I’ll say this about the people of Honeywood: they work fast.

A plan, along with a couple back up plans, was set up in a single day. Gryphus basically told me I had three days before we set out to give Macedor their metaphorical spanking. I know we had a lot of supplies and stuff prepared from the battle, but that was still quite fast.

I spent the first day playing with Astera. Actually, that’s not quite right. I spent the first day getting lectured at by then playing with Astera. She didn’t completely understand what I had done, but she knew I had done a ‘bad thing’ and was determined to convince me not to do it again.

We spent quite a while playing house. She dressed up and dictated how I was supposed to shapeshift. I used to pretend to misunderstand her instructions, which she found funny. I couldn’t overdo it anymore though, she was catching on lately and I didn’t want to seem patronizing.

The next to days I set aside to train. At first, Astera wanted to play more, she even started to throw a tantrum. She seemed to understand though, so she stopped after a bit. She’s really a good kid.

Training was a new thing for me. I mean, sure, I practiced my shapeshifting a lot. That was different from physically training though. The fight with Mun-gi had been a wake-up call. I couldn’t just brute force my way through everything anymore. That meant I needed something more involved than just hunting or shapeshifting finger puppets out of the tips of my claws.

I made my way to the edge of the clearing surrounding the city. The part I chose was furthest from the road, there was no reason to advertise my abilities to any merchants. I also wanted to avoid being disturbed by my neighbors.

There were two things I wanted to figure out. The first was that crazy fast attack I’d managed during the climax of the fight between Mun-gi and I. The second was if I could refine my makeshift martial arts into something more solid.

The ground was solid, surprisingly flat, and very fertile. Despite that, there still were a few stones buried here and there. There weren’t any particularly large ones, but they were common enough to make any spadework in this field a real chore. I dug up a couple with my foot as I started thinking.

The speed attack I had done… It had been surprisingly simple and completely instinctive. I had made some sort of connection with my inner praying mantis, and that was what it had come up with. In retrospect it made sense.

I had always fought however I felt like. My shapeshifting, my flexibility, and my intelligence gave me that privilege. I could freely change my claws into axes, spears, sabers, or any other melee weapon I could think of. It was a bit counterintuitive, but apparently, that meant I’d neglected to utilize my body to its full potential.

Kicking a stone into my claw, I flicked it high into the air. Drawing upon my memories of that time, I tried to reproduce that attack.

The stone fell back to earth, but as soon as it dropped into range, my muscles snapped into motion. My target exploded into gravel with a sharp noise like a gunshot. My claws weren’t sharp enough to cut cleanly through the rock, so it burst into shards instead.

I shook the bits of dust and pieces of rock out of my claws and kept at it. The strike was so fast that I had trouble observing it. My claws would flash out and clamp down on my target in one smooth, circular motion. It felt easy to put power into.

I tried to make the attack without a target. It didn’t feel right, but attacking an imaginary enemy worked. My claws made a loud ‘crack!’ noise. As it turns out, I could actually break the sound barrier. That certainly explained why I couldn’t see my claws move.

I wanted to keep going, but it wasn’t going to be possible. The muscles all through my arms were starting to seize up and were surprisingly tired. It was weird, I could run around and lift massive boulders all day and only get a little winded. Something as minor as swinging my claws a few times shouldn't exhaust me so much.

The next was figuring out some kind of martial art. My arms felt like noodles so I decided to stick to working on my footwork for now.

I understood the concept of footwork. It was all about moving quickly, changing directions abruptly, and staying stable. When I was human, I tried to watch Olympic fencing. I couldn’t keep up with what was going on, but it always impressed me how fast they could shoot forward and backward when they fought. Of course, with my current senses, something like that would be in slow motion.

Mun-gi took it up to another level. The guy seemed to defy physics at times. It made sense. When you got stronger and tougher you were capable of doing more tricks as well as squeezing out stronger motions. Mun-gi could do things that would snap a normal person’s ankles.

With my extra legs, reproducing a human martial art wasn’t feasible. What I could do was figure out my own way. Of course, I didn’t have a clue how one went about inventing a martial art. The best strategy I could come up with was to run around.

...and that was basically it.

I skittered about the field like a madman; jumping and running about in an effort to try and narrow down the best movements my form could use. I spent days doing this. For a bit I would practice my speed strike to get my body accustomed, then I would work on my agility.

When the time to leave came I had made zero progress towards any sort of special moves. It makes sense I guess, since if it was that easy everyone would do it. At the very least I had figured out the trick to Mun-gi’s mid-air mobility, but that was more of a method of controlling one’s body and center of gravity than anything else.

This time I was traveling with the group to go to battle. It was going to be a long journey too. We were loaded down with supplies and equipment. I actually ended up drawing one of the carts. It worked well since I was stronger than any horse. I feel like my dignity is suffering, though.

The road was surprisingly smooth. I loved how the wheel of the cart slid so snugly into the wheel ruts. It might have been a problem if the road was muddy, but even then I would have to be a lot weaker. As it was it just made steering a no brainer. I just zoned out and walked forward, humming along to the song a few elves were singing.

It was a simple travel song, and I wasn’t going to butcher it. The elves seemed to have pretty nice singing voices. ...At least the ones who were actually singing did. Whatever weirdness gave me the automatic translation ability didn’t make me any good at singing. Doesn’t really bother me though. I like having wings and claws more than having a decent tenor.

The people up front stopped singing. They didn’t stop moving though. It took a second for those of us behind to reach the spot they stopped singing it. We saw why really quickly. We’d reached the site where the battle had happened.

