Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Huh?

No, what?

She glued her eyes to the pop-up hovering in front of her. Why was it that colour? What? Why was the level replaced by question marks? Why was he a…. Divine Human?

What the fuck is this?!

A creak of the floor sent her attention soaring to look at the man - no, creature - himself.

Eyes like eternal white fireballs, forever staring at her. What? What? Somehow, in what had seemed like mere moments, the massive creature had moved across the floor. Or maybe she had been so struck with fear that the passage of time slipped. Either way, he was looking at her. A cold, biting tremor gripped her body. The room seemed to drop fifteen degrees, the sheer power of his presence choking her, pressing down on her as if to crush her.

Jay Crooks found that she could no longer breathe.

“Good morning. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the creature said in a baritone voice. He continued staring at her. “My name is Kreig Wiedermann. Henceforth, I will train you in constitution, strength and athletics.” No, maybe he wasn’t staring at her. Jay chanced a glance to her right. There sat Gerald, his eyes glued to the creature’s frame. He should be able to sense it too, right? He may not have access to the system as she does, but he’s a former soldier! He has to know what true death looks like.

Then, why did he look pleasantly surprised? Why did it seem like a smile was almost brought to his lips?

Why did it suddenly feel like the creature was more so looking at Gerald than her?

...It might be that the creature also had access to the system. In that case, he would be able to notice that Gerald’s level was far over one. And, thus, he’d set his sights on him. Maybe-, maybe he’d try to defeat him?

Jay shuddered deeply. It wasn’t as though she actually understood how high-levelled people thought and acted. She was just guessing, hoping to God she might be right. Well, in this case, she was really hoping Gerald and the creature wouldn’t fight. Whatever the ??? meant, whatever a Divine Human was, she was sure it didn’t mean he was weak.

She looked back at the creature. As it seems, while she considered every way this could all go to hell, he’s been explaining the schedule for the day. Her class seemed apprehensive, but nobody had the guts to question such a man.

“...Then, we will begin with running a number of laps around the room.”

Oh, so he was a muppet as well? Damn it all. She bit her lower lip, spending the long moment of everyone reluctantly leaving the bleachers by considering her options.

He didn’t seem directly hostile, unless cruel forms of warming up counted. Furthermore, since he was somehow able to apply for this position as a P.E teacher, he must have some sort of sanity. Or maybe nobody did a background check on him. Or he bribed his way in. Who knew? Either way, running was out of the question. Trying to go home sick might have been possible if it wasn’t for the fact that she’d just have to return another day. Then, she-,

Oh, shoot, almost everyone has left, better get-,

Huh? Jay’s eyes fell on Annie’s face. The girl seemed completely dazed, eyes squinting like she was trying to recognize someone. “Uh, you okay there Annie?”

Light returned to her eyes. “Huh? Oh, uh… Yeah, sorry, I just thought I might have recognized Mr Wiedermann from somewhere.”

Stop the presses. “You’ve seen him before?” Now this is interesting.

As timid realization dawned on Jay’s friend, reluctance overtook uncertainty. “No. Uh, no, I was mistaken. I’ve never seen him in my life. I’d remember that, right?” The meek smile on her face seemed to suggest some humour in her words, but to Jay, it was a glaring red flag. Right. In other words, she recognized him, but something about her former meeting with him had been unpleasant or whatever, so she didn’t want to tell Jay. Right.

But there was one thing she underestimated. Namely, Jay’s tenacity as a reporter-in-the-making. “Yeah, you would. He isn’t the kind of guy you’d mistake for anyone else, is he?”

Annie started sweating even before PE started.

A baritone voice made Jay freeze yet again. “You three, join the others.”

Jay turned around in the intention of saying something along the lines of of course Mr Monster I’ll do just that right after I finish interrogating my friend about you, but it came out as, “Uh, yeah.”

Turning back to Annie, a glance was enough to rouse her from her seat. The both of them left the bleachers and joined the others in running around the court. “So,” Jay said. “How come,” she panted. “If he’s so,” she breathed hard. “Unlike anyone else,” red hot breaths razed her throat. “How come you,” she said. “Mistook him for someone?”

Annie, running next to her, took quick easy breaths. “It was just a mistake. Seriously, I didn’t mean to-,”

“Don’t be like,” Jay said. “That.” But even as Jay continued pressing her friend for details, her attention kept being pulled to Gerlad. Or, rather, his absence. Usually, he’d be running easily next to them, almost completely unbothered by the physical strain. But now, he was almost nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t running with the two of them at the very back, or in the front, or even in the middle. An idea struck Jay at about the same time as she forced Annie to admit that Kreig Wiedermann was not a common name either. Gerald hadn’t gone to meet the creature by himself, had he?...

Her eyes bounded for the massive frame of Wiedermann.

The creature was standing over by the bleachers, pinching a blade of paper between his fingers. His large stature almost completely overshadowed the small, wiry form of Gerald.

Oh God. Gerald, what the hell have you-,

“Okay, okay, I’ve seen him before, alright? He was, he… I don’t know. It isn’t important, okay?” Annie said from far away. Jay breathed heavily, her trembling body hot and burning and heavy like she was dragging two sacks of hammers behind her. Her heart seemed to beat faster as she stared at how Gerald spoke to Wiedermann.

