CHAPTER 3: THE FLASHBACK OF THE LEGEND - PART 3
The Apprenticeship of Pencils and Punishment
Dawn found Rocky in a derelict warehouse district, the air smelling of rust, stagnant water, and pigeons. John was already there, standing perfectly still beside a rusted shipping container. He held two ordinary, yellow No. 2 pencils.
"First lesson," John said, his voice cutting through the morning fog. "The world is a weapon. Your mind is the arsenal. The system gives skills like [Power Strike] and [Fireball]. That's lazy. It's giving you a finished cake. We bake from scratch." He held up a pencil. "This is flour. Demonstrate. Kill that rat." He pointed to a fat, sleek rodent scavenging near a puddle twenty feet away.
Rocky stared. "With a pencil?"
"With understanding," John corrected, his pale eyes utterly serious. "What is a pencil? Wood. Graphite core. Metal ferrule. Eraser. Mass: 5 grams. Aerodynamics: poor. Lethal range: variable based on comprehension. Go."
Rocky took the pencil. He was a champion pit fighter, but this was absurd. He threw it like a dart. It spun awkwardly, bouncing off the ground near the rat, which scurried away.
John didn't look disappointed. He looked like a scientist observing a failed experiment. "You used muscle. You treated it like a small javelin. You didn't understand the pencil." He walked over, picked it up. "The graphite core is brittle. On impact, it shatters. The shattered fragments are sharp. The ferrule is a crude focus for force. The eraser provides drag, destabilizing flight." He turned the pencil in his hand. "You don't throw it to hit. You throw it to arrive with specific intent."
He turned, and in a motion too fast to follow, his arm snapped forward. The pencil flew in a flat, straight line, not spinning. It struck the metal wall of the shipping container beside a different, now-frozen rat. Not the point, but the side of the pencil. On impact, the wood splintered, the graphite core exploded into tiny shards, and the ferrule popped off. A cloud of sharp particulate sprayed over the rat's face and front paws.
The rat squealed in surprise and pain, blinded and cut, stumbling. John was already moving. He stepped on the rat's tail, pinning it. "The pencil didn't kill it. The pencil created a condition—blinded, pained, disoriented. Now, the environment kills it." He nudged the rat towards the rusted, jagged edge of a broken pipe. The panicked rodent scrambled right onto the sharp metal, impaling itself. It twitched and died.
John looked at Rocky. "Lesson one: Tools create conditions. Conditions create outcomes. The kill is often a byproduct. Now, do it again. With this book." He pulled a thick, water-damaged ledger from his coat.
The training was relentless, insane, and revelatory.
Week 1: Improvised Ballistics & Environmental Calculus.
John taught him to "read" a room not for décor, but for murder. "That potted plant. Soil is abrasive, can be thrown into eyes. Pot is ceramic, breaks into sharp shards. The stem is a weak stabbing instrument. The water in the tray is a conductor for electricity you don't have, but suggests plumbing in the walls." He made Rocky list twenty weaponizable traits of everyday objects: a chair, a dinner plate, a loaf of bread ("Stale crust can cut a throat if sawed with enough determination. The soft interior can clog a breathing passage.").
He taught pressure points, not as a mystical skill, but as neurology and leverage. "The system calls it [Nerve Strike]. We call it 'applying precise force to the supraorbital foramen to temporarily disable the optic nerve.' Same result. No skill required. Just knowledge and a good knuckle."
The comedy was pitch-black and stemmed from John's deadpan delivery of absurdity.
· John: (Holding a ripe tomato) "This is a non-lethal distraction device. The seeds are acidic to eyes. The pulp obscures vision. The skin is biodegradable, leaving no evidence. Also, you can make a passable sauce with it later. Efficiency."
· Rocky: "You're saying I should throw tomatoes at assassins?"
· John: (Without smiling) "I'm saying if an assassin is choking you, and you have a tomato, you have options. Shove it in his airway. Or make him blink. Now, demonstrate how you'd use this spool of thread to incapacitate a man with the [Iron Grip] skill."
Week 4: The Art of the Misdirection & Social Engineering.
John was a ghost. He taught Rocky to walk, not with a fighter's swagger or a hunter's stalk, but with the "psychology of unremarkableness." To make people's eyes slide off him. To use his handsomeness not as a beacon, but as a specific tool—to disarm, to distract, to make people underestimate the mind behind the face.
"We will hunt people. People with guards, with skills, with paranoia. We do not assault fortresses. We become a draft that slips under the door. We are the termite in the foundation." He made Rocky practice being a deliveryman, a city inspector, a lost noble. He critiqued his posture, his tone, the wear on his fake boots.
The comedy turned to farce during these drills.
· John: (Playing a bored guard) "Halt. State your business."
· Rocky: (In a terrible accent) "I am here to inspect the... uh... gargoyle drainage conduits. For the city."
