“Tonfas. Very reliable,” Drim commented on Kleff’s choice of weapon. “You may have noticed that my own weapons are inspired by them. Tonfas are flexible for both attack and defense… except for monsters. The issue with blunt weapons is that monsters often have weak points protected by tough hides, meaning that you’ll need something that can cut or pierce in addition to your main fighting power. That, or you’ll be stuck bashing something’s skull a thousand times to try and kill it, which unfortunately doesn’t work for everything.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve taken that into account,” the student assured him as he continued to stare his new teacher in the eyes, not even allowing himself to blink.
“Maybe you can surprise me then,” Drim was hopeful. “But don’t stand around waiting for me to surprise you. I’m going to keep to my word. I won’t move until you do, and it’ll only be in response to your attacks.”
“Fine then,” Kleff took a heavy step forward and then lunged at his opponent. He swung both of his tonfas, cresting them together towards Drim’s side, swiping at the teacher’s shoulder down to his hips. It was a good, solid strike that would connect against most opponents, even if they were expecting it, and force them to take the hit or defend.
But Drim could only purse his lips as he effortlessly sidestepped the blow and then slid his feet back to create some distance to prevent a followup attack. “I guess you all really have been studying me. But if you think you can defeat me with one of my own moves, you might as well give up now.”
“As if you’d let us surrender,” Kleff was having none of it. After resetting his footing, the man charged again, this time going for a crossing uppercut, attempting to clock both sides of Drim’s face with the ends of his weapons.
The teacher easily moved out of the way once again, slipping off to the student’s side. Drim was preparing to give Kleff a jab in the ribs to reinforce the failure, but he did actually get a bit of a surprise. A large metal stake went firing out of the long end of the tonfa and extended for several feet, making Drim have to quickly jerk his head backwards to avoid losing an eye.
It had expelled with such force and speed that it was obvious there was some form of propulsion mixed in, not just using a spring. “Ah, yes, that’ll do it,” the teacher was a bit impressed by the weapon. He even went so far as to briefly prod the spiked tip to test the durability and material. “Assuming you’re able to accurately hit a weak spot, that’d kill most monsters instantly. And, if monster hunting doesn’t work out, you can always use it to pick up litter.”
Kleff didn’t seem to appreciate his joke, swinging his other arm behind him and firing the slender stake, forcing Drim to sidestep it once more. From there, the fight went a bit more generic. The student continued to throw blows, but the teacher dodged them all. Nothing was particularly flashy, all standard moves. Not to say that they were bad, but certainly by the book.
There was only one more point of intrigue during the fight. When Kleff charged at Drim, he dropped his body low. He then pressed the long end of his tonfas into the dirt and used the speeding spikes to propel himself into the air and strike at Drim from above.
It had been unexpected enough that Drim didn’t really have time to dodge, so he had to block, using his own arms as figurative tonfas to match the incoming blunt blows. Since his strength was drained and his opponent was driving with full force, it actually hurt a decent amount. If Kleff was more experienced and followed through, with the rest of his body, he could have landed a decisive blow there and won the match.
But alas, the student’s inexperience also left him wide open. Once the momentum of their clash started to subside, Drim dropped to his knees and then immediately sprung back up, grabbing hold of Kleff’s legs that the boy should have been using to kick or subdue his opponent, but was instead letting them dangle idly.
Drim carried his heavy lunge forward, snagging Kleff out of the air and rotating them both downward. The student landed hard on his back, the wind knocked out of him, making his arms flail to the side. As pure precaution, Drim wrenched the loose weapons from Kleffs hands and tossed them aside, more to show him as disarmed than anything. But the boy wasn’t going to move anyways, desperately trying to catch his breath again as he lay there in defeat.
“Not bad, but you really need to work on your follow-throughs,” the teacher gave his critique. “You’ve solidified the fundamentals, but you need to be more aggressive and confident. Now then, I’ll let you share the sense of defeat. You get to pick who’s up next.”
Kleff tried to sit up, but only got half way before he flopped back again. “I hear you snickering, Jordi. So come on then, get it over with.”
The girl’s face went from slightly amused to dread in the blink of an eye, but she steadily built up her confidence and walked out in front of the crowd as her usual smiling self. After Kleff was able to get enough strength to vacate the make-shift arena, Jordi took his spot and readied her weapon. It was a pole mace, essentially a spear but with a mace head as the tip instead of a single sharp blade.
But with how she wielded the weapon, it was like she didn’t understand that part at all. “Why are you only stabbing with it?” the confused teacher asked as he dodged thrust after thrust. “While it’s a decent attack, the advantage of a pole mace is that it can be used as a long ranged blunt weapon that you can swing and clear out crowds. Is it because you’re not strong enough to use it effectively?”
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Insulted by his words, the girl changed up his tactics and swung the pole with all her strength, trying to crack Drim’s head with the spiked ball. But it only completely confirmed his suspicions, able to stop the attack with a single hand, even in his weakened state.
