Chapter 160: Kallid’s Hospitality

Their construct skimmers slowed as they approached the southern gate to the city, which had a small line in which carts and other vehicles passed through. While international trade was low, the region still traded amongst themselves, with Kallid the destination of many finished goods.

Aliyah dismissed her summons, putting her ability on its 6-hour cooldown. For personal transportation within the city, familiars, essence abilities, and low weight powers were enough. There was a separate line for essence users and adventurers, which the group approached.

They were greeted by a friendly, white leopard spotted leonid, which was the majority race of this region, with celestines, runics, and elves as runner ups. Humans were surprisingly one of the minority races, alongside draconids, which were uncommon almost everywhere.

“Oh, adventurers! I love this part,” the leonid greeted. “Which rank are all of you?”

“We’re all bronze rank,” said Sen.

“Just right for me then, but I'll need to call my mates over.”

“Um, what for?” Nara asked curiously.

“I’m getting' ahead of myself, aren’t I?” The leonid laughed. “We of Kallid have a little bit of a tradition. Non-negotiable.”

“It’s not some sort of hazing, is it?”

“Weeelll...Do you consider a sparring match hazing?”

“I do!” Lawrence protested curtly. Aliyah offered a smile of pity and reassurance. She had had her aversion to physical combat worked out of her by Sen.

“No need to be afraid. It’s all very simple. Each of you fight one of us, no essence powers, no weapons, no suppression collars, and no lethality. On your honor—no cheating. If you cheat, we may think y’er a ne’er-do-well'er, and deny you entry, so I suggest you don’t. If an opponent admits defeat, you also win and must stop fighting immediately. After the fight y’er granted passage to the city.”

“Do you have to win?”

“Shouldn’t have asked—it’s a secret. Raises the tension, you know? It’s no fun when there’s no stakes.”

“Something I agree with,” said Encio, already stretching to prepare for the fight. His eyes glittered.

“After the fight, no matter the outcome, we shake hands. Pat each other on the back. You get in a fight with somebody in the city—same rules. If you can’t make up, ye both get to sleep in the snow, free of charge, Kallid’s hospitality. Won’t kill you but it...” he violently shivered, “—seeps into the fur.” He shook with a violent full body shiver, speaking from experience.

Two more bronze rankers stepped from the gate guard’s office, coworkers the first leonid had called over.

“So, who’s up first, and who do you want to challenge?”

*****

Sen won his match, surprising absolutely no one in the team but earning himself a hearty handshake and bubbly excitement from his opponent, who seemed more excited to have lost than won. Sen was the most adept at unarmed combat in the team, although Nara surprisingly came a close second, since she had the ability to nullify almost all damage except for powerful attacks as long as she actively intercepted the attack.

All the leonids that stood before Nara towered over her. They were a race of semi-giants, even at normal rank. They were able to reach heights of speed at normal rank that gold medalists runners had wet dreams of, thanks to their racial abilities.

Since she was shorter than all of her options, Nara chose the tallest leonid, the one who had greeted them at the gate: Erik.

“You chose me? I’m honored. Two fights, back to back. You’ve all really made my day. But the other two will complain I’ve called them over for nothin’ if you keep this up.”

“Maybe you look like the easiest opponent?”

He gasped. “That’s offensive! You don’t really mean that?”

“If you lose again, I think that answers that question.”

His lips pulled back to reveal sharp lion-like fangs in an exuberant smile.

Nara smoothly closed the gap, her footsteps quiet against the dirt and snow. Erik almost hadn’t seen her move—there was no warning and no indication that she was preparing to attack. She was a phantom in presence and sound. She launched a sharp, fast jab, aiming for a blow to the solar plexus; she could aim no higher without leaving the ground.

Erik moved to block and counterattack, but her fist never connected. Her fist turned into a grabbing push, and she hoisted herself up with feline flexibility that put their namesake to shame. Erik immediately crouched, sending them both downwards.

She lightly pushed off, surprisingly above Erik when he had once been the taller of the two. She was in the air, and Erik was on the ground. He thought he’d have the advantage, but she easily deflected his upwards jab, as if she was more used to fighting in the air than on the ground.

