Chapter 3
Meeting and Beating
“This is Valence Ironmane. Impress him,” Voin rumbled out as soon as I turned the final corner to enter training ground 21. I raised an eyebrow at the welcome, a far cry from his standard fare of “Hn”s or “Hm”s that he usually greeted me with. Standing beside him was another man, older and far more genial in appearance. His armor was smooth and lightly decorated with filigree, lacking the brutal and animalistic features of Voin’s.
“Hello to you too,” I replied to Voin drily. I turned to the other man. “Name’s Caelum. You named after your hair?” I asked, staring pointedly at the exotic tresses. The man’s hair was a lustrous silver, not the grey or white that occurs from aging, and looked far too majestic for my liking.
“No, I was not. That was my ancestor,” the man answered, lips pulling apart in an amused smile that I didn’t see coming. His reaction was far more tame than I expected; If it was Voin, he’d have thrown a rock at me by now–I still don’t know where he keeps them.
“Cool…” I dragged out the word, looking around as if to find something. “So why am I supposed to impress you?” I asked skeptically. The man looked to be important, but I was no dancing monkey.
“Ah, I’d just like to-” The other man began.
“-Because otherwise, you go to frontline,” Voin interrupted, head cocked, asking me to challenge his words.
“...Well that’s a bit much, isn’t it?” I replied as nonchalantly as I could, but I could feel my heart begin to beat an anxious rhythm. “What do I get if do impress him?” My best guess was that he was some talent scout, most likely for good I was in combat. It worked for me, though I still didn’t like having to perform on command.
“You get to not go to frontline,” Voin replied tersely, tapping his foot in impatience.
Never mind, I rescind my grievances
“What Voin means to say,” the other man interjected, glancing at Voin in slight admonishment, “Is that if you impress me, I’d like to take you as my student.”
“Like an apprentice?”
The man nodded. “Like an apprentice, though I expect you do not wish to be my successor.”
“That depends,” I hedged; If his job was Master of Coin or the Brothel King, I very well might–if those jobs were real, that is. “What do you do?”
“I am the Armsmaster of the King,” he stated with muted pride, “If you are talented, you could take my post in a few decades.”
“Ah. Cool,” I understated. “No thanks though.”
“Enough talking.” Voin cut in, his patience at its limit. “Brat, try to kill Valence,” he ordered, the other man not even flinching at the words.
“Kill him? Really?” I asked exasperatedly. “Even if I wanted to—which I don’t, old man—I don’t have any weapons,” I pointed out. Killing someone with your bare hands is surprisingly hard—or shockingly easy, if you land a particularly bad punch to the head—especially when they’re fighting back. And despite his apparent age, the man was built like a brick shit house. The only way I’d be able to kill him is if he let me.
“Voin doesn’t mean it literally-”
“-I do”
“He just wants you to fight me without restraint,” Valence continued, ignoring Voin’s correction. “And don’t worry; this old man can take it,” he joked, thumping himself on the chest.
“I’m not worried about that…” I muttered, rolling my shoulders and moving into a wary stance.
I wish all evaluations were like this, I thought to myself, feeling my blood begin to flow in excitement.
Valence smiled in response but didn’t waste any more time, moving into a stance of his own. His stance was noticeably more formal than Voin’s, and when he stepped forward towards me, his movements were far more deliberate, almost stiff–his steps closer to a controlled stomp. When he closed the distance between us, he began the fight with a probing jab to my head. I leaned away from the strike, feeling the air whizz past as his fist tickled my hair.
“You have good reaction time,” he praised, sending another jab, this one faster than before.
“Yep,” I agreed, leaning away once more, this time feeling coarse skin glide over the peach fuzz on my cheeks. “I’m pretty awesome.”
Valence hummed in both acknowledgment and amusement as he darted left, slinging a right hook in tandem with the movement.
“You don’t think so?” I grunted out as I caught the blow on my forearm, the pixelated red barrier springing up to protect my flesh against his metal gauntlet.
Health: 139/145
“I’ve yet to see,” Valence muttered, eyes focused in interest at my forearm, where my magick appeared to stop his blow, before blurring forward in a burst of speed.
“Rude-” my retort was interrupted when a fist rocketed into my sternum, sending me skidding across the field. I sent a half-hearted glare at Valence for cutting me off with a punch, but he was either too busy staring at me in wonder or simply didn’t care.
Health: 93/145
“Fascinating. You should be a coughing mess right now,” Valence breathed out in awed curiosity as I began marching forward to continue our bout, not needing to recover from his strike.
