Chapter 3: The Elvish Forest
While everyone else was packed up and ready to depart, Kay was still inside the tower. Most likely, she wasn’t just slow getting ready in the morning. She was stretching her time as much as possible to study the structure from inside.
“Garfield, should I go inside and forcibly bring her out?” Yttria asked.
“No, I have a better idea.” Garfield dismissed the tower. Kay began falling towards the ground, screaming all the while. “«Enchant Creature: Kay, Slowfall».” Over twenty seconds, she drifted to the ground and touched down softly. Along the way, her terror turned into excitement at the new spell she was experiencing.
--
The caravan made a short stop in Lorenzo to resupply and then resumed the eastward trek. The riders continued to rotate around between the different carriages. For the next leg, Garfield rode with the members of White Glow, other than Brooke, who was riding with the princess. The four tried to ask him, as a senior adventurer, for advice, but he was limited in what he could offer.
He couldn’t really mentor the fighter or the warrior since he had no training himself. He wasn’t a complete beginner with archery, but he was in no position to lecture the archer. In theory, he could advise the attack mage, but their magicks were just too different. When they stopped for lunch, the warrior requested to spar with Garfield before the food was ready.
“I’m not a swordsman and I don’t even have a sword,” he insisted.
“I already know you defeated a swordsman with a sword! Just spar with me a little! I won’t get mad even if you spar poorly.”
“What should we even use to spar?” Garfield asked, hoping to just shut this down.
“I have wooden training swords right here!” the warrior answered as she pulled them out from the carriage.
“Why do you… Oh, never mind. Fine, I’ll play along but don’t expect much.”
By body type, Garfield was surely the favorite, but the girl was actually fairly experienced with a sword so this did not bode well for Garfield. He hoped he could lose a bout and then insist there’s no point in continuing.
“Ready, begin!” the fighter of White Glow announced. Garfield took a one-armed swing at the warrior while she brought down a two-handed swing directly to his forearm. The wooden sword fell from Garfield’s hand.
“Agh!” He nursed his forearm with his other hand. “It doesn’t look like you’ll get much out of training with me after all… sorry.”
“That’s… strange,” the warrior muttered to herself. Yttria, who had seen this all happen from afar, came walking over.
“Garfield, what are you doing?”
“As I explained to them, I’m a magic user, not a warrior. They should look elsewhere for sparring.”
“Oh? Should we actually go through the motions, or will you just skip to the part where you say, ‘fine, you win’ and then enhance your swordsmanship like I saw you do in the Empire? I haven’t complained that you won’t spar with me, but I won’t let you tease them like this.”
Garfield exhaled deeply, then turned to face the warrior again. “«Fortify Swordsmanship 25».” He guessed that an enhancement of 25 would be enough, but it was just a guess. “Let’s try again.” Thankfully, Kay wasn’t nearby to bug Garfield about the spell he just used.
“Ready, begin!” the fighter announced again. The warrior lunged at Garfield and brought her wooden sword down, two-hand style, like before. With one hand, Garfield raised his sword up to meet the other, except he used the tip, rather than the edge, to catch the incoming blade. The two swords formed a “T” as they made a cracking noise, and then the warrior stumbled backwards, sword forced upwards over her head.
Garfield now lunged forward and prepared to press his (dull) sword up against the side of her neck. In a moment of sympathy, he instead gently smacked it into her unguarded shoulder.
“Point for Bearclaw!” the fighter announced.
“Garfield, that was impressive, but it’s not a technique the girl can copy, so you should stick to more conventional sword strikes when you spar with her.” Yttria’s advice was spot on.
“A-Again!” the warrior declared, more determined than ever. They went several more rounds. The fighter who had been officiating was growing more and more restless herself until she asked Garfield to spar as well.
“Huh? Unlike swordsmanship, I’ve never even punched someone before in my life,” Garfield insisted.
“Garfield, I’ll take over the sword practice,” Yttria decided. “Figure out what to do about hand-to-hand. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
“Uh, okay…”
“And be careful! I saw you lift up that armored man with one hand. You better not hurt her!”
