The next morning came and went. Leon resided within his room as he studied the Leqan language book. He was much more invested than usual, fervently jotting down notes within the textbook. The book’s contents reached a point where he needed to do so to memorize some of the more complex words, phrases, and syntax.
Stepping outside of his castle-like dormitory, Leon was met with very intense heat. The sun beamed down mercilessly as his eyes readjusted. ‘This is going to be a long day…’ he thought.
Leon trudged his way toward the practice field. Luckily, they were the closest to his dormitory among all of his lecture-concerned areas. He was one of the last to arrive as he noted the many individuals surrounding a tall, armored man. Some sat on the ground while others stood a bit away in order to wait under a small tree’s shade.
Spotting Nick, he walked over to him. Nick was one of the few that were standing near their instructor, underneath the sun. The two chatted casually, minimizing their energy output. It only took a few minutes before what seemed like everyone arrived. An audible cough resonated through the group, turning heads toward its direction. Their instructor began to speak.
“Some of you may already know me, but I am Sir Garett Lazender, and I will be your combat instructor. First things first, you all need weapons. I am aware that some of you already possess a weapon,” he said, staring at those like Nick with his lance by his side. “But for all of you who do not, step forward.”
With such, Leon and many others stepped forward. With the wave of his hand, Sir Garett summoned numerous weapon racks. Neatly lined up, they displayed many different weapons from longswords, daggers, bows, and the like. There were even items such as nunchakus which caught Leon by surprise.
“Feel free to browse and determine what fits you best. There is no wrong answer so don’t feel that this is a set-in-stone thing. The weapon of choice matters little at this stage, you will likely learn many along your journey,” Sir Garett spoke aloud as he gestured to the racks.
A few people stepped forward, grabbing their weapons. Many were attracted to the simple-looking swords and daggers, making them in low quantity rather quickly. Leon didn’t want to be the first to step up but immediately regretted it. He tried to snag one of the very popular weapons but found it hard to get past his peers. With no intent to shove his way through, he strolled to other weapon racks that were less occupied.
There were quite a number of strange weapons. This world had struck him as a more medieval Europe-type setting but some of the weapons had simply left him perplexed. Besides the odd nunchakus that Leon had noticed, there were also things like curved blades, and crooked-looking swords, one of them was even a set of tonfas.
Leon didn’t have much experience with weapons like many others. The majority that had opted for the traditional swords or daggers did so out of simplicity. Leon agreed with their decision as they were likely to be the easiest to learn. ‘I mean, most people have watched movies with swords and daggers just make sense since they’re… well, kind of just knives.’ He glanced back to the majority as they walked away from the racks with their weapons. ‘Now that I think about it, swords are just big knives, so the selection was even more obvious.’
Shaking his head, Leon resumed down the line of weapons. He didn’t relent in his search for a similar weapon. ‘It may not be a longsword or whatever or even a dagger, as long as it is kind of similar… it should work.’
Bows were out of the question because they were even more popular than swords and daggers. As a group of non-fighting city folk, ‘probably’ Leon thought, bows allowed them to avoid being put in dangerous situations more easily.
The few that acquired bows walked away with feeble-looking sticks with string. They weren’t overly noteworthy as Leon recognized the possible high learning curve. ‘Wait, are we allowed to use weapons outside of our class?’ His experience with video game classes told him that you could only use weapons for your class. If you were a mage, you used a staff. If you were an archer, you used a bow.
It seemed like everyone who was getting a weapon had a non-melee class or something of that sort. Leon recalled that both Julia and Drake had acquired weapons, even Nick had one. He had gloves but it was safe to assume that he wasn’t meant to hit things with them.
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‘Perhaps it’s because I’m a support,’ remembering how open-ended his class name was. ‘Speaking of which, when am I going to use my class skills? Shouldn’t I be learning how to use [Mend] at least?’ Leon scratched his head but decided to pursue his original goal of finding a nice sword-like weapon.
Leon passed many weapons, imagining what it’d be like to wield them. He’d walked past an axe and could only image a berserker version of himself if he used it. The idea of a Viking-like support made him chuckle internally.
A few people followed in his footsteps as he went down the line of racks. Noticing this, Leon tried not to get sidetracked anymore. Vigilantly scanning the racks, he finally happened upon something worthy of consideration.