· John: (Deadpan) "You sound like a man with a frog plotting treason in your mouth. And we have no gargoyles. You are dead. The real guard has already triggered [Alarm Ward]. Try again. And this time, your paperwork has a coffee stain on it. People trust paperwork with a coffee stain."
Week 12: Firearms & The Symphony of Loud Tools.
John had a cache of "mundane" weapons—firearms. In a world of magic, they were considered crude, noisy, and lacking finesse. John worshipped them.
"A sword needs [Edge Enhancement] to cut magic armor. A bullet just needs sufficient velocity. A fireball tells everyone where you are. A suppressed shot from 300 meters tells them they're dead." He drilled Rocky on ballistics, maintenance, and what he called "tactical patience." He treated guns with a reverence others reserved for holy relics, but his commentary remained deranged.
· John: (Cleaning a sniper rifle) "This is not a tool of war. It's a delivery service. We deliver a message. The message is 'your actions have consequences,' written in .308 caliber. The recipient reads it once, at high speed." He looked at Rocky. "What's the most important part of the shot?"
· Rocky: "Trigger control?"
· John: "The breath before. The world goes quiet. That's the comedy. All their power, all their class skills, all their guards... and it all ends because of a quiet exhale in the dark. It's hilarious."
The brutality of the physical training was interspersed with these lessons. John's idea of a "warm-up" was a 20-mile run while carrying a log, followed by disassembling and reassembling a pistol blindfolded, followed by a written exam on the structural weaknesses of various magical barrier spells.
Month 6: The First Hunt.
John deemed him "marginally competent, like a slightly sharp spoon." It was time for field work. Their target was Magistrate Corbin, a minor official with the [Barrister] class who used his position and a network of [Enforcer] guards to extort protection money from businesses in the Warrens. He had a particular fondness for forcing out struggling family-run shops and selling the properties to a developer cousin. He was protected by the system's bureaucracy and his own small, corrupt guard.
"He's a parasite," John said, laying out a hand-drawn map of Corbin's routine. "He thinks his class and his guards make him untouchable. He believes in the system's hierarchy. We are here to educate him."
The plan was not assassination. It was "accountability."
Phase 1: The Introduction.
Corbin left his modestly opulent townhouse every morning at 8:15 for his office. His route took him through a small, walled garden square. Rocky, dressed as a city gardener (authentic dirt under nails, correct shade of worn green tunic), was trimming a hedge when Corbin passed. As the magistrate walked by, Rocky "accidentally" clipped a branch, sending a spray of dew and leaves over Corbin's immaculate silk robes.
"You clumsy oaf!" Corbin spluttered, his face red. "Do you know who I am? I'll have your job!"
Rocky bowed, mumbling apologies, his face a mask of subservient fear. He made eye contact for a half-second—just long enough to be remembered as the incompetent gardener.
That evening, a sealed, anonymous note was delivered to Corbin's home. It contained a single, dried leaf from the hedge, and a line of neat script: "The smallest branch can disturb the finest silk. Accountability is pruning."
Corbin laughed, showing his wife. "Some crank! Probably one of those shopkeepers."
Phase 2: The Escalation.
Two days later, Corbin's prized magical water-feature in his private courtyard—a symbol of his status—ceased working. John had identified the simple mana-conduit pipe feeding it. Rocky, as a "conduit inspector" (badge forged by John with terrifying accuracy), accessed it and inserted a biodegradable, non-toxic gel made from crushed slugs and algae. It constricted the flow, causing the fountain to gurgle and die. No permanent damage, just a nuisance. Another note arrived: "Even the clearest flow can be choked. Your conduits are being audited."
Corbin was annoyed. He hired an extra guard.
Phase 3: The Demonstration.
Corbin's chief [Enforcer], a brute named Kroll with [Intimidating Aura], was known for his cruelty. John selected him. One night, as Kroll left a tavern drunk, he was ambushed in a pitch-black alley. Not by blades or spells. By flour.
Rocky, positioned on a rooftop, dumped a ten-pound sack of it on Kroll's head as he passed. As Kroll coughed and flailed, blinded, John emerged from the shadows. Using a technique that was pure biomechanics—a joint lock that hyper-extended the elbow, a precise strike to the vagus nerve—he rendered the hulking Enforcer unconscious in three seconds. They stripped him to his smallclothes, tied him up, and poured honey on him. Then they left him in a dumpster behind a particularly aggressive baker's, where the resident swarm of pastry-loving yellowjackets found him at first light.
Kroll was found screaming, covered in stings and humiliation. Pinned to his chest was a note: "Your armor is flour and honey. Your aura is a joke. Resign."
He quit that afternoon, babbling about ghosts.
Corbin was now terrified. His protection was a joke. The system wasn't protecting him. The notes weren't threats; they were reports. He was being audited by a force that didn't care about his class.
Phase 4: The Lesson.
The final act. Corbin, paranoid, decided to move his ill-gotten coin reserve—a chest of gold—to a more secure location. He and his two remaining guards took a closed carriage in the dead of night.
