Lia got ready and headed towards the dining room. She saw a woman reading a book sitting at the table. She had long pink hair and kind pink eyes. She put her book away, looked towards Lia and smiled a warm and friendly smile. "Come and sit next to me. I'm Flora, your new trainer." she said. Lia sat next to her. Tin brought big fluffy pancakes with lots of cream, chocolate syrup and fruits and Rin brought hot chocolate for Lia and coffee for Flora.
"I love hot chocolate and pancakes." Lia said.
"I love pancakes too. Sometimes I eat nothing except pancakes all day with different toppings." Flora said.
"So, what will you be teaching me?" Lia asked
"Firstly, I'll teach you how to use weapons and then I'll have to teach you how to avoid using mana powered weapons and survive." Flora said.
"If I am to avoid using them, then why should I learn?" Lia asked.
"Because you might find yourself in a position from which you can not escape unless you kill your opponent. The best way to avoid losing your mana and still defeating your foe would be to strike them down in one go" Flora said.
"How many people will there be in this war? And where will we fight?" Lia asked.
"Thirty mortals from other worlds will be fighting in the ruins of Dark land. It used to be a land inhabited by immortal monsters. The poor things perished during our wars. It is sad, a lot of people had to die just because..." Flora said. She had a sad look on her face.
"Will we all have to kill each other till just one person lives, or..." Lia wondered.
"You will all have to live there for a month. No food grows in that land and even if you find something, don't eat it. It will be poisonous. Every participant will be given food that will last them for a week. Now let's say, you survive on that food for a whole month, but your body will be extremely weak. There will be people who would kill you even if there is no need to do so. I'm assuming Zem hasn't told you this yet. The person with the most kills gets to have one wish fulfilled. Most people would do anything for a wish." Flora said.
"I'm not like those people." Lia said grumpily.
"We know, you are a good person. But, you will still have to fight people for food. You don't have to kill them, you could always have a fast ally distract them while you steal their food." Flora said smiling.
"But if I do that, they'll starve to death, so I would be killing them anyway. Won't I?" Lia said.
"Hmm... look at it this way, they could always take food from someone else." Flora said and her smile became even bigger.
" Still someone would be dying. And it will be my fault, even if it is an indirect death. In order to live and to protect my world, I will have to sacrifice people. I'm not sure I would be able to do it, but I'll try my best." Lia said.
"You must survive this or I'll be very sad." Flora said.
"I'll survive and save the world, I promise." Lia said. They finished their breakfast and headed towards Flora's training ground.
. . . to be continued
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