I totally slept in.

I was awoken by the sound of a group of soldiers training in the courtyard. I sat up on my bed and listened to them for a while before quickly throwing on my clothes, taking my sword and leaving the room. It seemed to be fairly warm today, so I gave up on wearing the gambeson and the helmet. It's not like I expected to get into any trouble anyway, so I shouldn’t be needing them. I also left my shield behind, since I wasn’t planning on any duels either, but I still wanted to have at least my sword with me, just in case. I wanted to grow used to carrying it around and form a habit of having it always at hand as soon as possible. Plus, this way, I won’t be looking this out of place among the soldiers and civilians of this city too.

On my way, I stopped by the kitchen to get a drink and something to chew on for breakfast. Armed with some nutritions to silence my stomach, I walked out into the courtyard to observe the soldiers’ training. A few of them just seemed to be wildly swinging their swords like clubs, others looked more like they were practising ballet with all those spins and pirouettes, while a different group kept swinging so wide that someone could casually walk up to them, slap them in the face, return to their post and still have time to defend before they can bring that sword back for another attack. And I wasn’t even exaggerating it all that much. It really pained me to see them butcher the delicate art of swordfighting to this degree but I managed to swallow my comments together with a piece of stale bread as I slumped down on a bench standing against the castle wall. My expression must have sold me out, however, as Liyanne walked over to me once she saw me.

-Good morning, Hero. Are you displeased with the training of our troops?

-Hello, princess.

I quickly swallowed another bite of the bread as I gave her a short wave. She wasn’t looking in my direction, though. She instead seemed to be also inspecting the troops’ training. Her face seemed to show a certain level of pride as she watched them, however. After making sure I wasn’t speaking with my mouth full, I continued:

-I would rather refrain from commenting on it for the time being. I’d like to ask about it, however. Or, more specifically, about the magic used in combat in general.

-Ah, of course. I can't promise I will be able to give the best answers for all of your questions, however.

She glanced over at me and gave me a sorry smile. Walking up closer, she sat down next to me and returned to watching the troops train. I somehow got a feeling she was prepared for quite a long conversation with me.

-It's okay, it’s just some general questions anyway. First, how do you categorise magic?

-There are three main categories: offensive, defensive and supportive. Let's start with the last one as it's the simplest to explain. Supportive magic relates to any sort of magic that passively helps you in a fight, like enhancing your speed and strength, setting your blade on fire or healing wounds. Defensive magic, in contrast, consists of all spells that actively help you, like various elemental shields, ways of dispelling or chant-breaking your opponent’s magic and some other refined techniques. Sadly, it's by far the most underdeveloped field of magic due to its fairly limited usability outside of the shields. Then there is offensive magic, which has the vastest range of spells but can only be effectively used by extremely skillful magicians. They range from throwing rocks, to fireballs, to freezing the enemy, to controlling them with gravity. The more skilled and aspect-attuned the magician, the more powerful spells they could use. Alas, cases of people able to use more than only the fundamental spells are fairly rare.

-What about magic like summoning?

-This would be considered a very rare and difficult magic, hence it is not categorised like this. Another example would be necromancy, which is quite similar to summoning in a way but also offers other versibility. The basic summoning similarly has more spells than just plain summoning. It can include enhancement magic to strengthen your summons or defensive magic to protect them.

-I understand. And those soldiers, are they using supportive magic to help with those powerful attacks?

-No, those are their Skills.

-So Skills are imperatively separate from magic?

-They're magical in nature and still use some of your mana to perform and maintain but they work a bit different to spells. Spells need to be cast with a special formula and can be performed as long as you have the mana for them, while skills need to be activated by performing a certain series of actions, usually while also meeting certain predefined criteria.

-So that's why they're leaving themselves wide open to enemy attacks every few seconds, they're charging up their Skills?

-That’s a correct assumption, Sir Hero.

-I kind of still don't understand why they just don't cut the enemy down when they're preparing that powerful attack. They're doing regular mock battles, right?

-Yes, and they're likely afraid of taking that attack head on in case their strike fails to finish the fight or the enemy can somehow perform it faster than they anticipated.

-Stupid, but understandable. To a degree. So, how does one acquire spells or Skills?

-There are a few techniques. Most cases, it comes down to learning the proper incantations or stances, studying the flow of magic required to activate them and practising until you're able to do it. Not everyone can learn everything, though. Someone with an aptitude for fire magic will not be able to learn an intermediate ice spell, for example. Not easily, at least.

-Even though, I guess, both of those spells ultimately resolve around manipulating the temperature?

Liyanne glanced at me, frowning deeply. After a few seconds, she let out a sigh.

