“Krux.” A voice called out to me at the side, and I immediately snapped away the thoughts I had in my head while staring at Arthur’s swordsmanship. Percival was right beside me ,sitting in the concrete stairs while also staring at Arthur.
“Haah! Humph!” Arthur swung his sword two times, while stepping forward, the flourishing and the movements of his hands were perfect. He was ultimately someone who would be harder to deal with when he has a good grip on the ground.
Arthur’s style was mainly focused on both balancing attack and defense, while mine was basically more like a wild beast. Although, let’s ignore those thoughts for a moment, my eyes averted to Percival who was beside me.
“Yes?” I asked in a soft, weak voice, I didn’t quite know either of the children here, usually because I would hide in a corner after seeing them, or go to the side of the table when eating with them. Until Arthur decided to simply approach me one day, and then said to everyone that I was a friend.
In fact I was quite grateful for it, I was envious of the activities that the 12 of them had. Therefore I wanted to join in, but it was really harder than I thought it would be. Since most of them are like bright lights, I could never even have the courage to talk to them.
“Has Mordred been bothering you lately? Well, nevermind that she’s gotten quite attached to you.” Percival commented on our relationship, well, although she’s a nice girl, however her brash and reckless attitude gets others hurt involuntarily.
It’s quite hard to keep her contained, so I decided to do the job and decided to listen to Mordred’s rants and complaints about all of that stuff. How the shortage of food affected her directly, in a way I guess I did enjoy listening to her.
Though I wouldn’t say I was on the same page in what she was saying.
“It’s fine, really. I enjoy being with her.” I said, before my eyes retreated back to Arthur who took a heavy step forward before making three swift slashes of the blade, almost destroying the puppet despite having a wooden sword.
He had an affinity for enhancement magic, meaning he had the ability to cover himself with magic. Although Arthur is one that uses life force mainly more than his own mana pool, he has a low mana pool you see, even lower than mine.
In fact all of us had low mana attributes, it came to the point where we estimated that we were left by our biological parents because of the dire situation of our mana. Nobles and commoners love magic, you see. But overall I think swordsmanship is much more efficient.
“I see, I was worried that you might be overwhelmed by her. You see, there's something I would like to practice with my spear.” Percival was one that favored the spear, a very great warrior, he seemed to be much wiser than people like Mordred and Lancelot who would charge in without a care.
He keeps his distance, allowing him to deal fatal blows despite covering and protecting his own fatal points which was an amazing strategy.
“I can help you with that, but why me?”
“You may not realize this, but you’re probably the strongest out of the 13 of us. In fact, it’s amazing that you got a special ability because of your hardwork. And Krux, you may also not realize this, but the 12 of us relies on you much more than you notice…” Percival said with a small smile adorning his face.
He was a person that I admired greatly, although one that's a bit more logical and never on the moral one.
…
I stared at the sleeping Krus, who was using Arthur as a pillow. Arthur also was resting while I could hear the swings of a sword outside of the house. A bit curious, I decided to stand up and peeked from the windows of my house.
There, Fyuma was practicing her swordsmanship. She’s an adventurer, after all, and most of the time, in adventuring there are times when you’ll have to neutralize bandits, and in some cases where you have to kill them. Though that’s only for C - class and above.
The ability to kill isn’t one that people can underestimate, when you have the resolve to kill, you strike with the intent to kill. And not a lot of people have that resolve.
And that resolve was a resolve etched into my heart forever. It’s the main reason why my swordsmanship was meant to kill, to destroy the defense, and to plunder their lives. That’s the main reason why this style was developed.
We didn’t have time to think about academics, arcane knowledge. We spent most of our days swinging our respective weapons to survive after knowing the taste of war, and knowing that we as orphans from the Kingdom of Guhs have no worth in this world.
Percival had a dream back then, to give our team value. He wanted to show the world that we, even though as orphans, have value.
But he died in the Great War two years ago, right in front of me. I could see his head cut off by a simple swing of the sword, of an elf that managed to capture him after 15 magic spells.
I dispersed all of my thoughts, the vivid memories of my friend’s death, especially Mordred… Mordred’s…I shook my head, it seems as though, that I need a bit more time to get used to this life. I sighed before walking towards the door.
Opening it quietly to not make a sound and wake up Krus and Arthur, before also doing the same when closing it. “Practicing?” Fyuma jolted from surprise after letting out my voice. She turned her head around while looking at me.
“Yes, there’s a quest I plan to do tomorrow, and it’s better to be ready than sorry.” She said with a small smile on her face, before sheathing her sword and putting it away. “Why are you still awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I had a bad dream.” In fact it wasn't an actual good reminisce, the times at the orphanage is the greatest ghost that ever haunted me in my sleep. “Surprisingly, you haven’t gone home yet.”
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“Krus begged for me to stay no matter what, and she wanted me to sleep here, though I don’t plan to do that.” Fyuma said while scratching her ears lightly. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
“I don’t mind, it doesn’t hurt anyone.” I said before sitting on the concrete stairs, which was the entrance in my house. Fyuma approached me slowly while smiling.
“Ah- I have an idea! How about a spar?” Fyuma asked, a lightbulb appeared right above her head. A spar? I would usually spar with Arthur and Percival, Gawain too, the others seemed to be quite reluctant to spar with me since they thought that I was simply leagues above them.
