More walking… I’d normally have mixed feelings about that, if it wasn’t for the fact that the trip was noticeably different. For starters, with every step I took, I could feel the weight of the sword on my back. My sword. I’d have to buy proper gear to take care of it when I got to the Elven Kingdom. Short my backpack, it was the first thing I felt I had truly owned since I got here. It felt reassuring, even if I had absolutely no idea how to use it. I’d have to schedule in some lessons in the Elven Territory. I might have the money for that? How much money did I even have…
…what was the exchange rate for gold?
Shaking myself away from economic concerns, I looked around at my… friends? It was hard to call a few of them that. Namely, all of them. We had fought to the death together, and it was true, I could feel a bond like no other had been created. But on other hand…
“Riary, why is my food burnt?”
“Cook it yourself next time then!”
Alright, that was a fair point. But I didn’t know how to cook! Also, Tyler and Konohora’s food isn’t burnt… Well, hatred takes a lifetime to erase, and usually not even then. I’ll take actually harmless and not horrible pranks. Especially since a god damn monsoon hadn’t shown up this time. I quickly knocked on some wood, just to be safe.
It was currently approaching night. We had walked a fair bit of the day, having left the village around noon. We were setting up camp, meaning tents, and I was quickly learning that I had absolutely no idea how to camp. The other three seemed to have it down to a science and were well, well practiced at this point.
“How long have you guys been traveling anyway?” I asked. I was far past the point of needing to stay quiet, in the background, and meek. Which meant some burning questions in my mind could finally be answered.
I did, however, make the mistake of asking the question while Konohora was in front of me.
“One year, three months, two weeks, two days, and eighteen hours, twenty six minutes and thirty four seconds. Another way to say it would be four hundred and seventy one days or…”
That Penance was harsh. Unrestricted truth. But wow, a whole year. I pointedly looked at Tyler, who seemed stunned by what Konohora was saying.
“Isn’t this, I don’t know, shouldn’t you guys be doing something? This trip alone has and will take multiple weeks worth of time.”
“Not really. In fact, this is our job. To help and save people. We’ve gotten a different priority recently from the King, but it’s not like we can magically locate the gems. That’s been tried by many others. Best we can do is keep doing our job, while heading where they might be.” Tyler talked while slurping up his noodles. His pack seemed to have everything, including a small item that seemed to just make water out of thin air. That explained part of where our rations had been coming from, which had bothered me for a while.
We had also just barged right into extremely dangerous territory. I wanted to ask absolutely nothing about the Gems and be asked absolutely nothing about them in return. A simple ‘what do you know about them?’ might damn me if I speak the wrong way. Let’s not put a tear in our bonds that had just formed.
“Why don’t you have horses?” That had pissed me off. They were Heroes, horses had to exist here. It would make traveling so much faster! Hell, I had seen a few work animals in the village we had left. Cows and pigs, so horses had to be a thing here.
Tyler smiled bitterly. “We had a… bad experience a few months ago. We had horses. I was even finally getting Sally to like me…” Tyler became sad, Riary patting him on the shoulder. Well, damn. Foot meet mouth.
We continued to eat, Tyler his noodles, and I my small bowl of burnt soup. Well, to be fair, only some of the meat was burnt but I knew it was on purpose. I really should learn to cook and start a fire if I was going to be traveling long term.
“Alright, let’s go.” Tyler said, which was fairly confusing. It was night, our tents were set up, we had started a fire and ate dinner, we weren’t going anywhere till morning. It took me a moment to realize he was exclusively talking to me.
“What are you talking about?”
Tyler walked a bit away and I followed. We were mostly traversing open grassy plains at this point, no forest in sight. Tyler didn’t walk for long, only a few yards away, before turning around.
“Derek.” He said. “You have no idea how to fight.”
Alright, okay, wow, harsh but fair.
“I will train you. Every night from now we’ll spar.” And then in one smooth motion, he pulled off his tower shield.
Riary frowned and spoke up. “Are you sure that’s safe? Konohora can’t heal right now.”
Tyler and I looked at each other, deadpan, before we both spoke.
“I’ll try not to cut myself.” / “I’ll try not to hurt Derek.”
Riary choked back a laugh. Yeah yeah, I literally don’t have years of experience. Laugh it up.