-Not exactly, but... Okay, here's an example. You have an axe, a metaphor for your fire magic, okay? You can hit a log with it, casting a spell, and split it into two, resulting in you casting a fire-based spell. Wanting to cast an ice-based spell using fire magic would be like using the same axe to hit the same log and expect it to take roots and turn into a healthy tree instead.

-Okay, okay, quite a wild way to put it but I think I get it. Essentially, they're just two sides of the same coin, correct?

-...yes.

-Actually, I'm curious now. How does all this magic come into play on a battlefield? I can imagine small skirmishes resulting mostly in one-on-one duels and ending up in a showcase of individual might but how do the grand battles look like?

-You're not too wrong on the skirmish side of things. And for the large army-on-army combat tactics, spells and powerful Skills are even more impactful there. A great mage can annihilate a whole battalion with a single cast. A powerful swordsman can cut down numerous foes in a single slash. Their overwhelming power is even more profound on a larger scale, especially when you happen to have more of those types of prodigies.

-So, how organised is the battlefield, then? Once the two sides collide, does it turn into an all-out melee or are formations still maintained?

-Once the front lines merge, it usually becomes complete chaos. People pick their opponents and essentially duel them. That’s the most logical way of doing it, is it not?

-No, it isn’t. Perhaps to someone who is used to relying too heavily on magic and not individual skill it is but to an expert, who wasn't bestowed any ungodly powers, this is just plain stupid. Still, that means that my knowledge of mediaeval battlefield tactics is essentially useless here. Gosh, I wished I watched more of those shitty pseudo-historical drama shows, their comedically horrendous battle scenes would be of practical use in this case, actually.

-...I have no idea what you're talking about.

-Of course you don't, you've been born at least 500 years too early to understand it. Unless us Heroes being here will somehow accelerate this process but even then it should take quite a long while to become widely adopted.

I glanced over at the princess and almost burst out laughing at her expression. Somehow she managed to look surprised, offended, concerned and as if she was dealing with a lunatic all at the same time. Well, I couldn't exactly blame her, so I decided to give her a little context instead:

-I assume you know where we, the Heroes, come from, right?

-Father did mention to me in private that you aren’t from this world, if that’s what you mean.

-Indeed. Our home world is one you would consider to be in a distant future from yours. Your society is comparable to ours from around a thousand to something like five hundred years ago, more or less. There are some slightly modern, yet still vastly obsolete, designs here and there, however. Those seem to be limited mainly to clothing and architecture, though, from what I have seen so far. It is quite a unique blend, to be fair. Anyway, people in our modern times were often interested in history, but not from the perspective of factual accuracy. They just wanted to see the regular dramaturgy, just with historical characters and an occasional factual event or two. So, in most cases, things like outfits were greatly inaccurate and stylised, since the majority of the target audience wouldn't be able to tell otherwise anyway. Same goes for battles, sadly. They lack the strategy that truly made them fascinating and so grand and instead are replaced with just wide swings of swords to fulfil the action demand of the couch potatoes.

-The… couch potatoes?

-People who just sit and do absolutely nothing productive, essentially. Half of the target audience of those bloody shows. But that's unimportant. What I wanted to say is that I can't just apply my knowledge to this world and expect it to work. The fights I won until now I won basically by pure chance, it seems. I was just lucky that the strategy I chose happened to work against the opponent I was facing at the time but I can't rely on that quality forever. I can’t just hope they won’t have actual skill or some magical Skills to counter me. I still believe there's merit in introducing what I know about HEMA, the fighting style I use, to this world, however. A proper integration of magic and Skills into it should create more potent combos and lower the reliance on magic, at least to a degree, allowing for a greater versatility in a fight. Still, this will take a lot of time and trial-and-error until we can figure out how to blend the best of the two worlds together. Battlefield tactics, however, is something else entirely and so far... I would either have to study your warfare theory more or experience a battlefield myself. Otherwise, it's going to be extremely difficult to figure out proper strategies that could utilise magic and Skills to their full potential while also not making them too far off from what you people are already familiar with… although I’d rather have you relearn battle tactics from scratch than overly rely on magic but that can’t be helped, can it?

-Why do you want to change our way of fighting so much anyway?

-Progress is essential. Eventually you need to adjust your doctrines and battle tactics to stay ahead of your enemies. Besides, your country's not exactly the richest one, is it? That means you cannot field a large army nor equip the units in expensive equipment. As a result, you have to rely on the power of individual soldiers... or the tactics that give you an edge over the opponent and are better suited for smaller units. Otherwise you will not be able to stand against your adversaries when the time for war comes.

