Chapter 5

They had come across what looked to be a training ground, many of the trees, large or small, were cut down with an axe. There were many contraptions built with these lumber specifically for their own purposes, be it weight training, target practice, stamina building, maneuver improvement etc. Most of them were built solely of wood, tied around with ropes so that they function as expected.

"Sit here." Alberto ordered Miranda to rest herself down onto a small tree stump, its main body being cut down long ago and served as one of the many contraptions found here. Not exactly understood the situation, Miranda obliged.

Then it came to her, Alberto was drenched in sweat when he came to pick her up, so this must be his training ground, she thought. Perhaps her "master" would want his student to watch the way he trains and pick up a thing or two?

Alberto proceeded to stand behind a faintly drawn line and took his stance, aiming at what appeared to be a series of moving targets, made by pieces of the cut down trunk, giving them a disc shape, as well with their center chalked down. The targets moved at variable speed, linked together by intricate rope binds that Miranda couldn't quite understand herself.

The vampire hunter pulled out six daggers, three in each hand, readied himself, and flung them one by one with great succession. He moved with absolute grace, marveling the observing Miranda with his antics. One after another, the daggers hit the moving targets, all directly into their center.

It did not end there, he pulled out another six, turned around and flung at a thickly-built wooden target disc. The knife went right through it, generating yet one of the many holes produced using similar methods. Before that, it was a display of accuracy, now it was a showcase of penetrating strength.

There's still more, Alberto then proceeded to direct his remaining five daggers somewhere else, four of them were shot at tree trunks of various distances, all four of them were more than seventy meters, some of them even almost out of sight, yet all of them hit the very center of their target. This was a showcase of distance covering.

With his last remaining dagger in his hand, he went to toss it upwards nonchalantly, which revealed a suspended rope housing many trunks of varying sizes. One slice from the dagger cut the rope off, sending those logs down onto the vampire hunter. He then pulled out another dagger from his right thigh, carving each of the falling trunks while avoiding them.

When the 30 or so trunks were all fallen to the ground, Miranda ran up to observe closely each of them. To her wildest awe, all of them were carved and cut off at some point, proving that he did indeed leave a mark on them. Not to mention, he was unscathed throughout the entire process. This was probably a demonstration of maneuvering around enemies and cutting them down.

Alberto looked as if he was done with his daggers, as he laid down all his straps and belts used to house his weapons down, and took his upper shirt off, moving on to weight training. His body was filled with multiple scars, old or new, the muscles were well built and toned, mostly designed for agility but not without sufficient strength.

Miranda observed for a while on her master doing bench press by using a large sized log. But as the motion repeated itself for a bit of time, she took the liberty to approach the equipment her master used to pull out daggers. They were straps and belts with many pouches to house the daggers, they could be resized at will so they could be tied around various body parts of different sizes. With the amount of pouches Miranda could count, it seemed her master could bring along at least thirty daggers at a time.

"Thirty-six." Suddenly Alberto mutter as he got up and moved on to another training ground, this time it was a nicely built sit-up bench made of wood, once again he demonstrated his ability of reading Miranda's mind and knew what was the question popping out of her head. Or maybe the little girl was just too easy to read.

Miranda wanted to ask more about where would these belts be strapped around, but was quickly cut short. "Wait," was all he said just as Miranda opened her mouth. She pouted her mouth with dissatisfaction, but dared not to try to object the well-built man. Not wanting to sit around doing nothing, she went to pull out the daggers flung by her master at various places, some of them awfully hard to remove.

She then noticed a trend among the knives she picked up, all of them were around the same length, probably around fifteen centimeters long. Each of them were nicely polished, even though their hilts did indicate of their age which wasn't brand new. Then she recalled Alberto was also polishing his daggers as she was munching down her dinner last night. Maybe he's making them shiny every night.

Satisfied with his training, he got up and walked towards Miranda while wiping away his sweat with a towel. He grabbed the dagger straps from her rather forcefully, not thinking of asking politely, then proceeded to walk back to the house. Miranda followed.

"Tonight I have a job. Come with me," said Alberto, still not applying any eye contact onto Miranda as he spoke. Regarding a job, Miranda guessed it would be vampire hunting, that's what he introduced himself last night. Then this realization shook her of the disaster that occurred to her, to the Roses, and to Lidoris.

Those wretched vampires that took everything away from her.

Miranda bit her thumb in fear and frustration, Alberto did not appear to realize this, and kept walking.