'So this was the lady he was fighting the Calamity with?' Sioc watched as she energetically crushed an Eggy against a stump using her Shield Rush skill. Wasn't the Shield Hero suppose to be a defender or something? She was practically taking stuff on by herself! Well, she was using the terrain to her advantage... This was crazy! How in the world was she running around like a mad woman and killing things left and right? Where was she getting her energy from?

Sioc sat on a rock watching her with disbelief. Sonya had given him a long sharpened stick because she refused any gifts the citizens of Rock Valley tried to push on her. She really seemed like an independent person. Did she really need him? Soon she came back covered in egg yolk and a lot of Orange and yellow balloons. She looked at Sioc sheepishly.

" I got swarmed." She said laughing. Sioc backed away from her. They should be tearing her apart! Yet they were not. She wasn't even scratched. She just stunk.

" SIOC! Will you please just kill these things already?!" She whined. Sioc sighed and started to stab the orange balloons. He realized that he had to put more force into it because his initial jabs just bounced off. It took him a few minutes to kill them all. He needed a proper weapon. He covered his nose and mouth.

" Lady Brint, you stink." Sioc Said trying to stay away from her. Sonya scowled at him.

" Well I guess it can't be helped." She said and went to a near by stream to bath. Sioc followed until she shooed him off threatening to make his cursed mark shock him if he peeped.

Sioc sat in camp after that. He didn't know what to think of this lady. She was... He glared at the fire. His master came back wearing a gray dress and caring several fish in her under armor. " Apparently these guys love egg yolk. Ugh..." She shuttered with disgust and gave Sioc her knife. " If you want dinner you need to gut and descale the fish." Sioc looked at her with protest but the severe glare in return told him not to argue.

Sioc looked at the fish. He had no idea what exactly she was asking him to do. Sonya soon returned after washing her armor off to find that Sioc had made no progress. ' Did I pick a city kid or... Ugh, I'm going to have to teach this kid everything!' She thought as she hung her armor up to dry. " Having trouble?" She asked trying to calm herself down. She should be fair. He probably wasn't shown how to survive on his own or anything really down to earth. Sioc looked at her and then the knife ant the fish. Sonya held her hand out. " Here let me show you so you can do it okay?" She offered. Sioc looked at her feeling embarrassed. Sonya just patted his head and took the knife from him.

"First off you dig a hole. Second you carefully stab here. You slice down like this and pull the guts out after you cut the head off like this." She said as she showed him. Dropping the head and fish guts into a shallow hole.

Sioc looked at her fascinated. " Gross!" He said and took the knife from her. She stayed by him to make sure he did his first one right before she showed him how to descale, also with the knife.

Their hands were covered in scales, fish blood and gore but the fish were now cooking in the fire. They just needed to wash their hands and wait for the food to cook. " You go and wash your hands. I'll keep an eye on them." She said feeling a bit nostalgic. She remembered when her and her father skipped town and stayed in the mountains for a little while. It was fun. It was her turn to wash her hands and his to watch the fish.

" A light brown color. Remember that!" She said and went to wash her hands. She looked at the fish swarming at a piece of yolk that sunk into the water, glad it wasn't her. It made her shutter at how they had nibbled at her and walk right back to the fish that was still cooking. She checked them and sighed that they were being slightly burnt.

She should start calling him John Snow and telling him that he knows nothing. She took the fish off the fire, said her thanks for the food and let Sioc eat. He grimaced. " Well of coarse it tastes burnt!" She chided and continued eating. She wasn't his mom. But then again... He probably didn't have one. She thought about it for a moment and decided she couldn't go easy on him... Nor should she be toooo hard on him.

"After dinner I'm going to teach you how to actually fight. I can't exactly do it myself-" She began but was cut of.

" Yes you can! You were killing things left and right earlier! You.. You don't need me!" He said feeling useless. Sonya walked over to him grabbed him by the chin and glared directly into his eyes.

" I can't fight alone. A few days before I came to Rock Valley a man forced his way into my bedroom. I ended up killing him. Sure, I guess you could say I can defend myself. But if I do I will just end up killing people instead of just taking them down. My punches are like pillows tied around my fists a few layers and my kicks are only so strong if they can connect where I want them. I don't want to kill people if I don't have to and I can't always be around rocks and trees and stuff for me to go and crush stuff with my shield." She said and let him go. " I'm happy I am not powerless but it is either one or the other. And the other isn't always reliable. So won't you fight for me? I need someone to have my back."