The teacher then yanked on the pole, pulling Jordi forward who quickly stumbled and lost her balance. Drim met her halfway with a single swift kick to her stomach, sending her reeling backwards and down for the count. While the girl had decent control and potential in a fight, she had a long way to go and a lot more strength to build if she wanted to take this career seriously.
“Let me guess, you chose this weapon because you thought it looked cool rather than actually taking its proper functionality into consideration. Definitely one of the biggest fallacies of newbie fighters. If you want to attack like you were, just go with a spear, it doesn’t look as cool but it’ll serve you better. And if you want to stick with the mace aesthetic, just get a regular one, or even two if you can master the coordination.”
“But if you want to master the pole mace, you need to be doing strength training every day of your life for the next few years. If that’s not something you’re willing to commit to, then change either your weapon or your career now before you waste your time.” Those words broke through the girl’s bubbly exterior, causing her to scrunch her lips in frustration, hopefully resonating with something at her core.
Unlike Kleff, she was clearly more about having a good time with her everyday life rather than chasing dreams and long term goals. It reminded Drim of someone he knew. Like her, though, there was nothing wrong with taking life a bit unseriously, as long as she knew when to buckle down when it was time to act appropriately.
Jordi called out the name of a student that Drim didn’t know as his next opponent. That was one of his tactics to not fully embarrass himself: let the students name each other so that he had a chance to learn them, doing his best to commit them to memory. It helped that he had a dedicated spar with each of them, making it easier to remember.
The teacher culled through the rest of the crowd in roughly an hour, each fight lasting only a few minutes, with some not even taking a full hundred seconds. Once Drim saw all he needed to see, there was no reason to expend his waning energy any further.
None of the students were outright bad, and by his assessment, would all at least be able to hold their own against third tier monsters. For some, that’s all they’d need, since most hunters only ever went up against small fry. The pay was far inferior, but it was steady work. Very few ever reached The Slayer’s level, going up against the biggest bads, at least on their own.
It wasn’t uncommon for parties of a few dozen hunters to take on the upper tiers and then split the pay out. But that was what led to deaths more than any others, especially if the parties were made up of a bunch of smaller groups that hadn’t practiced coordination with one another. Only the best of the best hunters could go alone and strike it rich, the rest had to build teamwork as their strongest skill.
There were a few standouts, such as a girl named Hagath who used a classic sword and shield, the only one in the group who clearly made use of sensibility and tradition to dictate their choice of weapon. Honestly, she reminded Drim a lot of Jaid, and he suspected the girl had likely been either a fledgling knight or a squire before the collapse of the monarchies and knight peerages worldwide, and then had to shift her life.
She was only one of two who actually landed a proper blow on Drim, bashing him in the arm with her shield. But the man had returned the favor, stealing the glorified board away from her and slamming it into her lower back to make her stumble, and then using it to sweep her legs and snatch her sword.
The other actually managed to cut Drim in the arm, forcing the Fiend to temporarily remove his cuffs and allow his regeneration to heal the deep gash. He was wounded by one of the few humans of the group, an older man named Wricker—undoubtedly the oldest of the class, making the teacher guess he was likely a former soldier or had already been a monster hunter for some time before coming to the academy to improve his skills.
But of all the weapons among the group, Wricker had the least sensible one. He used a dual-great axe. Instead of using one in each hand, however, the hilts were welded together, making one large chopping blade that he spun around dangerously. While an outright absurd weapon, the man had decent control over it. Though it raised the question if the scars that he was covered in were from actual battle or failed practice.
After every student had gone through their turn, they took a quick break for lunch, and Drim gave a brief lecture in the classroom afterwards about the importance of choosing the right weapon for the job—a lesson a few more than just Jordi needed to hear. But after that, they were right back outside for more fighting.
This time, Drim took a step back and made the students spar against each other—no weapons, just bodies, to avoid any serious injury. He walked around, observing and studying each of them, making comments on any blatant infractions and bad habits as he spotted them.
The teacher didn’t let the students pick their own opponents either. That would just lead to friends buddying up and possibly taking it easy on each other. So he instead chose the matchups for each round, of which he made the students run through five bouts each, fighting until there was a clear winner. And no slacking and shortcuts were allowed. If Drim saw someone take a dive or hold back, they were forced to fight again until they did it properly.
And the afternoon dragged on, with the instructor ignoring the bells that rang throughout the day, even as the students would look at them longingly—partially because he didn’t know what they meant, but secondly, he didn’t care. The wilds had no schedule. Days were long with constant fighting, or short with nothing happening at all. Hunters rarely got to choose.
By the time the students were dismissed to the cafeteria for dinner, it apparently was supposed to have closed down already, but the staff had waited—likely on The Angler’s orders—to ensure the students were fed properly. After that, everyone in the class returned to the dorms, and most went to sleep immediately, exhausted from the events of the day.
Kleff dwelled briefly on how long of a month it was shaping up to be, but it didn’t stop him from drifting off to sleep rather quickly. Only to be awakened abruptly in the dead of night with a blade cutting into his neck and burning green eyes staring down at him from the darkness.