fingers curled inwards, presumably to deliver a strike with the heel of her hand. Brang held his trademark spear in both hands and waited until the last moment before he moved, pulling the shaft of his weapon into the trajectory of the incoming strike with practiced ease. The princess's palm and the spear met with a thunderous sound and an honest-to-goodness shockwave that tousled our hair even though we were standing a good ten meters away from them. That… was cool, but kind of silly at the same time.

A split second later, even before the first wave died down, Elly shifted her weight onto her other leg while simultaneously grabbing onto the spear. If the fierce grin on her face was any indication, she thought the Faun had fallen into her trap and she immediately hooked a punch with her left hand under the immobilized weapon. At least that was the plan, I presumed, but before the strike could connect, Brang twisted the spear around. Since the princess still had an iron grip on the shaft, this actually made her twist her arm with it, which subsequently pulled her off balance.

With her stance broken, her left hook missed its mark by a mile, and before she had the time to regain her footing, Brang twisted his spear in the other direction, pulling her right along. At this moment she finally had the good sense to let go of the spear, but before she could pull back, Brang closed the distance into what looked like a shoulder tackle. I think if it was anyone else, I would've been worried for their safety because of the size difference alone, but considering it was the toughest girl of the gang we were talking about, I was only very slightly pensive.

Instead of trying to tank the hit, Elly decided to evade it by moving just under the incoming tackle. Unfortunately for her, since her stance was still a mess, she overshot the dodge and had to soften her landing by a classic forward roll that should be familiar to anyone who ever played one of those games about souls. She was back on her feet in the blink of an eye, but in these kinds of close-combat scenarios, that kind of downtime was absolutely fatal.

Well, okay, maybe I was just a tad overdramatic just now. It wasn't 'actually' fatal, only a huge damn opening any self-respecting fighter would immediately rush to exploit. Brang didn't fail to capitalize on the moment either, as by the time Elly got ready to counter-attack, he swung the butt of his spear with a smooth arc and hit her on her calf, just under the back of her knee. She let out a yelp that sounded more surprised than pained, and then she rapidly lost her balance as the spear continued onwards and completely swept her leg out of under her, followed by another squeak as she landed on her butt.

My description of the events might've made it sound complicated, but the whole exchange lasted for less than five seconds flat. So yeah. While Elly might have looked like a martial arts expert in my eyes, Brang appeared as one of those grandmasters schooling the younger generation with their superior kung fu. Or in this case, spear fu. Is that even a term?

My martial arts illiteracy aside, my draconic girlfriend let out a dissatisfied grunt as she reached down and gently massaged her calf, only stopping when Brang leaned forward and reached out a hand towards her.

"Effort. Was Good," he stated with an amicable smile, and after only a second of hesitation, Elly took his hand and rose to her feet.

"Thanks, you too," she told him with an intense look that smelled like the first sparks of a fiery rivalry.

We didn't have time for that though, so I cleared my throat to get their attention and called out, in a raised voice, "All right everyone, we're going to have a short break. If you need to use the toilet, it's over there."

"Got it!" Angie replied with an urgent expression before she and the class rep both headed in the direction I indicated with my thumb.

In the meantime, Judy put away her phone for the first time in a while and declared, "I've got snacks."

"Wait, you do?" I couldn't help but ask as I glanced over, only to raise a surprised brow at what I saw. "Where did you get that lunchbox?"

"It was in my backpack," she stated while opening said box.

"Okay, let me rephrase the question: where did you get the backpack?"

"It was on me all along," Judy answered as she handed me a sandwich.

"Seriously? I'm about 95% sure that you didn't have one when we came over."

"And that five percent is where the magic happens," she told me coyly before adding, in a more deadpan voice fitting her countenance, "Or you are just bad at paying attention to the small details."

"Maybe," I answered noncommittally, but then she pushed another sandwich into my hand.

I sent her a questioning look in return, and she explained, "You should treat Joshua."

"To a sandwich?"

