After we finished sparring, I was guarding my bottom by leaning against the mountain, so I hadn’t noticed the arriving ships until I heard the unmistakable sound of wind blowing sails. Duke’s ships were bigger than I remembered, and he dispatched over thirty of them. The big white sails were full of wind, proudly taking them into the harbor.
Only a handful docked in the harbor; the others waited at the center of the river. Our friend, the harbormaster, welcomed the delegation and dock workers loaded some supplies. What exited me though was that they were using whips to proper their weird animals - mix of pig and horse. Fellow whip users!
In all that murmur Don stepped close to one soldier, who was guarding the delegation, and stated our business. When the Captain heard his loud yell, he came to us, “I heard about you! You are the knight, right? So you must be the young healer he was talking about. Go inside, we have a room for you. You!” He pointed to a soldier to our left, “Go with them and show them cabin near the kitchen!”
The soldier saluted with an Elven salute and gestured us to follow him. Looking around the enormous ship, I quietly followed him into the hold. He guided us to our room, a small place with two bunk beds, where Don frowned upon the spartan furniture choice, but I didn’t care. Players never had to sleep in the game, so I had no fear about him getting into my bed at night.
While ignoring his complaints, I was enchanting my gear. The enchanting on Tiara was useless for me - I didn’t need fire resistance. With all that practising, I got better on ‘runecrafting’, but the average rating for my enchanting was only around seventy percent.
After all that work, I gained two intelligence on everything; except the robe.
[Robe]Enchanting: +6 INT
[Whip]Enchanting: +2 INT
The smell of old wood was prevailing in our cozy little room, and my nose wasn’t a favorite of that. I looked at the restless Don as he just took his armor off and had nothing to do, and because of that an evil idea formed in my mind.
“Let’s do proper training, Don,” I urged him and pinched him on his side. He groaned and examined his armor on the bed. That’s for my butt, amateur.
“You don’t need an armor for that. Heck, it is better if you don’t have it.” I grabbed him by hand and dragged to the upper deck. At first he tried to protest, but then he got quiet and just followed me, admiring my butt in the process. Whatever. A Captain’s yells reached us from the upper deck; he was yelling curses at sailors. They flounced around the deck, so we found a secluded place with a bench away from all that murmur.
“So, Don, you are a knight. Your shield is your best friend, because it keeps you alive. Its purpose is to protect you from all incoming strikes. It can also distract your opponent, block his vision and redirect enemy’s blade.”
He looked at me with zero interest. Well, that wasn’t true. When I gesticulated how to use a sword and leaned forward, his gaze slipped down and his grinning face conveyed his inner emotions. That damn brat!
I slapped him and continued, “your Sword is your offensive weapon. Its purpose is to cut down the enemy quickly and efficiently. Never use it for defense. Use a shield. Do you understand?”
Don reluctantly nodded. Ugh! I fought the urge to slap him again and take away that smug from his face. What a disgrace of warriors! Once upon a time, I had to train imperial soldiers for a quest. My every word was like a commandment and they loved me, unlike this stupid brat.
“On your feet! To your stance!” I commanded and watched him to slowly stood up with a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. His arms were without a life in them, the posture worthy of a mage, not a warrior!
“This is what you call a stance?! Present shield in front of yourself! Bent your knees!” I shouted, but it was like talking to a pebble. He raised his shield, but that was it. So I kicked his calf, and he finally bent a knee with a shriek, and his stare begged me to not do it anymore.
“Princess, I don’t need to know all of that. My Queen will teach me everything.” He started to droll about some Queen. Maybe he wanted to be in bed with her to restore his royalty? Ugh! I slapped him again, and he crashed to the hard deck, his weapon falling with him.
“Stand up! To your stance! When you are defending, you need to face your enemy with left feet in a forward position, that way you will get the shield closer to the opponent and you will have an easier time to evade incoming strikes. Second foot on shoulder length back; straight back.”
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I had to kick him and smash his back a few times. During our lesson, the ships finally sailed, which suggested a wind whistling all around us. Next, I examined his stance, which was still of an amateur, so I commandeered his equipment and showed him a proper stance.