His punch once again turned into another handhold for her, and she swung around his arm to the back of his body like he had become a fireman’s pole.

“Now,” she said, “bronze rankers still need to breathe, right? Wait. A rear naked is for blood to the brain…never mind. But you do still have a brain.”

Her thighs clamped around his torso, she hooked her legs around his, and her arms around his neck in Earth’s oldest submission, the rear naked choke. The rear naked choke was one of the few moves she had remembered from her brief stint as a mediocre martial artist on Earth, although she was never this proficient nor strong enough to perform the ridiculous acrobatic maneuvers, she pulled off to take his back. She had new ones, thanks to The Way of the Traveler, but it felt good to remember her roots.

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Her head was in an awkward position—behind his back and too difficult to swing at properly. He dropped to the floor, crushing her with his weight onto the ground, but her bronze rank body suffered minorly against the soft mushy ground. While the leonid may be heavy, they were both bronze rank. She kept her hooks in—she didn’t want to perform an Arrhichion.

“Are we playing in the mud now? I hadn’t had my fill as a kid. Too much of a goody-two-shoes.”

“Oh, this will be a gods-damn pain to clean later! A blight on Purity!” Erik said gritting his teeth, although he was delighted to be in such a precarious position.

“You want some crystal wash later?”

“I would…really…appreciate…that!” he said, struggling to throw Nara on who was clamped in a vice grip.

Nara absentmindedly wondered how long it took for a bronze rank essence user to pass out from a loss of blood to the brain. It was longer than expected, but Erik did finally pass out, and she immediately released her grip, hauling his unconscious body off of her with an easy push. She was strong enough to lift cars now; an unconscious leonid was not even an exertion.

“…is tapping out not a thing here?”

“I’m not sure he knew that was an option,” John shrugged. “Maybe you should have told him?”

“Too late now,” Eufemia said. “He’s already out.”

“It wasn’t pretty, but I won.” Nara said, covered in muck and feeling an awful lot like she had been a wrestling oiled up and buck naked like an ancient Greek Olympian.

“When have your fights ever been pretty?” Eufemia said.

Sen nodded, “I remember how you killed that irestyle and stone rodent during your adventure society exam. It was rather…grim.”

“Oh come on that was like two fights. I was iron rank!”

Just a seconds had passed when Erik woke and was already back on his feet. Since there was no permanent damage, there wasn’t anything for Erik’s body to heal. It was just a matter of blood flow recirculating to the brain.

“Oh! What was that?” Erik said excitedly, leaping to his feet with just the strength in his legs from the ground. His snow leopard fur was covered in mud, gravel, and grass particulates, and Nara matched his state of disarray.

“…A rear naked choke?” She turned to her team. “Does this world not have grappling?”

“They barely have sports,” John said. “And the only sport they have is simulated blood sports.”

Erras’ society and combat developed around fighting monsters or other essence users. The combat techniques better leveraged essence user’s new flexibility and superhuman capabilities at high ranks than Earth’s did, and moves that were impractical on Earth, such as flying leaps, were useful against a variety of monsters.

Earth’s combat, in contrast, was too anti-personnel, and too grounded in non-magic. Nara’s Way of the Traveler did have a large variety of non-lethal takedowns and moves, owing to its interdimensional author, but Earth had the greatest number of non-lethal, non-maiming combat techniques of all sources of combat knowledge she currently possessed.

A simple spar wouldn’t exhaust a bronze ranker, and especially not a leonid, but Erik stepped back so his other two coworkers, who had been considerably worked up with anticipation by skilled essence users from afar, had their chance to trade blows.

The gate guards were skilled, but they weren’t adventurer skilled. These were core users or retired adventurers who didn’t jive with the lifestyle, taking a step back for any number of reasons. Better a gate guard than dead; adventuring was not for the uncertain.

Next up was Encio, who pulled a (much cleaner, but slower) win against his opponent. Nara may claim to be second place in unarmed combat, but Encio was breathing down her neck in skill where Sen was jogging a few paces ahead with an unamused expression.

The next best was Eufemia who had the highest competency in the greatest number of weapons, claiming that crown in the party against Nara. Her fighting style was unpredictable—one second going for the standard-fare blows and parries, and in the next she was stabbing fingers where they didn’t belong, flinging her opponent on the ground, then thrashing them as they scrambled to get up.