‘Cool. A katana.’
A somewhat short and slightly curved weapon within a scabbard rested behind the many larger options beside it. Picking it up, Leon looked the weapon up and down. Its scabbard didn’t have any designs and was entirely black. Small pieces of fabric wrapped themselves around it. The sword’s guard was square, and the handle was black as well, being wrapped by more fabric, creating a familiar diamond design. During all of this, Leon’s [Identify] skill triggered.
Wakizashi – A bladed weapon
“…”
It felt like the system was insulting him for mistaking the weapon for a katana. ‘I really need to learn how to stop accidentally activating this skill.’
Leon tried to remember what a Wakizashi was. He recalled seeing samurai in history books carrying more than one blade, so it was safe to assume this was one of them. Leon unsheathed the blade, being greeted by a dim shine as the sun reflected off of the single-sided blade. He wouldn’t call himself a sword expert, but it didn’t take much to tell that the blade was a bit dulled. Glancing to his sides, many of the other weapons were dull as well. ‘We are learning for the first time, so I guess they wouldn’t want to waste brand new weapons on us.’
They could have given them wooden practice weapons but chose actual weapons. It was nice but Leon couldn’t help but get a bad feeling. Why would they need real weapons to practice? ‘Are we meant to use these dull things against the demon lord?’
Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen any demons. Nothing of the like, no goblins, trolls, evil boars… nothing. They were all going off of the fact that the kingdom told them there is a threat, but they hadn’t seen any threat. The many people in the kingdom that Leon saw didn’t seem scared at all. ‘Do they not know…? Or is there even a real threat?’
“It appears you’ve all chosen your weapons,” a powerful voice proclaimed. Leon swung his head back, returning to the task at hand.
Sir Garett walked past the group of them and proceeded to the center of the simple practice area enclosed by a meek-looking wooden fence. As he made his way, he gestured to the weapon racks and within a little time, they disappeared.
Turning to face his students, Sir Garett cleared his throat once more. “Some of you may have already realized, but we don’t have enough time in the day for me to teach all of you the basics of your weapons.”
Leon didn’t like where this was going.
“So, I’ve invited some of our world’s students to help as sparring partners.”
With this said, Leon and many others began to notice the presence of some people approaching. More specifically, it seemed like they had arrived a while ago, but Leon didn’t notice until now. The new group consisted of perhaps twenty people if he were to guess. They all wore similar outerwear. Dark grey uniforms of peculiar design donned their bodies. The outfits looked like a mix of a school uniform and the attire of fancy aristocrats. Small metal platings were strapped around their shoulders, knees, and elbows. Some even had metal armor covering parts of their hips. The group held various weapons by their sides, awaiting instructions from Sir Garett.
With a nod, their instructor began shouting out what Leon assumed to be their names, followed by pointing toward one of the ‘brave warriors.’ Yes, Leon was still hung up on the dumb nickname the priest gave them.
“Silvermoor,” he announced before pointing to Leon.
‘Silvermoor?’ Leon thought. It didn’t sound like a first name, ‘but what do I know? I just started learning their language, their naming sense may be different as well.’ Turning his head, he was met with a young man with silver hair. ‘Yeah, it’s his last name.’
He was a handsome man with a well-defined face and a somewhat messy side part. On his waist rested a sword. Focusing on it, Leon activated his [Identify] skill.
Katana – A bladed weapon
‘Thank you, system.’ He figured it was a katana but didn’t want to guess based on his earlier mistake. It was practically the same as his own except for color and design… alongside one major thing that should have made the weapon obviously more fitting of the katana description. It was long. Staring down at his own blade, Leon estimated it to be 45 centimeters which paled in comparison to the silver-haired boy’s blade.
‘I guess this one fits me better anyway,’ he internally shrugged. The other’s height was at least 10 centimeters above Leon’s. ‘Shorter blade for a shorter person.’ He knew that he’d struggle to swing his sparring partner’s blade at certain angles due to its length.
Leon shook his head and watched as his partner approached him. He began preparing a sentence of introduction in his head. The young man stood before Leon after a few seconds of waiting. With his best effort and a week of language learning, Leon spouted out some Leqan.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Leon. Thank you for helping me.”
The boy named Silvermoor squinted at him momentarily.
“Tsk.”
‘Did he just tsk at me?’