“To say the least, your footwork is still lacking, Altan.”
“Yes sir.”
Ren and Gowen silently agreed. Fighting alongside Julia for a long time, it was glaring that Altan didn’t utilise his mobility as a centaur would nor was he skilful at it. Taking the time when he staggered when he put too much force behind his sword for example. During the fight, there were many times he could just bail out instead of standing there. Both his judgement and feet coordination were subpar which contributed to the victory of Randal, else he wouldn’t win that easily. These assessments were later mentioned by Batzorig.
“…I don’t want to repeat this every time, but you need a lot more practice to harden your instinct.”
“Yes sir.”
The middle-aged centaur crossed his arms below chest. “Let’s continue.”
It was their turn now. They brandished the metallic sword borrowed from Batzorig. They haven’t neglected the sword, but their practice was more about exploring how to counter sword users than using it themselves. The feeling of having the center of gravity so close to the handle remained awkward. While contemplating the best strategy, they noticed Batzorig whispered into Altan’s ear. The twins couldn’t discern what that secret exchange was.
The horse boy was set. Honestly, that little tip from his mentor caused him more problem than helping. “Don’t charge.” Such weird advice.
Is that because I was so bad at it or is that against this particular foe?
Altan spent some time with the twins before. His overall impression was “reliable” both in personalities and physical prowess. Thanks to the fickle torchlight on the shore from that night bath, Altan got to survey their impressive muscle. Of all the young centaur he knew, none possess such impervious body. Fists alone, his fellow centaur wouldn’t be able to handle them. The question then would be how well their sword skill was.
The centaur warily approached. In response, the twins only adjusted their angle to face the centaur more properly. Altan maintained a 3m space. Trading blow against those arms without some added momentum from his legs was ill-advised. Still, why did Batzorig tell him not to charge? Wouldn’t that be the better tactic? Speed and weight equal force.
Should he wait more or test the water? They say it’s advantageous to have the initiative in sword fight. Furthermore, what good would come letting the two of them have the first strike?
His legs bolted out into action. He could only move two steps before meeting his opponent, but two steps were good enough to give his weapon considerable speed. The blade parted air in a diagonal downward course from his right shoulder.
The next thing he knew was loud noise of metal. His blade flew the other direction of its original trajectory. His teeth gritted at the twisting pain in his palms, such was the force of that impact.
Their explosive reaction had knocked back Altan’s sword.
The feeling from his hands gave doubt to the very image in his eyes. Altan could barely believe that came from a sword. It was more like an iron bat, crude and powerful.
After a small backswing to make room for the next strike, the twins unleased their assault.
In the nick of time, Altan managed to get the blade to block the twins’ attack. The horse boy purposely met the opposing blade at his sword guard.
The powerful swing, despite hitting the other blade with only the tip, pushed his hands back to his chest.
If it hasn’t been stopped, the blade would have cracked his left arm or so Altan imagined. He somewhat understood Batzorig’s advice. It matters not how fast he moves. The place that will absorb the impact first would be his palms and then his wrists. With these weak hands, he would lose the sword immediately.
I can’t rest now. They’ll be coming again.
His prediction was on point. Ren and Gowen had intruded the centaur’s space. It was only one step forward, but it cut the distance drastically.
For such close range, their intention was obvious, to strike closer to their hands.
The two swords bit at each other by their shoulder. The blunt edges stood diagonally symmetrical against the other, forming an X sign.
The horse boy got his hands around kidney height.
The twins’ hands were at the same height, but being shorter their hands were holding around their heart level. With the swords’ current point of contact as the fulcrum, the twins could use the entire blade as a lever to sink into Altan’s left shoulder.
Altan knew he got to raise his hands up.
That was apparent to the twins. Of course, they applied a downward force, restraining Altan from bringing the point of contact any higher. At the moment, their sword was 9 degrees tipping forward.
The red-hair boy could feel it, a losing battle. His arms were too weak to deny the elven kids. Each passing moment, their blade went lower, and so did his height. His body gave room as the edge tilted even more toward him.
Quickened heart. Drastic breath. Widened pupil. Altan’s body burnt its energy wrestling for control against the twins. During his struggle, his sense sharpened. Be it fortune or misfortune, he got to lay eyes on the spirit of the brown-skin boys.
Altan is not a gifted individual. His spirit detection is worse than most. Even so he could perceive the imposing nature of the stronger beings. The dullness of his sense could be seen as a blessing. Thanks to that, he wasn’t subjected to the dreadful sight of demon beasts and veteran soldiers. Having good hearing and being exposed to deafening sound is the worst combination, especially when you haven’t built up the sufficient mental fortitude to withstand.
