THE VILLAIN's APPRENTICE ✔

10 🗡 Sword Dance

After attending their classes, Ace and Oreo went directly to Dana's condo where Meili was. The witch was sitting on the floor, still preoccupied with learning the Arabic numerals as well as the letters of the Roman alphabet. She was also trying to learn the new characters used in place of the ancient characters.

The previous day, the woman insisted to have a Twitter account to battle it out with Thorn in the internetverse. When they told her that the characters used for writing were not the ancient characters anymore, she boasted that she had impeccable memory and that she could learn them in one night. Looking at the papers where she practiced writing, it seemed like she wasn't lying.

A startled yelp made Ace and Meili jerk back in surprise. When they swung their heads toward the direction of the sound, they saw Oreo panting while staring at the bedroom with bulging eyes. It wasn't hard to guess what frightened the guy.

"It's just that maiden named Dana. I took her out of the 'boundless realm' to recuperate my qi," the witch explained. "I don't understand why you look flustered."

"Meili, your expectation level of me is abnormal. I gotta bring it down a notch. Listen." Oreo slumped on the floor next to the woman and held her gaze. "I'm brave, but my bravery is selective. That means, if there is a corpse within my line of sight, there's gonna be a situation. I will scream, cry, and run away – strictly in that particular order."

"Like I told you before, he's a coward," Ace chimed in as he occupied the couch.

"Selective bravery is what I call it."

"You are indeed a coward," the witch mumbled.

"You guys have comprehension problem." Oreo leaned his back against the edge of the couch and bent his knee upwards, resting his arm on it. "Hey, you're getting better in writing the modern characters," he remarked as he browsed through Meili's practice papers.

"It's odd, but these modern characters seem familiar to me. It's as though I've encountered them before. I just couldn't figure out when and where," she mumbled to herself before shifting her attention toward the two. "Shouldn't we be heading to your school so I can try to communicate to Dana through water linking?"

Ace shook his head and sighed. "Not today. There was a group of students in that area when we checked earlier. And it looked like they'd be there until later since they were filming something for their group project."

While Meili was listening to his friend, Oreo took a picture of her and quickly edited it. The photo turned out quite nice, with the witch looking away from the camera having a serious expression on her face while wearing her red, Chun Empire clothes.

"This is going to be your profile picture in your social media account," Oreo declared as he showed it to the witch. "I'll create a Twitter account for you later."

A trace of smile curved on the woman's lips as she stared intently at her first photo. For Meili, it was a frozen memory of the past. The modern world was truly fortunate to have such devices that would enable them to preserve a glimpse of the time that was already gone.

"Since we're not going to the temple ruins in our school today, why don't we go to the amusement park instead?" Ace nudged his friend with his knee. "It'll be good for Meili to get used to different things and places in the modern world."

"That's a brilliant idea!" Oreo exclaimed and darted his gaze back at the witch. "Quick, change your clothes and place Dana in your closet realm—"

"Boundless realm."

"Whatever." Oreo waved his hand dismissively. "Wait. Shouldn't we take Dana to the hospital? Her physical body should be taken care of while she's sleeping."