When I opened my eyes again, there was a long hallway in front of me. A ding and then a banner in front of me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to the first floor. This is a training floor.

Here you will encounter various types of monsters, or as the system will refer to them, mobs.

You will see them on the floors above you. Each hallway segment will have a different type of mob, and at the end of each segment is a room where you will challenge their respective second evolution. At the end of the four segments is the boss room.

Rewards will be calculated based on individual performance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright, let's see if you've learned anything."

I rolled my eyes. Not much time has passed since we even made the trip to the tower, and he thinks we've done much.

"What do you mean? I dealt with that thing on the road."

"Once you start and the tower measures you again, you'll see the actual results of our training. I won't know how much I've done to make your rank go up until the system resets."

"Alright then let's get this started I guess."

I pulled my sword out of its sheath and walked past the blue glowing line on the floor. I didn't have to wait too long to hear the footsteps scraping against the stone floor. Out of the darkness came a few goblins.

I dashed forward, slicing my blade through them expecting some resistance but got nothing. I looked back unsure if I hit anything, only to see two goblins fall to the ground, blood squirting momentarily out of their necks.

The remaining one screeched, turning to charge at me, and I also sliced its head off. The next group was five goblins, and I also easily took care of them. It went on for a bit till we made it to a large wooden door.

I pushed it open and entered a large circular room. Torches lit with blue fire one by one starting from the door around the room until they made it to a door on the other side. At the center of the room, there were two Goblin mages and one hobgoblin.

They didn't seem to react yet, so I dashed quickly at the mage on the left sliding when I got close, cutting his body in half at his abdomen. I planted my feet to stop sliding and leaped at the Hobgoblin in the middle, slashing downward.

He tried to block it with his club, but my blade slid through it cleanly and landed in his head. With all my weight helping me I sliced him clean in half.

Without thinking, I dodged to the left and avoided a fire spell I hadn't even heard be cast.

I reached the mage in a second and sliced his hand off. With the hand fell his staff. Then I sliced upward somehow going through him completely.

There was a ding and a click, and the doors slowly creaked open on their own.

"That was way too easy, what's up?"

"Outside of the tower your rank cannot change. All the experience you gain in dungeons accumulates and then all restrictions on your physical abilities or mana are taken off once you enter the tower. The difficulty should pick up a little bit now that you've been reevaluated."

"But why does it do that? I never heard about that."

Mezu had run over to me now and tried pulling me towards the door. I didn't resist him. I could tell he wasn't interested in the lackluster fights I just had.

"I suspect those guilds kept quiet about it. No wonder so few people have actually tried climbing.”

It was like a fire lit in his eyes, clearly aggressively annoyed with the situation.

“We should burn them all to the ground, even the so-called adventurer’s guild claiming to protect adventurers should pay for their hypocrisy.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “Look Alcoroth I’m not really into the whole political situation so like lets just do this as much as we can without getting involved with anyone.”

“I feel as if your utter lack of interest in these things will continue to annoy me.”

"That sounds like a you problem."

We walked through the doors, the hallway lighting up partially and there was yet another blue line in the stone in front of us. I crossed it and headed down the hallway.

Mezu walked behind me with Alcoroth and we continued on our way.

The next opponent was a lizard man carrying a spear. This was a bit difficult as I didn’t have much experience seeing someone use a spear, let alone fighting one. It screeched and lunged at me with its spear tip. I started a game of dodging, not wanting to get too close but also really needing to get close.

It had backed me into a wall and I ducked. It hit with so much force that it got its spear stuck in the wall. I went as fast as I could and lunged forward, slashing upwards, slicing its torso open. It dropped its spear in shock, clutching at its chest, so I did a connecting slice across it through its hand, and blood squirted out. It collapsed to the ground but to be safe I cut the rest of his head off.

“You need more practice.”

“Well, it’s not my fault all the low level dungeons outside of the tower are default goblin hordes.”

I glared at him and started walking again.

“I wasn’t blaming you, I simply made an observation. This is what the first floor is for, learning how to fight against different enemy types. I would have preferred it, though, if I was able to summon them for the training dungeon we had. That would have been so much more useful than me having to train you myself.”

