Before the events of ‘Skills’...

It had only been a few days since we came to this world. As usual I did my training, even if by the end I couldn’t do anything. Nonetheless I asked permission from Arthur to go back to my room and reluctantly he allowed me to go. 

I sat on my bed and just sighed. I was so tired but I didn’t feel like resting. So I walked from my room into the corridors that the Helos’ stayed at. Apparently Dai, Isabella and Amy all shared the room. I saw that the rooms were slightly open and went in. The first thing I noticed was that they were big, bigger than our rooms at least. But they were also empty. 

Were they still training? Probably. So I then went down the corridor until I saw the staircase and then descended down. Even the stairs were built better here. Were we really that useless? Or maybe I should be happy that we got at least that much.

When I reached the bottom, I saw that it was similar to our side of the castle. I hid behind one of the pillars of the open entrances and watched what they were doing. I could immediately see Dai, he was holding a sword and facing towards a dummy... But it was over five meters away. How was he going to hit that?

Before I could even finish asking myself that question, suddenly the dummy split in half and then again and again, it was then that I noticed, it was the sheer air pressure from his cuts. It was the air that cut them, not his sword, so then... How fast was the sword going? 

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt so utterly defeated in front of that power. How could a human even be able to do that? How was that even possible?

Then the man next to him shouted, “Do it properly!” That meant that this cut wasn’t proper? That he didn’t even master it yet? I simply fell to my knees. I thought that if I put in enough effort I could catch up, but that seemed so impossible... No wonder they treat us like shit, because in truth, it wasn’t too far off. 

We were shit.

Then I saw Isabella, she held her arm up facing towards one of the targets, her lips slightly moved, and then it happened. She was over fifteen meters away from the target, when she casted the spell, spikes of ice that spanned a meter wide and three meters high popped out of the ground and approached the target at a speed I couldn’t comprehend. The woman next to her patted her on the back. Isabella smiled and bowed, and suddenly it felt like she saw me... No she did see me, she was looking at me.

For some reason, I couldn’t move my eyes off of her. I wondered if I could even stand next to her anymore. I couldn’t dare be with her. I couldn’t. I’m nothing. By the time she ran towards me, I ran away. I couldn’t face her anymore. Because I was powerless. I was ‘weak’.

I felt humiliated and embarrassed, but most of all... I felt pathetic. For running away like that. I just ran back to my room and cried. For the first time in my life I felt envy. But I knew... that this envy would consume me. So I trained. I trained like crazy. 

The pain that I felt from training was nothing compared to how pathetic I felt. To stand beside them, I must get stronger. I must keep getting stronger.