Joe noticed the serious nature of Kilniara’s question and her slightly tense posture. He turned to her, straightening, “Seems serious. What is it?”
“I… can… what do you think of Gwenvair?” She started a bit haltingly before finishing in a rush.
Huh… must really want or hope for another girl to be able to talk to. “She’s pretty amazing, especially for a noble, huh? But, I’m not sure she’s going to be able to spend any time with us. We’re going to have to stay around here, otherwise. I’m not sure how or if her family will let her travel with us.”
Kilniara fell silent at that before smiling a bit, “She is pretty amazing, isn’t she.”
Joe found her dismissal of his concerns worrisome, so tried to make sure she understood the reality of responsibilities that nobility typically had, “Kilniara. I really like her. She’s pretty amazing and she’s a fun person to be around, but she’s really not going to be able to travel with us. She’s not going to be able to leave this town.”
Kilniara nodded quickly in agreement, “I know. She will not be able to leave her responsibility while she is First in Line for Matriarch.”
Joe nodded, relieved that she seemed to understand, “Yeah.”
Kilniara fell silent at that but nodded before cuddling in to his side, squirming in to his side before promptly beginning training in mana emission. Joe’s eyebrows rose at that, surprised at her quick acceptance and dismissal of the conversation, but grunted and turned to his own training as well. As before, he practiced his emission of mana and movement of his mana points as well, while also manipulating the points in odd ways, compressing, expanding, stretching, and in general just deforming them in any way he could think of. He also began to consider other possibilities of what he could do, and began attempting to move the mana itself after he emitted it, and found some very poor and limited control of it. This proved to be even more difficult than most of his other magic related exercises, but added it to his repertoire of practice. He also attempted to begin making the points interact with one another in unusual ways as well, deforming them against one another or controlling them to form or act in differing ways in conjunction with one another. He found moving the points in 3D space almost instinctual, and soon removed that from serious practice, although he still did practice it a bit, focusing more on moving all the points in conjunction or relation to one another regularly in complex patterns or even in a chaotic almost random movement independent of each. None of it really taxed him, and he wasn’t sure that it was a useful exercise as it didn’t appear difficult, so he only did so for a short period of time, choosing to focus mostly on the new mana control, mana emission, and mana point deformation exercises. Of course, this included doing so after he’d exhausted all his system resources as well, so he could practice with his own personal resources.
The morning passed as it did every day, with Kilniara escaping to the common room when the boys woke. Joe and Zilnek headed out quickly, giving Garnedell his time to remember his family before he rejoined them all down in the courtyard. When all were ready to begin Joe started them on their physical exercises in the courtyard for a time before separating to do his own. About halfway through their practice, the healer met them and waited patiently before he healed them, although he took a bit longer and seemed quite a bit more exhausted after the last heal. The healer left them shortly after as they settled in for breakfast before they returned to their normal dungeon once again. They found Gwenvair awaiting them at the dungeon entrance, as usual, and she skipped over to join them, her escort leaving her with them. The first day had been a bit strange as Joe realized that they’d essentially released the princess into his protection, but he was now used to it and even grateful to not have to deal with the guards, although they did appear quite professional.
Kilniara and Gwenvair came together as typical, quickly falling into whispered and excited conversation as they got in line and headed into the dungeon together. The girls naturally huddled together even as Zilnek and Garnedell formed their own group, loosely including Joe, although Joe didn’t regularly join in and the boys rarely spoke to him or involved him.
They made it into the dungeon and continued their day as normal. Both the girls and boys seemed to be in a good mood, swapping between fighting alone and fighting with Joe regularly, and Joe found himself spending more and more time just watching and making sure they were practicing and developing as fighters regularly. He did make sure to smack each goblin lightly, causing wounds or damage so that he was able to get his experience, but he did so in such a way as to not overly weaken the goblin. The others still needed to practice fighting against serious opponents.
Despite Joe’s help, the odd team out that fought alone still ended up falling back to rest against the corner quite a bit faster than the team that was with him. Somehow, they appeared to last a bit longer when with him than when they fought alone. Joe wasn’t quite sure why, but could only assume a sense of worry and a tension that added stress and exhaustion. Despite that, they needed to learn to fight and were doing well enough that Joe wasn’t concerned.
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Around noon on one of their last fights, he was fighting with the boys and when they got exhausted, Joe took out the goblin and turned back to see the two boys, exhausted and leaning on their knees. Joe smiled and pointed back to the corner.
“Go ahead and take a break, if you need to. I wanna try something.”
