Working With A Poison Man

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of The Fallen! We got an original mission this week and a much longer chapter than the last one so come check it out! And speaking of checking things out, stop by and check out my Pat reon for news, scene samples, and even possible commissions! Now then that's all I got for now so with no guest review questions this week, on to the story!

The Past: Megicula's Home

'Tomorrow is the day,' Megicula thought happily while browsing through her new school supplies, 'primary school, here I come!' Naturally her parents had done their best to make sure she was prepared. Currently, the winged girl had three spiral notebooks on her lap, each one a different color along with a pencil sharpener and pencil case modeled after her favorite cartoon characters. Accompanying these was a pack of unsharpened pencils, several erasers in the shape of sleeping frogs and a ruler decorated with rainbow dots.

The little demon girl hummed happily to herself as she organized her things until she felt something fuzzy nudge her leg. It was her pet spider, Makura, who'd recently grown to the size of a small dog which, at this moment, was making it easier for her to tell people when she wanted attention. Megicula simply giggled at the large spider before putting the rest of her supplies in the right place and picking Makura up to pet her. Eventually, her mother would come by to check on her and make sure she had everything ready for tomorrow.

A cursory inspection of the contents of the winged girl's backpack was all her mother needed to know that her supplies were there and in order. After ruffling her hair a little, the demon woman departed to take care of other matters, leaving her daughter to continue happily playing with her spider. It was too bad she couldn't take Makura with her to school, but even that wasn't enough to dampen her spirits as Megicula eagerly awaited for what tomorrow would bring.

The Next Day: Primary School

The sun rose and the time came for Megicula to go to school. She was dropped off there by her mother who thought about shouting a few words of encouragement but decided it was unnecessary as she watched her daughter enter the educational facility with something of a skip in her step. The little demon girl had always been a brave one and loved to learn new things, making it very hard for her not to be excited for her first day. In seemingly no time at all she located the classroom she was supposed to be in and got seated with the other students.

Her teacher, a woman with short horns and a whip-like tail, began to take roll call. As luck would have it, all the students were present and accounted for. "Now then, children," the teacher spoke up after going through the list of names, "as this is the first of what will be many days in this classroom it's best that you all introduce yourselves." The demon kids started murmuring a bit before being quickly silenced by the teacher's next words. "I shall call each of you up and you'll tell us your name and little bit about yourself like your hobbies."

She signaled to one of the girl demons up front but instead of one getting up, two of them got up. The reason being was that these girls were twins, identical ones at that. Both were quite short and slim, possessing white hair, orange eyes and pale lips. Even the goat horns protruding from their heads were identical, curving the exact same way and reaching the exact same length.

The duo looked so alike that Megicula doubted anyone could tell them apart based on physical features alone and like the rest of the class was glad they at least dressed slightly differently. "Good morning everyone," the twins bowed before speaking one after the other, "I am Lilith."

"And I am Nahamah," the other twin spoke before they both said the next part at the same time, "we enjoy using our magic of ice and fire to make art." Megicula briefly wondered what the twins defined as art as they bowed once again and went back to their seats. But her musings were cut short when she saw who was up next.

"Good morning everyone," a familiar winged boy stepped to the front of the classroom and bowed, "my name is Zagred and my hobbies include studying different languages." 'And yet you still use words like 'cooties',' Megicula had to resist the urge to snort as Zagred bowed once again and returned to his seat.

"Now it's your turn," the teacher beckoned to the winged girl who stood up and made her way to the front of the class.

"Good morning everyone," she bowed to her fellow students, "my name is Megicula. My interests are in science and experimenting with different types of magic!" This, like the first couple of introductions, received a nice applause. The teacher was pleased as the introductions continued to go smoothly and before long the first lesson began.

That Afternoon

"So, how was your first day of school," her mother asked from the driver's seat. School had just let out and she'd arrived in time to pick up her daughter before the traffic had gotten bad.

"It was great," Megicula smiled while almost bouncing in her seat, "we learned all kinds of things! There was writing and history and magical science! But there were a couple things that were kind of annoying."

"Oh," her mother raised an eyebrow, shooting a quick glance at her daughter before returning her attention to the road.

