CHAPTER 18 – SPEAR WORK
The fake angel met Tom’s eyes:
“Can I help you learn those skills? I can, but it’s not black and white. Right now? This instant?” She shook her head. “But eventually? Yes, I’ll be able to.”
“What the hell does that mean?” He asked bluntly, not understanding the need for evasion. “You don’t have to be cagey. I don’t have time for it. My species’ very future is on the line.”
She held up a hand imperiously:
“Stop. Remember my oath. I’m on your side. I swore on the GODs. My loyalty is not up for debate or doubt.”
Tom’s brief flash of anger faded. Her point was more than valid. She had made that oath unprompted, and it was not one that could be a pretence. It was real and the GODs wouldn’t allow doubt when their name was invoked. Not even illusions or hallucinations would permit such a misrepresentation to exist. If he thought it was sworn on the GODs, then it had been.
“Things are not simple. I’m bound by rules, and I’ve already stated that I can’t give you stuff. I’m not like a normal trial in that regard.”
There was something about her tone.
“And here comes the but.” He guessed.
She smiled:
“Yes, here comes the but. I can’t give, but you can earn the help to develop those skills.”
“Great, let’s do that now.”
She laughed:
“Don’t be so impatient. There’s a process to go through, an order in which to do things to achieve the best result.” She looked at his hands, then at his eyes. “Your weapon is the spear, correct?”
He nodded.
“Earning the right to the aid to acquire true skills will take time. Hundreds of hours should pass, usually, before I can give you hints. Most reincarnated ones don’t start getting help until least one year has passed. You will get it earlier, given the time dilation, but we’re still talking about months. I suggest you use the time you’re getting and the extra fate to work on relearning the basic Spear skill. I assume you’ve had it previously?” She finished, giving him a hard look.
“Of course, in both lives.”
Her face softened. “Sorry, I had to clarify. Others have misled me before, and thus wasted time, because, in my ignorance, I inadvertently provided them with poor advice. Better to ask at the start and make sure that we’re both on the same page.”
“Why would they do that? What would they get out of lying?”
“They had specialised in swords and had figured spears were better and decided to reset things. It might have been an accident of admission rather than them deliberately misleading me. Pretty dumb on their part, anyway. Now, as I was saying, my recommendation is that you use about a third of your time and all of your extra fate to earn Spear Mastery. The remaining time can be spent earning hints for the other skills. This first set of clues is for free,” she waved her hand. “This was given to me for this purpose and approaches the line without crossing it.”
A man or a woman, or at the very least a humanoid, appeared, holding a spear. The person was so thoroughly disguised Tom couldn’t distinguish a single feature.
“I’ve been able to use this for ten years.”
The figure started showing different spear moves. A thrust, a block, specific footwork, the shifting of his hands to an alternative position on the shaft, spinning the weapon to reposition it; between each set of movements, it returned to rest. Then it began chaining them together. The display was precise, and no movement was ever repeated.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? And this was a real person. Every movement done perfectly,” she whispered next to him. “Incredible talent, and a genius as well to share it like they did to be used by kids in the future. Note everything about it. The angle the ankles are at, how the fingers spread for some moves but constrict on others. Every bit is important, not just the vibe. If you duplicate eighty percent of these, you’ll get the skill.”
“I thought the threshold was fifty.”
“It is, but I suspect not all the moves are shown here, just enough of them to be of help.”
The routine ended.
“I can show this to you as often as you wish. The system may interpret it as if you were learning from a master, which would be unfortunate. It might not, of course. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t, and I think it won’t, but be warned - I don’t know anything for sure. In any case, I recommend you take advantage of the opportunity. I can’t imagine there being any real benefit to you studying it by yourself. At worse, it’s just a tier zero skill. Its weight in any calculation has to be almost non-existent. Better in my mind to get help with this one and fill the prerequisite for the other superior skills, so you can start working on them sooner.”
“Agreed,” Tom told her.
A weapon appeared in his hands, and the figure started going through the moves from the start again, and he duplicated the motions. Everything he did lacked the crispness of the example he was trying to emulate, but he persisted.
By the time the routine finished, he was drenched in sweat, and it was a struggle to breathe properly. He gasped for air, standing straight with his hands above his head to open his airways.
The angel glanced at him and the tightness in his chest and the trembling in his muscles vanished instantly. “You know what you need to do and, as I said, combat helps. Remember this.”
She looked pointedly at the shrouded figure that was in its resting stance.
Tom shut his eyes to reflect on his own attempts and review what he had seen and what he had done.
The background noise changed. There was a distant rustling and the touch of a breeze on his skin.
