Three days quickly passed since Ajax battled with the proto-drake, and since then, Angil has been teaching him how to use his new found powers, as well as how to fight hand to hand and with magic. Ajax has found himself taking part in routine sparing matches with Angil, which always ended with him covered in bruises while he was unable to land a single blow on Angil. It got to the point where he wished that he was facing back with the proto-drake again.

Merely fifteen minutes after their previous match, Ajax was thrust into another one until they finally broke for lunch. Angil prepared the remaining meat that he had taken from the proto-drake and preserved using his skills. The skin that he took was converted into red trousers for Ajax, whose scaly pattern added greatly to its design.

“Ajax you’re too slow on your counter attacks.” Angil said and flipped Ajax by kicking him.

“It’s not my fault…you’re faster than me.” Ajax panted, he held his side and got up off the ground.

“Yes I am more experienced than you, but you are still too slow.” he said, “It is as if you are spacing out right after every block.”

“I don’t know what happens.” Ajax said.

“If you are so uncertain, instead of blocking and spacing out, dodge the attack then counter.” he said, “You’re going hunting as your last task for the day.”

“What is it this time, another rabbit?” Ajax asked sarcastically.

“I was going to say a monster, but for that sarcasm, it’s now a rabbit.” he replied and rolled his eyes, “Also, you’ve earned yourself more chores.”

“No, no, I’m sorry master, please forgive me!” Ajax begged and prostrated himself.

“That is what I thought.” he said and stuck his tongue out, “Now come on and fly.”

“Fly, weren’t we breaking for lunch?!” Ajax asked.

“You still have to be punished, so you’re going to get another beating.” he replied.

They jumped and took flight, however, before Ajax could acquaint himself, he was forced to dodge a diving attack from Angil. In response, Ajax fired several volleys of his flame breath but they were all stopped by gusts of wind that Angil created by flapping his wings. Angil grinned and nodded, as if showing acceptance of Ajax’s response, making Ajax smile and gave his own smirk from the boost in his confidence. Ajax quickly put distance between them, all while avoiding each of Angil’s strikes and where he couldn’t avoid, he hardened his scales and blocked the attack.

“Not a bad use of your Resilient Scales skill.” Angil said, “I’ll hold back the power on this one, let’s see how you take it, Trident of Doom.”

Ajax watched as Angil clapped his hands and behind him appeared three blue ring that had different symbols carved on it as well a larger one in its center. Three glowing serpent heads emerged, each from a respective ring, and within their mouths were a growing balls of light. Another set of rings appeared over mouths of the serpents and then they each fired a beam, like a laser, of the blue light towards Ajax.

Ajax gasped and responded by firing back with his flame breath in an attempt to intercept the attack but the beams cut through his fire. Ajax gasped at the way his attack was cut through like butter and he tried to dodge the beams. However, when he looked behind him the beams appeared to be following him.

“That won’t work Ajax, Trident of Doom’s mana beams will move with the snakes’ heads.” Angil said, “So running won’t work so well.”

“Shit, that is going to be a problem.” Ajax said and dodged another beam, “Fine then, I hope this works.”

Ajax stopped where he was and created a black barrier, in the shape of a ball, around himself and braced for the impact. He saw Angil mouth something to him and then the beams impacted the barrier at three different points. Right upon impact the barrier shook and small cracks ran across it. The longer it went on the larger the cracks became until the barrier looked like a soon to shatter marble.

Ajax pondered what he should do once the barrier falls, when suddenly, the beams abruptly stopped. This left Ajax confused as to why Angil prematurely stopped his attack. He watched the snakes return into their rings, which disappeared shortly after, and Angil flew towards him and tapped the barrier.

“Not a bad call using your Dark Barrier, however, you need to get stronger if you want it to last longer under extreme stress.” Angil said, “Imagine if I had used my attack at full power!”

Angil grinned and kicked the barrier, like a ball, and sent Ajax flying away. The barrier shattered the moment it was kicked and left Ajax without any protection should he impact anything on his trajectory. Ajax did his best to regain his composure before he hit the ground and he stopped just slightly above the tree line. He was vigorously panting, trying to catch his breath, and he looked around to try and spot Angil.