"Zagred is in my class," the demon girl crossed her arms and pouted, "I'll bet he's still sore about the cereal incident. And there were some weird demon twins there, like someone had made a magic duplicate of themselves. They do this thing where they finish each other's sentences and talk in sync, like they're reading one another's minds."

"It probably means they know each other well," the demon mother reasoned with a smile, "if you and your brother had been born at the same time, you might've done the same thing."

"I hope you mean we'd both love science and not angrily pointing at things," Megicula deadpanned which only succeeded in making her mother giggle. The rest of the conversation carried on like this until they arrived home. The demon mother went to open the door but suddenly moved out of the way as a blue and white-striped blur leapt out of the house and hit Megicula with its full weight. "Ah, Makura!"

The female spider was rubbing against the demon girl while making a noise that sounded almost like purring. "I thought as much," her mother put a hand on her hip, "she's been fretting the last couple of hours. Poor Makura's been wondering where you've been all day." Megicula simply laughed at this while petting her spider.

Once her companion finally let her up, she went inside with her mother who decided to go ahead and cook a nutritious dinner for the girl while also feeding Makura her own special food. After the meal she had a little bit of difficulty convincing Megicula to do her schoolwork as the winged girl kept insisting she'd do it later. Her mother finally convinced her to go ahead and do it so that she'd have more time to play. What came as a surprise to her, but not to the demon girl's mother, was how capable she was at understanding the homework once she got to doing it.

Megicula soon didn't need her mother's help for the rest of the homework and she returned to doing her on work, which was a remote job. Later on Megicula's father returned from his place of work, meaning the only one left who hadn't returned was the demon girl's brother. The poor man wound up having to work a bit late, though his misfortunes didn't end once he got home.

Nighttime

Megicula yawned as she entered the kitchen. It wasn't quite her bedtime yet but the time was definitely approaching if her droopy eyes were anything to go by. Despite this, she couldn't sleep at the moment as her desire for something sweet found her here once again. As the little demon girl looked around groggily, she came across something that caught her attention: a plate of fragrant cookies on the table.

The winged girl had no idea how she'd missed it but there it was, a pile of little sugary morsels ready to be devoured. A note of sorts was sitting in front of the plate and while she did pick it up and read enough to know it was in her brother's handwriting, Megicula lost interest given that it was kind of dark and her sleepy, sugar craving mind just didn't have time to be interested in it while there were cookies to be eaten. And so she discarded the little note and leapt up on the table to begin devouring the delicious treats. It would be a little later in the evening when her brother arrived.

'Finally home,' he sighed as he entered the house, 'they don't happen often but when they do those late evenings at work really wear on me.' But there was one upside he had to look forward to. Now that he was back, he could enjoy the special confectionary cookies he'd managed to buy yesterday. Shemihaza had gotten incredibly lucky to come across them since they were a type that was only sold in limited quantities.

"Now where did I leave that pla-," he stopped in midsentence as he came upon an unpleasant sight. The plate was there, but the note and more importantly, the cookies, were all gone! And sitting in a chair snoring was the likely culprit: his sister. "Megicula," he gently shook her awake, "could you wake up, I've got a question for you."

Shemihaza did his best to speak calmly despite the obvious nervousness in his voice. "Huh," his sister awoke, blinking several times until everything came into focus. "Oh, brother, you're home! How was work?"

"Before I answer that," he smiled but couldn't quite stop his eye from twitching, "I recall leaving a plate of cookies here with a note specifying that they were for me. You wouldn't happen to have seen what happened to them, have you?"

"Who, me," his sister suddenly found one of the kitchen walls very interesting, "nope, didn't see a thing. I just stopped to take a break and sit down and the next thing I knew, I was dozing off."

"And the crumbs on your face," Shemihaza ground his teeth a little while still smiling.

"Oh, those," Megicula laughed nervously, "those could belong to anything."

"MEGICULA!" Her brother would be irritated with her for some time after that little incident.

The Present: Black Bulls Base

It had been two weeks since anyone had seen Captain Yami. Ordinarily this would prove an issue for a squad but the Black Bulls were more than capable of being left to their own devices, at least in most cases. Fortunately, they now had a good distraction in the form of Aithusa. It had been a week since the dragon's hatching and her development was coming right along.