His eyes snapped open to grass surrounding him, trees ten metres in front and an open sky above. The spear he held hadn’t transformed. It was the perfect size for him, unlike the one in the isolation room, but that was a secondary consideration. He was exposed, and presumably in danger. He spun around on the spot, searching his surroundings for enemies.
It was suspicious, and the fact that he was in this new location with a spear in his hand was not a coincidence. He was in a large clearing in a forest, with the ground being covered with the type of grass you would find on a golf course.
Sure enough, a dog poked its way out from the trees right on cue. It was white and fluffy and clearly a poodle, even if it was a little ungroomed. Once it emerged, Tom assessed it. The animal was larger than he expected, with its head on the level of his shoulder, but that might have been more a comment on his own height than the animal.
It was skinny, but given its height and the fact that it ran on four legs, it was going to outweigh him, even if marginally.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“This is a dog from Earth, and it has rabies,” the trial administrator’s voice said from above and behind him.
Tom didn’t bother looking. Whether the angel facsimile was here in person, or it was just a projected voice, didn’t matter.
“It will attack you to kill.”
It was stalking slowly toward him, and he knew it would speed up once it got in range. He positioned his weapon ready to engage it. “In the future, no pets from Earth.” He snapped. “That’s crossing the line.”
“Oh… Sorry.” The dog was frozen like time had stopped. “I thought it would be appropriate because you would both have unenhanced strength.”
“No dogs,” he repeated.
“And most of you don’t care.”
“I do!”
Obediently, the dog’s body shape changed. The mass and attributes he suspected remained the same, but its fur was replaced with scales and its snout became more reptilian even if the rest of the body shape didn’t seem to alter. Then time restarted and when it moved, its gait had altered. There had been structural changes he hadn’t been able to see. Now, the legs spread out like a crab so that its stomach was closer to the ground, and it scampered rather than bounded.
He waited with the familiar calm of his battle trance taking control. He wasn’t sure what this monster’s hunting patterns were going to be, so he had to be ready for anything. Would it fight similarly to a boar and try to charge through him, or would it stop to exchange blows like a crab, or would it keep its canine brain and rely on agility and guile to grab his leg to knock him off balance, or, if it thought it had opening, would it spring for his throat?
For him, the apparent time slowed slightly. Not in reality, just in his perception, as all of his focus narrowed on to the single outcome.
The creature exploded into action, choosing to attack in a method that was reminiscent of a wolf crossed with a boar. Without care for subtlety, it charged directly at him - and then leapt for his throat from almost three metres away.
The correct technique to block such a full-frontal assault was one of the forms that the figure had demonstrated to him: align the tip with the chest, and then thrust brutally forward with the butt of the spear braced with the help of his foot against the ground. That was what had been shown and what was needed now. Tom suspected it was not a coincidence. From his past lives, he knew that the forward momentum was essential for avoiding the spear slipping off the target or getting knocked aside by an errant paw. You could wait and allow the monster to impale itself, but such passivity was never as effective as the more active movement.
His battle trance let him respond effectively instantly, his body already moving before his conscious thought had caught up. He shifted the spear into position with a focus on getting both the tip and the butt into the right place, and then transitioning his weight forward with a half-lunge, the base of it braced by his foot.
The mind was willing and honed, but his body was horrifyingly slow; it felt like he was pushing through water instead of air.
His brain blared warnings of failure. The weapon was not aligned. He couldn’t get it in the right position fast enough, let alone impart sufficient forward momentum to ensure it penetrated rather than bounced off.
Instead of finding the lizard-dog’s chest, he struck the shoulder. For an instant, the tip caught, and he thought he might score a decent glancing blow - and then a single scale gave way and the weapon skittled away. Rather than being impaled, the dog-lizard was barely deflected from its original course.
From the moment the tip failed to find purchase, Tom was acting to mitigate the failure. He launched himself sideways into a desperate roll while dragging the spear closer so he wouldn’t lose it. The monster would go past him. He would get his feet reset and keep fighting.
Its snapping jaws missed.
He tucked his head in to roll, and his shoulder caught the ground. It was a jarring impact that converted his speed into an uncontrollable bounce.
Desperately, he attempted to rebalance himself, find his feet, point the spear.
Jaws clamped onto his shoulder!
Pain shot through him.
Then its momentum struck him. He was only halfway to standing, and that impact caused him to topple forward. Without hesitation, he discarded the spear, knowing the creature was too close for it to be useful. His hand went to his belt - and found empty air.
There was no knife waiting for him.
Grapple, he thought, changing his tactics instantly. Fighting against a monster his size and rank while unarmed was an impossible task, but likewise he refused to give up. He tried to roll forward to use the beast’s own momentum against it and flip it over him, to perform a simple judo throw where the physics would benefit him.