"Among other things," she stated, and my expression must've looked at least half as dumb as I felt, as she let out a small sight and elaborated her point. "You've been bullying him for the past half an hour, and he looks really down. You should advise him, encourage him, or at the very least act like you do so that Neige and Angie would stop pestering me about your behavior."

"I'm not bullying—" I began, but I ultimately swallowed back my futile protests when Elly wedged herself between us.

"Hey, Leo? Did you see my battle with the big guy?"

"I sure did," I answered her with a nod. "It was very impressive."

"Except the part where you lost," Judy added a completely unnecessary jab, but she immediately softened it by adding "It was still a valiant effort," when she noticed the disapproving glance I was giving her. Not that Elly minded either way.

"Well, someone has to lose during sparring, right? I also wasn't using my full power."

"Neither was he," my assistant commented, and for a second I had to wonder what she meant by that.

"I noticed you have snacks," Elly finally revealed her reason for approaching us while eyeing the sandwiches in my hand.

"Are you a little peckish, by any chance?" I asked the obvious question, resulting in a huge grin on her part.

"I little bit, yes," she confirmed. "It's important to eat when you exercise, otherwise you won't build any muscles. Let's eat together!"

"Not now," Judy pulled on the princess's shirt at the waist and gestured for her to lean closer. She was confused at first, but in the end she complied, at which point Judy whispered, loud enough for me to hear, "The Chief's going to talk with Joshua now."

"Really?" she glanced over her shoulder towards my friend sitting morosely on one of the makeshift benches, then she also joined in the conspiratorial whispering by asking, "About what?"

Judy glanced at me for some inexplicable reason, so I shrugged my shoulders. She apparently interpreted that as 'I leave it completely up to you how you deal with this situation', which might've been a mistake, but the die was cast, so I held my breath and waited for her to speak.

"The Chief and Joshua are going to have a manly talk among men," Judy stated with her usual deadpan conviction that made her hard to read.

"A manly… talk? About what?"

"About manly things."

"I don't get it…" Elly finally admitted and looked at me for help, but she was once again diverted by my assistant grabbing hold of her.

"I'll explain while we eat. Let's invite Neige too."

"Oh? Okay then," she agreed while sending me a small smile, followed by Judy giving me a clumsy wink (which still didn't fill me with confidence), leaving me alone with two neatly wrapped sandwiches. I had a feeling this situation had some kind of profound meaning applicable to my life as a whole, but I couldn't be arsed to ponder that at the moment, so instead I turned on my heel and headed towards the place where Josh was sitting. The guy was just as downcast from up close as he looked from a distance, and his disheveled hair (and only wearing his inexplicably intact pants and his jacket) gave him a wild look.

"Hey pal," I called out to him as I sit down beside him, only sparing one last glance at Judy, who was calling Angie and the Class rep over to their little group as well. I decided to continue ignoring them, and instead I extended my hand towards my friend with an amicable, "You hungry?"

"A bit," he answered after a moment of hesitation, then he took the packet from my grasp. He wordlessly unwrapped his sandwich, and after taking a few whiffs, he took a large bite out of it and began to chew silently, with a distant look in his eyes.

"So… what's eating you?" I initiated our alleged 'manly talk' while unwrapping my own snack.

"It's a chicken breast sandwich, I think. It's good," he answered absent-mindedly, prompting me to sharply jab him in the side with my elbow.

"I didn't ask what you are eating, but what's eating you!"

Josh gave me an annoyed look, but after looking each other in the eye for a second, he swallowed the rest of the first bite left in his mouth and let out a tired sight.

"Do you really want to know?"

"That's why I'm here," I answered with a shrug while taking a small bite from my own sandwich, only to add in a mumble, "Wow, you weren't kidding. This is surprisingly good."

Josh didn't seem to mind my abrupt praise of my girlfriend's coo-… well, 'cooking' might be an overstatement here, so let's go with 'expert sandwich craftswomanship'. Instead, my friend let out another small sight and spoke with the kind of tone you'd expect from a weary, burned-out middle-aged salaryman.