I nodded at Tyler, happy for the instructions. I didn’t think I’d ever get to the point in my life where I needed to be taught how to murder but the lesson had been learnt. This world was a bit… surprising. Monsters, evil men, vampires, Fire Mages, I’m sure I’ll get smacked in the face by a fairy sooner or later. Knowing how to fight is probably something you teach every single child in this world.
I pulled out my sword… eventually. Tyler had pulled his shield out as if he was unfolding a limb. I was pulling the sword off my back as if it was stuck to me with glue… alright, needed to practice that.
Finally though, in both my hands, was a sword. A glorious sword. Metal blacker than night, hilt a dull grey, and looking like a deadly tool of war. My heart sang just looking at it, my breath catching as I stared at it.
I and Tyler both let out sighs of contentment, seeing it be wielded. Riary rolled her eyes, the philistine.
Our gazes sharpened up, as we looked at each other. Tyler held his shield at the ready, in front of him, and I didn’t wait. I moved forward, confident he would be fine. I’d seen him in battle after all, I still wasn’t his match. That had only proven more true, not less, as I was fairly sure he’d gotten even stronger. My power gauge told me that but my eyes told me more. Sharper, steadier, more determined. Then again, perhaps I had just never truly seen him need to be any of those things before that day. I breathed deep and swung my sword.
Clang
It was nearly knocked out of my grasp as Tyler pushed forward slightly, deflecting my blow. Then, to my surprise, he turned his whole body and kicked me square in the stomach. My breath got knocked out for a second and Tyler took that second, bashing me to the ground.
“The first lesson I was taught: Win. Fight dirty, fight like a coward, fight desperately, but win.”
Mentality huh. As good a starting point as any.
“It took me longer to learn this but… winning means killing.” Tyler had mixed emotions saying that, but his stance was firm. “This is a spar but we both know that real enemies aim to kill, if you’re lucky. Worse, if you’re not. You have to do the same. You have to be willing, you have to want, to kill. No mercy to your enemies.”
Riary nodded sharply out the corner of my eye and Konohora had finally stopped answering my earlier question, looking solemn, as if she was made of granite.
“Well,” I said. “Apparently demons like to kill so… I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
Konohora immediately shook her head.
“Derek, no. Demons like to massacre and destroy. Widespread chaos. It’s not the same as facing a single enemy trying to kill you. I saw you fight. You were determined and attacked non-stop but more than half your attacks were just aimed in Vilconoff’s general direction. You should have aimed exclusively for her eyes, in the hopes of blinding her or getting lucky and somehow doing more lethal damage.”
I frowned. I, hadn’t noticed that at all. I hadn’t noticed a lot of things during the fight.
Tyler nodded.
“You’re not a killer Derek, not in your mind.” Tyler took a deep, deep breath. The next words seemed to physically pain him. “I am. I am a killer. Where I’m from, I’d be a serial killer. A monster. You need to think that way. It doesn’t matter if you’re a master with a blade, if your heart isn’t in it. That’s what my trainer told me, after he had knocked me on my ass the first time. And now I’m telling you.”
“We are sparring but,” Tyler raised his shield. “You need to aim to kill me.”
My heart skipped a beat. That… this wasn’t a game. Fighting can be fun, it can be something you enjoy, but death has to take someone sooner or later. I might not have literally gotten my heart ripped out, if I’d been better at fighting.
I rose to my feet and took the sword in my hands. I ran at Tyler again, determination in my eyes.
*
*
*
“Did you have to hit me so hard?” I was currently rubbing my slightly swollen face.
“You can’t even feel pain, why are you complaining?” Tyler said.
“I can still feel my lumpy face! Not all of us can look as good as you, you bastard!”
Tyler was left speechless at that.
And so the week continued. Riary made jokes and we traded pranks, though I was surprisingly the one who went too far first, when I snuck into her tent while she was… preoccupied. I had run away, a trail of fire following me. I had called off any more pranks after that, at least for that day. I talked at Konohora, very carefully not asking her any sort of questions at all. I slipped up a few times and Konohora gave me a glare even as she took hours to answer the question. Tyler continued to try to rearrange my face and to impress upon me that I had to go for absolute lethality, without any mercy. Playing around would just get me dead, he had said. I had a feeling that the death of Vanessa had only fueled that belief and cemented it into his mind. Fair enough.
And like that, the week continued… and passed. Finally, a proper large town was seen on the horizon.
We had made it to the Elven Territory.
