Welldark B1 Ch. 08

I stayed still and she tilted her head. I was waiting for some sort of identification. To that end, I was about to shout a question, when she darted into the open court below me. That action only confused me. If she wanted to flee, that was the worst direction to take. I jumped down to intercept her. She was quick, extremely so, crossing through a quarter of the court before I had even touched the ground.

As fast as she ran, she wasn't quicker than instant transmission. With closed eyes, I landed, teleported myself several metres ahead, and stood up, now in her path. She tried to circumvent me, but I materialized a long pole in my hands and stretched it in the path of her chest. Nimbly she bent backwards, dodging the impact fully. Her reflexes were as quick as her steps. She did lose her momentum, however.

I set after her as quickly as possible and heard a carefree laughter as she twirled out of the range of the pole. She didn't try to escape. Instead, the dirty blonde of her tail playfully moved behind her back. That she wanted to play was obvious. 'Might as well get an evening workout,' I decided.

Staying on the offensive, I whirled into my next attack. A sideways swipe, followed by a quick withdrawal and then a thrust. The last attack went narrowly by her chest, moderately small breasts hidden under a cropped top. The white colour of it contrasted her tanned skin nicely, particularly around the flat and decently muscular midriff. She was visibly more athletic than Esther, but far away from being bulky.

My moment of marvel was interrupted by her swiftly turning sideways. Her hair, dirty blonde with dark roots, flew by, bound into a ponytail. She ran. I was almost too distracted by her athletic, tight ass in the confines of stretchy jeans to chase after her. Simultaneously, the roundness of her butt gave me all the motivation I needed to give it my all.

Running, I realized after just two steps, would do me no good. She was even quicker than earlier, somehow. Another teleportation was my only hope. I closed my eyes, while turning around where I was at that moment. I opened my eyes again, to find the catgirl lean up to my face. She must have stopped the second I closed my eyes.

She grabbed my collar, got on her toes and licked my nose. Then she meowed and laughed, backing off and walking two steps backwards, before falling into a lounger. The court we were fighting in was probably used for sunbathing. "You're cute," she announced in a light-hearted tone.

Looking at her ears flick and the broad smile on her face, I could only return the compliment. "I don't think I have enough words in my vocabulary to formulate the margin by which 'cute' is a word too small to describe you, my mysterious acquaintance made in this wonderful night," I started in my wordy fashion, while I sat down on the lounger next to hers. "I do have to wonder what you are doing here."

"Hmmm," she hummed, putting a single finger up to her chin. More teasing than thoughtful, she raised her legs and kicked the air in a relaxed fashion. I couldn't make out the colour of her eyes, the light wasn't quite good enough for that. "I just like running around places and you looked like you would make for a fun partner in running around."

Having heard that, confirming what I had already suspected, I dismissed the pole I had created. "I see," I leaned back in the lounger and smiled. "Well then, it was my honour to have been your partner for a little bit...?" There was an implicit question at the end of that sentence.

"Miel," she answered and pulled her Ashod out of the small pocket on her belt. With a quick few movements, she displayed her student ID. I hadn't asked for that much, but it did eliminate any remaining suspicions.

Miel Caitsith, Age 22, Third Semester. No registered Anomalia and barely able to look neutral on those terrible identification photos everyone had to provide. A photo that also allowed me to make out the colour of her eyes as a neutral grey. No wonder it was so difficult to identify in the moonlight.

She was a year older than me and a year further into the Welldark process.

"My name is Karitas," I introduced myself in turn. I looked again at the 'no Anomalia' part, then at her. "Would you mind if I got your number?" I asked. She seemed pretty interested in me, for the few minutes our relationship had existed. By the rules of Welldark, she couldn't ask me, but I could ask her.

I fully expected a yes, but instead, the Ashod snapped into its closed state and quickly wandered back to her belt. "If ya catch me next time we see each other," she said and got on her feet. A few steps carried her over to the wall she had originally dropped down from. "I wouldn't still be available if I was that easy to get," she mused and started climbing.

I remained seated, watching her get up with three quick pulls and steps. She was unsurprisingly skilled and her sculpted body made for the task. Waving at me from atop the wall, she then vanished into the spires.

'I guess that's at least one successful flirt. Good job,' I congratulated myself and headed back to the balcony. 'Not what I was gunning for when I went to a ball, but nice regardless. I will have to tell Esther about this.' Not only did it make for a good story, but transparency was also key to everything.

I walked as closely to the wall as I could and looked at it like it would be a herculean task to climb. To be fair, it was. I didn't think I could get up without dirtying (or worse, tearing) my suit. Teleportation was the safer option, but teleporting up a sharp rise was a pain.

Being off by twenty centimetres along the x axis meant I would be a bit shy of where I wanted to go. No problem, especially not on flat terrain. Being off along the y axis meant I could get my foot stuck in solid matter. Well, that would be what would happen, if the world itself hadn't been in the habit of rejecting overlapping matter.

Instead, if I miscalculated my teleport and somehow landed myself in physical matter, I would be placed in the closest possible and visible location instead. Along with that, I would experience quite a bit of physical damage in the areas that tried to be somewhere they couldn't have been. The Astral Body usually fixed that, but it was a pain I would like to avoid. The entire area affected felt like a toe stubbed at 100 kilometres per hour.

There was also the risk of not having any remaining Astral Capacity to counteract the damage. I hadn't been willing to test that yet. Maybe if I had a healer around, I would dip my little finger in concrete or something. Until then, I just imagined that the affected area got crushed in its entirety. Trying to have two things occupy the same space was not something reality liked.

After having measured the wall for a little bit, I was confident enough, however, that I could make at least that teleport. Closing my eyes, I took a slow breath, let the Astral Capacity flow, and then exhaled in a relaxed fashion. No pain meant that all had gone well. I opened my eyes and took the rest of the path on foot.

I was just about to head back inside, when Esther met me at the door. "Did the break please you?" she asked.

"You could say that," I answered in a deliberately mysterious fashion. "Did you finish your topic?"

"The topic of self-perfection cannot be brought to a conclusion. Perfection is unattainable, only a goal to strive towards," she answered, taking things way too literally. Just one of her quirks I had come to like. "As it is, we have concluded our current discussion on the matter."

"Good enough for me." I put an arm around her and guided her back inside. "What do you say, shall we take our leave?" There was no need to lead into the topic. Esther just nodded in agreement; she appreciated such directness. We went back to the table and informed Aclysia about our decision. She decided to stay and chat some more with her family. I understood, even if I would have loved to talk more to her myself.

Still, I had one beautiful woman warming my side on the way home. That was a good start.

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Hope you enjoyed that one, a bit bigger in length than the usual chapter and hopefully not too boring. Now in regards to some of the latest feedback, this book is indeed a very "slice of life" type of story and some of you may find it fairly boring at the moment and hopefully that will change in the future, but if you are looking for something faster paced my branch of "The Gamer" or "Drip-fed" might be more of your thing.