Though I’d say in terms of physical and raw strength alone Lancelot would be the best choice, he chose the shield and a greatsword for numeral reasons after all.
“A spar, but we don’t have wooden swords.”
“We can just use our swords, come on!” Fyuma excitedly said, one thing that beastmans like is a good fight, since most of the population are adventurers, the ones that are more sophisticated and more on academics are elves who excel in numerous arcane knowledge.
“Okay then, if that’s what you’d like.” I said before walking towards the other end of the backyard. “Alright, what are the rules?” I stretched my arm for a bit before strapping my longsword into my hips.
“Simple, the first one that manages to point their swords into the neck wins, also no magic allowed.” Fyuma explained before drawing the two short blades she got, she has the god of speed’s blessing, using that speed as your main strength is a very wise choice.
But are you truly faster when it comes to combat? I drawed my long sword, watching closely the movements she would do as her first move. Making the first move would be bad, although I’m quite confident in my speed, the god of speed’s blessing is no joke, especially when the blessing is a major one. ‘
“Go!” Fyuma exclaimed before immediately, her figure flickered with immediate speed, she disappeared in my sights, my eyes narrowed while my hand gripped the sword tighter.
Instinct. Reflexive actions. Those things are basically the fruits of my experience, in the further case where a simple glittering light in the corner of my eyes is something I would suddenly assume to be an arrow coming towards me.
The traumas of war haven't left my mind yet.
Fyuma’s figure appeared just a few distance away from me at the side, she swung the sword in her right hand, before swiftly parrying it, the sparks of metal flew while a metal clang was heard. Though not once did I close my eyes.
Momentum. Momentum plays a great role in dodging, blocking and attacking, by using the momentum of a parry before shifting yourself in the best position and the best accuracy to attack, a perfect counter-attack.
My foot purposely slipped on the ground, crouching low avoiding the next attack from the left hand, before rushing in for the immediate defeat, though as if that will ever work, there’s a reason as to why she specifically chose two blades.
Fyuma’s right hand retracted in a swift motion, deflecting my attack, but I didn’t stop there, by using this momentum. I took a step forward, before turning my body towards the right, my aim shifted towards the right side of her arm, an opening filled with holes.
My blade glided through the air, intent to end this fight, before Fyuma reflexively used her left hand to cross her arms and block the blade, though this left her unbalanced, leaving her rolling on the ground after blocking it.
I did nothing to chase after her, a person that seemed to be vulnerable can be the most dangerous person after all, it’s better to examine her stance and see through the openings in her stance.
“I didn’t expect you to be this good.” Fyuma said while sighing deeply, her face had sweat running over it.
“You too.” A lie, I didn’t actually think anything of her battle prowess throughout all of this time. If I remember Fyuma’s a B - rank adventurer, she must have gotten the skills to fight against a human from bandits.
“I’ll go serious now!” Fyuma declared, before her feet started to run towards me, charing huh? From that stance, I can already predict what she’s going to do, the right arm is her dominant arm while her left blade is totally retracted, meaning she’s going to use it for defense.
So attacking on the right side would be the best course of action. My feet also sped up towards her before we clashed blades, the metal clangs of our blade seemed to be so loud while Fyuma kept on continuing her fierce attacks, all the while her left hand supported the attacks from the right hand.
Blocking it was easy, it was simply an attack that builds up momentum. If I don’t do anything now, I’ll find myself stuck in a difficult position. The next thing to know is to stop momentum. Stopping momentum is to put them in a difficult position where only momentum can save them.
“Haah!!” Fyuma roared while the clangs of both of our swords got louder and louder with each blow traded off, before immediately trying to counter attack, Fyuma seemed to grin after it. But that attack… is a feint.
One way to stop momentum is to fool them, the moment that they stop their flurry of attack, even if it’s a half-second, you can use that advantage.
I immediately retracted my sword back, before stepping away further and spinning around, the attack that Fyuma anticipated to come never came… she lost her balance, her face dropped the grin while her face widened in surprise.
After that, I made my stance before taking a heavy step and pointing the sword towards her neck, her head jolted in surprise after my sudden action.
“I win.”
“Amazing…” Fyuma could only mutter before I dropped the sword pointed at her neck. “That’s totally amazing! How did you even do those movements, they seemed to naturally just go with the flow of every attack, like a waterfall!” She exclaimed before dropping both of her shortswords.
“Right. I practiced a lot, back when I was a kid.” I looked away, avoiding her excited gaze while her hands started to shake me non-stop.
…
“I win.”
“Still amazing as ever, Krux. Your swordsmanship is really great.”
“It’s nothing special, Percival.”
“You say that, yet you could easily beat all of us even when you only use swordsmanship.”
“Is that so… Then thanks.”
“Learning gratitude are we?”
“Arthur said to me saying thanks is better.”
“That is true. Your greatest strength is definitely your eyes, the only way you can move confidently like that is when you know that you have the upper hand.”
“That’s nice advice, Percival, I’ll keep it at mind.”
‘Haha, you don’t have to.”
…
…
…
Percival ???
Level 112
Age: 14 (Deceased)
Titles: Fortress Penetrator
Race: Human
Blessing: Sir Percival’s Blessing (Incomplete)
Occupation: Soldier (KIA)
Affinity: None
Special Abilities:
Gungnir’s Blow: With every attack of the user, comes a sudden blast of kinetic energy that will make every attack heavy and deadly at the same time.