They were, he was…

Well, to begin with, Wiedermann seemed, strangely enough, on the verge of smiling. Maybe. There was some light in his white eyes that hadn’t been there before. Some joy at talking to Gerald that struck her as completely unthinkable. And Gerald, well, Gerald was…

Strictly speaking, Jay had only known Gerald for about a month and a half. Even then, she considered herself pretty darn good at noticing subtle changes in expression. Lying and the like. It was probably since she’d had her fair share of training, but even then, she couldn’t quite understand why Gerald would be feeling subdued happiness at meeting Wiedermann. That, and a clear, obvious recognition. Unlike Annie, he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

Going by this, by the fact that Wiedermann was happy to meet Gerald and Gerald was happy to meet Wiedermann, it seemed almost obvious that they were, in some way, friends.

The thoughts brought a bitter taste to her mouth. No, that was wrong. It had to be.

That was impossible. An interesting conclusion, but an impossible one. Despite everything, Gerald was not a good liar. Keeping secrets was just not something he did well, so the idea that he could be friends with this massive creature without ever telling her just-,

Just… Hum. There was one secret he had been able to keep from her, wasn’t there? Yes, there was. One that might be explained with the existence of this… Wiedermann.

He might-,

“Okay, see, look,” Annie said between deep breaths. “He appeared at my door. He and this other four-eyed guy. Inner city type. I barely got a good look at them before they stuck some hand-written letter in the mail and left. Seriously, I don’t know him!”

Ah, Jay had forgotten she’d been interrogating Annie. Well, it hadn’t needed much effort on her part, but still. Now this is interesting. He left a letter for-,

Hang on; that doesn’t make any sense either. Annie’s as normal as they come. What the heck could a creature have to do with her? And who’s the four-eyed guy?

“What did the letter say?” Jay said in a single breath, trying not to look away from Annie too often to break the intentional tension between them.

“I-, I didn’t,” Annie glanced off and away, “I didn’t open the letter. What, would you open any letter some random inner-city bodybuilders give you?” A smile found its way onto her lips. Jay couldn’t know for sure if it was brought on by the little joke Annie tried telling or if it was the lie she told bringing out her tell. Either way, she could make a pretty fair guess.

“Then you wouldn’t,” Jay panted. “Mind if I had it, right?”

Annie’s face turned a shade darker. “That’s-,”

A pair of claps that sounded a little louder than they should have brought everyone’s attention to Wiedermann. “Finish this lap and then return here.” The creature’s voice was louder than it should have been, but the degree was subtle enough for it to be unnoticable unless you assumed he wasn’t human.

His voice still made Jay’s blood run cold.

When she turned back to demand the letter from Annie, she found that the girl had increased her pace, leaving her in the dust. Alone at the very back of the bunch. Well, it wasn’t an unusual situation for her. She was used to always jogging last. So, it didn’t hurt so bad. Barely at all, actually.

When she finished her lap and joined all the rest in front of Wiedermann, she found that Gerald had joined the ground, standing over by Annie. Alright. So that’s how it is, then? Well, what Annie didn’t consider was that social courtesy dictates that…

Jay elbowed her way through the class and joined both Gerald and Annie.

Annie glared at her, but since Gerald was there, it wasn’t as though she could leave. Leaving meant leaving both Jay and Gerald, and Annie liked Gerald. Thus, they were all together again. Suppressing a grin, Jay came to realize that the three of them were standing at the very front of the group. Right in front of Wiedermann.

Jay was not a tall girl. In fact, she was short even for a girl. So, when a girl of only 168 centimeters stands before a man well over two meters tall… Well, as you can imagine, she had to crane her neck a bit. This close to him, the air itself seemed to surge with power. Like it was perpetually charged with static electricity. At the same time, it was cold. Oh so cold. Like the silent freeze of a snowless winter.

Maybe it would’ve been better if Jay had remained at the back of the group.

She glanced at Gerald. She had a lot of information to press out of him. The implications at play here were not pretty but she wasn’t about to jump to conclusions. Rookie’s mistake. No, she was going to take her sweet time squeezing it out of him. Same with robbing Annie of her “unopened” letter.

But first, she had to finish P.E.

As Wiedermann slowly explained, he was open to suggestions (that nobody would have the balls to present), but for the day, he had a few activities planned.

So began an hour of what can best be described as spartan training. Push-ups, laps, lunges with a rod and the like forced the lazy youths bodies to their limits. Those who couldn’t keep up were swept to the side and given individual training regimes which, by all means, seemed designed on the fly. Still, they were perfectly functional, and those subjected to them soon found themselves doing exercises that didn’t completely cripple them.

Jay was one of these. She was the smallest girl in class, so no matter how much of an effort she made not to fall behind and be subjected to meeting the creature face-to-face, it was only a matter of time. Eventually, she collapsed. He approached her, looked her over, touched her forehead, and told her to go get herself a drink of water and take it easy. As he told her, “There is a fine line between constructive and destructive training.”

Sitting on the bleachers, she found the mystery of who the hell he was only deepening.

The only one who enjoyed the spartan, soldier-like exercise was Gerald, who went through it all with unusual passion.

She had to interrogate him. She just had to.