I understood his confusion; I had been hit in the sternum before, back when I was… not here. Get hit in the chest hard enough, and your eyes will tear up from your hacking, and if you get hit somewhere like the solar plexus, you’ll just puke on the mat. Instead, I made an “oof” noise, and a number went down.
“I should,” I agreed. “But I can’t take many more of those, though,” I said as I moved in a sudden head kick.
“Do you feel full sensation?” Valence raised an arm to catch the leg and pulled it towards him. “Pain?” He hurled a fist to intercept me while I was unbalanced.
"Not really." I jerked my leg out of his grip, knowing he allowed it for the sake of fairness. "I can feel it—" I tilted my head down and forward, blocking his fist with my forehead, taking advantage of the thick bone underneath, "—but it’s more like being told what happened rather than experiencing it." It also made it so I wouldn’t get a headache from the force that should be reverberating throughout my skull. Instead, the sensation was oddly detached, like a notification rather than actual pain. Still, it didn’t help me to hurt him; annoyingly, Valence’s fist took no damage, his armor nullifying one of the main advantages of the move.
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Health: 85/145
“Interesting. Very interesting,” Valence ruminated, more to himself than to me. “But never mind an old man’s thoughts. Let’s see how well you wield it.” Before I could even scrunch my brow in confusion over his statement, Valence demonstrated his intent by upping the pace, dashing the breathing room I had to talk.
Within the first five exchanges, I found myself on the backfoot, not just due to Valence’s increased speed and strength, but primarily because of his fighting style. It was vastly different from Voin’s, causing me to trip up for several moves as I scrambled to adjust.
Voin’s combat style was relentless, characterized by jerky, animalistic movements, seemingly designed around his deadly armor—which he pacified for our spars.
Valence’s approach was almost formal, his movements stiff yet precise, each blow delivered with a certainty and heft that made every strike count. Even when I managed to block his hits, they still dealt significant damage to my health bar. Forced to weave in and out of his attacks, my inexperience in combat quickly became apparent against a foe whose tendencies I hadn’t had over a week to study and adapt against.
Eight moves in, I managed to deflect a left hook from Valence, but I couldn't react in time when he folded his arm and turned it into an elbow strike.
Health: 57/145
Five moves later, I ducked under a swinging punch, only to be lifted off my feet by a powerful uppercut.
Health: 31/145
Three moves after, I finally landed a blow of my own. I started with a head kick, mirroring my move from earlier. When Valence predictably tugged on my extended limb, I pulled as well, my enhanced strength granting my leg the ability to bring my entire body closer with ease. I flew forward, elbow cocked to strike, and struck Valence as hard as I could on the side of his face. However, the force only made his head tilt slightly to the left, whilst my own elbow sprouted a red shield in contrast, absorbing some of the impact.
Health: 28/150
Valence seemed to smile at my cunning before making me pay for the strike with one of his own. The air was forcibly expelled from my lungs as I folded over a metal boot lodged into my stomach, the red barrier protecting me fizzling out. My face was almost parallel with his leg, forehead close to touching his knee before I was sent staggering back.
Health: 0/160
At the top left of my sight, my health bar began to blink in alarm, completely drained.
“Time ou—” I started to call out, but was cut off by a fist that made me go cross-eyed. Blood spurted out of my broken nose, and for the first time since I arrived her, I saw stars swirling in my vision. But I couldn’t wallow in my disorientation; a far heavier blow was hurtling towards me, Valence’s fist a meaty slab of doom.
Oh shit
But before I could be taken out of the rigged game we call life, a shadow fell over me, and a mighty boom! rang out across the field.
“You lost yourself,” a voice rumbled out, colored with an unexpected note of understanding. I opened my eyes to see Voin standing over me, his hand raised with Valence’s gauntleted fist clasped inside.
“...Apologies,” he said after a few moments, shaking his head as if to escape a stupor. Slowly, he pulled his fist free from Voin’s grasp and brought it to his mouth, clearing his throat not out of necessity but as a prelude to his words. “I humbly apologize, Caelum. I became entranced by our bout. A rare thing it is for me to have spars like this, you see–even if you are a tad weak.”
Vexingly, I was sure he was being genuine about his statement, which somehow stung worse. “...Thanks, I guess?” I replied, my voice nasally, sounding like I was doing an impression of a mosquito as rivulets of blood continued to stream down my face. Stepping around Voin, I faced Valence, who stood with hands clasped behind his back, exuding dignified composure.
