Walking alongside the ranger girl who had changed into much more casual attire, she was carrying a bundle of something wrapped in cloth that she picked up on the way. With only a short walk on the outskirts of the village the two made it to a clearing where an old elf was gazing at mountain tops in the distance, leaning against a large boulder.

• “That’s him. Hey Ash! We’re here!”

With Faenas calling him out the old elf turned to look at girls, his eyes lingering on them for a short while before slowly making his way towards them. As he approached them, his facial features became more clear; stern eyes surrounded in wrinkles, unruly gray hair free flowing with some of it done mini ponytail behind his head, thin and tall body riddled by scars of the past. The most defining feature of him, the blind right eye, hazy and milky white. Straight back and trained confident strides, mannerisms that demand respect from others in spite of what his feeble looking aged body would suggest.

• “Why’s he so stiff?”

‘It’s like he’s in a marching band parade.’

• “That’s what I want to know, when I told him about you yesterday he looked like he was having a nervous breakdown.”
• “What’s wrong with me?”
• “I think the problem is on the other end of the spectrum… You should ask him yourself.”

His sights were completely straight as he walked closer. Before suddenly kneeling with one of his legs touching the ground in front of the two, head bowed down confusing both of them.

• “Thine royal presence be fills myn corse with endless joy. What endues thee to come to thine humble liegeman upon our hour?”

The first to speak was Alicia.

• “Is this guy okay?”
• “Hey Ash… I don’t think she understands Ar-Kenir…”
• “What’s that?”
• “Our old language…”

‘That was a different language? I got most of it but either Elvish sounds really close to each other or something is up…’

• “Hey what language am I speaking right now?”
• “The common tongue of the realm, what, why?”

‘Wait… What language am I speaking? I don’t know this language yet I understand it… Like I’ve always used it before. This isn’t any common language like English or Russian… I’m pretty sure they weren't like this.’

>Incoming transmission:

• “I thought you’d figure it out eventually. In order to keep the cultural contamination at minimum, we’ve made some adjustments to your  lexiconic memories. We didn’t touch your script based memories so you’ll have to learn those yourself. You shouldn’t have much problem communicating, besides the first skill you’ve earned after gaining the ability to speak should’ve been telepathy. You technically don’t even need to speak. However since Telepathy works based on your memories of a language we have injected into you, when one to one conversion is not possible it will choose words and expressions that are closest to it.”
• “Nothing…”

‘That explains quite a bit, thanks for the lecture I guess.’

>Forward transmission?
«Y/N»

• “No. Not now.”

‘How do I deal with this? Most of the elder elves were making a fuss about me back there too, even Faenas when she first met me. I just thought it was something else but…’

• “You don’t have to be uptight, just talk normally and you should at least introduce yourself first before making a scene.”

Still kneeling:

• “As you wish madam…-”
• “Would you kindly stand up and redo it? It would be awkward to greet someone that I’m meeting for the first time be bowing to me, not even looking at me.”

He complied hesitatingly.

• “I am Ashlan Weard. Formerly a soldier… now a relic from the past. My greetings.”

‘He still lowered his head… Well he needed to find compromise somewhere I suppose. Still he’s quite tall… no I’m short… He’s like what meter-eighty something? I’m meter-sixty-seventy something… Hey I was taller than this before! Gimme back my height, God!’

Harboring such thoughts she introduced herself.

• “Alicia. Araneae spirit. A pleasure to meet you. If I may, I would like to know why you all seem to think that I’m someone you know. Specifically why you behave unusually hospitable.”
• “I see… Forgive me… but the swülde holds remarkable resemblance to our long gone royals… and your name as well.”

Intrigued Alicia asked for more details.

• “Many of our nobles, those closest to the monarchy had distinguishing features that set them aside from the commoners such as us. One of those features was their immense capability in regards to magic… and their golden hair, reminiscent of the sun's gentle light…-”

Holding a bundle of her hanging hair she examined it closely, no matter how hard she looked. It was unmistakably white, platinum in color.

‘Magic I can understand, that girl even told me that I was leaking my mana haphazardly. Even after learning how to control it I still couldn’t completely suppress it. But my hair? Unless I’m colorblind then… maybe?’

