Chapter 11:

I raised an eyebrow. "Halberds are pretty damn effective. Do you think giving me a different weapon will help me beat someone with one? I don't think a sword's gonna help with that."

Loki shook his head. "No, I mean, in addition to your halberd. Something small. Something that you can conceal on your body and take into the trial. And then, when you get in their guard, you can surprise them. I think it's as clever as you are. You'll be able to think of something."

My mind spun. A dagger. Hmmmm. I could imagine intentionally going for some sort of strength lock in a losing position with the halberds. I wouldn't be trying to win; I would just be tying my opponent up. That could work. I could focus my training with the halberd not and learning how to use it properly, but how to just delay and get on close.

That should be something that they wouldn't be prepared for either because it was just similar to my dual-wielding swords cheating. My thoughts paused. I was getting ahead of myself. "What do you want in return? You need me to make one of your friends look good again?"

"No, no, I'm going to need something a lot more than that. See, one of my family members has an eye on a certain someone. I am going to need you to do something about them." Loki said with glee just dripping from his words.

"Um, I'm not much of a fighter, but if I meet them in the ring, I'll do my best," I said.

"No, not in the challenge. See, the dagger I'm going to give you is going to have a special property that only works once. It's going to allow you to hurt someone during training. That hurt will carry over to the challenge." Loki explained.

My eyes widened. "Do you want me to kill someone in training so they can't fight?"

"No, no, I need them to look bad. Perception is always more important than people think. I need you to hurt them in such a way that it's not obvious that they're hurt but will guarantee their knockout in the first 4 or 5 fights. Otherwise, they'd probably make it out of the Lesser Hall, and the next graduation class would be..." He paused for a second as if searching for the word. "Imbalanced. And I wouldn't want that."

I sincerely doubted that it was an 'imbalance' that he cared about. If anything, Loki was like me; he was always willing to stack the deck in his favor. Or was it that I was more like him?

But when it came down to it, some other god's champion was a target. I just needed to find a way to hurt them a little bit in training.

"Who were you talking about?"

"No one you ever heard of," Loki assured me. "Name is Sigvard. Big bloke. Rather dumb. Brawny. I'll make sure you two meet each other in training. After you leave."

I turned it over in my head. Was this something I was really willing to consider? I nodded. "Absolutely. I will do it."

"Good, good luck," he said and placed the glass down in front of me and pushed a plain-looking dagger to me. I didn't take it right away, though.

"When I die in the challenge, it will come with me." There was no point in it otherwise. Loki picked up the dagger and pushed a different one in front of me. When I looked at him, he gave me an unapologetic shrug.

"Now it will." He said.

I picked it up and slid it into the back of my belt. "Thanks, I think this will work quite well."

Loki inclined his head. "I always aim to please. Now, is there anything else you came here for?"

***

I left with a hangover cure on the house and a packet of information about my target implanted in my head.

Coming up and out of the hidden passage, I walked to the weapons rack. Putting away the bow, I grabbed one of the halberds that I could just barely wield and walked over toward where Bjorn and my friends normally trained. When I showed up, they had paired off and were sparring as Jonas coached them through the movements. Mark and Rolo were relatively evenly matched against each other, but Bjorn was pushing Hugo all around the ring.

When Jonas saw me, he waved and jogged over. "Hey, you were pretty dead to the world this morning. How are you feeling?"

I lifted one shoulder before dropping it. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. Ready to get my ass kicked."

He gave me a smile. "That's the spirit."

"So, more drills?" I hefted the halberd, feeling the effects of my increased strength. "I think I'm ready to move from the basics, though. I have a strategy that I want to try."

He looked at me. "Oh. Is it interesting?"

I shrugged again. "Ah, probably not too much, but I'm thinking I don't actually have time to really learn the halberd completely. Especially for the next couple of matches, so I thought I'd work on taking it out of the equation entirely and using hands and grappling."