-But even so, next time we go to war, it’s going to be against the demons. Human-on-human tactics won’t apply there anyway.

-You're essentially a vassal state, right? You hold a lot of influence in the Frontier despite, frankly, being in quite a miserable state in comparison to other Lords in the region, based on what your father, the king, told me. We talked quite a bit about the geopolitics of the region during our travel here. Now that I am here, things are going to change quite a bit. Until now, waging a war against you simply wasn't profitable. The Frontier states do not have the wealth and manpower to utilise the resources that can be found here anyway, so spending both to acquire more deposits that cannot even be properly extracted just doesn’t make sense. But now that I am here, Gurthan will hold a lot more political leverage with the Holy Alliance and might be entitled to receive greater support, perhaps even be granted independence from his overlord. And once all of that happens, prosperity will flow into this region, people will come flocking, things will start drastically expanding and the situation will gradually improve. Suddenly, there will be a need to increase the number of workplaces, and, by extension, search for new goods and mineral deposits. And where are the closest and most accessible ones? Ones that do not require much investment in the infrastructure and can start bringing revenue almost immediately?

-...my father would never...

-He is a wise and a kind king, that is true. However, he is still a king. Wellbeing of the country and its citizens must take priority for him. Still, whatever he does is ultimately his choice. But do you know where the fundamental issue lies?

Liyanne shook her head. She looked afraid, as if she didn't know if she could truly believe in what I was about to tell her, even if she knew it was likely the truth. One thing was certain, though - she wasn't as oblivious to the position this country is in as I thought at the start of this conversation. Still, she was surprisingly innocent, almost naïve, in how she handled it. Well, she was a Paladin, a devoted warrior of a religion, so expecting everyone to just shake hands and live in peace ever after isn't too surprising of a mentality for her to have. She's a warrior and a princess first and foremost, though, so she should know about how greedy people really are and that they don’t care for the suffering of others if it brings them benefits. I took a deep breath before speaking:

-Other rulers do not care if your king is kind or wise. They will see him as a threat wielding enough authority to do as he pleases and one that can get rid of them at his whim. If anything, him being this nice would work against him. He'd be seen as weak and not worthy of the privilege he’s been bestowed. If he was cruel, they would be willing to stay in line more, afraid of gruesome consequences if things went badly for them. They do not have this incentive now. "If we lose, he will likely set us free with just some war reparations to pay, he's this kind of king. We lost once, we'll be good sheep now and follow in line. As if." and boom, they're off to another rebellion, this time better organised and prepared as they already know our capabilities and strategies.

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The girl looked away from me. She accepted everything I said, which I honestly did not expect from her. While I was speaking, she looked like she could explode at any moment and I was sure she would, sooner or later. However now, once I was finished, she was simply sitting there, looking off into the distance, still clearly agitated but it didn’t look like I was the target of her anger. I felt a little bad for saying everything as frankly as I did but that's water under the bridge now. It was probably better this way anyway. Sometimes the truth just has to be said by someone else for people to finally accept it. I had to figure out a way to get her to cheer up, though, so that she doesn't lose her spirit now. I did paint the picture in a very grim light, after all, so I felt responsible. It’s not like this state is doomed, it was one of the worst case scenarios, which I feel I should do a better job explaining next time.

-Still, I owe our king a great favour, and, by extension, I owe it to this country and its people as well. I'll do whatever I can to support and protect them. As such, can I count on your assistance in that matter?

She glanced at me, her eyes piercing right through me. She stared like that for a moment before shifting to look at the soldiers training. She seemed like she started to understand a little bit about where my perspective was coming from because her frown deepened a bit. I couldn't blame her, for me those soldiers looked like kids pretending to be some fantasy characters from a TV cartoon. Well, they literally are characters in a high-fantasy world, so that picture wasn’t far off…

-Fine.

-Huh?

I was completely caught off-guard by Liyanne's sudden response and even more when I realised she agreed to my request, just like that.

-I said I'll support you. You seem to have good intentions even if you're a bit odd. But you don't strike me as stupid or ignorant… Well, not too much, at least…

-Okay, that was uncalled for.

-Perhaps, but you’ve got a sharp tongue too.

-That is fair, diplomacy and public speeches were never my strong suits.

-Clearly.

The girls chuckled. I opened my mouth to reply but decided that if there’s ever an opportune moment to take a diplomatic retreat by swallowing my pride, it was now. As such, I let out a scoff but ended up still putting just a slightly forced smile on my lips. I shook my head, doing that, and exhaled heavily. Liyanne put on a smug smirk enjoying her little victory and continued speaking:

-Still, like I said, you seem to be kind in your own way and it seems like you genuinely want to help the people here. And, as I mentioned yesterday, I believe I can still learn a lot from you and the world you came from. It’s true that this knowledge likely can be applied here as well to help us improve in our ways but it probably cannot be done as straightforwardly as you would hope. So I’ll help you out and maybe, if we understand each other better, we will have an easier time coming to agreements on what needs to be changed, and how to approach it. As such, I hope we continue getting along and working our differences out without fighting.