Sioc looked up at the woman standing there with the shield on her back. If all this was true then it really did make sense that she needed him. " I can't fight with a stick forever." He mumbled blushing. He was needed! Sonya held in a sigh of relief. One problem was dealt with.

" Yeah... I need to buy you a proper weapon. We are on our way to Melromarc for that... To be honest the people of Rock Valley seem competent and nice... But a little too nice, some of them... And a few were a bit creepy." She said recalling a nui that kept asking her to marry him. And have his kids... She had nothing against Demi-humans but she didn't like people treating her special just as much as she didn't enjoy being treated like an outcast.

Sioc ate his fish quietly for a while while he mulled things over. He was needed. She couldn't fight all alone by herself. He thought about the cat knight. It was obvious that it was arranged that Sonya would have one of them chosen to fight along side her but what bothered him was that the cat knight left her afterwords. It seemed to bother Sonya as well.

"I guess she had other important things she had to do." He said. Sonya nodded.

" Yup. Finished with your fish yet?" She asked not wanting to talk about Lady Dianna. She had just been doing her duty. That was that. Sioc picked around the bones and set his scraps down.

"Mm hm!" He chimed and got into his fighting stance. Sonya almost laughed. " Okay you. Both feet on the ground, you don't start a fight off by kicking something. " Sonya said and moved his legs a little apart arranging his stance with a stick. "I'm wearing a skirt so I can't really just show you how I would have my legs positioned but let me explain. You want to stand like you are ready to get pushed down so you can resist it."

She pushed him over. " Now get back up and get ready again." She said calmly. It took her five times for him to finally get it. " Bend your back slightly forward and put your arms up. No no, don't have them together like that! You want them off set, one further ahead than the other. Yes, like that!" She instructed. Sioc felt like he was being taught the Hengen Musou the way she started to drill him... Not that he learned how... He just watched and tried to copy the others he spied on who were learning it. It looked really tough!

It turned out Sonya was no more lenient than the master that taught the Hengen Musou style, but learning her style of self defense was not as difficult as it seemed. She showed him how to target a person's pressure points with bare hands. How to dislocate various parts of one's body and several places that, with enough pressure could take someone out of a fight. She made it clear that these were only to be used if he could not stop them other ways. She showed him how to grab someone's fingers and force them to the ground or how to manipulate someone painfully by grabbing their collarbone a certain way. There were a lot of painful places one could use while grappling. But all the while Sonya taught him, Sioc could not help but notice she was in pain any time she tried to demonstrate with enough force to hurt him.

The shield really did stop her from attacking. Otherwise she would have been a competent fighter, even without a weapon. She needed him. A feeling that was a mix of emotions came to him as he began to understand this. But these emotions, were not something he understood. He watched her as she sat down close to the fire and watched it burn.

"Tomorrow will be throws. I can't actually throw you so you will have to figure it out for yourself." She said wishing she could have chosen one more child for him to be able to practice with. But that was not the case. She had to show him and hope he could figure it out. Sioc cocked his head.

" How did you learn all this Brint-san?" Sioc asked. Sonya shook her head. " Just Sonya will do.. And I learned from my sensei. After I was attacked the first time in my world. I wanted to know how to defend myself without killing someone." She said.

Sioc looked impressed. Her master must have been someone who was very skilled. Sonya just simply stared at the fire. " You should climb up into the tree before you go to sleep. I guess I don't need to worry but when you wake up I'm going to need you to kill the balloons if they find me. And they will." Sonya said as she went back to eating. She laid her head down on her pillow shield and went to bed after that. Sioc thought it over. Maybe he could stay up and fight while she slept?

Sonya woke up not covered in balloons the next day. She looked around to see a pile of rubber scraps and a silly and exhausted looking volki boy sleeping up in a tree. She smiled figuring she should probably reward him for the favor. Maybe she wouldn't have to ever punish him if things went like this. But things never went as planned. With no vigilance things just went wild and disorderly. Things just got worse. Sonya would let him sleep for a while while she put her armor on and fixed breakfast.

Maybe she could even gather some things around the area and see if they would unlock new shields? Btw, she was now a level 15 and Sioc was a level 5. She looked impressed. He really had been fighting all night! Still, She needed to improve. He was now a member of her party so they shared experience. She didn't need to worry about falling behind. Just that he would eventually catch up to her. That is when she saw it. A BIG semi-transparent mean looking koi fish flying in the air. She looked at it and hoped it didn't see her. Until she realized it was being ridden by equally semi-transparent people. This was a strange world. She caught some fish, harvested some mushrooms and unlocked a few knew shields. A leaf shield that provided her a harvesting bonus. A mushroom shield that helped her with plant identification. Then there was the blue mush shield that allowed for simple compounding recipes. And finally the Green Mush Shield which equipment bonus allowed for Apprentice level compounding.