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Jonas frowned but nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. I see, yeah. That's probably a good strategy for you. It should get you at least a few rounds in. It's not normally what people do, but you're at a bit of a disadvantage here. Yeah, I think I can teach you that. All you really need to do is get close enough to grab the haft, and you can turn it into a battle for their halberd rather than a full-on duel. It won't work against more experienced people. But. And should at least make it more of a fair fight, I suppose."

He looked at me seriously. "But you're gonna have to learn how to use it eventually."

I nodded. "Yeah, I might not make it out this cycle, but I'm not planning on staying in the Lesser Hall forever."

He looked at me. "Really? I guess I get the desire to move on, but it's pretty great here."

I looked at him like he was crazy. "Huh? You don't get tired of fighting and feasting?"

"No. It's pretty awesome, I have to say." He answered with total confidence. There was something there in his face, something that made me wonder if that was actually what he thought.

"You ever wonder where all the women are?" I asked him, and he froze for a second and rubbed his chin.

"No, no, I hadn't. That's weird." But just like that, he moved on, not even considering it after he realized how odd that was.

Something was definitely wrong. Had I been like that, completely oblivious to anything that didn't quite line up? That's all the more reason to get out of here. The blissful state that I had never quite fallen into was definitely not people's natural reaction to this hellhole.

I jumped in with Mark and Rolo, rotating through as they were closest to my level. Jonas helped to coach us whenever he was free. But beyond simple tactics like tangling the blades together and grabbing the haft, I didn't require much assistance. The basic proficiency had gotten me enough to wield the weapons in a somewhat more dignified manner.

No longer was I flailing around doing my best wacky, wavy, inflatable arms man impression like I was the day before. But I also didn't reveal the dagger I planned to use. I would just get in close and work on shoving or hip checking or grabbing an arm of my opponent's. I counted that as a victory and just disengaged and tried it again.

Each time I got close, I knew I would be able to quickly release one hand and finish my opponent moving forward. Training went on until I took a particularly nasty whack to my knee and limped off to the side.

"Ow," I repeated as I hopped. Mark apologized profusely, but I just shrugged.

"Ah, it's my fault. Don't mind. I'm just going to walk it off a little bit," I said, stretching out my bruised limb and limping down the training circles. It hadn't been on purpose, but this simply provided too good of an opportunity for me to fulfill my end of the bargain.

I pulled the dagger out and fiddled with it a touch, trying to see if I could figure out anything special about it. But it looked just like the standard daggers available for practice. Nothing too special. A slight curve at the tip and a single-edged blade. There was a rounded pommel and a leather grip that fit perfectly in my hand. I twirled it around. It felt almost unnaturally comfortable in my hand.

A sneaking suspicion made me find a secluded spot and carve the status rune.

Status: Tier 3: The Lesser Hall

Weapon proficiencies:

Sword: F-4.

Spear: F-2.

Striking: F-3.

Halberd: F-1.

Dagger: F-1.

Stats:

Strength: 10.

Speed: 9.

Constitution: 5.

Blessing: Loki's Eye.

Class: N/A

Strength: +0.

Speed: +0.

Constitution: +0.

Additional effects: ???

"Wow," I whispered under my breath. I had gotten the proficiency for it already. It just felt so much more natural in my hand. And even as I twirled it around, making a few imaginary slashes and thrusts, I saw the efficiency raised to F-2. And I gained a speed point. Wow. This was too unreal. Was I just naturally inclined to daggers, or had something changed with my brand? The rate at which I gained stat points was at least ten times what I did before.

With a swipe of my hand, I wiped away my status. Standing up I continued my search.

I caught sight of my target. There was the man and several of his friends with the halberds. I got close to the ring before I realized I needed to think of some approach, something a little more subtle than my fight with Jorg. Otherwise, this wasn't going to work.

Loki didn't tell me I had to be seen and noticed injuring him, so it was probably best if I managed to do it without. I was too suspicious, though, and I was struggling to find a way in. Toying with the idea of throwing the dagger, I quickly discarded it. I really, really needed to keep it, and I wasn't sure I could recover it even if I did hit him. I watched their practice for a few minutes before I finally had some idea of how to proceed.