She was now the size of a small housecat with hardened scales and small horns which had started to grow on her head. Asta, as her owner, had taken it upon himself to train the dragon in a number of useful skills as part of her development. One such skill was tracking which he started on by using dead rodents as bait. It didn't take long before Aithusa was hunting down every rodent that popped up around the base.

The little dragon got so good that Asta had even gone to a couple of local houses nearby and let her help clean up the rodent problem for free. Another skill he taught her during this time was gliding. Due to her young age, Aithusa's wings weren't strong enough to hold her body weight for sustained flight, so instead he climbed trees and let her glide down. Fortunately, he didn't need to climb the trees for long as the little dragon soon developed claws sharp enough to climb said trees on her own.

Naturally the anti-magic boy was also teaching her commands like sit, stay, come here and, for the fun of it, shake. It would be in the middle of teaching these commands at the end of the week that the front door to the base was flung open to permit none other than Yami Sukehiro! "Captain," Asta called Aithusa to his arms as he stood up to salute his superior, "welcome back. You look quite refreshed."

"Just needed some time off to get my head together," Yami responded as he took a drag of a cigarette, "it's good to see this place is still intact despite me being gone so long. Is everyone here right now?"

"Everyone was here for breakfast this morning," Asta recalled, "but you know how things go when you've got a spatial mage in your ranks."

"Don't I know it," the captain took his cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled some smoke. He took a breath then. "FINRAL!" Almost immediately a spatial magic gate opened as said Black Bull stepped out of it.

"Captain," he greeted with a smile, "welcome back! You're looking better."

"We'll worry about that later," he responded, "go grab everyone and have them come here even if you have to teleport them. We've got some business we need to discuss."

"Right away," Finral produced another portal and walked through it. A few minutes later the Black Bulls were all assembled and, after giving their captain a heartfelt 'welcome back', they got down to business.

"Alright, first thing's first," Yami began, "for starters, good work keeping this place in one piece. That's not always been the case when I needed to take a few days for myself. Anyway, the time for rest is over." He pulled out a few envelopes, all of which contained documents detailing various missions. "Several requests have come in recently, which means we'll be tackling multiple missions at once so step forward as I call on you."

He began signaling one duo after another to step forward. The first duo was Charmy and Noelle, followed by Grey and Luck, then Asta and Gordon. Gauche and Finral got paired together after that and the last duo was Vanessa and Magna. "Now before anyone asks, yes, I'm putting you all with partners you usually don't work with or haven't worked with often. Those who've been here long enough should know we don't always get split up with people we like to work with but that shouldn't stop you from doing your jobs, now get to it!"

"Yes sir!" Everyone responded with a salute before breaking up into their assigned pairs.

"Alright, let's see what we got," Asta read over the documents, "it seems we're heading north to a town named Hestr. Apparently, a sheep farmer is having an issue with his sheep disappearing and recently discovered it was the work of trolls. So we need to kill the trolls and then save as many of the sheep as we can if there are any left to save. Pretty straightforward."

'I look forward to working with you,' Gordon spoke in his usual whispering voice.

"Riiight," the ashen-haired boy sighed as he realized what a problem communication was going to be. "Let's check with Finral and see if he can get us there." It took only a minute to find out that his spatial magic was a no go as he'd never been there before. Finral also warned them that going there by broom at this particular time wasn't the greatest idea due to some stormy weather.

This meant another type of transportation would need to be used. It took a bit of time to arrange it, but they were able to find a cart and a driver to take them to their destination. And since the mission didn't sound too complex, Asta decided it'd be a good idea to bring Aithusa along. After all, she needed to see more of the world at some point, so now was as good a time as any.

The Next Day: On The Way to Hestr

The wagon ride had been peaceful thus far with Aithusa sleeping soundly and Megicula resting her head on Asta's left shoulder. As for the anti-magic boy himself, he was seated across from Gordon. The surprisingly tall individual took up a fair amount of room which was probably what brought about the following comment: 'Do you have enough room?' Gordon asked, 'I can shift around a bit if you need me to.'

"You're fine," Asta assured, "also, I happened to notice something about you."

