"Before we began, I heard that your highness has some experience using human swords. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
Julia answered her teacher’s question with a nod. And he let out a sigh.
"Then you can forget almost all you learned."
Here it comes: He will now tell me how much vampire swords are superior to human swords. Julia braced herself, even though she is a vampire and a princess at that. She was still raised as a human.
"I will not tell you such nonsense as other teachers might. When it comes to human swords, they are made with different fighting styles in mind. For that reason, any of our soldiers who would pick up a human sword in their hands would consider it inferior. I assume humans would see it the same way."
Contrary to Julia’s expectation, he didn’t praise his homeland’s swordsmanship as superior. And, as he had stated, Julia remembered that vampiric swords were regarded as mere decoration, useless in battle due to their shorter length.
"A human can lose their life easier, allowing their enemy to close on them too closely means almost certain death. That is reflected in their swords as well. The long blade allows them to strike without risking their own lives as much, and the weight of the sword also allows them to overwhelm their foe with heavy strikes."
The teacher picked a human-long sword for emphasis. Julia already knew this. After all, she fought as a human. Wondering where the teacher was going with it, she watched as the teacher picked up his own vampiric sword and held it side by side with the human one.
"The warrior of the Blood Clan, on the other hand, can heal his wounds with his regeneration ability. Not having to fear death, as humans do, the blood clan can focus on offense. Betting on a single deciding strike."
Isn’t that given? Julia wondered. Wasn’t it just common to attempt to end the battle with the first strike?
"Maybe a display would explain it better."
Seeing that Julia didn’t seem to understand him, he prepared two sets of protective gear and presented one to Julia along with the human sword. Putting Kana on the bench and the gear on, she grabbed the human sword and prepared to face her teacher. who, meanwhile, readied himself with the curved vampiric sword in front of him.
Julia took a deep breath and firmly gripped the handle of her sword. In a split of second, the teacher rushed at Julia.
Julia attempted to block her teacher’s sword; he, however, positioned his sword at an angle, redirecting Julia’s long sword to the side. Realizing this, Julia wanted to change the direction of her sword to strike her teacher’s shoulder. However, the momentum of her long sword didn’t allow it.
Before Julia could redirect her sword, the teacher’s sword slammed into her stomach. Based on the lack of pain, the teacher held back a lot.
Taking a few steps, the teacher prepared for a second round. Julia likewise grabbed her long sword and prepared again.
In this fashion, Julia and her teacher dueled for several minutes, in this short time, a total of 12 rounds had passed. Julia had swapped her long sword for the teacher's curved vampiric sword in the last six. Now she leaned against a tree.
12 rounds… 6 with a human sword, 5 losses. The rest with vampiric sword 4 losses. Was that what he wanted to show me? Julia thought about the duel, of which each round lasted a few seconds. But despite that, she was able to experience the advantages of both swords as well as realize that using the vampiric sword as a human one and vise versa is not a good idea.
"I believe that now your highness understands why I referred to the idea of our sword being superior as nonsense."
Julia looked up at his smiling face. You beat me with a vampiric one though. It was true that Julia felt that the vampiric sword was, despite its higher weight compared to its length, far easier to handle than the human one. She could not deny that.
"Teacher, why did you take an interest in human swords?"
The way he fought with a human sword, as well as the mere fact that he had one, to begin with, was strange for a vampire swordsman.
"You could tell your highness? Well, I guess it is unusual to even have a human sword."
"As you say."
The teacher scratched his head embarrassedly. Julia was rather surprised by the mere fact that there was a vampire that did not look down on humans... Well, Loriam made a lot of deals with humans and even slept with and had a child with one, but that doesn’t matter.
"Well, to be honest, when I joined the army in her majesty’s service, I happened to encounter a powerful human opponent. I thought that it would be an easy victory, that I would just crush her and be done with it."
A bitter smile appeared on his face.
"She alone killed 10 of ours while keeping me at bay. "I might not have been able to kill her if my comrade hadn't used lighting on her."
He toyed with the sword in his hand as he spoke. while Julia tried to remember whether she ever heard of someone like that.
"This sword was hers; I picked it up once she fell. I never thought that I would be captured by human swordsmanship or their sword. But you see, it had this exotic charm to it."
Julia smiled, surprised to hear the swords she grew up with were described as exotic.
"But enough of that, your highness, we should return to class. Please take your sword."
Julia nodded and, as instructed; grabbed Kana from the bench.
…There is yet to be a sword that could rival me. as long as the master uses me, victory is as good as yours.
Julia was taken aback when she suddenly heard Kana’s voice in her head once she picked her up. Was that one of her abilities? She wondered.
"Then help me use you properly."
As you wish, master.
As Kana agreed to Julia’s command, Julia, under her teacher’s instructions, began practicing vampiric swordsmanship. For several hours, and just as she was told, Kana used her abilities to correct Julia’s moves before she messed them up. All the while, a group of certain girls were not so discreetly cheering her on.
