Chapter 305
It has been three days since I started training Clarice and the others.
Becoming stronger isn't just about leveling up. If we're talking purely about instant strength, leveling up can quickly enhance physical abilities.
However, there are things that cannot be acquired overnight. Namely, player skills.
How to move one's body, how to manage combat, the ability to grasp allies' movements—the list is endless. While skills can support these abilities, I believe the fundamentals ultimately depend on the individual's own efforts.
Moreover, unlike skills or levels, this field lacks fairness. Differences in aptitude emerge, and there's no surefire method to guarantee improvement. It becomes a matter of providing a general path and seeing how well they can absorb it.
Despite the difficulty of such guidance, my personal impression from instructing them is that they are progressing so smoothly I'd almost rate their "ease of training" as Tier 1.
Even within a single day, the desire to slack off can appear during monotonous, repetitive tasks, potentially delaying progress. Clarice and the others show no sign of this.
Furthermore...
"Thank you very much for the guidance!!!""Alright, next!"
This group isn't reliant on skill-based combat methods. It's a common trap in games—if powerful skills can defeat most enemies, one tends to over-rely on them. If managing mana for skills alone leads to easy victories, fundamental martial arts and basic maneuvering naturally weaken.
But whether it's unique to this world or these individuals are just diligent... To assess their true capability, I'm using a wooden stick imbued with the "Sigil of the Weak" and fighting them using only player skills. Yet, they can exchange blows with me, honed by PvP, and consistently show movements aimed at seizing victory.
Just now, fighting the Dwarven warrior, they used feints and minor techniques to create openings for a powerful strike. Even when cornered, they didn't despair or gamble on a single, desperate counter-attack. Instead, they remained aware of their win conditions, seriously listened to my guidance mid-fight, and tried to absorb the techniques.
Most importantly...
"Don't just defend!! Use feints if you must!! Don't lose your intent to attack!!""Yes!!"
Even the rear-line members carry daggers for self-defense and prepare for close combat, showing remarkably high awareness. The Elf I'm currently instructing is skillfully using a dagger to parry my attacks. It's a sword style meant to buy time, not to win outright—a mindset thinking that stalling might bring help from allies, or that they themselves must hold the line if necessary.
For a rear-line member to have this awareness is honestly impressive. When I suggested close-combat training to Lady Esmeralda, she questioned why it was necessary. After explaining, she understood and now carries a dagger for protection.
Even without active skills, one can manage reasonably well with just player skills and base stats.
"Guh!""If you can make your footwork a bit more natural, you'll be able to last longer in exchanges. Being conscious of that area is making your movements a bit telegraphed.""Yes! Thank you for the guidance!!"
Perhaps because this mindset is cultivated on fertile ground and they are highly motivated, their drive seems to be spreading to the Duke's private soldiers training nearby. Those soldiers, aware of their own growth, were starting to become complacent, but their technique is still developing. The arrival of the Elf & Dwarf forces, who are improving rapidly under instruction like eager juniors, has erased that complacency, and they now train diligently, sweating as they swing their swords.
"Phew."
Acting as a sparring partner for such a motivated group from morning till evening is tiring, even for a Class 8 body. Combined with recent late nights, the fatigue feels more pronounced.
However, I can't hold back in training people who are giving their all.
In games, no matter the casualties, resurrection systems keep human losses near zero. But in this world, resurrection methods are legendary at best. While we seek such methods before major battles, the need to verify how such skills actually work means we can't rely on them completely. Knowing that cutting corners here could cost lives in future battles makes prioritizing thorough training essential.
"Master.""Next is Ms. Clarice?""Yes."
I took a sip of water, rehydrated, determined I was fit to continue, and awaited my next opponent. It was Clarice.
"And, I am your disciple. Even if we are both Heroes, I am the one seeking instruction, so please call me by name without honorifics. Otherwise, it sets a bad example for the others.""I'll... be careful.""Yes. Please."
She is an older Elf, furthermore, a woman known as the Hero of the West. I instinctively want to use honorifics with such a person, but she insists they are unnecessary in a master-disciple relationship, leading to these slightly awkward conversations. Just now, I almost used polite language again, and her glasses gleamed sharply. I don't understand the logic, but she nodded in satisfaction when I quickly switched to plain speech and took her stance.
Now, to describe her weapon—it's a very unusual one. It's a shotel, a weapon with a curve far more pronounced than a scimitar. A biased weapon that eliminates the option of thrusting.
She wields one in each hand, a so-called dual-wield style. The shotel is a weapon designed to circumvent shields, but it's extremely difficult to master. For its strong quirks, it doesn't offer commensurate advantages.
Unless, that is, skills are involved, which can make this weapon a threat.
"I'm coming.""Whenever."
