I’m not saying I have anything against laying on the ground, exhausted and hurting all over. It’s probably a good thing, it means progress.

Still, it’s that old question, if you manage to exhaust yourself, are you strong or are you weak?

Regardless of the answer, it would be better without the kids occasionally poking me in random places to check if I’m dead. But not by much.

And… This is supposed to be just the basics, I’m not even trying to learn anything about combat yet.

I watched one of their evening training sessions from the walls once and well, it was both messy and impressive. After warming up with solo practice, they start one on one sparring matches. Eerily silent, but shockingly fast moves as they search for openings. Their style is all about finesse, there's no heavy clang, only the occasional piercing rasp as iron meet iron. They don't wear any armor, the weapons are sharp, no safety measure other than the fact that they are not actually trying to murder each other.

And it works. The spars often end in just a few seconds as one of the opponent finds enough of an opening to make the other concede, and they both take a step back in the middle of their moves in an impressive display of control before debriefing the fight with at least one spectator.

Those fights are almost like a dance of dangerous moves and narrow dodges.

Probably makes sense to fight unpredictable beasts and monsters, never overcommit, always be ready to stop and take a step back.

Watching their sparing got me thinking about what kind of weapon I’d like to use, and maybe I’m being foolish but… I kinda liked my shitty whip of brambles. Well, not the item itself, but the idea of a whip. It does have some sentimentality too, it was the first time I held a real weapon, and I killed a monster with it. A shitty monster, an overgrown slug which was barely worth the effort, and yet it worked.

The first time you can remember holding a weapon at least.

The flash of familiar hatred burns through my mind before settling back down. Yes. Maybe there have been other times.

But I’m rather confident I never had any kind of combat training… Well except those few months where mom dragged me to a judo course when I was a kid. That didn’t last long. Unlike Alice, I never really enjoyed physical combat. But maybe using grandpa’s rifle might have come up at one point or another? Impossible to know. I truly hate this feeling of uncertainty about who and what I am, what is my real past. And who’s to say those fuckers didn’t add things? How far are my memories from my real past? Do I even have a real past?

The only ones who know are those who put us here. In the meantime, all we can do is our best with the hand we’ve got.

Obviously.

So yeah, I like the idea of using a whip to fight. A whip is designed to inflict pain and cause fear. Which isn’t very nice, but the alternatives are weapons made to maim and kill. The first time I tried to eat here, I had to fight against those silly squeamish reflexes of a civilized life. It didn’t go very well and the idea of murdering stuff… Does make me a bit queasy. At least for people, I’d rather see them run away than fight to the death. Monsters I can bring myself to kill them. Principally if they are horrifying.

In stories and games, fantasy heroes are rewarded for being mass murderers and implacable wildlife purgers. I know this is also true here, but it still feels wrong. The anomaly Pheyis mentioned when we first met apparently was a massive wave of food and experience delivered straight to the village doorstep. Two gilfeiths died and many were injured, but even the kids got a decent boost to their levels and traits just from killing flocks of birds. It’s normal to kill, yet I’d rather not. And it’s even worse knowing my stance on this… Is unlikely to hold against reality for long.

I force myself to move and I chase the kids away from me before I start going through the motions of my stretching routine. The Scout’s ritual of Dexterity, according to Pheyis. They scatter in a burst of laughter. Even though those little pests are far stronger and more energetic than children of their age have any business being, the reality of their pestering is akin to an herd of cats poking a bear. They are mostly harmless and I won’t be mean to them, but I’m relatively scary.

Well, not really, but it's good enough for kids to have fun acting scared so whatever.

And I’m getting a fair trade for the annoyance, their constant chatter is doing wonders to my growing understanding of siacnar. I’m the Regnart, the stranger. And also the most exciting thing happening in this village over the last few years. Well, a peaceful kind of exciting at least, rather than deadly monsters, just a strange and harmless being from very far away.

I might be powerless still, in particular to get back at the Knowledgeable, but I'll fix that eventually.

In this world, strength matters, so I will get strong. I don't expect that a real chance to get back at the Knowledgeable will suddenly come out of nowhere. If I assume an opportunity won’t present itself, I'll go ahead and create it.

Vindicator progress : 1%

- - -

I found Zaimeia and Guemeros at the latter's house. I wonder if they’ll be as blasé with my level up as Pheyis was, she certainly dampened my enthusiasm.

Hey, let’s try identifying them at the same time, see if it works. I’ll pick Zaimeia.