In theory. Because I didn’t meet the strength requirements, I almost couldn’t lift the shield, and I almost fell down with it. Don laughed hard until he couldn’t even breathe and rolled on the ground.
Fine. I returned his useless things back and equipped my new shield; the beautiful silver bracelet looked impressive on my forearm. I pushed mana into it, which lowered amount of my mana. It stings, but I can use a shield!
When my mana reached the bracelet, a translucent purple-luminescent substance jumped from it and formed a formidable round shield over three feet in diameter.
“Okay, watch my stance. See how my back is straight? Now, watch close my legs, I will perform an attack.” I strongly moved the rear leg and rotated my hip, then I pivoted on the ball of the second foot and smashed down with an imaginary sword. The most basic of all attacks.
“Now try it.” He moved his sword in a big circle, smashed it into the ground and staggered. Although his attempts were hilarious; his face looked determined, and he tried to mimic my stance - poorly, but at least he tried now.
“So, Don, now I will cover behind my shield, okay? Try to penetrate my defense.” I fall to the standard stance and presented my shield to him, but he giggled like a teenager. Well, he was one.
“Can I penetrate your butt if I do it?”
“You stupid brat! Ugh! Alright, if you can do it, you can touch me once.”
He didn’t wait; he stormed at me and slashed with his sword, but I blocked it, and it was as easy as exploiting the Alchemy. Moreover, it surprised me how painless it was - the magic shield absorbed all the energy from his attack. Sweet!
[Block successful. Mitigated amount of damage: 3, other damage halved. Suffered amount: 1]
We stopped the fight after I almost had no hit points left, so I tried to heal myself. Hurray, that stupid spell worked on the first try. I let Don train against imaginary enemies and took out my whip. Sadly, because this was my time using a whip, it just didn’t work.
I kept swinging as I recalled the video of mage-killer in my past life. He was using a whip, and the property of double damage was devastating for the mages and priests. Oh, the fear when he appeared on the battlefield and demolished the backline was so intoxicating to watch. Maybe I can get as much girls to cheer me on as he got? Wait. I am a girl. I turned my stare back at Don and caught him leering at me from behind. Nevermind.
Hearing a confident stride, I turned around only to find captain smiling. “Hero, have you ever handled a whip? You can use sword and shield like an expert, but an easy whip is too much for you?”
I frowned and looked at the Don’s poor stance. “I used swords for a long time, so yes, I am an expert. Not much of whip.” He nodded and pulled out his own whip from his belt. What the hell?
“Okay, young Priestess, I will teach you.”
After a few nervous glances, the teaching lesson started. I moved my arm in an arc and slashed down; the whip somehow moved, but it wasn’t a beautiful response, more like wiggling around. Captain grabbed my hand and guided me, roughly and painfully, to Don’s amuse. I was teaching Don, and the Captain was teaching me to battle an imaginary enemy with a whip.
“The Floaters!” a yell interrupted our happy little school.
“Wanna give us a hand, young Hero? The Floaters are annoying little bastards.” Captain strode to the center of ship and as I heard a weird burbling-sound, the dark green-blue creature crawled to the deck.
It was a mix between a human and a fish, with big ugly pointy teeth and deformed pointy face. Bleh! Captain lazily destroyed that thing in two swings of his whip, tearing it half. What?
[Floater Lv.5]
Type: 1-common | HP: 40/40
I ran to Captain’s side. “What the heck was that thing?”
“The Floater. Every time we are sailing, they are angry and attack us in droves. Constantly, the entire trip.” He kicked the body back to the river.
Constant attacking wave of monsters with manageable HP? Is this a heaven? When the next Floater crawled on the deck, I stepped in and practiced my whip technique. Slashing with all my might, the end of whip missed, and it resulted in teaching a ship’s deck a lesson. Alright, that is nonsense. Focus, John. Next slash I missed as well, and nothing good came from it.
“Again, you were slow! Predict and aim for their path!” Captain laughed and sat on the bench near us. I tried again and as the end of the whip struck the Floater, a supersonic bang announced my slice and demolished insides of the poor creature.
[Armor pierced. Target lost 10HP (5x2 normal)]
No. Frickin. Way. “Don! On guard, we are in heaven!”