More walking… I’d normally have mixed feelings about that, if it wasn’t for the fact that the trip was noticeably different. For starters, with every step I took, I could feel the weight of the sword on my back. My sword. I’d have to buy proper gear to take care of it when I got to the Elven Kingdom. Short my backpack, it was the first thing I felt I had truly owned since I got here. It felt reassuring, even if I had absolutely no idea how to use it. I’d have to schedule in some lessons in the Elven Territory. I might have the money for that? How much money did I even have…
…what was the exchange rate for gold?
Shaking myself away from economic concerns, I looked around at my… friends? It was hard to call a few of them that. Namely, all of them. We had fought to the death together, and it was true, I could feel a bond like no other had been created. But on other hand…
“Riary, why is my food burnt?”
“Cook it yourself next time then!”
Alright, that was a fair point. But I didn’t know how to cook! Also, Tyler and Konohora’s food isn’t burnt… Well, hatred takes a lifetime to erase, and usually not even then. I’ll take actually harmless and not horrible pranks. Especially since a god damn monsoon hadn’t shown up this time. I quickly knocked on some wood, just to be safe.
It was currently approaching night. We had walked a fair bit of the day, having left the village around noon. We were setting up camp, meaning tents, and I was quickly learning that I had absolutely no idea how to camp. The other three seemed to have it down to a science and were well, well practiced at this point.
“How long have you guys been traveling anyway?” I asked. I was far past the point of needing to stay quiet, in the background, and meek. Which meant some burning questions in my mind could finally be answered.
I did, however, make the mistake of asking the question while Konohora was in front of me.
“One year, three months, two weeks, two days, and eighteen hours, twenty six minutes and thirty four seconds. Another way to say it would be four hundred and seventy one days or…”
That Penance was harsh. Unrestricted truth. But wow, a whole year. I pointedly looked at Tyler, who seemed stunned by what Konohora was saying.
“Isn’t this, I don’t know, shouldn’t you guys be doing something? This trip alone has and will take multiple weeks worth of time.”
“Not really. In fact, this is our job. To help and save people. We’ve gotten a different priority recently from the King, but it’s not like we can magically locate the gems. That’s been tried by many others. Best we can do is keep doing our job, while heading where they might be.” Tyler talked while slurping up his noodles. His pack seemed to have everything, including a small item that seemed to just make water out of thin air. That explained part of where our rations had been coming from, which had bothered me for a while.
We had also just barged right into extremely dangerous territory. I wanted to ask absolutely nothing about the Gems and be asked absolutely nothing about them in return. A simple ‘what do you know about them?’ might damn me if I speak the wrong way. Let’s not put a tear in our bonds that had just formed.
“Why don’t you have horses?” That had pissed me off. They were Heroes, horses had to exist here. It would make traveling so much faster! Hell, I had seen a few work animals in the village we had left. Cows and pigs, so horses had to be a thing here.
Tyler smiled bitterly. “We had a… bad experience a few months ago. We had horses. I was even finally getting Sally to like me…” Tyler became sad, Riary patting him on the shoulder. Well, damn. Foot meet mouth.
We continued to eat, Tyler his noodles, and I my small bowl of burnt soup. Well, to be fair, only some of the meat was burnt but I knew it was on purpose. I really should learn to cook and start a fire if I was going to be traveling long term.
“Alright, let’s go.” Tyler said, which was fairly confusing. It was night, our tents were set up, we had started a fire and ate dinner, we weren’t going anywhere till morning. It took me a moment to realize he was exclusively talking to me.
“What are you talking about?”
Tyler walked a bit away and I followed. We were mostly traversing open grassy plains at this point, no forest in sight. Tyler didn’t walk for long, only a few yards away, before turning around.
“Derek.” He said. “You have no idea how to fight.”
Alright, okay, wow, harsh but fair.
“I will train you. Every night from now we’ll spar.” And then in one smooth motion, he pulled off his tower shield.
Riary frowned and spoke up. “Are you sure that’s safe? Konohora can’t heal right now.”
Tyler and I looked at each other, deadpan, before we both spoke.
“I’ll try not to cut myself.” / “I’ll try not to hurt Derek.”
Riary choked back a laugh. Yeah yeah, I literally don’t have years of experience. Laugh it up.
