System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 106
From that day on, the Witcher and Roy settled into the Temple of Melitele in Ellander.
They were assigned a clean, plain room: two wooden beds spread with pale yellow blankets, a well-worn but sturdy desk and chair, an oil lamp, and curtains with a faint floral print that covered the wooden window.
Roy sprang onto a bed, clasped his hands behind his head, kicked one leg up and drew the curtain aside, just in time to see the temple’s kitchen garden where girls in gray gowns bent to fertilize the beds.
“Letho, when do we start the trial?”
“Sometime tomorrow or the day after, assuming that royal adviser from Kerack takes pity and lends a hand.”
“So we still have time!” The boy’s eyes brightened; his right hand closed into a grip and he made a sword-slashing motion through the air. “You’d better make good on your promise today.”
“I should have known you’d be thinking of swordsmanship...” Letho shook his head, then squatted, his knotted forearms fishing beneath the bed; he drew out a brown wooden practice sword. “Lucky I asked Nenneke to have tools ready.”
Roy suddenly snapped to attention. He found a matching training sword under his own bed and hefted it; it was far lighter than Gwyhyr, only about a pound, made of birch or poplar.
“Not teaching the short sword?” Roy recalled Letho’s specialty with the Viper School’s dual blades and was a little dissatisfied with the wooden sword. “And why not train with Gwyhyr directly?”
“First we learn longsword Swordsmanship,” the Witcher said coldly, “as for real-blade training, you’re not ready; you’ll hurt yourself.”
They passed several rooms. Through an open door a priestess tended a patient; in another chamber, under pale yellow light, the new children sat learning letters under Iola’s guidance.
Roy’s eyes caught sight of Fenn and Tawn.
The two little ones sat properly in their chairs, bobbing heads as they read simple words aloud.
The boy nodded and followed the Witcher to a quiet corner of the temple yard beneath a flourishing paulownia.
The burly Witcher stood beside him, amber eyes sizing him up from head to foot.
“You keep rattling on about swordsmanship, so today I’ll indulge you. As a novice you must begin with the most basic motions. Do not underestimate them; every advanced sword art grows from foundations.”
Roy’s brow rose. With Gwyhyr at his side he’d felled several foes—how could the Witcher speak of them as worthless?
“Not convinced? Come then, grip your sword and strike at me!” Letho’s amber eyes showed a gleam of comprehension; he flicked his wrist and spun a flourish with the practice sword, taunting, “Dare you try?”
“Just what I want!”
A hot thrill rose in Roy. He straightened, hands naturally closing on the hilt, only to find Letho already assumed a peculiar stance: both hands raised the practice sword above his right shoulder, knees slightly bent, feet in a T-step. His face was stern, eyes cold; for a moment he looked like a knight with a pike, ready to charge.
Roy hardened his expression and seized the initiative, stepping forward on his left foot and thrusting his right-side longsword toward the Witcher’s shoulder.
His intention, however, was too blatant; midway the blow was easily parried by a downward chop from the Witcher. As he cut, the Witcher dropped close, the longsword held at the face in a horned guard and then flowed into a thrust.
Roy had no time to react; the blade stabbed into his chest.
A pain like fire.
He jumped back a pace to open distance. The Witcher stepped to his side in the same motion, the longsword sweeping to the other hip and tilting upward.
The true edge pointed at Roy, his toe aimed at the boy, the tip at his throat.
It reminded him of a plough turning the earth; he the patch of soil about to be split open.
Cold sweat broke out. Roy at last felt the gulf between them and dared not blunder an attack. He began a cautious shuffle, circling the Witcher to find an opening.
The Witcher’s footwork was economical and efficient; he matched Roy’s turns without effort, the sword tip never leaving lethal range.
After two circuits without a flaw to exploit, Roy tried a ruse: a feint at the waist with his right hand to draw the Witcher’s blade, then a counter.
But the Witcher did not play by the book. He stepped forward in a sudden lunge, met Roy’s wooden blade with the flat of his strong blade and locked into an eight-shaped parry.
With a twist and a flick, Roy’s single-handed weapon flew from his grasp.
The Witcher snarled and moved into the empty space at his chest.
Bang. Bang.
A knee smashed into his belly, the pommel crashed his collarbone.
Roy howled, his body wobbling helplessly.
Pain birthing rage, his eyes rimmed red, he snatched up the fallen wooden sword, abandoned all defense and hacked with a desperate resolve to take them both down.
Two clatters of wood met steel as their forms crossed.
Roy, streaked with two red marks across his face, sagged and dropped the wooden sword, collapsing backward.
He shut his eyes in despair.
No matter his angle or technique, his moves were riddled with openings. Before that odd stance he was a naked child with no counter, more properly said, his neck was being offered cleanly to the Witcher’s blade.
“Now you see the importance of basics?” The Witcher crouched and patted his cheek, a cold curve at his mouth. “Truth be told, I’ve already dialed my speed and strength down to your level. You’re still a feather.”
“Am I really that weak?” Roy had hoped for encouragement but found none.
“You clumsy fool, if you trade blades close in, you’ll die ten times over in five seconds.”
The Witcher lashed out with a hard kick to the boy’s calf. Roy didn’t make a fuss, snapping upright in a single fluid motion.
“Still proud and careless?”
“No.”
“Then stand firm!”
The Witcher began to teach the very basics in a methodical, almost pedantic way—how to hold the sword.
Longsword training started duller than Roy had imagined; most people got the grip wrong in the first lesson.
They liked to cup both hands together at the same spot on the hilt, or hold them too close.
The correct grip was the opposite: the dominant hand should hold the hilt near the guard as the fulcrum, while the non-dominant hand should grip loosely at the butt.
When swinging, the dominant hand controls direction and bears the blade’s weight; the non-dominant hand at the butt gives added drive—using leverage, lifting the butt upward makes the blade fall in a heavier cut.
With a basic explanation, Roy grasped it at once.
He regripped the longsword in the corrected stance. “So the problem at the source was my grip, but it felt so natural. In the Smaerk Mine tunnels I killed a lot of Nekker with that bad grip.”
The new hold felt awkward at first and hard to adapt to.
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