-Likewise. If possible, I'd like to learn how to blend in more with the people of this world. I know that the king is planning on sharing the news about me soon but still, I don't want to be alienated and a complete stranger to them.

-Actually, father mentioned something about having concerns regarding releasing the information about you.

-How so?

-You'll have to talk to him first thing tomorrow morning, before the public announcement. Just don't sleep in again.

-You little...

I bit my tongue while Liyanne laughed at the little remark, satisfied that she managed to successfully pull one over me. I couldn't help but smile myself too, although for a completely different reason. She might have her quirks, and she may still harbour some aversions towards me, but it seems like she won't be as distant to me as I was afraid she would be after this whole display. Admittedly, we did start off on not the best footing, both of us doing things we shouldn't, but perhaps this is the reason why we're able to see past them and have a pleasant chat now nonetheless.

-I guess I'll have Mearyl wake me up then. I can't miss that now, can I?

-No, you cannot. Now, how about a training session? Teach me like magic doesn't exist and let's see if I can figure out how to improve my Skill-based tactics.

-Weren't we supposed to start this tomorrow, though? Oh well, let's see your stance first, then.

Liyanne nodded and grabbed her shield and sword. She raised the shield to about her waist and held her sword loosely behind her, tip towards the ground. She had her legs slightly bent at the knees but her feet were too close and at a weird angle. I have no idea how she planned on keeping her balance without her physical enhancements.

-Alright. You're not using magic, are you?

-No, I just told you-

-Just making sure. I'm going to show you now why the stance you took sucks, alright?

Before the princess could give me a response, I already walked over in front of her and completely unceremoniously kicked at her shield. To no one's but hers surprise, the shield gave in and twisted, hitting Liyanne in the shin with its rim. This caused a sudden pull on her arm, which she could not counterbalance due to her terrible stance and the sudden pain, resulting in her tripping over and landing face first in the mud.

-Not gonna lie, this was an even more spectacular flop than I expected.

Despite my amused comment, I extended my hand to help her back on her feet. And despite her shooting me an angry stare that could almost kill, she accepted the help. Once she was standing in front of me again, I started pointing out the glaring issues I noticed. I was also showing her myself what I meant so she could more easily follow.

-So, first thing, your stance. You keep your feet too close together. Move them a little further apart. This will let you have more control over the weight distribution of your body, either moving it to the back leg to dodge or front for some extra reach when attacking. Also, your feet. By having them both face the same direction you have close to no control over your balance. Having your back foot at an angle, preferably perpendicular to your front foot, and placing it just slightly off to the side, will make it a lot easier for you to maintain and regain control over your body. It will also help with both pushing and retreating, allowing for smoother and more secure steps. Next, you're holding your shield way too low. It's understandable, to a degree, but wrong. I think you unconsciously know that your stance leaves much to be desired and that you aren't that quick on your feet either. Still, it leaves you mostly unprotected and is a dead giveaway where your biggest weakness is. Hold it up, at the chest level. Bend your arm and keep the shield closer, so that it covers more of you and that you have more time to react to an attack. But don’t press it against your body. Leave some space, otherwise the shield will not be able to absorb and disperse the force of the hit properly. Exactly, just like that. Then, your sword... Eh, it's not that bad but you might want to bring it closer, less distance for it to travel once you need to use it.

As I corrected the princess, I was walking around her and constantly correcting her stance and pointing out what she needed to pay close attention to. Soon enough, the other soldiers, having done their usual rounds of training or simply being more interested in what we're up to, gathered around and started to listen to me ranting about literally everything. Some of them even started trying out various stances and postures that I presented for themselves, although when I saw some of them absolutely bodging them, I found myself somewhere between bursting with laughter and throwing up from disgust. Honestly, I was surprised that these guys were a standing army with how difficult for some of them even a basic stance seems to be... but at the same time, they did join mid-way and had barely any clue what we were doing here, so I should cut them some slack. I'll get them all sorted later.

Returning my attention to Liyanne, I examined her stance and, while it was still far from decent, at least it wasn't abysmal anymore. With this, I asked her to do a few swings at an imaginary enemy in front of her and... whatever good opinion I had starting to form about her fighting style quickly fell apart. She seemed to try to mimic the attack I did in our duel, at least to a degree, doing something between a dash and a lunge forward, but as she tried to attack, she completely cast the shield away, leaving herself wide open. To make matters worse, the attack didn’t come in for two solid seconds later, giving a skilled swordsman more than enough time to perform a killing strike on her.

