Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 5: Ghosts of laughter

By the end of the morning period, the library was seething with chaotic laughter, even the librarian was laughing and clenching his stomach, bending over with short breaths. The duet had turned into two childish voices, blurting out the lines of a nursery rhyme out of tune, with a lazy voice leading them in toneless singing, while his off-beat drumming went a step further, and turned from music to a hail storm with all his fingers tapping to a rhythm of their own.

How did this mess come to be? well, it's a sad story, once Yunan and Leol got used to the out of time tapping, and finally got their act on the right track, instructor Bai added two fingers worth of rhythmic drumming. When they started getting used to that, things escalated once more. Bai did not allow any time to stop singing, he ruined their rhythm by adding extra fingers to the drumming, or add his own voice, humming and whistling then finally singing loudly by the end of the four-hour lecture.

At the end of the morning period, Bai clapped to stop Yunan and Leol from singing any further, then he told Yunan to bring two swords and come to hall 5 like yesterday, and after he cleared his throat, he gingerly left the library with a small smile that was so smug, like a child who did a naughty thing and got away with it. The library started to clear out, and the two boys walked all the way to the cantina in a very solemn mood, they did not care to talk about what happened and choose to ignore the shameful lesson for the rest of their days. their voices were so hoarse they decided to forgo talking along the way and throughout lunch.

After lunch, Leol went to hide in their room, while Yunan had his sword training to prepare for, he found strange rumours spreading around the academy, about laughing ghosts in the library, according to the rumour, the ghosts awakened when some unfortunate kids sang nursery rhymes badly, the poor kids had to keep the ghosts laughing all morning to stay alive. Another rumour about a hilarious band of three, rehearsing nursery rhymes in the library in the strangest of ways, according to eyewitnesses the troop was trying to change the rhythm and beat of said rhymes, but failing to come up with anything but hilarious tones. although no one pointed at him or said anything provoking, those who witnessed the morning lesson, unconsciously smiled at him when he passed by them.

Lady luck has again looked out for Yunan, a new rule was introduced just this year to keep students from ridiculing each other, and prohibited person based rumours -rumours that mention a specific name or mark a person as the target. As well as bullying and other demeaning acts, that would affect the growth of adventurers.

Just like yesterday, instructor Bai taught Yunan three sword moves, namely stab, hack and poke. Bai demonstrated the proper forms and stance for each, then proceeded to beat the living hell out of Yunan. Although Yunan made fewer and fewer mistakes, he could not remove them altogether in one afternoon, adding insult to injury, Bai did not even use a sword, he just used his fingers to parry away the incoming swords as he poked at Yunan, to correct his movement, and each time he touched Yunan he would say: "dead". Although he never allowed Yunan to stop attacking even after dying. Bai only gave him rests when Yunan was unable to hold on.

Just like yesterday Yunan went to his room and plunged headfirst into his bed after a bath, he even had the idea to forgo dinner from his soreness, but Leol still dragged him to the diner, simply because he did not want to be alone, while facing the ridicule of the students after what happened in the library, earlier this morning. Leol; who had a bit of his voice returned, was complaining to Yunan about Bai and how they should get revenge for the farce he forced them to go through.

Yunan just silently nodded at whatever Leol said, while eating his dinner, looking around at the smiling faces around him, Leol, on the other hand, was very heartened and moved, almost to tears, when no one rose to give them a hard time or laugh at them, and soon he was trying to make sense of the rumours that emerged after their performance. Apparently, the whole school was fascinated by the rumours and only the few who were present could smugly say they know what happened, adding their own flavour on it, and sharing it with others. By the time dinner was over, the general consensus was that 3 ghosts are doing some theatrics in the library, and if you are caught in their sight, you are forced laugh until midday to be released, although the act was funny enough, the inability to leave is the worst part, as there were some who had stomach aches from laughing for a full morning.

While Leol was helping the sore Yunan back to the room, they were discussing what horror would descend upon them tomorrow, the now hateful lazy bum of an instructor just asked Yunan to come to the library and wait for him there, and since the boys had no idea what to expect from such a marvellously strange being, Leol decided to return to his own classroom, the mundane has never felt so safe and nice to him before. When they made it to the room, Leol started his night reading session while Yunan relaxed his body and sat in meditation trying to go through and digest his harvest from the last two beat downs by Bai, he visualised the moves Bai used and compared them to the awkward movements when he tried to apply them in practice.

When he formulated an idea of how to improve his actions, he looked at how Bai either dodged or parried his weapons but never blocked. From the fluid motions, Bai made it seemed as if he prefered the effortless way to deal with Yunan and his attacks, instead of wasting his energy with blocks. Still, in meditation, Yunan tried to memorise how Bai dodged and his timing, he finally came to the conclusion that Bai only reacted to his attacks after they were close enough to him, that gave Yunan an idea that might work in his dodging class.

Soon after consolidating what he gained, Yunan said his goodnights to Leol who merely grunted in response, both their throats were heavily damaged, and their hoarse voices were something scary to listen to in the night. That night both their dreams were about failing to sing a rhyme, while the endless crowd laughed at them nonstop, in the dream they could not run away or hide, only stiffly shed tears as they sang their butchered rhymes in an endless loop. this trauma will not haunt the poor boys for very long though.

On the fields outside the city, an extermination was ongoing, the monsters around the area are to be fully exterminated under orders of the guild, it seemed the guild was planning to kill and destroy all monsters, their nests and habitats, in an effort to monopolise the monster core trade as a dungeon product only, under the pretence of protecting the civilians from future harm. under the half moon in the sky, a youth in his late twenties was gritting his teeth and vowing to his squad mates to make life a living hell for the greedy kid, who took away his sleep time, because he wanted to learn everything, 'couldn't Yunan just choose a specialty like all others, but no, he just had to take all my sleep time away, the greedy little bastard' or so thought Bai to himself, the sounds of laughter from his squad pierced the night as it mingled with the roars of monsters and the sounds of battle in this nest invasion.