May 4, 2020

  Before Mara can even question what Waldo was about to do, Waldo suddenly launches himself over to her direction and throws a punch. Mara yelps and quickly gets off the wagon, dodging the attack and allowing the wagon to be completely destroyed. The wagon splits apart into several shards from the force of Waldo’s attack. Mara falls down onto the ground and quickly gets up. She watches as Waldo begins walking towards her, crushing her half eaten banana under his boot. Fighting cursed spirits is hard enough, but now she has to fight the very thing she tries not to get mad? Is this the day that she dies?

  Waldo lunges towards Mara, catching her off guard with his incredible speed, and punches her in the gut. For Mara, the punch felt like the heaviest thing on Earth. It could never compare to the attacks she was taking from the cursed spirits. She coughs out a small amount of blood onto Waldo’s arm and it ticks him off.

  “You dare soil my arm with your human blood? You insolent brat!”

  With his other hand, Waldo grabs Mara’s head and slams her into the ground. Mara tries to escape from his grasp, but her resistance is futile. He lifts her up again and slams her into the ground once more. Repeatedly, he lifts Mara up from the ground and slams her back into it. Mara cries out in pain and agony, tears and blood flowing down from her face. The crater that is slowly being formed from Mara’s torture is gradually becoming stained with her crimson blood. Her blood also begins to splatter on Waldo’s body. When Waldo has had enough of slamming Mara’s head on the ground, he punches her across the face, sending her flying. He stares down at his hand that is fully covered in the red blood of a human.

  Waldo begins to chuckle. It’s not about having blood on his hands, or even having a fun fight. It’s the thought of relentlessly beating down on weak prey. If the girl won’t learn to fight willingly, then he’ll have to forcefully beat it into her. One way or another, he was going to make it work. And he was not going to take disobedience for an answer.

  Mara lies on the ground, clutching her broken head and crying loudly. The pain is absolutely unbearable. Her head was split open and it feels unreal. She assumed she was going to die at this very moment. But something within her wasn’t going to allow her to give up. She could feel that feeling swelling up inside her. Once again, the desire to burn.

  (I hate you… I hate you… why do you do this to me… I hate you… I hate you… I hate you! )

  Waldo makes his way towards Mara, his footsteps resounding across the barren ground. He looks at the pitiful state Mara is in and grins. He chuckles to himself as he gets on one knee and looks at her body.

  (She’s not worth it. Look at her, crawling into her own little safe spot. She’s not a warrior, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ll pound her into dust until she complies.)

  Suddenly, Waldo feels something on his arm and looks down. He sees some kind of steam or vapor coming out from it. And then, Waldo’s arm catches aflame. His eyes widen in surprise at the sudden development and quickly cuts off his burning arm. He looks back down at the crater only to see that Mara is not in the spot she was just in. He turns around just fast enough to block an incoming kick from Mara. As he blocks her attack, he sees something different with her. Her eyes… her eyes are different now! Her whole entire demeanor has changed and her attacks are sharp!

  “So this is how you defeated the cursed spirits at the massacre! I knew there was something off about it! What a pleasant surprise!”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Waldo releases more power, deciding to not hold back so tremendously anymore. He regenerates the arm that he had cut off and throws a bizarre punch at Mara. The punch connects cleanly with Mara’s face and knocks her away. Waldo immediately follows up with a drop kick, landing on Mara’s chest. However, Mara grabs onto Waldo’s legs and they begin to heat up incredibly fast. He grabs ahold of Mara’s glowing hand and twists it out of place. Mara grunts in pain but still continues to persist. She lands a kick of her own on Waldo’s face and throws several punches at his chest.

  “Good! That’s the spirit! You’re finally on the same wavelength!”

  Mara can’t help but get even angrier. Her hate is being associated with this monster’s joy for battle. She’s sick of it. She uses her left hand, conjuring her cursed technique, and tries to pull Waldo in using air pressure. Waldo glances behind him and blocks the blasts of air pressure that are hitting his back. Mara sees that the air isn’t doing anything and throws another punch at Waldo. However, he catches Mara’s fist. He then slams her into the ground and stomps on her stomach. Mara coughs out even more blood. She’s starting to lose strength, not able to get Waldo’s boot off of her.

  “Get… off of me!”

  Waldo smirks even more once he hears this defiance. He grabs Mara’s head with the grip of a vise and lifts her up. Mara is forced to look at the face of a smiling demon. She’s covered in bruises, wounds, blood, and grime. Her body is no longer in the condition to fight. She can only helplessly stare at the War Spirit with fear. She watches as Waldo’s smile continues to spread across his face.

  “For a small tyke like yourself, you have a great amount of power and potential. How in the world were you conceived? Your father didn’t have any cursed energy or any source of a technique. You’re a rare gem… a treasure.”

  Waldo lets go of Mara’s hair, her body dropping and falling limp on the ground. He chuckles for a moment.

  “You’d best engrave into that small head of yours that I shall always watch you. Any form of escape or retaliation is futile. I will make you endure a lifetime’s worth of harsh training and discipline. Whether you will enjoy it or not, you will grow into a fine jujutsu sorcerer for my plans.”

  Waldo then realizes that he was talking to no one, seeing that Mara has gone unconscious. He scoffs in annoyance and picks her up roughly. If this child were to grow into a fine jujutsu sorcerer, she cannot be in this state forever. After all, humans are quite the weak creatures. The slightest crack in their defenses and they crumble to pieces. But Waldo will make sure that this child will not grow into such a human. He’ll develop her into a human that will be able to clash with the strongest of curses.

  After picking Mara up, Waldo sets her down on a boulder. Using his cursed energy and Multiply, Waldo closes all of Mara’s wounds and gets her patched up. Now all he has to do is wait until she wakes up.

  (Screw that, I’m not about to wait another long time just for her to get her beauty rest. I’m going off to find something amusing. Osoroi wouldn’t wait around at a time like this. That person wouldn’t rest, so neither should we. I will need to cultivate this child into the best warrior she can possibly be. If the partner I see in her comes true, then she will be a valuable asset and tool to overcoming Osoroi. I need to make that happen as soon as possible.)

  .

  .

  Waldo is currently hauling an entire dead cow on his way back to the site. The small amounts of food that the child collected were most likely destroyed during the fight. After all, the wagon got absolutely shattered by his punch. Since Waldo was already around and about and happened to come across a lone cow, he decided to kill it in one fell swoop and bring it back to the child. Having her own game being given to her instead of getting it herself would definitely make her frown. At least, according to Waldo’s judgement.

  When he returns to the site with the cow in tow, he sees that Mara has awaken, now sitting on the boulder. Unexpectedly, he picks up the cow with one hand and launches it towards her. Mara sees the growing shadow of the cow, looks back to see the animal in the sky, and quickly gets off of the boulder to avoid sustaining any more damage.

  “What was that for?”

  “That’s your next supply of sustenance for the next 2 weeks. You’d better use it well.”

  Waldo smirks, expecting to see Mara frown from seeing her own food being given to her by someone. Instead, she goes over to the cow and inspects it with wonder and curiosity in her eyes. Waldo’s smirk falters upon seeing this, and just decides to throw a rock at Mara. Mara dodges it in just in time to only get a small scratch on her face. Waldo stands there and turns around.

  “We’ll be going west from here on out. You’d best rebuild your wagon and get prepared. The journey is going to get rough.”