But this time, it's a simple contest of skill. My physical abilities are overwhelmingly superior, so I won't lose, but she's still not an opponent I can afford to be careless with. Even as a woman, an Elf—a race potentially weaker in raw strength—once levels are high enough, swinging two metal shotels becomes easy.
I intercept using the spear's full range advantage.
However, she closes the distance, utilizing the core advantage of dual-wielding: the ability to attack and defend simultaneously.
Hmm, to think she's improved this much just from instruction on dual-wielding techniques.
I've never used a shotel myself. But I have used dual-wielding. So, by instructing Clarice to supplement her shortcomings, she's transformed. I never asked why she chose this weapon. She seemed to have her own attachment to it, and forcing a "stronger" fighting style upon her goes against my principles. Aim for the peak in your own preferred style. That's the concept of FBO.
The S-curved blade of the shotel causes the point of impact to shift during a full swing. Trying to block with the timing for a normal weapon results in the impact arriving early or late, throwing off your defense and catching you off guard.
"Skillful!""......!"
She expertly uses this impact to deflect my thrusts and tries to draw me into her effective range. Step by step, she advances steadily, attempting to encroach. I offer genuine praise, and her eyes widen slightly, but she shows no further emotion, continuing her effort to close the distance.
Once an opponent enters the spear's inner range, it becomes difficult to handle. But it's not impossible. I deliberately lure her inside my range, reverse the orientation of the spear's blade and butt using my hips, and thrust precisely as she steps in. Unable to handle the mistimed attack, Clarice loses her balance.
"Ah.""Point."
I sweep her leg as she's focused on the spear, causing her to fall, and place the tip of my weapon against her.
"You were a bit too hasty entering my inner range. If you had handled it more calmly, I think you could have pressed the advantage further.""Is that praise based on that assumption?""No, I'm not that mean. That was sincere praise. It's genuinely impressive to parry so cleanly with a quirky weapon like the shotel."
After the match ended, Clarice took my offered hand, stood up, returned to her position, and bowed. I refute her muttered words of frustration.
"Thank you. But I'm still far from adequate. I will engrave your words in my heart and continue striving.""Don't take my words too literally. Consider them just a reference.""Yes. I will find my own interpretation and make it my own. I obey Master's words.""That's the way."
I told her, and all the others I'm instructing, the same thing at the beginning:
*'Decide for yourself, devise things for yourself. Treat all other words merely as references.'*
I believe if they adhere to this premise, they can grow surprisingly well.
If they just blindly follow my words and develop accordingly, they can never surpass me. On the contrary, if they can absorb my techniques and sublimate them into their own original style, that would mean they have surpassed me.
"Alright, next.""Yes!"
***
After a day of such training, feeling a pleasant fatigue, and having dinner, I found myself in a certain place during the evening hours, having told everyone I was stepping out for a bit, using the Pendulum of Teleportation.
A safe house within the northern capital, Hokushi. One of the hideouts used by Judas and the others. It's stocked with various magic items for concealment, making it a perfect place for secret meetings, as neither magic signatures nor sound leak out.
"And, you managed to acquire it?""Well, not everything, but we got some.""I didn't expect them to burn down the entire house just to hide incriminating evidence on such short notice.""That just means there was some seriously dangerous stuff there, right?""Rumors about us have been spreading too much lately, the guard patrols have increased, it's insane."
Present were Judas, the leader of the entertainer group, and his deputy, Sharia.
I came to Hokushi after receiving a message from these two, precisely because its content related to the matter I had previously written to them about.
"Here, copies of letters seized from nobles and merchants connected to the Evil God cult.""Thank you."
What I wanted them to acquire was information related to this Evil God cult. Those bastards are always lurking in the shadows.
And there is a connection between Duke Boldrinde and the Evil God cult. Albeit, it's a relationship of mutual exploitation, a connection of interests.
"We checked them too, but we couldn't find any direct link to Duke Boldrinde?""Most are about drug or slave trades, the Duke's name isn't even mentioned?""Well, a Duke so deeply involved in the underworld wouldn't make such a basic mistake, would he? What I want is the flow of the distribution network."
I thought by tracing these connections of interest, we could pinpoint Duke Boldrinde's location. In fact, in the original game, finding clues (or rather, triggering flags) from such documents led to discovering Duke Boldrinde.
(Although one player, acting like a real detective, deduced the approximate location from the information and found him without triggering the flag.)
This method is inspired by that player's tracking approach.
"This one connects here, this merchant house connects there..."
Looking at the documents alone, they seem unrelated at first glance. But by piecing them together like solving a moderately difficult puzzle...
"Hmm, so it's connected to this merchant house.""Did you figure it out, Minerva?""No, I didn't, Jack."
Roughly 30% intuition, but with over 50% certainty, I identified the connection to Duke Boldrinde, earning bewildered looks from the two as if they were seeing something incomprehensible.