'What's that,' the Black Bull Member mumbled in his usual tone of voice.

"About the only gloomy thing about you is your appearance," he observed, "when I listen as hard as I can to what you're saying, you're actually a very friendly person."

'Yes, I try my best to be a good friend,' Gordon nodded, 'but it's difficult sometimes. The rest of the squad can be very noisy, but I can tell they're all good at heart. I knew you were a good person the moment you walked in the door, too.'

"Sorry if I didn't hear you initially," Asta decided to apologize, "even if the Black Bulls are pretty noisy, I should've paid closer attention."

'It's alright,' the taller man once again assured, 'I still consider us friends.' He pulled out a ragdoll that bared a striking resemblance to the ashen-haired boy, 'see, I even made a doll to go with the rest of the Black Bull dolls.'

"And I made some drawings of the other Black Bulls," he opened his sketchbook and passed it to Gordon who let him see the ragdoll. "This is some decent craftsmanship."

'And these are lovely drawings,' his fellow magic knight smiled while holding up one of the group photos Asta had drawn. The two continued to talk and get to know one another better as the trip continued. Megicula spent most of the time listening passively but occasionally she got interested enough to ask a question of her own that Asta relayed. The anti-magic user learned about Gordon's youth, his family, his magic and many other little things he'd been wondering about for some time.

Three Days Later: Hestr

The wagon finally made it to the town and the duo saw before they got off just how much thunder and wind was happening in the sky above. 'Yep, definitely glad we didn't use a broom,' Asta mused to himself as he and Gordon exited the wagon and got to work with Aithusa following close behind. It didn't take long for them to find the footprints of the trolls after they'd been directed down a path by the townsfolk. The first problem arose, however, when they followed said footprints into a swamp. It made moving more difficult, especially considering they were trying to move silently.

Thankfully, their apparent prey wasn't silent as a sudden noise drew their attention. The duo crept up to a large bush in order to see what the source of the noise was. That's when they spotted four giant humanoids with bald heads, stocky but muscular bodies with hair dotting their grey skin rocky skin that blended in almost perfectly with their surroundings. What appeared to be moss also decorated parts of their bodies and faces, no doubt a result of them napping for long periods in camouflage, but even it couldn't hide their bulbous noses and sharp teeth.

Without a doubt these were the trolls they'd been looking for as a pen of sheep sat in between them and the lake they'd chosen to camp out at. It appeared their arrival couldn't have been timed better, either, as the four trolls were sitting down working with primitive tools that they were about to use to cut open the sheep to make a meal out of them. "Alright," Asta whispered to his squad mate, "I've got plenty of physical strength so I'll go in first and draw their attention. You, take them by surprise when you see an opening."

Gordon nodded in understanding. When Aithusa chirped questioningly, her owner signaled for her to stay and wait. The young dragon meekly obeyed as they readied to attack. Asta took a few steadying breaths as he readied himself before dashing out of the bushes and charging towards the nearest troll. Before he even knew what was happening the anti-magic boy had jumped up in the air and swiped his right index finger near the troll's neck.

Its eyes became dull then before the monster's head fell from its shoulders and landed on the ground. The headless body fell backwards to the ground with a loud thud as the thick blood of the once living troll spurted from its neck, painting some nearby stones a nasty red color. Gordon took this as his signal to attack and came up behind the distracted trolls. "Poison magic: Dwelling of the Poison Cloud," Gordon called as he held out his hands and generated a large stream of poison gas.

Asta wisely leapt out of the way as the cloud enveloped the trolls who gagged on the purple vapors for several seconds before crashing to the ground. They were quick to check on them and found the other three were indeed dead. "Wow, that magic is no joke," the ashen-haired boy smiled and gave a thumbs up, "good work there, Gordon." He didn't need to hear him to know that the poison magic user was saying 'thank you'.

The duo got to work then, counting the sheep that were still alive and checking to make sure they were in generally good health. Gordon mumbled his thoughts aloud during this time, wondering what they should do once they got back to the base. Of course, they also needed provisions and the like for another three-day trip, assuming the weather hadn't let up by then. The magic knight was so lost in his musings that it came as a surprise to him when Asta suddenly grabbed him by the collar and threw him as far away as he could.