The teeth disengaged.
Internally, he cursed. It must have realised what he was doing and released its grip to protect itself. Instead of driving the monster into the ground in front of him Tom found himself losing both contact and sight of it, and having to tuck his head under him and rolling.
His hands dug into the grass and pushed himself upright, and he looked at where he knew the monster was.
Too slow!
Way too slow.
It was already lunging at him, mouth open, teeth with red streaks of blood over them on full display. There was no time to dodge. He thrust his arm into its mouth to protect his neck and hold it off for a fraction longer.
It bit.
He heard the crunch of delicate bones in his wrists and fingers, and, of course, he felt the pain, but between the bite on his shoulder and adrenaline he could push through it. His arm was partially down its throat and their weights were kind of similar. He threw himself forward, pushing his arm that was only partially functioning deeper into it, hoping to obstruct its airways. He wanted to make it choke or struggle to breathe, creating a chance for something to go wrong, to force an opening. His chest struck its snout, his leg wrapped around its torso, and his working arm linked around its throat while his hand went for its eye.
His thumb was digging into its lid. For a moment he felt like he was doing nothing but that just encouraged him to push harder, he knew that eyeballs when they gave way did so suddenly. It was half choking on his arm and briefly he wondered if this was the opportunity he was searching for. If he could hold on for long enough… he tightened his legs.
It thrashed under him his hand slipped and then he was tossed sideways. His ruined arm left its mouth. He landed on his back and had the air blown out of him. Desperately, he rolled to his side and pushed himself upright. If he stood, he might be able to fight or do something. It was already lunging for him like the wador that ended him in his previous life. Open jaws lunging at his face, teeth on full display as it went for the kill. Bloody saliva trails linked the teeth.
It closed on him.
All he could see was the red of its mouth, its tongue and in the corners of his eyes, teeth, so many sharp teeth.
The mouth shut.
There was a moment of blackness.
The pain vanished, and, panting, he was suddenly on the floor of his old bedroom.
The angel with her inhuman features regarded him dispassionately.
Tom couldn’t even tell if she was judging him negatively or positively or couldn’t care less.
His heart was thudding in his chest. That had been terrifying.
The memory and parallels to his last death made him shudder.
“You didn’t give me a knife.” He accused her. “If I had a knife, I could have gutted it.” Tom wasn’t sure that was the case, but had no desire to admit that a knife might not have made a difference. It was possible that in this body, after failing with the spear, he could have done nothing to defeat it. He was helpless against something as weak as a poodle. He had fought and defeated creatures larger than a house, creatures that could have torn a tank apart with a single swipe of their tail, and now he was reduced to this. It was a reminder of how things had changed, and something to remain aware of.
“I didn’t know that a knife was part of your usual setup, and you didn’t ask.”
“Who doesn’t keep a knife on their belt?”
“Four-year-olds.”
Tom stopped his rant. That was actually a fantastic point. Then the anger returned.
“But you knew I wasn’t that young.” He forced himself to take a slow breath as he reminded himself of her vow. That was not done lightly. Sometimes pain was necessary, and he had been set up, but in the context of her oath there had to be a reason for that. “When fighting, I like to have a spear and four back-up knives,” he told her in an even voice. “two on my…”
“Wait.” She interrupted. “Just picture exactly what you want.”
Tom did as ordered and immediately felt the weight of the new additions. The weapons were in the exact spots he had imagined them. The handles and sheathes matched his imagination, right down to the dull black colouring. He drew the main knife. He glanced down, curiously. It had weight, and was wickedly sharp. Satisfied, he put it back and confirmed the others were just as good. In a fight, they would do the damage he expected.
“Do they need to be heavier, lighter, a different shape?”
He glared at her suspiciously. The knives were perfect, just like he had visualised.
“They’re fine. What’s next?”
His surroundings changed.
Once more, his feet were on the grass and the spear held firmly in his hands.
The monster this time was not hidden. It stood ten metres from him. Blood on its muzzle, a slight scratch on its shoulder and a bloodshot eye.
This was the same creature that had killed him earlier.
He wondered why the trial administrator had chosen this path rather than creating a new opponent. Was it to allow him to get revenge on it? Some people Tom knew would care about something silly like that. He didn’t. He couldn’t give a shit. This was combat practice, and nothing was personal.
He lowered his spear and got ready. In his mind he rehearsed the exact movements the figurine had made, and he spent three fate to help him duplicate it. This opportunity, the way the dog lizard had fought, the way it had leapt in a way for him to execute the movement perfectly… None of that was a coincidence, and he would use his fate to get the most out of it and trust the trial administrator to change the scenarios as he mastered each step.
With her help, the basic spear mastery was a lot closer than he had imagined.