There weren’t any bodies left, they had been burnt a long time ago. The ashes were still scattered here and there. It was still quite obvious that the battle had been here though. The ground around the road had been trampled, and shreds of cloth and old blood stains could be seen here and there.

It was hard to keep singing here. Victory aside, none of us could pretend to be happy here. We marched in silence. I caught sight of the place where Mun-gi and I fought, the craters and scars in the road made it obvious, but it didn’t seem as cool as I thought it would be.

I guess there’ a difference between remembering something at home and where it happened.

It took a while after we passed the battlefield before we felt like singing again. It wasn’t very enthusiastic at first, though we lightened up eventually. The edge of the forest was coming up as well.

Gryphus had started grinning oddly. I wasn’t sure, but he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I knew that look. He was waiting for me to find out or figure out something. We walked in silence for a while, until I finally gave up.

“Alright: what is it?”

His grin got a little smugger, then he made a cloyingly fake expression of innocence.

“What~?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, you’ve had that look on your face for a while now. You look like Mero when he’s got some prank in the making.”

We both paused as that little, mischievous grin appeared in our imaginations. Mero had a lot of enthusiasm for causing mayhem. I still remember how much he giggled when I taught him how to short sheet a bed. He only managed to do his parent’s and Astera’s beds though, since the maids knew he was up to something.

You don’t let a kid who snickers like that out of your sight.

Gryphus’s smile turned awkward as he tried to smother his grin. He gave up pretty quickly though.

“I’m just waiting till you see our surprise.”

“...tell me.”

“Nope! You’ll just have to wait and see.”

I didn’t care too much, but that grin was starting to annoy me, so I decided to pull out the big guns.

“Hey, you know how Mero has been learning basic magic right?”

“...?”

“Oh, I was just thinking he would have learned how to freeze water. I know he can’t freeze much at a time, but I thought he might like to know how much ‘fun’ he could have with just that little trick.”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

I smirked right back at him. After a bit, he mock sighed and shrugged his shoulders in surrender.

“Alright, fine. We hired someone familiar to act as your partner in the attack. Mister Mun-gi is waiting for us at the edge of the forest.”

“Oh.”

Gryphus raised his eyebrows at my reaction.

“Just ‘Oh?’ That’s it?”

I gave a shrug, tugging awkwardly on the harness of the cart.

“I mean, I knew we were going to hire mercenaries, and I had a feeling that Mun-gi would be at the top of the list.”

Gryphus looked quite disappointed at my lack of reaction. A couple people nearby chuckled a bit at how depressed he looked. We teased him for a bit before we hit the edge of the forest.

Since I was walking and not flying, the change in air currents didn’t hit so strongly. That said, the air still smelled strange to me. The lack of leaf litter, flowers, and fruit in the plain meant the air smelled almost ...empty.

There were other smells though, mostly grass and dust. I could also detect smoke from a campfire and one other smell that was difficult to place. The source of the smokey smell was easy to locate though; a couple of men were hunched around a campfire a few dozen yards to the left of the road. They were looking our way, and I could see the overly large, black eyes of Mun-gi as he grinned and waved at us.

We stopped, and most of them started heading our way, while one stopped for a moment to kick dirt onto the fire. They walked over, with the last guy jogging to catch up. Mun-gi’s nodded to me before greeting to Gryphus. Gryphus smiled professionally as he responded.

“Welcome, mister Mun-gi. These gentlemen would be the ones you spoke of?”

Mun-gi stepped to the side, gesturing at the quintet of mercenaries. They had the awkward postures of people who are wavering between being proud of and absolutely terrified of the pressure that came with being hired on their hero’s recommendation.

“Indeed, mister Greenbul, may I introduce the mercenary group ‘Blue Dagger.’”

They gave the half-nod/half-bow of people trying very hard not to seem rude but unwilling to speak. Gryphus seemed to clue into their discomfort and spoke up quickly.

“I’m certain anyone that Vortex Mun-gi recommends is more than up to the job. I’m quite happy to have all of you here-”

I zoned out a bit as Gryphus droned on. He wasn’t a great speech maker, and his improvised reassurance was quickly having the opposite effect. The Blue Daggers had that deer in the headlights look that made me want to laugh out loud. I held back a bit though, I still have a little bit of empathy left in me. I settled for a chuckle as I interrupted.”

“And so-”

“Whoa there Gryphus, I think they get it. You’re starting to ramble.”

Gryphus grimaced awkwardly while Mun-gi hid a smirk. The mercenaries didn’t loosen up though. They were too busy looking at me like I grew a second head. The awkward silence extended for a while before Mun-gi introduced us.

“This is Manto, I’m sure I told you about him earlier.”

A light dawned in the Blue Dagger’s eyes as they stared at me. I’m wondering what Mun-gi had actually said for them to look at me like that. Luckily, Anthus sauntered over to break the awkward silence that had returned.

“Are we going to keep going, or what? If we’re taking a break we should feed the horses.”

Mun-gi grinned widely and herded the stiff mercenaries into the caravan. We started moving again while he muttered in a voice only a few of us could hear.

“Yes, it would be a shame if I was late. I made a promise after all.”

Mun-gi stared off into the distance. His dark eyes were like black mirrors. However, they didn’t reflect the surroundings at all. Instead, they were twisted with joyous anticipation for the coming battle.

If I was entirely honest, I was excited too. As sad and depressing as the aftermath of that battle was; I could hardly wait.