Whatever question he was going to ask was quickly answered as a giant, red water snake burst forth from the lake and lunged towards Asta. The anti-magic boy leapt out of the pen and met the serpent head on, grabbing it by its fangs and digging his feet in as the monster pushed him back. The good news was the creature was unable to eat him in this position. The bad news was Asta had to keep ahold of its teeth in order for things to stay that way. Or so he thought until the water snake suddenly whipped its head upward, causing the magic knight boy to lose his grip and be flung into the air.

'That snake's probably gonna try to snatch me out of the air as soon as I start falling back down,' he surmised, 'so I'll give it something to chew on!' He activated his Anti-mana Skin, covering his body in a protective layer of anti-magic. But this time, he expanded it, forming it into a transparent ball around his whole body. 'I'm not as practiced at this form of my anti-magic so the strain is a lot more than usual. I'll only have a small window where I hold its jaws open long enough to cut its head apart.'

That was the plan, at least, as he began to descend, drawing his sword as he fell. But the water snake had a plan of its own and suddenly expelled a noxious chemical substance from its mouth that turned into poisonous gas upon contact with the air. The force of the gas expelling from the snake's mouth was strong enough at close range that it repelled the ashen-haired boy, causing him to lose focus and inhale reflexively. The Anti-mana barrier he'd created dissolved at the same time, letting in enough of the poison that Asta was immediately paralyzed upon inhaling some on accident.

He hit the ground hard, his muscular body cracking it a bit as he tried to look up at the monster. Fortunately and unfortunately, the bleating of the sheep drew the water snake's attention away from him. While it sniffed the helpless sheep with its large forked tongue, Gordon grabbed Asta and began dragging him away. As soon as he got him to what he hoped was a safe place, the Black Bull member began assessing his comrade's injuries.

Asta was convulsing slightly and a dark rash had formed on his skin, but he thankfully had no physical wounds to speak of despite how hard he hit the ground. 'This isn't good,' Gordon thought to himself as he went over his list of spells in his head, 'my magic is good for poisoning things but not taking poison out of things. What do I do?' "Gordon," the anti-magic user spoke suddenly, "it's okay, just wait for a minute."

Naturally this confused the poison user for a moment until Asta let out a relieved sigh and sat up. Amazingly, his convulsions had stopped and the rash was receding. "My body possesses a kind of passive regeneration," he explained, "I'm not entirely sure how it works, but it's proven effective against stuff like this in the past."

'So that means you're okay,' Gordon asked, daring to hope.

"Yeah," Asta opened and closed his hand experimentally a few times, "not quite full strength yet, but it should be enough to deal with this."

'We still need a plan,' his friend pointed out, 'if you keep getting poisoned it might overwhelm your passive regeneration.'

"Then we'll attack from a distance," the ashen-haired boy shifted to a sitting position, "how are you against other poisons?"

'I'm immune to my own poisons,' Gordon mused, 'but I still have some vulnerability to poisons I'm unfamiliar with. I could stop the poison cloud with a denser cloud of my own.'

"Then that's what we'll do," Asta stood up, "if that thing shoots more poison gas at me before I'm ready, try to intercept it with your magic. Other than that, keep watch."

'But you nearly got killed fighting it alone,' the poison magic user pointed out.

"Do you think you could move out of the way of something as fast as that water snake in time," the anti-magic user argued back. Gordon, unfortunately, had no rebuttal for this and instead nodded hesitantly in understanding. "Good, we're running out of time so we can't be arguing." And he meant it, too.

As they'd been recovering and planning, the water snake had been eating sheep after sheep, picking them up with its forked tongue, tossing them in the air, one at a time, and swallowing them whole. It had just done this and was in the process of selecting another one of the sheep as Asta stepped out of the bushes. Thankfully, the amphibious reptile was too engrossed in its meal to notice as he began gathering and compressing anti-magic between his hands. Asta squeezed it and compressed it until he felt like it couldn't get any denser and when that moment finally arrived, he clapped his hands together and fired the anti-magic projectile from the tips of his fingers.