"You know, I actually thought this would be fun," he began while lightly gesturing towards the roughly outlined area where we sparred. "I mean, you already know how this whole 'supernatural' and 'close combat' stuff didn't sit well with me, but at the end of the day I thought, 'Hey, getting superpowers might be fun!'" At this point Joshua paused, only to let out yet another sigh while slouching his shoulders even further down. "The first time we sparred… it was sudden, and all my clothes beside my underwear exploding was awkward and… you know, you could' ve really warned me about that part."

"We spent like ten minutes discussing what barriers do to clothes. I wash my hands," I replied between two bites.

"Still a dick move," he grumbled before looking away from me and continuing with, "So, as I was saying, I was actually considering that there could be some upside to all of this supernatural balderdash."

"Dude… did you just unironically use the word 'balderdash' in a sentence?"

"Shut up, it's a proper word," Josh pouted at me, and I couldn't help but chuckle even harder. "Are you finished?"

"Yeah, sorry," I gave an apology I didn't really mean, then said, "So, we were at the part where you were getting excited about getting superpowers. What happened next?"

My friend gave me a critical look, then flatly stated, "You hit me over the head with a stick."

"A spear," I corrected him, but he only grunted dismissively.

"Same difference. The point is, I felt I had all of this power at my fingertips, and then I was smacked right down just as I was getting into it."

"Well, sorry for raining on your parade, but it's kind of the point of a sparring match."

"I know, I know," Josh relented, his words accompanied with yet another sigh. "Still, it was a bummer. So, I asked Lili for help."

"Oh, right… you were talking with Snowy a bit before we started round two. What did you learn?"

Josh paused again, the corners of his lips slowly lifting in a foolish little smirk before he caught himself and explained, "Since I got that transformation from her, I figured she could give me a few tips on how to use… it's magic, right?"

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"Somatic magic, to be precise, but yes," I explained to him after swallowing the last bite of my sandwich.

"That," he agreed. "So, she was really helpful and taught me a lot of things in a short time. Like, she showed me how to do these simple hand gestures…" While saying so, Josh made a clumsy motion with his fingers. Of course, since he was not transformed at the moment, it didn't do anything, but he still repeated it a couple of times, as if fascinated with it. "I can't do them so well now," he admitted, "but when I was transformed, things just… clicked, I suppose."

"So you learned that wind blast thing from Snowy? In just a couple of seconds?"

"Yeah," Joshua nodded, his face once again softening for a moment before it suddenly shifted into a frown and he looked me in the eyes yet again. "Hey, Leo? Now that you adopted Lili, are you going to live together?"

"That's the plan, yes," I answered while trying not to question the reason behind the sudden right turn in the otherwise pretty straightforward conversation.

"Lili is a very nice girl," Josh suddenly made the conversation take another hairpin turn, and before I could react, he added, "She used to be a little weird at the beginning, but at heart she is a really innocent, earnest girl."

"Um… yes, she is. I'm well aware."

"If so," Josh's previous frown slowly morphed into a determined glade, and he said, "If so, then you better not lay your hands on her just because you are living together."

It was at this point that I realized where he was going with this, and for a moment I vacillated between facepalming or palming him upside his head. I ultimately decided on the former and let out an exasperated groan as I covered my eyes with my hand.

"Dude, you can say the dumbest things sometimes," I mumbled through my teeth.

"I'm serious," he emphasized, but it only earned him another groan from yours truly.

"Listen, Josh," I began once I let my hand down and collected my thoughts. "Just why the hell do you even think I would 'lay my hands' on her in the first place!?"

"Hey, you are the guy who couldn't be satisfied with just one girlfriend! I'm just being cautious," he told me with one hundred percent honestly, which kind of threw me on a loop again.

"You can't be serious…" I muttered as I stifled the urge to palm my face again. "First off, don't pin my poly relationship on me alone. Secondly, I haven't even 'laid my hands' on my girlfriends, let alone Snowy. Finally, and most importantly, she is my sister now, so if anyone should be worried about some guy 'laying hands' on her, it should be me!"

