Chapter 25: Chapter 25 - The Morning After

Now as you can imagine, after my slight... miscommunication with my lovely wife in the bar, I was given the honor, privilege, and courtesy of sleeping on the floor that night.

I had stumbled into our room that night expecting a warm welcome, and our standard nightly activities to commence as per usual.

Instead I received the cold shoulder, a pillow, a blanket, and an order to sleep on the ground.

At least I got a pillow.

Of course, as can only be expected, my mood was a bit sour the next morning.

My back was speaking to me in languages I definitely didn’t understand.

It felt like someone was slowly drilling holes into my head.

My throat had suddenly turned into what could only be described as sandpaper, and my ribs ached like a bastard.

Now, all of that was still fine, but the constant cold glares I was getting from the usually warm and kind Julia, those hurt like hell.

I mean I couldn’t even remember what I had done wrong.

Sure I might’ve been a bit friendly to a beautiful elf lady, but it wasn’t like I had been banging her on the counter.

I just poured her a glass of wine, and took the money she handed me.

I’m a bartender after all.

That’s literally my job.

"We’re going to start your training today." Julia spoke coldly from the side.

Even the coldness in her voice sent shivers down my spine.

"Training?"

"Yes, your training, I told you about it last night, remember?" She had walked over to the corner of our room to pick up her sword as she said this.

I immediately knew that I was doomed.

"You were serious?" I asked, still hoping that there may be a way for me to talk myself out of the shitshow heading my way.

She didn’t even bother to answer me.

She only walked to the door, turned around, and gave me a look that clearly said I shouldn’t be testing her.

The only thought that flew through my head at that moment was how absolutely, and utterly screwed I was.

"Can I at least have some time to clean up a bit?" I was really trying to buy some time, maybe she would cool down a bit.

Though if she hadn’t cooled down after an entire night’s sleep, I doubted that ten minutes would help.

But a man’s got to try anything he can when he is faced with the wrath of a woman.

Especially that of a woman who clearly knew how to wield a sword, and looked like she was planning to use said sword to cut off some very important pieces of said man’s anatomy.

"You’ll only have to clean all of the blood and sweat off later anyway, so it would just be a waste of time." She answered as she started walking out of the door, clearly expecting me to follow.

"Shit! I’m so screwed." I whispered as I stumbled after her, trying to pull up my pants, at the same time as I was trying to pull on my shirt.

The woman had definitely scared the shit out of me.

I had lost all of my usual elegance and charm.

Instead I had become a clumsy, stumbling idiot falling through the hallways, and tripping down the stairs.

My hasty pursuit finally ended when I found her standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me.

I had almost started to smile at her thinking that maybe she had forgiven me after she witnessed the pure embarrassment of my pursuit, but I had no such luck.

"Before we do anything close to combat training, we should definitely work on your fitness." She said as she looked me up and down.

Now as most of you may know, I’m very confident in my skills and endurance in the arts, but the way she looked at me when she said that shattered that confidence.

"My fitness isn’t that bad... right?"

Once again, no answer, all I got was a very generous backside turned to me as she made her way out of the inn.

Once again I had to race after her all throughout the village, until we finally stopped at the edge of the forest.

Almost the exact same spot where I had killed the tiger only a few days ago.

When we finally arrived, I might have had a bit of a problem with my breathing, but that was almost entirely because of the insect I swallowed on the way there, and nothing else.

"Now for starters we’re going to have you run drills from here to the gates and back." Julia said, which seemed like cruel and unusual punishment if you asked me.

I mean we had just basically sprinted all the way from the village to there anyway.

"Is this really necessary?" I asked, the entire morning had started to become a bit too much.

Of course, that very understandable question gained me another death glare.

"If you want to ever sleep in the same bed as me again, then yes it’s definitely necessary."

Now of course like any man would in a situation like that, I had to put my foot down.

And then the other one.

And another one.

And so on and so forth.

I mean everyone needs to focus on their health after all.

So a bit of fitness training could only do me some good.