It flew with incredible speed and impacted with enormous force, blasting apart the snake's head on contact. The now dead creature collapsed onto the ground, breaking part of the pen but thankfully not landing on any of the sheep. "Amazing," Gordon spoke in awe, actually reaching a normal volume for a change.

"And a bit lucky," Asta let out a sigh as he steadied himself, "I've never made one of my bullets that dense before. Good thing it was on target. Now let's round up what's left of the sheep and get them back to where they belong." His comrade happily agreed with this and they got to work herding the wooly mammals back to the farm from whence they came.

That Evening: The town of Hestr

The weather was still not favorable for travel by broom, leaving the duo to once again rely on transportation by cart to get back to the Black Bull's base. The only issue with that was the cart that originally dropped them off had only done so because he happened to be passing through and was willing to make a little extra money on the side. Turned out this particular place was not very profitable for anyone trying to make a living via cart which in this case meant Asta and Gordon had to wait on the next one that was going to pass through the town.

Last they heard, it would be two days before one was going to show up, meaning they had to figure out a way to kill time until then. Fortunately, the town had a surprising amount to do and the two magic knights didn't mind exploring Hestr for a day or two. It would be on the night of the first day, however, that something interesting occurred. It happened when Asta was sitting down eating dinner at the Inn he and Gordon chose to stay at for the duration. The poison magic user was currently sitting in a dark corner to avoid disturbing the other guests while he ate. This meant the ashen-haired boy was enjoying his meal of goulash, stale rye bread, a few modest pieces of cheese and a mug of water by himself.

Or at least he looked like he was by himself. The anti-magic user glanced under the table to see Aithusa eating a modest amount of meat he'd given up from his stew. Asta ate carefully balanced meals and good meat was quite expensive. Even the reward money for this job wasn't enough to buy the really good stuff when he took accommodation, the likely fee for the wagon, and subsequent meals into account. Still, it was enough to satisfy the little dragon for the time being.

Unfortunately, Asta couldn't quite relax while eating his meal. The reason being was that someone was watching him. He'd noticed the oddity a bit earlier and had Megicula check behind him to confirm that he did indeed have someone's eyes on him. The magic knight didn't giveaway that he knew he was being watched, instead choosing to keep eating his meal until the stranger made their move.

Eventually, he got up, moved across the room and sat down next to Asta. The anti-magic wielder could now see that he was an elderly man, probably sixty years old, with numerous wrinkles, short grey hair and light brown eyes. Asta didn't outwardly react to his presence but began readying his anti-magic and his grimoire for a possible attack. "Good evening friend," the old man greeted politely, "if I'm not mistaken, you're a member of the Black Bulls?"

"That is what's on the cape," Asta responded simply, "can I help you with something?"

"My name is Bren," he introduced, "I have some relatives living in Saussy Village. I received a couple letters recently detailing how you saved them from those criminal bastards."

"It was rough but dealing with that sort of stuff is our job," the Black Bulls member pointed out, "is everyone at the village doing well?"

"They are, thank you for asking," Bren nodded good-naturedly, "and what about you? Have things gone well lately?"

"We had to deal with a water snake in addition to the trolls we were dealing with on this mission," Asta snorted humorously, "missions being more complicated than expected is starting to become a theme for our squad."

"Perhaps there's something I can do to help with that," the old man offered, "I owe you for saving my relatives and I'd like to thank you any way that I can."

"That's very generous of you," Asta nodded, now completely relaxed upon learning that the man had no ill intentions, "but I'm afraid I can't really think of anything."

"Are you sure," Bren raised an eyebrow, "I could pay for your next meal, if you'd like."

"Again, that's generous," the ashen-haired boy admitted, "but we can pay for it. About the only thing you might could help us with is locating a martial arts master."

"You need a martial arts master," the old man hummed, "with your physique I assumed you already knew a bit about that. You specialize in close range, don't you?"

"I do, more or less," now it was Asta's turn to raise an eyebrow, "are you saying you know someone who could train me?"

"Know someone," Bren rolled up his sleeve to show a muscled, and somewhat scarred, arm that seemed plenty strong despite the age on it. "I am that someone. If you need someone to teach you martial arts look no further than yours truly."