"You never touched Judy and Elly?" Josh suddenly asked with a baffled expression, masterfully skimming over the thinly-veiled intent behind my third point.

"I've touched them, of course. In the literal sense, I mean. We even have sanctioned daily cuddling time, but we haven't gone any further yet."

"Seriously?" my friend asked with a face that somehow looked more shocked than when I revealed that he was the subject of a full gamut of prophecies.

"Why are you looking at me like that? We've only been going out for a few days, for god's sake!"

"Well, yes, but… you always struck me as the kind of guy who would go… places."

"Do I even want to know what you mean by that?"

"I guess you… don't?" Josh replied with a steadily reddening face, his previous frown already a thing of the past.

"Why do you care anyway? Are you interested in Snowy?" I threw out my most obvious conversation-derailing bait up to date, and as per my expectation, my dear friend took it hook, line, and sinker.

"That's not why I was asking!" he denied on the spot, but then I guess he realized he was too definite and that I might tell about it to Snowy, so he hastily added, "I mean, I'm 'not' not interested, but… it's just complicated, okay?"

"That was a double negative. In other words, you are interested."

By this point he was red to the tip of his ears, which I found strangely cute, probably because it reminded me of the princess. Anyhow, he ultimately averted his eyes and muttered something along the lines of, "She's really nice and pretty and earnest."

"So is Angie," I threw out another bait just for the heck of it, but this time he didn't bite.

"Maybe, but she feels more like… I don't know… an annoying sister or cousin?"

"Why are you asking me? It's your preferences."

"I told you, it's complicated. Leave me alone."

"That's funny," I let out a nostalgic chuckle at my embarrassed friend's expense. "I can distinctly remember me saying the same thing when a certain friend of mine was pestering me about baseless accusations of two-timing. What a coincidence."

Josh remained silent for a while, either unwilling or unable to counter me, and at last he quietly asked, "If I told you I'm sorry for doubting your character, can we drop this awful topic?"

"Sure," I shrugged my shoulder in agreement, then after a brief pause I wondered, "What were we talking about before this tangent? Something about you learning some magic tricks from my sister?"

"Yeah, that," Josh started weakly, but then his voice gradually got firmer as he explained, "As I said, it's this move that lets me shoot a blast compressed air. It's… kinda hard to explain how it feels, but each time I do it, it gives me a rush, so I thought, 'Hey, that's pretty awesome! Maybe this whole supernatural crap isn't so bad.'"

"I know the feeling," I agreed with a knowing smile, remembering the first time I used my 'Phasing' ability during my Dominance with Brang. Calling it a 'rush' was a bit of an understatement.

"I figured," he told me flatly, then in a similar tone he added, "Then someone popped my wind blast spell thingie like it was a cheap party balloon and then whacked over the head with a stick. Again."

"… Weren't we already over this? Also, I'm pretty sure you were there when we discussed my ability to disrupt magic, so you can only blame yourself for not paying attention and putting all your eggs into a single basket."

"Well, excuse me for failing to do something cool because I wasn't paying attention!" Josh huffed indignantly at my retort.

"Whoa, easy there buddy!" I told him as I patted his back. "No one said it wasn't cool! I mean, it was actual magic, right? I wish I could do that!"

"You can do that Phasing thing, can't you?"

"It's not the same," I coaxed him with a slightly insincere smile I hoped he wouldn't notice. "Offensive magic is much cooler, you just need to practice how to use it. In fact, we all need practice. That's why we are here."

"Not all of us," Josh continued to sulk unabated. "You don't seem to need any. In fact, to me, it looks like you have it easy."

"Do I?"

"Yeah," he nodded with conviction, completely oblivious to the troubled scowl I was directing his way. "You have two girlfriends who don't mind sharing you, you are rich, you have a secret base with minions, and you can kick people's ass, including mine. I, on the other hand, have to deal with all of this supernatural nonsense coming out of nowhere, being some kind of prophesized hero or messiah or whatever, put up with these silly transformations… and then when I finally start to feel like I am getting a grip, someone hits me on the head with a stick."