Not this time. Not this instance. This moment, his feet felt cold.
What intimidating form!
He saw demon beasts and berserk warriors whose lifeforce thrashed like mad flame. He saw those spirit animals and veterans. The danger was almost unrecognisable only to expand tenfold in a blink of an eye.
The lifeforce of the twins got a firmer shape. It was modest, not overarching like those he knew. It was cool, solid, and dense. Rigid but not brittle. Disciplined but untamed. Regardless of what he could do, defeat was imminent. Altan could tell that much.
It’s meaningless to go on. I can not win. The hopeless thought plagued his mind.
The weight of the twins clamped down on his hands.
“Ok, you two.” Batzorig grabbed their weapons.
If this was between the twins and another centaur, he wouldn’t interfere. Not just yet. There were still things to be done, ways to escape. Batzorig didn’t call the fight because he thought Altan couldn’t win. He called because Altan thought he couldn’t win.
His fighting spirit was extinguished. They prided themselves as horses, as prey, as animal that would be hunted by other beasts. They prided that despite being weak they wouldn’t look away from a fight. The current stage of Altan was the disdain toward all centaurs. He has already accepted his fate.
Ren and Gowen were the opposite. They were indifferent. They were readied to face whatever being thrown at them. The perfect face of a warrior. The elves didn’t break a sweat.
Another quick duel found its victors. They withdrew their weapons.
Randal was quick to nag. “Do you need to go all out against he- him?”
Be that rhetorical or literal question, the two only had a pondering face for reply.
Ignoring his two masters, he checked on the red-hair centaur. “Altan. You’re ok?”
The horse boy was unresponsive. That encounter against the twins’ lifeforce required more time to cool off.
The azure eyes showed impatience. “Altan.” He touched the other boy’s hand, startling him.
“Ah…” Almost like a charm has been dispelled from him.
“Sorry about those guys. They just don’t know how to control themselves.”
Altan immediately calmed down. He shook his head. “I’m actually thankful that they didn’t hold back.”
“You don’t think they were excessive?”
“Young Randal. Pity for a warrior is disrespectful to their resolve…”
Although subtle, Altan could tell the disappointment piercing at him.
“…For a match like this, the importance is none of you was injured.”
“If you say so.”
“Let’s move on with your match.” He turned to Altan. “Learn from their fight.”
“Yes sir.”
Day, traveling on the peaceful trail. Dusk, some sword exercise. Three days has passed. On the afternoon of the fourth day, Batch called for an early stop. Tracing the odd sound to the wagon wheel, his workers spotted bad sign on the wheel of a wagon. At first, they hoped to finish today’s quota, but couldn’t ignore the wheel anymore after the noise getting worse. Rare occurrence. It could be because of their speeding while passing the Lost Forest.
It was an unfortunate event. The good news was they were slightly ahead of schedule. Some couples of travelling hours wouldn’t postpone their arrival. While on the job, the O’lotto took the chance to inspect the other wagons and found two more cars in need of maintenance.
“Is it bad?” Asked, a curious member of the escort.
The O’lotto worker spoke out from beneath the wagon. “The wheels need to be replaced. We have spare but connecting them to the self-propel system will take time.”
Batch reached out to his handyman. “Hai! Do you think the axle model would have been better?”
“I thought you didn’t want that model.”
“I did but-“
“What are you discussing?”
“We are talking about the wagon model. The ones we are using are the wheel & axle model. To say it simply, the magic turns both the axle and the wheels to move the wagon. For this reason, the magic enchantment covers both the wheels and the axle. When damaged, wheels need to be replaced by spare ones that have the same magic enchantment. Attaching them on the wagon is one thing. Connecting the magic on the new wheel with the axle and the wagon needs some magic casting. The axle models, on the other hand, turn only the axle. We can easily replace a broken wheel with a generic one without the connecting trouble.”
“That one sounds good.”
“Yes. For that reason, the axle models have less maintenance cost.”
“Is there a reason you bought this wagon instead of the axle ones?”
“Besides being more expensive, the axle models are heavier. In the wheel & axle models, the stress is distributed to the wheels and axle. In the axle models, it is mostly on the axle. A fortified axle is a heavier axle, and a heavier wagon consumes more mana stone.”
“That’s new to me.”
“The entire autowagon thing is still relatively new. Only us merchants would invest on them. It is no wonder young people like you don’t know.”
On another part of the camp, thing was not so merry.
“You what?” Bilguun’s eyes almost bulged out from his sockets. Like a lit gunpowder keg, he exploded. “Don’t you know there is only a few days before we arrive at the city?” His face was hot red. “And you let him run around in the woods for fun?”