It seemed like she actually had to hunt, kill, and absorb the monsters in order for her to master the shields but otherwise she was able to unseal them by just harvesting material. She had to equip the shield to gain the equipment bonus... But if she mastered the shield she could... She smiled. That was when she found a rose growing near the stream. She carefully grabbed it by the stem instinctively avoiding the thorns before she cut it. The shield reacted. She looked around seeing a bush of roses and the quality of the rose she held being 'good'. Flowers withered after being picked. She decided to enjoy it's pleasant scent and attractive beauty before allowing her shield to absorb it. Thorn series unsealed. Rose Shield unlocked. Equipment Bonus: 2+ attack, 3+ defense Skill: Thorn Aura.

Sonya looked the skill over. It caused attacks to her body to deal damage to her opponent, even causing them minor lacerations and minor bleeding. It also stacked so if an opponent continued to attack her, they continued to suffer more bleeding. The 'minor bleeding' damage was a short period damaging debuff. She looked at her shield as she switched it to the Rose Shield. It reminded her of the Grass Shield except it had a red rose in the center and thorns poking out the edge of her shield like small green serrated teeth.

"Pretty but not pleasant to touch." She said with a smirk as she switched her shield to her normal small shield and started to prune the bush so she could master her new shield.

By the time Sioc awoke she had unlocked three more plant based shields from the 'Plant' series in which the Thorn series was a sub-series of. There was the wood series which offered her woodcutting and gathering bonuses as well as the Bark series which added defense bonuses. And the root series which didn't offer her an attack or defense bonus but a food identification bonus for plants. Apparently this would help her with telling which plant was edible in this world. The Leaf Sub-series of the plant series offered her agility bonuses. The sticks apparently belonged to the wood series. Sonya sighed.

Then there was the stone series which was solidly in defense or mineral identification bonuses. She was hoping to eventually learn another attack skill but this was not going to be the case. She probably needed to level up more. She was back in camp roasting tuber roots when Sioc woke up. She decided he was not a good test subject for any new skills, but if he became injured or sick she could test compounding. She took a mental note that of the plant series, wood was material gathering, bark was defense, thorn was attack, leaf agility, and root was food identification. Mushrooms seemed to belong to a fungi sub-series involving identification and compounding related skills.

Finally there was the egg series from the Eggies. Culinary skill bonuses. She sighed at this one. Was this shield trying to make her into a tanky house wife or something? That was something she would not settle for. Shield or no. Unless more games like the one she played came out. Then she might get too addicted to care. She felt the heavy regret of not killing Gwyn with the Pierce shield even more. She just had to study!

With breakfast cooked, eaten and a fire put out they began the routine of leveling followed by martial arts practice and more leveling. Lunch was made from edible flowers and water before going back to leveling and more martial arts practice. Sioc was wary of Sonya's Rose Shield which she now seemed to favor because she could inflict damage over time that would let her kill weak enemies without using Shield Rush. But it seemed to tire her when she had to use Shield Rush over and over again. They both made a note that the Thorn Aura cut her natural SP regeneration by a percentage while activated.

Still, it was useful. She just had to be aware of it's usage. She thought about it for a moment then smirked arrogantly. " I think I know how to use it." She said calmly when they took a break. Sioc looked at her questioningly. " Since Thorn Aura drains my SP a bit I can turn it off, let my SP recover and go back to using it again. It is like stamina regeneration. I just have to stop using it for a short period then I can go right back to it!" She said happily. Sioc looked at her puzzled. She sighed.

" Think about it this way. You run for a while, you slow down to recover and so you can run some more without ever really stopping." She explained. Sioc looked at her as if she was touched in the head. 'Why not just stop all together and rest?' He asked himself mentally. Sioc's impression was this woman must have at some point did a lot of excising...

" Actually, maybe we should do that as a part of training. Yes, I think that will help a lot! And when we get use to running normally we can add more weight to our packs. Rocks should do it!" She said to herself. Sioc looked at her horrified. Why couldn't this shield hero be a lazy one!

And the rest of the day was spent running a light jog to Melomarc's castle city.