Chapter 108 - 109
"Must you eat in front of me?" said Alistar over the incessant grumbling of his stomach. "And why did you buy so much food? Did...did you perhaps have a change of heart?" He was sitting atop one of the logs that his master kept around for him to practice specific sword swings on, rolling his hands around in an effort to regain feeling in his arms.
Tramon took another bite of the meat skewer that he had brought back with him just before sundown, picking a crumb of bread from his beard as he chewed.
"I told you that I’d be disappointed if you were still here when I returned. I was out for the entire day, and yet you’ve only cut three cords of rope?"
"But Master, eating in front of me will only make it more difficult for me to keep going." He glanced at the wicker basket at Tramon’s side, gulping loudly as his eyes shifted from the dozen or so meat skewers to the large loaf of freshly baked bread and then to the baked potatoes that sat steaming in the cool evening air. "I...I can’t focus right now."
"You think I have nothing better to do than tease a little runt like you? This is also a form of training."
Alistar had no doubts that his master indeed had nothing better to do, though he wasn’t in any position to call the man out. The meal that Treves had given him had kept him full for quite a while, but it had been many hours since then and he had used up a tremendous amount of energy on his constant attempts at cutting the rope.
Reading Alistar’s expression, the sword master gave a sharp snort. "If you can’t even maintain your focus in front of a bit of street food, how do you expect to keep a cool head if you fall into a dangerous situation? If you’re really serious about being a swordsman, then you’ll have to be able to keep moving forward even in the face of unexpected dangers and temptations."
Unable to refute the man, Alistar mulled over the logic of his words. He couldn’t help but recall the day that his uncle Raidon had been murdered by Bertrand Loran, a fellow slave that had been freed from Crystellum and evidently a former friend of his family’s. If Alistar had been able to keep calm and collected at that time, he could have used the powerful magic crystal that he’d found in the mines to kill Bertrand before the man would have been able to do anything to his uncle. This was a constant source of regret in his heart.
Re-solidifying his resolve, he did his best to ignore the salivating scent that pervaded the area, instead focusing on forming another little blade of swordsman’s aura that soon protruded from the tip of his right index finger. He had seen the most success with this composition of the unique energy and had slowly been reducing the width and thickness of the manifestation so that it was no thicker than a sheet of paper and no larger than an untrimmed fingernail. Like this, the energy had a stronger base that made it more difficult for it to dissipate, and it was solid enough that despite its thinness a lot more pressure could be applied to a much smaller area.
With this, I should be able to...
Alistar began to saw away at the most accessible area of the rope that bound him and was elated as he began to feel some of the fibres giving way. This time around, he managed to cut an entire cord in half, looking over at his master in excitement.
Huh? When did he go inside?