I waited for his outburst of complaints to end, and after letting him cool down a little, I simply asked, "Is that how things look to you?"

"Yeah?" he answered with a shrug, though his voice sounded a bit more uncertain than before.

I remained silent for a few seconds as we locked eyes with each other, but at last I exhaled a really, really long sigh and told him, "Listen, Josh. This is just between the two of us, so don't tell the girls about this, but things aren't exactly all sunshine and roses on my end either." My friend was giving me a pensive look, and after a moment of hesitation, I decided to spill the beans. "I get you. I really do. On the surface, I probably look like I'm some kind of super-confident all-knowing badass with two awesome girlfriends and his own secret base and cool minions and being totally on top of things while you are still scrambling to figure out what's going on."

"… Dude, are you complaining or bragging right now?" my friend blurted out with a single brow raised as high as it could possibly go.

"Please don't interrupt; I'm just getting to my point," I chided him before taking another large breath. "The thing is, I don't blame you for thinking this, because it's the image I've cultivated, partially by choice and mostly by necessity. The truth is, I'm kind of in over my head right now and barely managing to keep afloat."

"You are?"

"Yep," I told him with a self-deprecating smile. "You know, it's at least partially my fault, but after what happened at the school last weekend, things just kind of developed in a way where everyone now thinks I'm more knowledgeable and resourceful than I actually am. On top of those expectations, I also picked up a few new responsibilities without thinking things through; now I have to take care of Snowy, the Fauns… and of course, I have to look out for you too." Josh let out a surprised hiccup, but I ignored him and continued with, "The thing is, as much as I didn't expect to end up in this pseudo-leadership position, now that I did, I have to at least try to keep things together, and it's not easy. I mean, disappointing the girls once they realize I'm not exactly some hyper-competent leader is one thing, but now I also have to be on the lookout for trouble and keep everyone safe on top of my already existing problems."

"Oh, right. Your amnesia," my friend noted, and I gave him a tentative nod.

"Sure, among other things. In short, I acknowledge that you're having a hard time with all of this supernatural and prophecy business getting hoisted on you, but you're not the only one who's having problems at the moment."

"I guess you're right…" Josh whispered a little sourly, following which we remained silent for close to a minute, right until he suddenly raised his voice and told me, "You know, with how crazy everything's been lately, I totally forgot to consider your point of view." I blinked at him in surprise, and so he hastily added," I mean, I've taken that you knew everything and had all of these resources for granted, so I never really thought about how you actually managed to learn and do all of this without any memories and in such a short time. I'm not gonna lie, it kinda makes it even more impressive."

"To be honest, most of it was thanks to Judy's help," I responded a tad modestly. "As for the rest, as much as I'd like to take credit, it's mostly the result of a chain of on-the-spot decisions that led to unexpected consequences and ultimately landed me in my current situation."

"It's impressive all the same," Josh reiterated his previous point with a small grunt. "I mean, if I was in your shoes, I can't imagine accomplishing a fraction of this. I'm just not cut out for making those on-the-spot decisions and going through with them."

"Nah. If anything, you'd probably make a better leader type. Or at least a more genuine one," I responded, but he immediately shook his head.

"Fat chance. I can't deal with pressure like you do."

"Hey, I'm bad with pressure too!" I protested, only for Josh to give me a skeptical sideways look in return.

"Dude, you mounted and organized a rescue operation when I was kidnapped and saw it through even after falling off a roof and getting impaled. If I was in your shoes at the time, I would've probably just freaked the heck out and hid under my bed until Angie dragged me out."

"I was freaked out too, you know? I was just hiding it really well so that the others would remain calm."

"Isn't that exactly what it means to deal with pressure?"

I wanted to retort, but when nothing came to mind, my friend flashed me a triumphant grin that only lasted for a second before his expression morphed into an introspective one.