"You're a martial arts master?" Asta's eyes lit up, "I can't believe it. What sort of magic do you use in conjunction with that?" In response, sand suddenly started forming on the man's arm.

"Back in my day I was known as Bren the Sandpit Fighter," he smirked, "my magic power isn't enough to create massive sandstorms, but I could make sand clouds and use it to protect my body in addition to mana reinforcement. Once had a buddy of mine turn the sand on my arm into glass and then broke it across a man's glass jaw. It's all thanks to martial arts that I was able to protect this town time and again before I retired."

The sand dissipated as Asta clenched his fists in triumph. 'Yes, this is great,' he thought excitedly, 'I was super lucky to find a martial arts master here of all places. I need to take every chance I can to get better and improving my fighting technique will definitely help with that!' "How soon can you start teaching," Asta asked hopefully.

"How long are you staying here," Bren asked back.

"We won't be heading out until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest," the anti-magic boy informed.

"Then meet me at the edge of the town on the east side early tomorrow morning," the now revealed martial arts master requested, "we'll see if what I know is compatible with how you fight." He got up then and headed for the door, "don't be late. I know this town like the back of my hand and I'll find you if you try to skip out."

"I'll keep that in mind," Asta grinned, "see you in the morning!" With a nod, Bren turned and left. The Black Bull members and Aithusa finished up dinner after that and retired to their room for the evening which, thankfully, had two beds.

The Next Day: Eastern Section of the Town

Asta quickly saw why this particular section of the town had been chosen. There was a nice open section behind two buildings that no one had bothered trying to develop so all that was there were a couple of trees, a stump and the fallen tree that used to be attached to said stump. The magic knight found his new instructor waiting for him on said downed tree. "Good, you showed up," Bren greeted as he got to his feet, "nice to see some punctuality in a magic knight."

"I got my current physique through diligent training every day," Asta informed while pulling off his cape and jacket, "that included keeping a consistent schedule."

"Well let's see just how good that physique is," the old man rolled up his sleeves and stepped closer, "whenever you're ready, I want you to come at me. Use any form of physical attack you like."

"Right," Asta took a sort of boxing stance while Bren opted for a more relaxed open hand stance. The two stared each other down for a few moments before the ashen-haired boy made the first move. He closed the distance, starting with a wide left haymaker punch. But it was a feint and he withdrew it at the last second and struck with a right cross instead.

Bren wasn't fooled, however, and parried the blow with his hand before hitting Asta in the stomach with a surprisingly strong knee. Asta gasped in pain before moving with the blow and hitting the ground before rolling back up. He moved in again, this time attacking with a flurry of punches at different angles in an attempt to overwhelm the man. But Bren kept his cool under the assault, blocking and redirecting blow after blow.

Asta was certain the man was using mana reinforcement to keep up, but it was different than others he'd seen before. It was subtle, only using enough mana to match the strength of the person he was currently facing. It was certainly less than Yami used when he punched out a wall to quiet down his squad. 'He mentioned not having a huge amount of magic power,' Asta recalled as the man suddenly grabbed his arm and flipped him over, 'so he mastered as precise a control over his mana as possible to avoid wasting any excess.'

The ashen-haired boy managed to land on his feet after being flipped and continued his assault, even adding in a couple kicks while he was at it. But none of his blows were landing as Bren continued to parry and evade his attacks before finally catching a blow then spinning around and elbowing him in the back of the head. Asta stumbled forward and tried to turn around with a counter swing but the man grabbed his head and kicked his feet out from under him. The next thing Asta knew, he was pinned on the ground by the old man sitting on top of him.

"So, what do you think," Bren grinned while still sitting atop the magic knight, "do I get the job?"

"You're hired," Asta gave a toothy smile despite his current position, "do you think you can spare time to come down to the Black Bull's base for a while?"

"For the people who helped my relatives, it's no problem," he pointed to himself, "Master Bren the Sandpit Fighter is at your service."

That's right, Asta's about to learn martial arts to better beat down the enemies of the Clover Kingdom! Let me know what you think of Bren the Sandpit Fighter in your comments and reviews along with what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters! Also, check out my Pat reon for news, scene samples, and other cool tidbits! Last thing, stop in next time as our hero works to master this new form of fighting! 'Til then.