The Married Life Of Immortals

Once Bane made his way back up the stairs, he headed to the front of the store. Madam Dory was waiting for him with a knowing smile plastered across her face.

"So? How did your little quest go?" Madam Dory asked, clearly already knowing the answer.

Rather than answer, Bane asked his own question. "Did you forget to tell them that it was a beginner-level quest, or do you try to shark all the boys that you meet?"

In response, Madam Dory gave Bane an oblivious smile that made Bane roll his eyes. "Since you have already commandeered my weapons, and they came to you on their own, I can't very well charge you. So, my little plan doesn't work with you, but if you think that I am going to let you get away with taking them for free, you are sorely mistaken!"

Bane nodded. There wasn't much for him to say. Even though the weapons came to him on their own, he did want them. It would be pretty bad form if he just pretended like it wasn't his problem.

"What do you have in mind then? Since this is technically my fault, I am willing to help in whatever way I can," Bane said and then bowed slightly.

"Good. Starting tomorrow, you will visit my shop at least once a day, and only during the day. While you are here, you will spend half your time training with Borat. The other half of the time you will help me clean and restock the shop since I have this inconvenient body now," Madam Dory ordered, and Bane nodded.

"That is fine by me. I have been getting help from everyone lately, so it will feel good to do something in return for once," Bane replied, and Madam Dory nodded.

"You should get going. I know Nina is eager for you to come and train with her. We were having breakfast together after training, and she told me that you were a mortal attempting body-tempering. That is why I requested you to come here. She hopes that this first improvement will make you more of a challenge for her so she can stop beating you down each session," Madam Dory said with a smile, making Bane wince.

After his fight with Borat, he learned that while his body had changed, this was nothing more than a minor thing. The people of this village were still light years ahead of him, but that wouldn't stop him now.

"Well, I hope that I can start slowly providing more of a challenge each day," Bane said and headed to the training grounds.

His walk to the training ground felt a bit different than normal this time. Instead of the usual murmurs, and sideways looks, people actually waved and greeted him. Not everyone, but the number of hostile looks he was used to had all but vanished. It was almost weird for him, but Bane wasn't about to start complaining.

Once he reached the training ground, the place didn't sound as loud as Bane was used to. In fact, he barely heard any talking, but once he reached the area where everyone normally trained he could see why.

Every person who would normally be training was standing in groups all around the outside area. The moment that they saw Bane, the little bit of chatter stopped, and everyone looked to stare at him silently.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up. Everyone has been waiting to see if you have had some major improvements. Everyone heard about you taming the cauldron, and now word even has it that you swipe two soul weapons from Dory, yes?" Nina's familiar voice asked from a place out of Bane's sight.

Before he could answer, Bane watched as a figure leaped into the air from the rafter to land gracefully in the center of the training area. Shaking his head, Bane walked forward to stand in front of Nina, trying to feel confident. He wanted to prove to her that he was progressing for some reason, so he planned on giving it all this fight.

"You seem more confident, and I can sense that your body is getting stronger. I think that we should make things a little more interesting this time," Nina said and then turned away from Bane to walk over to the training weapon rack, picking up a single sword. "Since you have a contract with your weapons, I would like you to use them in our training today."

Bane frowned at this, looking at the wooden sword in Nina's hand. "Are you sure? That is just a wooden sword, right?"

Nina returned the frown, but hers was clearly the more dangerous-looking of the two. "Did you not just fight that overgrown rat that used a toothpick? Or is it that you are underestimating me again because I look like a child?!"

Bane tried to put up his hands and tell her that wasn't the case, but it was too late for words. Bane barely had time to summon Kyōka and Yume to block the strike, but even then, Bane was sent flying back. Even before he could hit the ground, Nina was over top of him, striking down at him. At the last second, Bane used Yume's ability, making a copy of himself, and kicked at the ground to roll to the side.

Nina's blade passed through the illusion, but then into the ground, causing the area to fill with dust and sand. Bane quickly got to his feet, but his vision was almost completely blocked. Only at the last second did he hear the footsteps coming from behind him, and turned, only summoning Kyōka, fully charged. Bane blocked the downward slash just in time, but then his body was knocked back some from the impact, but so was Nina for the first time.

Bane tried to lift his weapons up to fight, but he suddenly started to feel tired. "What is going on?" Bane asked as his vision started to fade. As his body went limp due to mana depletion, Lysia rushed over to catch him before he could fall.

"He is such an idiot. I told him that he has next to no mana, but what does he do? Start using his skills like he had an endless pit! Dummy deserves to be in this condition," Lysia growled, but Nina only shrugged.

"I didn't give him much of a choice. If he is to grow, we all need to push him. You also need to teach him better if you are going to complain about him while holding him so tenderly," Nina remarked.

Lysia looked down, and then dropped Bane, jumping back like she had just noticed she was holding a snake. This made Nina laugh and shake her head as everyone around them went back to their normal training, now that the show was over.

"You think he might be different, don't you?" Nina asked the scowling Lysia, but instead of answering, she just walked away.