“Then it sucks you weren’t able to.”

As we went down the hall another lizard man with a spear came at me. Knowing a little bit didn’t really change how pathetic I must have looked fighting him, but at least it went a bit quicker since I broke the shaft of his spear.

With the third one I fought, it felt much more comfortable this time. But it was a bit strange that their starting attacks were all the same; a lunge and jab with the spear.

I could see the door now and a final lizardman. Since I really couldn’t die so easily, I decided to risk it and assumed his first move would be the same as the others. So I sidestepped and grabbed onto where I was expecting the spear to be and managed to get a strong grip on it. But I was too surprised to do something about the success, that he threw me into a wall with the swing of his spear making me drop it.

“For once you do something smart but you still fuck it up.”

I rolled my eyes, getting up and immediately having to dodge another jab by crouching. I reached up grabbed the strap of its single-shoulder armor and pulled it down and behind me hard rolling him over me. I got up quickly behind him and punched him in the head hard. It took only one more blow till I felt its brain matter on my fingers.

“You have a sword, why don’t you use it?”

Why didn’t I use it?

I looked at my hip and it was in its sheath. I didn’t remember putting it away earlier.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you got it done either way I guess, let’s continue then.”

I pushed the door open. Again the lights lit up one by one around the room revealing a Lizardman with much better armor. Well better in the sense that it actually covered his chest and shoulder and he had a helmet on. The helmet didn't make much sense to me, I mean it’s the head of a lizard. How and why would you even think of how a helmet would fit on their head? I mean clearly, he has a helmet on his head but why?

Then I was thrown across the room and slammed into the wall. I coughed hard from losing all of my air.

“Get up, this isn’t the time to be lazy.”

I groaned, forcing myself to stand back up. I looked up just in time to see the lizardman pick up his spear which he had apparently stabbed into the ground and do a fancy twirl.

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This wouldn’t be as basic as the other ones I guess. I drew my sword and dashed towards him. I saw his arm move in a familiar direction, so I swung my sword to parry the movement. I managed it, cringing at the sound of metal clashing metal.

Soon the constant parrying I was doing was getting to my head, I couldn’t stand that noise. I put some more force into one more and threw his arm back a bit. I sheathed my sword and dodged the next attack.

I had switched from parrying to dodging, but at least the clanging wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure why I was so annoyed by it now in comparison to all those years before. But I didn’t think about it too long.

I closed the distance between us quickly and caught the shaft of his spear under my arm as he swung it at me. I guess he wanted to throw me quite the distance again, but I buried my feet into the ground with force, and for some reason felt the ground give a bit.

I slammed a fist into his hand, but he didn’t let go. He grabbed the scruff of my shirt with his other arm in an attempt to pull me off. But I launched myself head first into his chin. His head jerked back, his grip on me was gone and the grip on his spear loosened.

I slammed another fist into his hand and he finally let go. I took the spear itself and launched it across the room. I tried not to give it another moment to not be stunned and pulled my sword out as I closed the distance going straight into a downward slice.

I felt the resistance of the leather chest plate hit my blade as I pulled it down and towards me to slice through it. I felt it give a bit more, so I did my best to turn that first movement into a connected slice in the opposite direction, jumping into him to give it some more force trying to knock him down onto his back.

He stumbled and swung his arm out to grab my shoulder. He did so but I threw my body weight and my sword at his arm, lodging my sword into it almost made it completely, but it got stuck with only a bit left of the arm to go through. With my left arm, I struck upward at its forearm pushing his arm the rest of the way through my blade.

He screeched stumbling backward finally on his ass, clutching at the stump of his arm.

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I muttered as I gripped the handle with both hands and sliced downwards at him.

Again I only made it a few inches into his head hitting the skull, but after a few more hacks his head was almost cut in half.

I sat down panting and then there was a ding.

“What was that?”

“What do you mean?”

I looked at Alcoroth.

What comment was he going to make this time?

The training we had done together initially didn’t have this style of sword in mind, and even between getting it and entering the tower, we didn’t even have much time to go over how to use it properly. I thought I was doing pretty well.

