A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 65  The Colour Red - Part 6

He threw the snapped-off bit of log towards his sled and then pushed a bit more of the log inside the pivot, before doing the same thing again.

As the log got shorter, the leverage was less and less, so it took more effort than it had the first time, but he was still able to get the whole thing snapped in pieces that would fit in his sled by doing that.

And then he began chopping down another tree. For some reason, Nila was standing around watching him work.

"You don't get tired, huh?" She commented, seeing him swing his axe with just as much vigour as he previously had.

"I suppose we all have things we're good at," Beam said, nodding towards the animals that she was holding.

Nila latched on to that. "Really? You think I'm good at hunting?" She smiled, as though the compliment meant a lot to her.

"Well, I dunno," Beam said, not pausing his swinging. "At the very least, for a girl, I'd say you're pretty decent."

It was the wrong choice of words, at least for Nila. "Hah, there you go again. You're really stupid, aren't you? I guess that's why Greeves has you working for him. All the people he employs are stupid, after all. If you can't see my skill even after watching from up close, then you're just blind. I'm easily the best hunter in this village, no matter how many people refuse to admit it."

"Stupid, is it?" Beam murmured, as he pulled another tree down. That comment for him too hit something of a sore spot.

Everything was improving as of late. His agility, his strength, his fighting ability. It was all going remarkably well. Even his stuff with Greeves was going pretty good. But his strategy, out of everything, was going terribly. And he was pretty worried about it, too. It seemed ever since learning the rules of Battle, not only had he not got better, but it seemed like he'd gotten worse.

What Beam did not recognize though, was the source of that which was holding him back. He did not realize the immense mental strain it placed upon himself to continually resist two attacks on his soul at once.

Without understanding, he was struggling. Dominus seemed o have an answer for him, Beam could see that, but whenever Beam went to ask the question, Dominus would dodge it, saying that he had to figure out such things for himself, else the answer would not be as useful.

Stupid might really have fit. Or at the very least, in that moment, Beam had no means of disproving it, and feeling as worried about his strategy as he was, he was inclined to agree. "Maybe." He admitted self-deprecatingly.

Nila didn't seem to notice the tone of his voice. Not that she would have cared even if she did. They were basically strangers, after all, and she had her own problems to worry about. One, proving her skill as a hunter. To her, that was of the utmost importance. If she couldn't prove her worth in it and start pulling in money with it for her family, then she'd be forced to do the same work as her mother – a thought she dreaded.

"Well, I'll leave you to your stupid work, stupid," Nila said childishly. "I'll show you just how great a hunter I am, so that even an idiot like you can see your blindness."

"Go for it," Beam said, "I've still got a few more trees to do."

Nila ran off into the woods again and Beam returned to snapping his wood. He was going even quicker than earlier now, as his thoughts returned to the issues he was having with his strategy progression, and he wanted to rush back so that he could practise it.

"It would be nice if I could practise Battle by myself, without having to bother master with it," he mused. In truth, with the way things were going, he would have liked to be practising the game all the time. After all, it didn't leave him tired like lifting or running did. He could really practise it as much as he had time to.

He heard a thump as he worked and Nila came rushing back a few moments later, carrying another dead grouse by its legs. She put the animals on the floor next to the sled, then went bounding away, back into the forest.

Beam eyed the three animal corpses with narrowed eyes. He was beginning to grow genuinely impressed.

It was barely five minutes later that she returned again, as Beam swung his axe relentlessly. This time she was carrying a squirrel, with an arrow shot through its eye.

She didn't look at him as she flung it down amongst the others, and then she went rushing back into the trees once more, looking for more kills.

"Okay…" Beam said, slightly taken aback. "This girl's kinda serious."

Though he would never say it to her face, Beam was beginning to respect her energy, if only just a little. The girl seemed to know exactly what she wanted – and she was running forward tirelessly to prove herself. Beam didn't know whether he was so consistent… He felt less like he was running towards something and more like he was running away from it.

He could hardly do his work as he looked expectantly in the direction that she had ran, seeing whether she would really return again with another lot of them. Because frankly, at this rate, he was beginning to find it ridiculous.

Sure enough, nearly ten minutes later, she came rushing through the trees, her red hair billowing behind her, an unusually serious expression on her face as she rushed towards him with a grouse in each hand.

She flung them down where she had the others and was about to go sprinting again.

"Uhh…" Beam coughed into his hand, not knowing quite what to say. She looked at him as if to say 'what?'. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly and tried to mutter out something at least somewhat sensible. "I think… at this rate, you're definitely a better hunter than I thought. Better than most boys, even."