"N-No?"Despite the chilling cold, I was proverbially sweating bullets as Love's stone-cold expression gazed at me like a fucking hawk. I already knew that she was smart; that they were both smart, as a matter of fact. But to think that they were already suspicious of me from the get-go?In hindsight, I should've known better than to try it with strangers that knew the person that I once was."For all of your wisdom, you're an incompetent liar, Lady Crimson."The two-braided twin's dubious gaze threatened to smother me in its presence as I visibly shrank in on myself. Her sheer aura crashed over me like an unstoppable flood, her violet eyes boring straight into my soul as if judging me with her undaunting superiority."The Lady Crimson I knew wouldn't have been cowed into submission this eas
Life was hard. There was no doubting that."Oww..."Lace had been at this whole... merchant thing for a good while now. And while it wasn't a total waste of energy and time in that she was actually making some money back from the metal she used, it wasn't exactly that lucrative either. She wished she could've just practiced medicine as a job, but without the means to falsify an Imperial certification as a healer, there was no way she'd risk doing so. Too bad as well since it was infinitely better than constantly lugging around chunks of metal in hopes that they'd sell. And that was on top of trying to not be a good enough blacksmith that she'd garner suspicion of being a Denominator from her potential customers."I hope Love's already home," she found herself sighing as she trekked the road less traveled towards the cave that was functioning as the
The human mind is such a terrible thing to waste. With its capacity for thinking, innovation, and essentially sentient thought, it enables humanity to reach new heights never before seen in a scope and history that was arbitrarily set by humans themselves. Granted, not everyone was destined for such greatness, given the fact that not everyone was blessed with a large forehead and a working set of common sense. Add the fact that I was talking out of my ass again with a quote that I literally stole from an RTS I used to play years ago, then one could clearly see that I was far from the smartest tool in the fucking shed.Which was probably why I was stuck in this situation in the first place."I'm not Crimson, alright?" I stressed out once more at the wonder twins sitting across from me on the other side of the fire. "Just... don't call me that..."I
"If you insist."I steeled myself for any sort of weird shit these two could possibly throw at me. I knew it couldn't possibly get any weirder than being reincarnated in what amounted to a backwater ditch in a world where magic existed, but it was better to be prepared than to shit bricks with every brain-shattering revelation that they might dish out.I listened with rapt attention as the two looked at each other, seemingly trying to ascertain as to who should go first."I guess I'll go first, then," Lace sighed as she took a deep breath. "I've only known you- I mean, Crimson... for a few months at best, and the best way that I could describe her is that she's... frighteningly competent."I raised an eyebrow at the term she so aptly used, "Frighteningly competent?"I would never use such a
"I suppose I shall continue."Love's tone never wavered despite everything that's happened in front of her for the past, I don't know, hour or so since this whole open forum thing started? Then again, I never really saw her show any other sign of emotion except for the rare smirk or the small spark in her eyes whenever she felt excitement or some other thing that I couldn't quantify.I crossed my arms under my chest as Love began her version of what I was like back then."As I've said earlier, you are an unparalleled genius in regards to your fields of specialty. Your philosophies in battle strategy and ingenious ways of using the environment to your advantage could only be attributed to your uncanny ability to, as you say, think outside the box."The sheer amount of platitudes the two-braided woman was showering me wit
Learning a new skill was always a pain in the ass.Okay, maybe not as much if it came to a life and death situation, but adding a brand new skill set to an already existing set of skills took far too much time and effort from a person that sometimes, it was honestly not worth it in terms of the potential gains one would acquire from learning the given skill in the first place. It was also highly dependent on the person's competence since skills didn't just magically materialize in the person's head after a few tries in getting it right. No, it took years to build instinct and muscle memory to the point where you could use the potential skill to its fullest potential. There was a reason the best kids in playing piano started when they were, well, kids."This sucks...""You did ask for this, Leader," Lace chuckled at my misery. "You wanted to learn w
Another day, another slow trek across the snow for us to get through.Don't get me wrong, it's still a pretty fun experience to traverse through the snow every once in a while. But the moment you start doing something every day was the moment the novel turned into the routine, and that routine would turn into a chore.And right now, the routine was starting to annoy me enough that I was starting to consider it as a chore.The vast expanse of white and green never seemed to end as my feet dragged across the snow-filled forest; my right hand using a long stick of wood as a guide to make sure that I won't step into a deep pocket of snow by accident. Temperatures were at least getting warmer with my estimates being at probably twelve degrees Centigrade, and the mid-morning sun was doing wonders at illuminating the path with just how bright the snow loo
Okay... It was definitely getting warmer now.Shedding my fur coat to better acclimatize to the heat, the sweat running down my back was a welcome sign that we were finally leaving the cold nothingness of the north for the relatively temperate nothingness of... wherever the hell we were at the moment. The snow underneath our feet was still there, albeit thinner, and the forest behind us still screamed winter time to anyone that would see it, but looking beyond the horizon from our vantage point, the lack of white amidst the luscious green of the fields were a sight for sore eyes. Granted, it was still rather cool, what with the north winds still picking up behind us. Also..."I'd think that we were out of the north with what I'm seeing, but the better question would be where are we right now?"Lace removed the hood from her coat, letting her one br