-Keep your shield in front at all times, don't open yourself to an enemy attack this easily. Focus on the footwork, you're attacking with weight on your back foot. You can do that when you're being pushed back but now you're on the offensive. Attack from the front leg, use the extra range and speed. What the hell was that wobbly-ass strike? Cut cleanly, in a straight line, don't change directions once you commit to an attack! Again, legs! You're losing focus!

This continued for a few minutes until Liyanne collapsed onto her knees, breathing heavily. I knew she was pushing herself for a while already but she seemed adamant on showing how far she can take it. The soldiers, who gathered around, all stopped their individual circus shows and were now looking at us. I gave the princess a few seconds to catch a breath and collect herself before speaking:

-That's gonna be enough for today.

-No…! I can still...

-You can't. You can barely breathe, your arms and legs are shaking, you can't even push yourself off the ground. Knowing when to stop training is also important, otherwise you'll just injure yourself and not learn anything.

Liyanne clicked her tongue. She tried to push herself up but her arms wobbled and she completely collapsed into the mud once again. I sighed and approached her, scooping her off the ground and carrying towards a bench. She didn’t resist, she probably couldn’t even if she wanted to, given how exhausted she was. Somewhat surprisingly, she was rather light, despite all the mud she was covered with. I guess I was too focused on her postures and stances to realise she wasn’t as muscular as I imagined her originally to be. Looking at her now, without all the armour pieces, she did indeed seem to be far more on the slim side.

-You did pretty good today. I'm honestly impressed.

Liyanne didn't answer, facing away from me. I seated her on the bench and then shot an angry stare at all the soldiers, some of which were giggling between one another.

-Break's over! Form up and run twenty rounds around the castle! NOW!

While at first the soldiers were confused at my reaction, once I shouted the last word, they all sprung into action and started running... And at least eight different people collided because they started running in the opposite directions, right into one another. Two of them fell to the group and then started throwing curses at one another that the cultural barrier couldn’t let me properly appreciate, probably for my own good too. After a few exchanges, both of them started running in opposite directions, clearly peeved at each other. I let out a sigh seeing all this chaos unfold before me and sat down on the bench as well. I leaned back, stretched my legs, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. There was still so much to do with those idiots before they could even start to resemble a respectful army, but all in due time.

Now that I think about it, there's about what, twenty something, under thirty people here? With security on the walls and around the city... Some are probably delegated to defending the structures outside the town, too. I also believe I've heard the two knights that escorted Gurthan and me to Katerial mention that they're using a three shift system, with the night shift being a tad smaller in numbers... That would mean there's roughly around five hundred soldiers in this country, maybe a couple dozen less. Not that many but also not completely unreasonable for a city state that would probably rely a lot more on levies or mercenaries than a standing force. Given the fact that nearly everyone in this town carries a weapon, it's probably the former. Plus women also carry swords here, so it's not unreasonable to assume they will join the levy as well, effectively adding probably about an extra thirty percent of people able to pick up arms when needed. Still, even with a decently sized mob, this country could probably benefit from some bigger, regularly trained army, even if not in active duty. Seems like there are quite a few things I'll have to talk about with the king during our next meeting.

For now, I had to monitor the soldiers and make sure they have one hell of a training for treating my lesson with Liyanne as some sort of a show. Luckily for them, they only had about two more hours before being relieved by the second shift. By that time, the princess came to and requested I lead the training of them as well and that she will join in as a trainee too. Since they were supposed to do more strength and endurance based training from the start already, compared to sword training the previous group was doing, I obliged and explained some exercises for warm up and actual practice.

I couldn't even tell how quickly time had passed. At one point one of the castle maids came over and reminded Liyanne and me that the food had been served a while ago already and is now getting cold waiting for us. Only then did I realise that the sun was already starting to set. I missed my chance to talk to the king today, so I quickly ate my cold share of the meal and asked Mearyl if she could wake me up early tomorrow. With that, I headed straight for bed, feeling oddly tired despite not doing that much training myself. Tomorrow seemed like a stressful day, so I wanted to get some decent sleep in.

-A Hero of this country, eh?

I thought to myself as I laid down on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, I tried to collect myself so I could fall asleep more easily. My eyes were already starting to shut by themselves as a yawn forced itself out of my mouth.

-I can teach people and come up with ideas just fine but... Will I really be able to become the Hero they may expect me to be?