The fighter suddenly looked a bit conflicted, but she didn’t back down. The archer stepped in to help. “Ready, begin!”
“Wait! I didn’t even—“ Garfield was interrupted by a roundhouse kick to the face. He spun on at least two axes as he fell to the ground. “Y-You kick like a horse…”
This turn of events was actually disadvantageous for the fighter, but nobody knew it quite yet. By now, the rest of the group had walked over to watch the training, mostly out of curiosity. Garfield stumbled to his feet, healed himself slightly, and then made his preparations.
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“«Fortify Hand-to-Hand 50». «Fortify Physical Attributes 50». “Okay, let’s try again.”
“What did you just do!?” Kay shouted, but there was no time to answer.
“Ready, begin!”
The fighter immediately attacked with a similar roundhouse kick, this one sharper than the last. As the foot closed on Garfield’s head, he caught it with one hand and lifted her up into the air, upside down.
“Kya!” she yelped. Garfield came to his senses and gently put her down. A couple of the knights spectating actually applauded the display, but the princess shushed them.
“Let’s try again.” Garfield switched to a defensive posture, simply swatting away the fighter’s attacks without countering. Her expression rapidly improved from frustration to exhilaration as they sparred. Yttria stopped her training to watch as well.
When the fighter finally got in a bit too deep, Garfield used her own momentum against her and flipped her through the air. His timing was such that she came down on her feet, and while she didn’t quite stick the landing, she at least fell down gracefully and unhurt.
The knights weren’t specialists at hand-to-hand combat, but they cheered in admiration regardless. Even the princess was clapping this time. Meanwhile, Hannah had been watching silently the whole time, little fists shaking. Finally, she stepped forward.
“Me next!”
Garfield’s eyes went wide when he saw who the next challenger was. “That’s… a bad idea.” Hannah’s cheeks puffed up, but Garfield attempted to pacify her. “We should spar privately later. Okay?” Hannah calmed down and nodded.
“Sir Garfield, why won’t you spar with her now?” the princess asked.
“Her techniques are, uh… unusual. We’d rather keep them secret.”
Nobody objected, and lunch was ready, so they stopped to eat and depart.
--
Over the next couple of days, the caravan crossed the border and came to a rest at the foot of some rocky hills.
“Garfield!”
“Okay, okay, let’s go.” Garfield had agreed to spar with Hannah this time. He mentioned to Yttria that the two would be sneaking off for a little while to spar, which she didn’t object to. As they disappeared behind the next hill, one mischievous person secretly followed. Garfield noticed this on his magical minimap. ‘Eh, it’ll be fine, I think,’ he thought to himself.
They arrived in a separate clearing large enough to move around in. Garfield used the same spells as from the other day to boost his hand-to-hand abilities and physical attributes, except he upped the numbers quite a bit. Even he wasn’t sure what to expect from Hannah.
“Ready, Hannah?” She nodded. “Come at me when you’re ready.”
To the hidden observer, the fighters’ fists were moving faster than the eye could see. Kicks were flying from impossible directions, and the pair were moving around the clearing with near-perfect synchronization. She found the whole thing beautiful to watch.
She wasn’t sure if they had been fighting for ten seconds or ten minutes when the pace was suddenly interrupted. Garfield got the upper hand with a low kick that struck the side of Hannah’s legs. The powerful impact caused her entire body to rotate sideways around her center of mass, out of control. Just as her body was about to pass through the point of being horizontal, Garfield unleashed a punch from the opposite side of his body, directly into Hannah’s defenseless torso.
Hannah flipped sideways through the air, crashing into a stony hillside dozens of meters away. The observer gasped, revealing her location, but Garfield ignored it. It would take more than that to bring Hannah down. Sure enough, from within the cloud of dust her crashing body had produced, she came flying straight at Garfield, butting up against the speed of sound.