“You put your sword away mid fight. Why?”

“The noise of parrying was bothering me a bit too much.”

“So you put your sword away?”

“Yeah well it was really annoying me to the point of distracting me so wouldn’t it’ve been better to just not use it?”

Alcoroth sighed, “I can only do limited amounts of magic but I can put a sound dampening noise around your blade if you want.”

“What do you mean?”

I don’t think I’ve heard of magic like that before, and how could it be so concentrated to just affect my blade?

“Pull out your blade.”

I did so and he put his hand on it, some incomprehensible words came out of his mouth and there was now a faint glow around my blade and a small magic circle right by the hilt.

“Try hitting his spear now.”

I stood and went over to it. I swung while looking away and cringed before I expected it to hit, but I didn’t hear anything. I looked back at it and hit it again.

“That’s so cool!”

I did it a couple more times; this was awesome.

“It won’t stop the sound if you’re with other people, but I can figure out how to help in that situation for you if you want. But why did it bother you now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe earlier I was always so focused on other things, and I never parried that much, so it happened and I forgot about it. Maybe it was just the repetition of it so I was able to notice it more?”

“Well either way, you did surprisingly well, let's continue on then.”

Mezu was already at the door beaming. I looked at Alcoroth’s back.

That move was quite out of character for him. I dropped the spear and followed him.

“Why’d you help me?”

“That was such a small thing to do for you. If it helps you look like not a complete embarrassment then I’ll do it. Your behaviors reflect on your teacher after all.”

I looked up. Did that monarch or whatever ask him to do it?

I looked back at him. Well, the monarch could have done it himself if he wanted to help and then I would have gotten an announcement or something telling me that he did something.

“Thanks.”

“Pick up the pace, you need to feed him soon.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”

The next monster was an orc.

I’ve heard other people always say that they looked like pigs, but I didn’t see the resemblance. The closest thing I’d say they look at all similar to would be a wild boar with like the coloring and the more visible hair. But that would only be in reference to their tusk like teeth.

Otherwise, they just looked like really tall buff brownish gray skinned dudes. With faces that also seemed buff.

This one didn’t wear anything but a loin cloth and had no weapons in his hands. I was assuming it would get a bit harder from this point on, so I wasn’t too relieved by the lack of a weapon.

It charged at me, and I stood my ground unsheathing my sword. Luckily, with my odd instincts for hand-to-hand combat I could read his moves. While his right arm seemed to be leading the second, he stepped in front of me his left came swinging at my stomach.

I swung my blade and sliced through the thinnest part of his wrist. After the thickness of the lizard men’s skin, I put much more force into my swing. I still felt the blade bump slightly before slicing through the joint, but it went all the way through.

I spun on one foot with my remaining momentum, gripped my hilt with both hands, and swung downwards slicing into its chest. Damn muscles are thick to cut through, if this really was like a pig, I think there would be so much more fat. I mean whenever I’ve had any pig meals, I feel like there was quite a bit of fat still attached to the meat. Or maybe I’m remembering wrong.

It took about four consecutive swings to get a deep enough gash in his chest, down to his ribs. My left arm was grabbed and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was practically numb to pain in that arm, the pressure would have been enough to distract me.

He lifted me into the air by my arm and his stumped arm came at me. I pulled my lower body up to avoid it curling into a ball above the ground. As his arm went back for another swing I hacked at its head.

“Use your brain you idiot! Why do you keep hanging onto an arm that can just grow back!”

Alcoroth’s yell would normally have made me respond with something, but this time he was right, I didn't need my left arm.

I sliced through it with my blade at my elbow and dropped, landing badly on the ground. I rolled out of the way as his foot came down to stomp on me. Since I was on the ground anyway, I went for his ankles. Even though my slash wasn’t very deep he toppled over after I heard a slightly familiar snap.

I stood up quickly and put my blade at his neck using my foot for leverage and pushed it down through his neck.

I sat quickly, panting hard. Sure, running around all the time had improved my stamina, but at the end of the day not having a lot of combat experience was bound to tire a person out. There was nothing I could do about it.