If Nara’s style was lethal, then Eufemia’s style was brutal. She tested for weaknesses, created new ones for her opponent if they didn’t have any, then dismantled them in a way that was simultaneously systematic yet unpredictable.

“I’m not sure this counts as sparring,” John said with a shudder as he healed a punctured eyeball on Eufemia’s leonid opponent.

“I didn’t hear them say anything about illegal moves,” Eufemia said as she wiped off the blood and body fluids from her fingertips. “They should have specified.”

“We didn’t,” Erik said cheerfully. “It’s perfectly fine. And who hasn’t lost an eye before?” He said, as if everyone had lost an eye before.

“Oh yeah totally,” Nara agreed.

“…Most people haven’t lost an eye before,” muttered John. He thumped the leonid on the back, “All done lad. Try not to lose it again. Hard to keep your eye on your eye, when you only have one left.”

“I didn’t intentionally lose my eye,” the leonid pointed out.

“Would you intentionally lose an eye if it would win you the fight?”

“Oh sure,” the leonid excitedly confirmed. “I always have an eye for victory.”

John sighed, even though he enjoyed the pun.

John surprisingly also won against his opponent, although it was the longest match so far, neither surrendering nor going down without beaten and bloodied faces (mostly John, since even as the tallest member of the team, he was still shorter than a leonid). He had his skill book too, The Stance of The Guardian, and Beorn’s subsumed effect evened the odds against a leonid’s natural strength. Kickboxing reminded John of Earth, and he often practiced unarmed combat in his own room, and occasionally with Sen and Nara. He had a punching bag in his room, although it didn’t do much for skill. It embodied its name—it just existed for John to punch. This ridiculous magical words gave him plenty of conniptions to work out.

Aliyah and Lawrence unsurprisingly lost. Aliyah had been focusing on staff fighting only, and she was only as good at unarmed combat as any average adventurer—which would dumpster any lower ranker like an industrial garbage truck, but it wasn’t winning any fights against an equal rank opponent.

Lawrence was even worse, manhandled like a kitten by it’s mother. He was diminutive compared to the leonid, and the shortest of the group, his head heavy with the unwanted crown of ‘pipsqueak of the team’.

Once he had lost, he brushed himself off, grumbling with his nose buried in another book he was copying.

“You aren’t going to say that our full team can’t enter,” Sen said with crossed arms.

“No,” Erik assured, “We just want everyone to fight seriously. There isn’t any meaning if you just lose.”

“You mean it’s no fun,” Eufemia corrected. “You’re not doing this for a purpose, you’re doing it for fun.”

“That’s what I said,” Erik said with a tone of confusion, as if fighting seriously and fighting for fun were obviously synonymous. “But this demonstration does serve another purpose, if fun isn’t good enough for you, miss finger spears.”

Eufemia pointed her fingers back at him threateningly.

“It’s a hand-on demonstration of Kallid’s…unique rules. You can resolve anything—almost anything—with a challenge. No killing, no maiming that can’t be healed (no torture), especially with the normal folk. You can refuse any challenge, if you don’t want to fight. But some people can be very…persistent. Either get good at losing convincingly, or get very good at hiding—your choice. Nobody wants to fight someone who consistently loses and isn’t losing on purpose. It feels bad. Like you’re bullying a child who wants to win but just can’t.”

“We can fight normal people?”

“If they challenge you that is that is their problem. If they are being annoying, accept the challenge, and dust them off. It shouldn’t happen. No one is that stupid…unless that’s their sort of thing. There might be a few crazies. I don’t judge. Now, you all are here for the Mausoleum?”

The team nodded.

“You’ll want to go to the Adventure Society. No rush—whenever you are free. You may or may not ‘ave received your tokens to the mausoleum—you’ll need to get them there if you haven’t. They’ll explain the rules of the Mausoleum in more detail.”

Erik stepped back, and swung his arm out performatively towards the already open gates of Kallid. It was daytime after all, and a few traders and farmers had even stopped to watch the gate matches in fond amusement.

“Without further ado, welcome to Kallid!”