Sure, why not.

[Zervius Guemeros (level ??) : an old Gilfeith, he's been the chief of Wathamber for decades.]

[Zaimeia (level ??) : a young Gilfeith, a competent and open minded chief in training.]

Did identify just randomly provide some info on how long Guemeros has been chief?

Yeah. Top notch piece of data right there, really changing my outlook on him.

Zaimeia activates the translation. Now that I'm starting to have good basics in their tongue, they are less reluctant of spending mana on it. Since my brain does a good part of the job, the system makes them pay less. And it's great to learn too.

“Oh, how curious, your inner light has two colors. Have you seen that before Guemeros?”

Wait, what? Pheyis would have mentioned that right?

“Never heard of such a thing. Congratulations on your first level. A bloody red and a shining yellow, both are good colors, the red speaks of might and the yellow of power.”

“The colors have a meaning? I thought it was random.”

“It is, but there are some patterns. People fit to thrive in war often have some shade of red while mages often have yellow tones. Of course I don’t follow that pattern myself, as I’m a far cry from a talented mage.”

Zaimeia interjects before Guemeros can really start going.

“Anyway, two colors is unheard of. But surely you didn’t come to visit us for that. What’s the matter?”

- - -

Asking for a weapon felt a bit awkward, in particular with my unusual choice. While “whip” does have a translation (I caught the word “teiof”), I wasn’t sure if we’d understood each other. Regardless, they pointed me to the local leather-worker (follow the smell to the tannery, it’s next door) to have something crafted for me.

There are occasions in my life where I’ve felt unwelcome. It didn’t happen much and I like to think of myself as a decent guest.

What I’m trying to say, is that being chased away under a stream of what were very clearly curses by an angry gilfeith was a novel experience.

A lesser man might have even taken offense at such unwarranted behavior.

A greater man would have faced the problem instead of running away, but I wholeheartedly support the decision.

His knife-waving was very threatening wasn’t it?

Anyway, I wanted to ask Pheyis for her opinion on good weapons fit for killing monsters but she’d ran off to god knows where.

She’d just tell you to sharpen your nails anyway. That or daggers.

Daggers are cool but I’d rather be slightly less close and personal with dangerous murder machines born of mana.

Which is why I’m currently waving this spear around under the amused gaze of Aetmon. I found him busily not doing anything important, looking at the valley while sitting on the village walls, and convinced him to help me get a weapon. He protested a little, certainly trying to give a reasonable explanation for why it was extremely important that he must be where he was, not doing anything. Of course, since we don’t use the translation I gave him my flattest stare while he was winding down. Barely understood a thing of that particular explanation, which was strange because I usually get the gist of it when people say simple things by now.

In the end an amused passerby jeered something his way and he gave up.

Contrarily to all my expectations, the smith turned out to be a rather friendly guy. He traded a few words with Aetmon, casually pushing a bunch of things aside to clear some space on his workbench. After that he sized me up (I wonder what a gray “inner light” indicates), thoughtfully nodded and went to his weapon rack. He handed me a short sword of dull iron and a short spear with a wooden shaft and a rusty tip, had me take a few swings with both, promptly stored the sword and he took back the spear, commenting all the while with Aetmon with genuine concern in his voice.

It didn’t take him long to clear the rust and give the leaf-shaped tip a quick sharpening.

Anyway, after promising to bring the weapon back the next day, I walked out of there with a shiny spear. The shaft felt almost like some kind of plastic rather than wood, the process to harden it apparently consisting of soaking it in resin.

We made our way out of the village and Aetmon showed me some basics. I promptly imitated him wrong and we spent some time in this back and forth.

I got better though. Turns out geometry is important and strength doesn’t hold a candle to precision.

After a few minutes observing my motions he speaks affecting the tone of a wise teacher, nodding to himself in mysterious ways.

“Yes. Repeat until a trait ssiarappa. If you’re tired before, try again. Yes, yes, if not egnach towards sundown, eyass another emra tomorrow.”

Pretty sure emra is weapon. It’s not spear since that’s emraecnal but I might have missed a thing or two in that particular vocabulary.

“Thanks for the… Ideas? Aetmon”

He corrects me before leaving.

“Not ideas, sliesnoc. Of course. See ya later Marc, I am esopus hunting.”

I bet you’re not getting a trait before you can’t swing this spear anymore.

That’s cheating, I’m still weak from all the exercise of this morning...

At least I’m not swinging a spear completely made of iron. Those must be insanely heavy.