The muscular and greater centaur was unflinching by the whispering-like shouting and flying droplets of saliva. “We strained him with all the new burdens the entirety of the journey-”
“Strained? You and me. Are having our tail on fire! Support from the mainland can’t get to us, else they’ll track us down. We’re on our own here. If we can’t manage to impress that guy, we are as good as done. You train him, you know well how he is. We got at most 5 years to countdown. Five. Years! Or are you saying, you can turn him, into the best warrior, in 5 years, without that guy’s support?”
Batzorig only had a deadpan stare for Bilguun’s outburst. “He isn’t learning anything new, even if we push it.”
An accented and emotion-filled curse departed Bilguun’s mouth. “Bloody hoof!” His defeated eyes sought for the ceiling of the dome-shape tent.
“If he can get any better, it would be before we docked on this continent. Not during these measly weeks. Rather than getting thing harder for both him and us, we should let him calm down first-”
Bilguun interrupted. “Sure. Sure.” Sarcasm on his tone. “You’re the trainer, not me. What do I know?”
Batzorig left to make dinner, anymore would be wasting his breath.
“Put them down Randal. We are not searching for something to coat our sword in poison. And Altan. The three you collected are severe vomit and diarrhea, hallucination, and bloody stool from left to right.”
The boys dropped their goods immediately after Ren’s remark.
Randal looked at the various umbrella-like stuffs they picked. His eyes couldn’t discern their nature. “How did you even know about these?”
“We got an encyclopedia at home.” Gowen plucked a brown lump and tossed it into their pack.
“I heard that kind of books are for reference. Are you really reading them in your free time?” Altan had his eyes opened.
“Not like it’s a bad thing.”
“Can you guys teach me how to tell them apart?”
“Sure, but we didn’t read the entire book. So there will be those we don’t know.”
“Just knowing some of them would be great for me.”
“Teach me too.” Randal joined.
“Let me see. Let’s collect one of every type first.”
“So this one that looked like a dirt lump is a poisonous one.”
“Wait. Isn’t that the same thing we used to eat? Also isn’t it the one you picked before?”
“The eid shroom is very similar to the dirt shroom you mentioned, but they are different.” Ren brought a dirt shroom for comparison. “It’s not very clear but you guys could see these lighter-colour veins on the eid shroom. In case of doubt, just take a cut on the shroom.” Ren took a piece from the dirt shroom then the eid shroom.
“Wow.”
“It changed colour.”
“Eid shroom will turn blue when you cut them but not dirt shroom.” The twins then threw both shrooms away.
“Wait. We could eat that dirt shroom.”
“No.” “Sometimes, you couldn’t remember when you last cleaned the knife or used it to touch something. Have yourself a test knife to poke curious things. And make a habit to never eat anything you cut with it.”
“Thanks for the tip, Ren.” Altan was sparkled with amazement.
“Thanks, Ren.”
“The next thing is the yellow dot. It’s very hard to see but there are tiny yellow dots on its cap. I think it shares similar appearance to the edible flat cap.” “Flat cap and sav shroom.” “It was on the later chapters?” “It’s on another book about shrooms on the north coast.” After the little chat with his brother, Ren returned to the topic. “So the yellow dot is similar to flat cap and sav shroom. Flat cap is almost entirely similar to yellow dot with a white body. The most noticeable difference is the flat cap, while the yellow dot has this knob at the center of its cap.” “For sav shroom, it has a knobbed head like yellow dot but sav shroom has a visible ring on its girth. You wouldn’t miss it. You wouldn’t find sav shroom in the same forest as yellow dot so there is no need to worry.” “Just don’t pick anything you aren’t sure.”
The boys had their little fun before going back to camp.
Each bread was oblong in shape, a palm thick and an entire hand in length. The loaf was split in half along its length. Old bread is tough, not rock-hard but unpleasant to say the least. Luckily, nothing cooked shrooms and meat couldn’t fix. Clarinet poured the piping hot filling onto the half bread. As the flavourful sauce permeated into the bread’s inner white, heat and juice revitalised the days-old loaf.
The hungry kids dug in. Cracking noise accompanied their bite as their teeth intruded into the loaf. The hardened skin acted as a barrier keeping the sauce from spilling out, while its crispiness added extra texture to the dish. Movement of their jaws pressed on the bread’s white gut, unleashing the juice onto the drooling taste buds. Sweetness of shrooms blended with the salt from smoked pork and the taste of sourdough. When saliva wetted the last bit of hard skin and teeth turned everything to paste, their mouth sent the content down the throat warming every cell along the way.
“Tasty!” Altan exclaimed.
Cute! The thought that Randal dared not speak out loud.