"Goodness me!" He exclaimed upon seeing me, abandoning his dignified act as his eyes widened in surprise. "I thought I felt something crunch, but I didn't think it was your nose!" He brought his hands up toward his face, as if checking his own nose for damage. "I dare not think what would have happened had Voin not intercepted me..."
Voin huffed at the last sentence, a rare show of amusement from him - and of course it was about me getting punched to death. “The boy is fragile without magick. Like bird,” he jested to Valence. Or at least I think it was a jest, his tone didn’t change much from its normal gruffness.
“So did I pass the little test?” I cut in, transparently changing the topic to not being about how weak I was.
“Hm?” Valence hummed. “Oh, yes, yes you did. You surpassed my expectations, in fact, if not in physical ability but in instinct.”
He didn’t have to include the last part, I grumbled inwardly, but acknowledged that improving instinct was perhaps more challenging than enhancing physical prowess, especially in my case.Glancing at my health bar, it seemed I had already made progress midway through the spar.
Status, I intoned.
Status
Name: Caelum Aarde
Health: 160/160
Mana: 25/25
Strength: 5
Agility: 7
Fortitude: 5
Acuity: 7
Capacity: 1
Reading through the numbers, I realized I had improved more than I initially thought. It was surprisingly difficult to perceive the actual sensation of becoming stronger, faster, and tougher when these changes seamlessly integrated themselves, especially since my physical appearance hadn’t visibly altered. So far, Strength and Fortitude were the most noticeable; increases in these attributes directly correlated with a higher health bar. Agility was trickier to gauge, observable primarily in sparring sessions where I could dodge attacks I previously couldn’t. Acuity remained the most enigmatic; it seemed to enhance my reaction times during combat, yet its effects outside of sparring were less clear. I doubted it made me more intelligent, though it's not like I would be able to really tell that. The only method I could think of would be to look back at my old actions and see if I now deemed them dumb.
After a few moments of recollection, I reached a simple conclusion: I'm awesome, was awesome, and will be awesome, and just as dumb or smart as always.
“...Caelum?... Caelum?...Is this normal?”
“He is looking at imaginary screen. Hit him. It is what I do.”
“...Very well.”
My body moved on its own as a metal hand came chopping down where the top of my head had been just a second earlier. My status screen melted away, clearing my vision to see Voin and Valence staring at me.
“What?” I asked when they continued to stand in silence.
“I suppose I shall repeat myself,” Valence stated, his tone tinged with curiosity, as if the act of repeating himself was an unfamiliar one. “In two days, I will be leaving on a journey. Would you like to join me as my student?”
“Where are you going?” I asked; If he said “The frontlines,” I was going to throw my nose-blood at him.
“To a region, you could call it, named the Badlands. Have you heard of it?” Valence replied, and I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Was he making up the name?
“No, I haven’t. Why is it called the Badlands, though?” I asked, my tone wary.
“The name’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it? Though I suppose you’ll have to find out why when we get there, eh?” Valence replied with a smile and a wink, but I wasn’t amused.
“No, I don’t,” I replied flatly. Valence seemed taken aback by my response, visibly confused, until Voin interjected.
“He thinks you are tricking him to war. The brat has something against it,” he explained as if that wasn’t a normal bias to have.
Valence sighed in understanding at Voin’s words. “Ah, I see. Not to worry, Caelum, the Badlands are on the opposite side of the war front,” he clarified, before a flicker of amusement crossed his lips. “Death by bugs is still a possibility, but these ones aren’t hers,” he japed.
At his words, I noticed Voin clench his jaw as his features darkened, his gauntlet audibly groaning from the force of his now-clenched fists. Valence noticed it as well, quickly speaking up once more to shift the conversation.
“So, would you like to join me? I will be your master and will provide you with all you need during our journey,” Valence proposed.
I pursed my lips in thought over the question, though my answer had been decided long before he asked. “Sure. I’ll join you as your student, or whatever,” I answered. I was pretty sure the term “master” had different connotations in this place, at least in this context, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt for now. Still, I clarified that I was just his student, just in case.
“Great!” Valence exclaimed, clapping his hands together in evident satisfaction. “Then I will pen a letter to my daughter and meet you first thing in the morning the day after next!” With that, Valence briskly strode off without waiting for a reply.
“...Daughter?” I asked, my target of address too far to hear my mutter of confusion.
Voin huffed in amusement.