Thanks for the chapter. Good that her blade teacher properly respects the blades of others, he'll do a very good job of teaching her.
that using the vampiric sword as a human one and wise versa is not a good idea.
->vise versa
I picked it up once she felt.
-> fell maybe?
Not much error that I found in the last chapters, or maybe there are some but I miss it lol
Good story so far
Thanks for pointing out all those errors. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the story.
swords aren't heavy the avarege long sword weight around 1kg the same weight as handgun they're extremely light weapons specially by modern standers where the basics weapon like a rifle weights 3kg
also the part of the heavy strike that's not made for that you can do it but sword specially long swords was made quick and wide cuts and countering incoming strikes different of the rapir that is specialized on trust and counter attacking incoming strikes
on the topic of vampire swords is it curved foward like a hook like india and Arabic swords or is curved backwards like bensantines semitar and japonese tachis like
i think in this world it is diftent with magic
While it is thru that real swords are light by modern standards, this is the medieval world though. human swords are heavier compared to swords of other races in this story (mainly thanks to materials used).
And vampire swords are curved back.
@Hiyuuki It makes me wonder if the weight is rather the result of metalurgical constraints (need for more mass to compensate for fragility) or tradition steming from such. Or more races usually can increase their strength, so humans needed weapons with more momentum to get thorough ?
Quite a lot of sword's fighting style depends on their point of balance, aside of other things. Like heavyness of the hit and the speed of the blade, so for a moment I thought it is more about how vampires and humans prefer to balance their weapons.
@Quesa Races like Orks, for example, can indeed increase their strength, there are, or more precisely were wild beasts that could also increase their strength by a lot. So humans did need weapons with more momentum.
@Quesa realistically making the sword havier don't really make the strike stronger as most of the weight go to the handle and not blade that also is designed to generate power from the momentum of the handle and not the blade different of axes that fully need to use the tip of the weapon
but on my opinion i can see humans use more crushing wepons and polearm spears as the reach and penetration force is more reliable against enemys with thicker hide and higher speed
@yokai1235 True, the way their momentum is build up is different. This is also why axes are better if you want to prioritise maximising that strike power and why they were preferable for executions.
Although, depending on muscle (and body hardening magic), blunt weapons may be less effective than piercing ones. There is also matter of armor and padding.
I'd think that heavier swords (aside of metallurgy issues) may still have a point, for their bigger inertia, making it move gives more power to the swing and so harder to stop. The extra 'meat' may make them also more forgiving, when it comes for deflecting mighty hits (there were designs like that). Although, the sword's balancing affects a lot of it's behavior.
Blade heavies seem to move relatively slower (and feel heavier in hand), but they do have power behind them. Some more extreme design may change it to sort of a bladed club (which I feel like is pretty much like early two handed swords worked)
At least I'd not mind it that much. That sort of thing requires practical testing and I'm not exactly a fencer myself. Although, using heavier weapons would shorten the active fighting time on the user, which is something to consider for battlefield.
While I do think that keeping heavier swords when there are other options is suboptimal (and during war such things are optimized till absurdity) , there might be other factors.
Assuming that these swords are used by elite, good material and processing, they can reasonably be handed to people as a badge of honor. Those seemed worthy are most probably quite big themselves, which reduces the issue of managing the inertia with own body mass. Increased density may also help a bit to deliver more energy.
Also, the extra mass may simply accomodate the human bulk, if we assume that typical Vampire is lightly build. Given that elves are typically also lithe and Julia is familiar with her fiancee's culture, all the people present in the training room may reasonably consider human weapons heavy (relatively).
Althought, elves may prefer spear and bow over swords, so their swordstyle is not so famous compared to humans and vampires. Assuming orcs and the like with extra strength prefer axes and maces, this also removes them from comparison of sword designs. Their knives though may be a different story...
@Quesa on the topic of size and hardening the bigger the sword gets the finner they get is for balancing and also for flexibility
more flexible the blade less likely to break or loose the edge
harder is the blade more likely is to brake like glass
more dense is the blade harder is to sherpen the edge and more difficult is to not over swing for any swordsman over swing is considered a letal mistake that should never be done no matter what
@yokai1235 I'm glad you are so knowledgeable about this.
There are always trade-offs and the fascinating part is, that weapons are tools designed for use in very specific way that makes these particular trade-offs work.
For example, gladius is not exactly the best for dueling, but pretty much perfect for Roman style of fighting in tight formations with big shields and the metallurgy tech they had.
I hope our discussion provides some basic insights valuable to the story or anybody interested in considering connection between arms and culture behind them.
@Quesa I certainly see your discussion as valuable as well as an interesting insight into a topic where my own knowledge is rather shallow. I shall do some more reading into the topic of swords.
@Hiyuuki I am curious what sword the vampire one is related to. Saber, cutless, khopesh, tachi, etc. What would you say fits it best for looks?
@En4cer1244
Katana, because that is the only sword i ever held in my hands. as well as the only sword i own.