After seven delicious treats, his stomach was a-third-full. The first sense that came back to Altan was embarrassment. Without constraint, he emptied the breadbasket. For the record, Ren and Gowen had four, Randal got two, and Clarinet, one.
“Let’s go to the main course then.”
“Eh?”
It doesn’t need a genius to tell how much food a centaur eats. The lady elf placed the shroom and meat pot aside. With a silent casting, she “lifted” the deep wok onto the campfire. The wok was no stranger to Altan. It shared the journey with him and his two uncles for a while now.
“Randal. Why don’t you practice the fire spell? It will heat this faster.”
With someone he wanted to impress in mind, Randal was hurried to the task. The boy held his palms like touching some invisible wall. Five seconds of closing eyes were enough to clear his mind. Intense focus converged at the black wok before him.
“Fire stream!”
Flame rushed out like water from faucet, burying the wok in its fiery display. The same spell but nowhere near as fierce as Jomy’s, which is appropriate since he didn’t intend to burn their tent nearby.
Just to be cautious, everyone vacated from the vicinity.
In contrast to the twins and Clarinet, it was the first time the horse boy saw someone so young using such magic. To be precise, he didn’t know the detail about this spell. He didn’t know if it was easy for young people to cast it. He just felt that this marvellous spell must be hard to use. He was astonished by such performance. His feeling was correct.
Randal trusted that Clarinet would stop him when she thought the food was heated, but for twelve seconds she didn’t even flinch.
Sixteen seconds, still nothing.
Twenty seconds, he got a bit worried.
By the twenty-third second, his flame was out.
“Well done.”
The typical mana pool size wouldn’t last for fourteen seconds. Randal was also a gifted one, just not in the same league as the twins. They are the outliners.
“Great, Ran.” “You’ve improved.”
Exactly two seconds longer than the last time they saw him.
Altan, of course, had no idea about any of those mentioned above.
“You’re amazing!”
The centaur’s sincerity painted Randal’s cheeks into tomatoes.
Clarinet opened the lid. This wok had already finished before she worked on the shrooms and meat. Thus, the reheating needed only minutes to complete. Floating on the muddy broth were variety of vegetable. The easiest to recognise were churns of potato and carrot.
Clarinet placed a full bowl onto Randal’s hand. “You first.”
“Thanks, teach.” The boy stirred the bowl’s content, cooling and inspecting the ingredients. He got his tongue burned many times when eating the carrots and potatoes. Besides those two, there were also radish, chickpea, red bean, and lima. Another stir helped him spotted some dirt shrooms.
When the first mouthful arrived, the taste puzzled him. Randal searched up and down, but the thing that was supposed to be there was not found. Couldn’t keep his curiosity. “Teach. What kind of meat did you use in this stew?”
“There is meat?” Gowen rushed a bite. “Hmm.” He couldn’t discern the origin of the taste either. The broth felt meaty, but it was definitely not animal fat.
“Really? Meat?” This taste was from something Altan knew, so he was sure it was not from meat. It was the other guys’ reaction that pondered him.
“They are not meat.” The expression on her students’ face whenever they found something new has always been the most entertaining for Clarinet. “It’s a mushroom Batzorig shared with us along with the carrots and potatoes.”
“Oh. It’s that thing.” The centaur caught up.
“You ate it before?” Randal was curious.
“Yes. Where we lived, poor people usually put this mushroom into their meal. It gives the meaty taste to a vegetarian dish. I didn’t know this ingredient doesn’t grow in this continent.”
“We imported and grew some of them, but mostly to the north where the climate is humid and hot. It’s not different from real meat which is easy to get, so the flow hasn’t gone down south yet.”
“I’m full.”
“Me too.”
“What are you eating, Ren?” A sniff gave the centaur somewhat an idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Who would eat this fruit like a snack?
“Lime.”
“You could eat them like that?”
“Sure.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be… very sour?”
“Not very to me. I can taste the sweet and saltiness too.”
“Could it be a different kind?”
“You want a taste?”
“Altan. Don’t. You won’t like it.”
Randal’s warning went to deaf ears as the horse boy tore a small piece. It took no more than a second for him to regret his choice. His entire face wrinkled.
“It’s… sour!” Just how he imagined it. “How can you even eat it so tasty?”
“Don’t ask me.” “Don’t look at me either.”
“I have some snacks if you want.” Randal took out a squarish piece wrapped in white cloth.
He uncovered the palm-size candy. The large, hard candy was neatly divided into fifty smaller cubes.
Ren and Gowen had distinct memory of Randal asking Batch about Rael’s sweet. The next morning, Randal had run off to somewhere before Gowen awaked. How much of that was related to this candy they didn’t want to connect the dot.