Below him he saw a group of four people, he assumed to be humans given their appearance being what he expected, walking through the forest. One had a bow around her body, another had armor covering his chest and shoulders with a sword on his waist, the third wore a purple cloak and had a wooden staff in hand. The final one he saw was the one whose features struck him the most, an enchanting girl with beautiful green eyes and matching hair that glistened in the sunlight and stopped just shy of her shoulders.

He stood there, as if hypnotized, and stared down on them, forgetting that he was still in a training session. Although, this was soon beaten back into him when he was punched in the side and sent plummeting to the ground.

“What are you getting distracted for, remember you’re in training!” Angil shouted.

“Sorry I…um…saw a deer and got hungry.” Ajax replied and tried to pull himself up to stop his fall, he didn’t want to admit that he was distracted by a beautiful human.

“Did you see where it went, we can catch it and have for dinner.” Angil said, he looked around to try and spot the so called deer but ended up seeing the group of human instead, “A group of humans, you think they scared off the deer?”

“So they are human.” Ajax whispered, smiling, he looked back at the girl, “Maybe, so um…I don’t suppose we could go and say hi?”

“No we cannot!” Angil exclaimed in a serious and stern tone, “Given they are clearly armed, they may be what the humans call adventurers, and as a monster that wouldn’t be good interaction.”

“Adventurers.” Ajax said, “Let me guess, humans that adventure around slaying monsters and doing a lot of task upon request from other humans.”

“Yeah, how do you know that for someone who just came here?” Angil asked, “I only know from my few, interactions, with them.”

“I can’t remember exactly but I think we had the same concept in my old world, in games I think.” Ajax replied.

“Then you know the danger they can pose if they are hostile humans, so be cautious from here on out.” Angil said and sighed, “I don’t like how close they are to the lake, no humans have come this deep in a long while.”

“Alright Angil, though see ya.” Ajax said and flew away as fast as possible while laughing, “You won’t catch me!”

“We’ll see about that!” Angil laughed and flew after him.

After a rather long chase, they arrived back at the lake extremely exhausted from their game of catch. Ajax went over to the lake and washed his face, when he looked over at Angil, he saw that he was topless and fanning himself.

“I am so exhausted!” Ajax laughed and laid down.

“I haven’t had someone to toy with in a long while, I never had to fly so much since my little brother and I were kids.” Angil said and chuckled.

“You have a brother?!” Ajax exclaimed and sat up.

“Oh…yeah…I rather not talk about him right now.” Angil quietly replied and looked away, “Just know you look a lot like him at that age.”

The reaction that Ajax got was enough to stop him pushing further with the inquiry, even as he wondered how much of a resemblance he shared with Angil’s brother. He felt as if he had brought down an awkward atmosphere around them, one that he could not dispel on a whim and his actions showed this. He was twiddling his fingers and kicking his foot while looking away from Angil.

Ajax’s feelings were not lost on Angil, whom could clearly see the slight distress on the latter’s face. He walked over to the lake and splashed Ajax’s face with a flick of his tail and gave him a soft smile.

“Don’t feel bad for asking, I was the one who brought it up so obviously you’d be curious.” Angil said, however, he soon lost that smile and suddenly looked over his shoulder and into the forest, “Ajax, get into the lake, right now.”

“Huh, how come?” Ajax asked, obviously confused at the change in tone.

“Just go!” he shouted and pushed Ajax away from him, catching ajax by surprise.

“Fireball!” A voice shouted.

A fireball, about the size of a basketball, flew from within the trees and between the two of them, and crashed into the lake. Ajax gasped after reaching the ground given how close it passed by his face, was that the reason he wanted him to hide so quickly and what could have even have gotten so close without even Angil noticing until so late.

“Bastards.” Angil said and snarled.

“Who would have guessed that a simple request to scout a strange explosion would lead to such a find.” said A man that stepped out of the forest.

“I know right, who would have thought we’d run into a demon, and two at that.” said another man who was cloaked.