"I guess I have to try harder too. Leaving everything up to you is a little unfair, now that I think about it. Also, I can't have you be the only cool guy in our group. I mean, I probably can't match you when it comes to resources or girlfriends, but I bet I can beat you in the coolness factor once I figure out how to properly use this transformation thing."

Well, I'll be damned. Somehow I ended up motivating Josh just by complaining to him a little. Could it be that I was really good at this inspiring leadership thing?

…

Nah, who am I kidding? This was just another unexpected result of a whimsical, off-the-cuff decision. That said, it didn't mean I couldn't try to capitalize on the moment and motivate him even further.

"Considering you can already cast spells, it's only a matter of time before you'll become a bona fide badass. And that's just one transformation! You may get to fly, or breathe fire, or… do whatever mages do!" At this point I patted him on the back and told him, "You can learn all sorts of awesome stuff that I can't even dream to match. Just keep that in mind, and all the hard work and crazy crap flying around will feel much more bearable."

"To be fair though, I'd really love to learn all that without getting smacked in the head with a stick."

I gave my friend a flat look and then promptly grabbed his noggin in a very friendly and in no way painful headlock.

"Would you stop complaining about it already?!"

"O-Ow! I get it, I'm sorry!" Josh cried out in obvious fake distress, as there was no way my entirely friendly wrestling move, in which I didn't put any strength, I swear, could possibly cause him any intentional pain. Still, since he said he was sorry, I decided to let him go… after about five more seconds.

Afterwards, I straightened my clothes and told him, "Just for the record, I'm not hitting you because I hate you, but because it's the only way you will learn how to do better."

"And now you're back to being an abusive father again!" my friend complained while massaging the back of his neck. "Is it too late to get another sparring partner?"

"Well…" I conspicuously glanced over the rest of the group, then faced Josh again and said, "Snowy and Angie have more of a ranged focus, so they are out of the question. Ammy only has her golem, and it's not exactly a martial artist, so… do you want to get wrecked by the princess or by Brang?"

"… Why do you have to ask it like that?"

"Hey, you're the one who wanted a different sparring partner," I answered with a shrug.

Josh let out some barely audible grumbles at first, but ultimately he said, "I'll take my chances with Elly, thank you very much."

"Your funeral," I jested as I jumped to my feet. "Come on, there's training to do."

My friend continued to grumble under his breath, but he still took off his jacket and followed after me. When she noticed our approach, Elly stood up and awaited our arrival with a suspiciously curious expression.

"Hey, Leo? Did you really talk about manly things?"

"Um… kinda, I suppose," I answered, a little taken aback by the way she was looking at me.

"Really?" For a few seconds she scrutinized my face, then she let out a low grunt and told me, with a familiar finger pointed at my nose, "You shouldn't talk about girls' b-breasts behind their backs! It's rude, and it's lewd!"

It only took me half a moment to figure out what was going on, so I asked, "Was that Judy's explanation of what a 'manly talk' was about?" Elly gave me an odd look, but she nodded all the same. "Go figure."

Saying so, I quickly extended my hand, and before she could react, I flicked my assistant's forehead with extreme prejudice.

"Ow," she stated in a voice that didn't seem surprised the slightest. I didn't feel like humoring her this time, so I ignored her and faced the princess again.

"Let's put your misinformation aside for later. Josh wants to train with you for a change. So, I was thinking; could you maybe teach him some basic techniques first? Footwork, the proper way to break a fall and roll, that kind of stuff."

"Sure!" she suddenly beamed at me. I figured she was happy to be relied on.

"If Joshua trains with Eleanor, what are you going to do," Judy inquired, one hand still on her forehead while she used the other to fish her phone out of her coat pocket.

"I was actually thinking about testing my limits a little, so…" I turned around and sent a challenging look towards the Faun standing a dozen or so meters away from our group, probably as a courtesy (and to put Judy at ease), and I told him, "[I appeal for the cooperation of you and your warrior kin, general. I have certain… group tactic drills in mind.]"

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