I nodded at Tyler, happy for the instructions. I didn’t think I’d ever get to the point in my life where I needed to be taught how to murder but the lesson had been learnt. This world was a bit… surprising. Monsters, evil men, vampires, Fire Mages, I’m sure I’ll get smacked in the face by a fairy sooner or later. Knowing how to fight is probably something you teach every single child in this world.
I pulled out my sword… eventually. Tyler had pulled his shield out as if he was unfolding a limb. I was pulling the sword off my back as if it was stuck to me with glue… alright, needed to practice that.
Finally though, in both my hands, was a sword. A glorious sword. Metal blacker than night, hilt a dull grey, and looking like a deadly tool of war. My heart sang just looking at it, my breath catching as I stared at it.
I and Tyler both let out sighs of contentment, seeing it be wielded. Riary rolled her eyes, the philistine.
Our gazes sharpened up, as we looked at each other. Tyler held his shield at the ready, in front of him, and I didn’t wait. I moved forward, confident he would be fine. I’d seen him in battle after all, I still wasn’t his match. That had only proven more true, not less, as I was fairly sure he’d gotten even stronger. My power gauge told me that but my eyes told me more. Sharper, steadier, more determined. Then again, perhaps I had just never truly seen him need to be any of those things before that day. I breathed deep and swung my sword.
Clang
It was nearly knocked out of my grasp as Tyler pushed forward slightly, deflecting my blow. Then, to my surprise, he turned his whole body and kicked me square in the stomach. My breath got knocked out for a second and Tyler took that second, bashing me to the ground.
“The first lesson I was taught: Win. Fight dirty, fight like a coward, fight desperately, but win.”
Mentality huh. As good a starting point as any.
“It took me longer to learn this but… winning means killing.” Tyler had mixed emotions saying that, but his stance was firm. “This is a spar but we both know that real enemies aim to kill, if you’re lucky. Worse, if you’re not. You have to do the same. You have to be willing, you have to want, to kill. No mercy to your enemies.”
Riary nodded sharply out the corner of my eye and Konohora had finally stopped answering my earlier question, looking solemn, as if she was made of granite.
“Well,” I said. “Apparently demons like to kill so… I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
Konohora immediately shook her head.
“Derek, no. Demons like to massacre and destroy. Widespread chaos. It’s not the same as facing a single enemy trying to kill you. I saw you fight. You were determined and attacked non-stop but more than half your attacks were just aimed in Vilconoff’s general direction. You should have aimed exclusively for her eyes, in the hopes of blinding her or getting lucky and somehow doing more lethal damage.”
I frowned. I, hadn’t noticed that at all. I hadn’t noticed a lot of things during the fight.
Tyler nodded.
“You’re not a killer Derek, not in your mind.” Tyler took a deep, deep breath. The next words seemed to physically pain him. “I am. I am a killer. Where I’m from, I’d be a serial killer. A monster. You need to think that way. It doesn’t matter if you’re a master with a blade, if your heart isn’t in it. That’s what my trainer told me, after he had knocked me on my ass the first time. And now I’m telling you.”
“We are sparring but,” Tyler raised his shield. “You need to aim to kill me.”
My heart skipped a beat. That… this wasn’t a game. Fighting can be fun, it can be something you enjoy, but death has to take someone sooner or later. I might not have literally gotten my heart ripped out, if I’d been better at fighting.
I rose to my feet and took the sword in my hands. I ran at Tyler again, determination in my eyes.
*
*
*
“Did you have to hit me so hard?” I was currently rubbing my slightly swollen face.
“You can’t even feel pain, why are you complaining?” Tyler said.
“I can still feel my lumpy face! Not all of us can look as good as you, you bastard!”
Tyler was left speechless at that.
And so the week continued. Riary made jokes and we traded pranks, though I was surprisingly the one who went too far first, when I snuck into her tent while she was… preoccupied. I had run away, a trail of fire following me. I had called off any more pranks after that, at least for that day. I talked at Konohora, very carefully not asking her any sort of questions at all. I slipped up a few times and Konohora gave me a glare even as she took hours to answer the question. Tyler continued to try to rearrange my face and to impress upon me that I had to go for absolute lethality, without any mercy. Playing around would just get me dead, he had said. I had a feeling that the death of Vanessa had only fueled that belief and cemented it into his mind. Fair enough.
And like that, the week continued… and passed. Finally, a proper large town was seen on the horizon.
We had made it to the Elven Territory.