John and Rocky knew. They didn't ambush the carriage. They ambushed the route.
Using a simple block and tackle, a length of rope, and precise timing, they hoisted a large, but harmless, pile of clean manure from a stable-yard onto the street just as the carriage turned a corner. The driver swerved, the carriage wheel hit the curb, and the axle sheared with a loud crack.
As the guards piled out, cursing, John shot out the street's two mana-lamps with a silenced pistol, plunging the block into darkness. In the confusion, Rocky slipped into the carriage opposite Corbin.
The magistrate squealed, fumbling for a defensive charm. Rocky struck a match, illuminating his own calm face for a second. He lit a small candle on the seat between them.
"No screams," Rocky said, his voice quiet. "Or the next sound is your ledger book being read aloud in the town square. With copies."
Corbin froze. The ledger contained all his extortion records.
Rocky picked up the heavy chest of gold. "This is restitution. It will be anonymously distributed to the businesses you crippled. You will resign your post tomorrow, citing health reasons. You will leave the city. If you ever use your class to exploit again, we will know. And the next visit won't involve fertilizer. It will involve a lesson on the tensile strength of your own intestines."
He blew out the candle and was gone, melting into the shadows John created.
The next day, Magistrate Corbin resigned. The stolen gold began appearing in the doorways of struggling shops with a note: "Anonymous restitution." The legend of the "Gardeners" or the "Auditors" began to whisper through the Warrens—a story of comeuppance that bypassed the system entirely.
Back at the warehouse, John was cleaning his tools.
John: "The manure was excessive."
Rocky: "It was available. It created a condition of disgust and disorder."
John: (A long pause, then the faintest nod) "Humor through asymmetry. The grandiose brought low by the mundane. Acceptable."
For the first time, Rocky saw something like approval in John's eyes. Not praise. Just acknowledgment that the tool was being used correctly.
The Partnership Solidifies.
Over the next year, they hunted. A slaver who used magical collars. A poisoner who targeted rivals in the alchemist guild. A corrupt guildmaster skimming dungeon loot. Each hunt was a unique puzzle. John's plans were works of deranged art, blending flawless reconnaissance with utterly unpredictable, often humiliating, executions.
The comedy remained, a constant underscore to the horror.
· Target: A vain [Illusionist] running a protection racket.
· Method: John had Rocky replace the mage's expensive, vanity-sold "youth-preserving" face cream with a harmless but bright blue dye. At a high-society party, the mage's face turned Smurf-blue mid-conversation. In his panicked retreat, he tripped over a carpet John had slightly frayed, exposing the hidden ledger of his illegal dealings from his bag.
· John's Review: "The dye was a visual punchline. The trip was the slapstick follow-through. The exposed ledger was the moral of the story. Elegant."
Rocky was no longer just a fighter or a student. He was becoming a concept. A force of nature that operated in the blind spots of a class-defined world. His Jobless status was his greatest camouflage. The system had no box for him, so it ignored him until it was too late.
He learned to drive carriages with reckless precision for getaways. He learned to pick locks, not with a [Lockpicking] skill, but with an understanding of tumbler mechanics and tension wrenches he filed himself. He learned chemistry to create non-magical smokescreens and adhesives. He learned to use his beauty as a weapon of distraction, his strength as a tool of precise demolition, his mind as a map of vulnerabilities.
The legend of the "Jobless Ghost" or the "Pretty Reaper" began to circulate in the darkest corners of Meridianus. A story told in whispers. A man with no class, who moved like a shadow, broke the "unbreakable," and humbled the "untouchable," often leaving a touch of absurdist comedy in his wake.
But every legend has a price. The boredom was gone, replaced by a constant, low-grade moral chill. Rocky was walking a razor's edge between justice and vengeance, between hunter and monster. And John, his terrifying mentor, was the only anchor in that storm—an anchor made of pure, focused insanity.
One evening, after a particularly grim hunt that ended with a corrupt healer drowning in his own fraudulent "elixir of life," Rocky looked at his hands—clean, strong, capable of both gentle precision and utter destruction.
"John," he asked, staring into the fire they'd built in a safe-house. "Where does this end? We prune the rotten branches. But the tree is diseased."
John sharpened a pencil with a small knife, his movements methodical. "It doesn't end. The pruning is the purpose. The comedy is in the pruning. The disease is eternal. Our satisfaction is temporary, crystalline, and must be earned anew each time." He tested the point, looked at Rocky. "You're wondering if you're becoming the monster. Good. Wonder. Just don't let it slow your pencil."
He tossed the sharpened pencil to Rocky. "Next target's a tax collector using [Mental Probe] to find hidden assets. He lives in a tower. We have no magic. Start thinking about birds, their nesting habits, and the structural integrity of limestone mortar."
Rocky caught the pencil. The question wasn't answered, but the path was clear. The legend was alive, a self-forged weapon in a world of system-gifted toys. And his education, under the mad craftsman John, was far from over.
PART 3 END