The boys nodded and Joe walked back with them, leaning his spear against the wall before pulling out his tonfa from his bag. He stood and headed back out, swinging his tonfa with practiced ease of the bored. He walked out and picked up his favorite goblin retrieval stick before tossing it at the closest goblin before clacking his two tonfa together, holding it in the traditionally classic grip, the long arm of the tonfa braced against his forearm. Man… its nice to have these back…
Joe couldn’t hold back his grin.
* * *
Zilnek settled against the wall and watched his master prepare to fight the next goblin, and grimaced in boredom. Master… doing as he does… again. He watched on without much emotion but as master prepared to fight, he somehow changed. He didn’t move. He didn’t take any action, but something … drew him. Zilnek sat up and found his attention captured.
Then suddenly, the goblin was dead, and Zilnek’s eyes widened in shock even as Joe stood, picking up the stick and drawing another goblin. Wha… how!?
* * *
Joe grinned, happy to once again hold tonfa, and even laughed heartily before settling himself for the next goblin. The goblin came up and Joe settled his tonfa in his grip. The goblin came close and the goblin struck out with its stick. Joe’s response was almost instinctual. His left arm struck out in a block, punishing the goblin’s strike with his tonfa slamming against the fist of the goblin striking against him before pulling the same hand in to quickly to strike hard, if without much power, into the goblin’s chest as he stepped forward. The goblin curled in with the punch and Joe swung his right hand in hard, the strike slammed into the temple of the goblin. It immediately collapsed, dead.
Joe stood, grinning. Man… it feels good. The weapons sat in his hand without movement or fighting him, and he quickly danced the tonfa across his wrist and fists. He turned back to see the others staring at him with no little shock and in this, Joe allowed pride to settle on him, his smile shining through.
“Like ‘em?” Joe asked as he held up the tonfa for them.
Garnedell proved the most enthusiastic, “Yes! What is it!?”
“They… they’re called tonfa. A much more defensive weapon, but still pretty strong for all that. Maybe the only big weakness is its range, but you can close really easy with these and, if you do this…”
Joe flipped his wrists expertly, releasing his fists slightly then suddenly clenching them, perfectly timed. The tonfa, originally lined up such that their long arm was pressed up against his forearms, quickly spun outwards away from his body until the long arm of the stick was sticking straight out from his fist extending the length of his strike about the distance of another forearm.
“With that, you’ll get a bit more distance to strike.”
Zilnek seemed fascinated, staring at the two tonfa with avid greed and Joe noticed, “Want to try?”
Zilnek quickly stilled his face and shook his head, “I… can only wield half staves.”
Joe nodded, “Well, you can hold the spoon spear, so… maybe this will be the same. It’s… a rather unusual weapon… a part taken from an old type of farming equipment according to the legends in Okinawa… uh… from the place on my home plane which uses this weapon. Have you seen something like this before?”
Joe aimed his last question at Gwenvair and she quickly shook her head, “No. I have never heard of such a weapon.”
Joe nodded, “Then probably … well… maybe it will be OK? I’ll hold it carefully, just to be safe.”
Joe held it out, and Zilnek stepped forward with some trepidation before reaching out a hand. He touched it and the tonfa immediately vibrated wildly in Zilnek’s hand. Joe, used to the ease with which he’d been able to hold it, hadn’t been holding it firmly and had to snatch his fist shut. What… I thought… but then how is it so calm… for me?
Joe pulled the tonfa back and frowned, “I’m sorry… guess tonfa are known here… or something?”
Gwenvair said nothing, but grew speculative. Joe noticed and shrugged. Everyone fell silent at that and Joe sighed. Well… something odd is going on here… System obviously sees these as weapons, but why am I so… comfortable using them. Did I … Joe checked his status and made sure he hadn’t mistaken his job or skills, but he was leveling up the Loki faithful job and didn’t have any skill that could explain it. Well… we’re basically done for today, so… just head out? Or… Joe glanced at the others, and they all looked on with exhaustion and Joe decided it probably was a good end for the day.
They ended up finishing their day much more quickly than he expected so Joe called an end to the day before noon even rolled around and he was able to get his Loki faithful job to thirty. Joe let them rest against the wall for about five more minutes before heading out for a slightly early lunch at one of the guilds. They tended to alternate between the two, enjoying the different meals, but the meals didn’t appear to really follow any kind of menu as the two guilds seemed to simply cook according to what was available. It was strange for Joe, but he’d come to accept it and quickly understood the reasoning behind it. Poor transportation, food storage, and food preservation made maintaining a specific menu almost impossible, especially as seasonal foods would be almost impossible to have outside their season. Despite that, the meals proved delicious, and Joe enjoyed them although they didn’t compare even remotely to some of what he was able to enjoy back on Earth.