Even in his current enhanced state, Garfield didn’t have time to move out of the way. He decided to take her attack, capturing her in a bear hug and flying backwards with her. They slid along the ground on his back, coming to a stop several meters behind where the impact occurred. Hannah nuzzled her cheek into Garfield’s chest as she stopped fighting.
--
For the remainder of the journey, Linet wasn’t very talkative. The princess eventually noticed something was wrong.
“Linet, you haven’t been yourself lately. What’s wrong? Is there a problem with the mission?”
“Huh? Oh, no, everything’s fine.”
The princess glared at Linet in a rare moment of displeasure, but she didn’t force the issue.
--
The caravan arrived at the western boundary of the Elvish Forest. The group exited the carriages for a brief meeting before proceeding.
“Soon, the elves will notice we’re here,” Linet began to explain. “We’re on friendly terms, but they’re still a very cautious people. Make sure none of you do anything suspicious. Especially, don’t damage or otherwise disrespect the forest. They worship the forest like we worship the gods.”
There was an awkward pause as everyone privately recalled that one of those gods was currently living in Garfield’s house.
“A-Anyway, make sure not to come across as threatening.” The group all nodded to each other. “Do you have anything to add, Duke?”
Everyone looked at Garfield, who seemed to be distracted by something. Hannah turned to look towards the forest, and then disappeared. Had she disappeared, or simply moved too quickly for the eye to see? Nobody could tell. As their eyes caught up, they saw Hannah standing near the closest carriage holding an arrow in one hand. Hannah looked back towards the forest again and then disappeared.
“W-What just happened!?” Linet asked, struggling to keep up. She jumped in front of the princess, sword drawn, looking around frantically. Garfield looked at the spot where Hannah had caught the arrow, looked at the spot in the forest where the arrow was most likely launched from, and traced the invisible line back to the intended target. As he thought, the arrow was aimed at the empty carriage, not the group.
“I think we’ll have an answer in about three seconds,” Garfield prophesized. A moment later, Hannah reappeared alongside a captured elf girl of similar size. Everyone else was still too flustered to keep up with what was happening, so Garfield took over.
“Why did you launch an arrow at us?”
Hannah held the elf girl firmly in place by her upper arms. The elf replied, “I-I wasn’t aiming at you! I just wanted to scare you away!”
Linet opened her mouth to object, but Garfield gestured for her to wait. “Do you normally scare away visitors from other nations who are invited by your elders?”
“Wha?”
“You just tried to assault the first princess of the Fenwick Kingdom.”
“I, WHAT!?”
Hannah removed one hand from the elf’s arms and patted her on the head. Linet finally spoke.
“You truly did not know that we were welcomed to your village?”
“No, I didn’t! And what’s with this girl? She caught my arrow then appeared right beside me! And how strong are you!?”
“How about,” Garfield proposed, “you guide us to your village as an apology for causing such a ruckus?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t mind. Sure.”
With that settled, the group resumed their travels towards the main village of the elves. They learned that the elf’s name was Solana. She was essentially an elf warrior in training, and would often repel intruders by herself, to the dismay of the village elders. Setting aside the risk of her getting captured, this event was probably the type of incident the elves most wanted to avoid.
Solana was fascinated by Hannah. She asked Hannah questions, sniffed her, and even tried feeling Hannah’s muscles with her hands. At first Hannah was a bit put off by all the attention, but she seemed to slowly warm up to Solana as the caravan progressed further into the forest. The route was fairly obvious, but Solana provided assurance that they were on the correct path to reach the village.
Garfield made a point of overhearing everything Solana discussed with Hannah. He learned that Solana’s parents had been killed by orcs years ago. The elf was likely much older than she looked, but seemed to have a degree of immaturity commensurate with her appearance. In those respects, she had a lot in common with Hannah. Except for the pointy ears.
After spending several days breathing the dry air of the mountains, the group appreciated the humidity and smell of nature. As the village finally came into view, Garfield thought to himself, ‘A hah! That’s exactly what I expected an elvish village in the forest to look like!’