I looked around and saw Mezu pull my arm from the orc’s grip and hold it out to Alcoroth.

Why did he do that?

Alcoroth then rinsed my arm off where it was touched by the orc before allowing Mezu to eat it.

“You need to start seeing your limbs as expendable for a fight. With the contract Mezu can speed up your healing but it makes him tired and more hungry. Currently it’s only possible once a day but as time goes on he will be able to do it multiple times”

“But if it’s mid fight and it's my leg will it even be fast enough?”

“I mean we’ll have to see, but at the end of the day I cannot allow you to die so we’ll step in at the last moment.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you finally having trouble against an enemy would be a great time for you to train. And I’ll be sure to bind them down until you heal completely and can go at it again. No matter how many limbs you lose or however long it takes, you will fight them on your own.”

The grin on Alcoroth’s face sent shivers down my spine. I wasn’t sure which was better, experiencing that or being Mezu’s portable food source and Alcoroth chopping my limbs off whenever he felt that Mezu was hungry. I had a feeling it was the latter, but I guess we’ll have to see when I experience that.

“We should have gotten you better gauntlets instead of a sword.”

“What why?”

“You’re not really that good at using it, if you just used your fists like your body seems to want you to do, I think you’d get things done a lot faster.”

“Well then why did you bother training me on that sword in the dungeon?!”

“You know the reason. If I was more knowledgeable about compatibility with swords, I would have trained you on a blade similar to the one you have and not a rapier like I had. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so awkward with your current sword and you wouldn’t depend on your fists. But we can’t change that now. ”

Alcoroth sighed and started cleaning his glasses.

“We need to get you some decent gauntlets as a backup.”

“Come on, can’t we like try to teach me to use it properly instead? Cleaning up after punching something’s brain in is going to be annoying.”

“Hah?! Is that what you’re concerned about?”

“You just cleaned off my arm cause the orc gripped it, I thought it’d bother you more than me.”

“Being able to clean the you--Mezu’s meals is not something I’m against. But you clearly have a lack of aptitude when it comes to the sword.”

“If you want to speak about Fluffy formally just do it!” I yelled.

It was so annoying he was so bad at hiding it.

“Look, you know I have no interest in complicated things, so just speak the way you want to. I won’t ask any questions about it.”

Alcoroth looked at me and sighed, “your complete lack of curiosity continues to annoy me but, alright then, I can give you some directions. I still think you sticking to hand to hand would make this go quicker.”

“Just because something is quicker doesn’t mean it’s useful. If I lose a hand while fighting then that is one less thing for me to use. Plus, if I don’t have my sword out how can I just get rid of my arm mid fight?”

“Well pulling it off is an option. If they’ve got a grip on it and they’re stupid enough, they’ll just want to rip it off. So why not help it along.”

“I don’t think I could actually put in the force for that,”

“I’m sure with practice it will make it much easier for you. I bet most people couldn’t actually just freely cut off their arm as easily as you do.”

I stared at him in disbelief. That made sense to me. Was I spending too much time with him that he no longer seemed to be teasing me and that I just started agreeing with his statements? Has he always been this way? Maybe he was intending to tease me but what he’s saying is actually true, so it no longer feels like he’s teasing me.

Alcoroth sighed, “Oi idiot, don’t let your head spiral like that, it's not healthy for an idiot to think that much.”

Yeah, no he’s still teasing me, I think.

I stood up and looked at Mezu who was poking the orc’s body in various places.

“Well let’s continue then. Might as well practice fighting with one hand like this anyway.”

Fighting with one arm was slow and awkward. I tried to follow Alcoroth’s occasional shouts and suggestions, but the second orc seemed faster and smarter than the first, so I didn’t have too much time for my brain to register what he had said, and even less to act on it. So, yet again, it was more me and my instincts.

Between the second and third orc, my arm had mostly healed but the third orc had sliced what had healed off. Which pissed me off and I kind of attacked completely bare handed. I mean it wasn’t much with my one hand but it turns out if you put enough force into it and hit at the softest parts of the body you can eventually break skin.

I didn’t want to know the color of an orc’s throat, but now I do. And it's surprisingly not the same color as their blood.