Amalgam

Teacher and Friend

Sophia Pov-

"So you want me to personally train you.." I say to Ranye as she nods.

"Why don't you just train with the others more? Wouldn't that be enough?"

"It's not I need to get stronger. Stronger than I am now. Especially since Asterius is training harder than the rest of us and going to the Deep levels." Ranye says

I think for a bit as I look at the ceiling before I answer.

"Well, I think I can give you a lesson or two..."

Standing up and making my way to one side of the room I see Ranye also stand up. I get myself in a fighting stance as she gets ready as well. She then shoot webbing at me and I immediately dodged the webbing as she rushed closer to me and tried to scratch me with her nails. Sadly she made herself predictable as I grabbed her wrist and flung her using her momentum against her she hit the wall behind me. She got up and kept on using the same attack sometimes using her webbing to trap me but of course, failed. This kept going on for a couple of minutes as I grabbed one of her legs and flung her again. She was breathing heavily as she got up again bruised all over from me throwing her around.

"Are you done?"

I say stretching my body

"Huff...No let's continue..."

She says getting ready to fight but I stop her.

"Well I think we should stop here I don't want you to be back with the rest of the group bruised all over."

She glares at me but just closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. I sat down next to her and rested then she spoke.

"How did you get so strong, Sophia?"

Ranye asks as I don't say anything for a moment thinking of an answer.

"Hmm well, I kind of had to since I was mostly alone back then. Back then Adventures were a lot stronger then and a lot of monsters like now attacked me constantly. Unlike you all, I didn't find these safe spots so I just had to keep fighting. That was until..."

I stop talking and look down at my collar for a moment.

"Until...?"

Ranye asks as I answered.

"Until I met my first friend and my...mistress"

Ranye looked at me confused as I couldn't help but feel a slight spark of happiness when I remembered the mistress.

"What happened to them?" Ranye asked as my mood switched back to neutral. I stood up not wanting to think about it.

"Let's go spider, we should get back."

I walk away as she stood up and followed walking down the path back to the camp. Soon seeing everyone talking to one another and I see Ray come fly to us.

"Sophia, Ranye where have you two been we were about to send a search party for you guys."

She says as I wave my hand.

"Not to worry Lady everything is fine. Little spider here wanted me to do a little training with her that's all." I say as Ranye only glared at me as I hear Ray laugh.

"Well, I'm glad you two are getting along it's like you two are friends already."

"Yeah right!!"

Ranye started to argue with Ray as I only watched her bicker with her. It's true that me and Ranye do talk a lot but that's because I find her...interesting I don't think we would be considered friends more like an acquaintance. I don't know if I could have another friend like Alfia.

Getting out of my thoughts I then spoke.

"Ranye is correct I wouldn't call us friends more like close acquaintances."

"Yeah what she said!" Ranye said as Ray only smiled.

"Whatever you say you two anyway it's almost time to eat and I think Fo made a new type of stew."

Ray says as she flew off Ranye followed her. With me only sitting in the back away from everyone.

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"Boss!" I yell as Lyd turns to me passing him a piece of sweet bread.

"As per request one loaf of sweet bread from the surface," I say to him as I see Lyd smile.

"Thanks a lot, Sophia I owe you one." Lyd thanks me as I only nod.

"Anyway there's no real news on the surface so you guys can keep going about your usual business but as always be careful." I say as Lyd nods.

"Will do Sophia and you do the same when going back up." I only give a thumbs up as I leave the group but before I could I hear someone call my name.

"Hey, Sophia leaving so early?" I look to see Ranye coming back fully healed from the training I gave her.

"Yup, I finished my job here so I gotta get back. I already reported to Skelly about what happened so I'm just going back to work."

I say to her as there was a couple of seconds of silence. I was about to wave goodbye but then Ranye spoke.

"So hey about earlier when I said we weren't friends..." Ranye says as I am confused why she brought that up.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Well, you see if you don't mind why don't we be friends instead of acquaintances like you said." Ranye said as she looked away from me.

I stood there a bit not saying anything. I haven't had someone as a friend since Alfia and now this Arachne is asking me to be her friend. How strange...Now that I think about it I haven't had anyone that close since...

"Hey, you doing okay your kind of spacing out?"

Ranye asked as I came back from my thoughts. Looking at Ranye she looked at me worried as I only gave her my usual smile.

"Sure I don't mind."

I turn to leave as I wave at Ranye for one last time.

"I'll see you around friend..."

I say as leave her with the rest. I guess I can play along but I know that I shouldn't get to attached. Since everyone, I get close with dies anyways...

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I almost arrive at the surface seeing all the adventures pass me by. Walking down the streets of Orario I stop at a shop to see if they have the herbs that I need to make my cigarettes. Sadly though I didn't find anything. Holding my collar as I couldn't help but grit my teeth in annoyance.

"On to the next store then."

I quietly said as I make my way the exit but then something caught my eye. On the top shelf, I see a large glass bottle but on the bottle, there was a Familia insignia that I almost forgot about.

"The Soma Familia."

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