Slightly puzzled expression dawned on her face, rubbing some strands of her hair in between her forefinger and thumb.

• “-that being said those who were directly related to the royal family all shared silver hair… as you do.”
• “That makes more sense now.”
• “Please have the heart to pardon the others… They’re desperate for a leader… You happen to be very familiar with our late rulers.”
• “Late? What happened to them?”

His face showed no visible change albeit his voice had the slightest whisker of change, melancholic almost.

• “That’s… for another time…

Come now, from what I’ve heard you’ve come to learn from me these old bones, we’ve tarried enough but day still young.”

‘A touchy topic for him…’ 

• “Alright then, where do we start?”

• “Here and now, if you will. There’s plenty of room for our lesson.”

Land was as flat as it could get in the area, with gravelly soil and sparse vegetation.

• “Sure, why not.”
• “Here you’ll need these.”

Faenas opened the wrapped bundle she was carrying at her back revealing wooden longswords.

‘I thought it was her bow she was carrying…’

She was dressed in much more relaxed olive colored kirtle along with a chemise underneath.

‘It’s the first time I’m even seeing her without her bow and her usual getup of almost hunter’s garment. Especially with how… exposing they can be with just the breast band top and brief like shorts covered by either a cloak or surcoat. I guess those do offer the best movement compared to conventional trousers. Even then they don’t often wear their cloaks since they can get caught in branches and what not. They do have more covering and better protective outerwear but it seems those are restrictive to their movement and they can’t do their normal acrobatic stuff in them…’

The elves also offered to give Alicia a cloak made out of the manticore hide however, saying that “That thing is better suited to be in front of a fireplace as a carpet.” she told them to give it to Faenas who was delighted to have it.

‘As for this guy… tunic under a quilted vest and some strange thin thermal underwear?’

Alicia didn’t know what brais were.¹And if you don’t know it’s medieval trousers in a nutshell.

---

• “The easiest and fastest way to know how well you handle a sword is sparring. Pick up a weapon and show me what you can do.”

‘Little extreme don’t you think?’ She wanted to say ‘He does have a point. I should approach this like I did to my self defence course I took a long time ago…’

Looking back through her memories she remembered the highschool days of practicing self defense arts. After watching eastern martial arts movie, the easily excited youth wanted to do the same. Even though he later realized reality is not quite the same as the theatrics of cinema. He wanted to practice oriental martial arts but unfortunately for him there wasn’t any other martial art course available other than self defense courses. He wasn’t excited about it, though after promising to his parents, he stuck with it, as they saw it as a way to improve his mediocre physical education grade.

Immediately the instructor established that this was not the glamorous arts shown in films. It was by its true nature a selfish one. It was taught with the principle of violence as a last resort when you fail to defuse the situation verbally, however when it came down to it, it taught them how to end fights as quickly and safely for themselves as possible. And in such situations the instructor told them to fight as dirty as they can. Attacking the eyes, groin, throat, neck, anywhere using anything within your hands; do whatever to quickly incapacitate the other party, after all in a real fight, death is very much a real possibility.

And as an extra precaution against later date law repercussions, to let them throw the first punch, how to receive that punch, and fight back. And also to learn when to back down and retreat. You may be able to beat someone in a fistfight, but knife beats muscles and firearms are still vastly superior to bare hands. No matter what films may suggest…

‘Now that I think about it, that geezer beat us up partly for fun…’

And on the job there were more than a few instances where as a site manager he had to step in and break up an argument. Workers, sometimes hooligans who try to pick fights with everyone, showing up drunk to the job. From experience he knew that some people understood only the language of violence. And everytime he had to subdue a rowdy troublemaker he would internally, albeit with some spite, thank his instructor. However most she could remember was, hit the flesh with hard knuckles and hard surfaces like bone with wider palms strikes as untrained punch would damage the striker more than the opponent.

Because of this experience of her, she wouldn’t easily be intimidated yet.

⟨ Instinct ⟩

She couldn’t stop chills and tremors rising up and down her body and spine.  The raw strength of youth may be spent, but his eyes held the secrets of a hundreds perhaps thousands of campaigns.

‘This guy is the embodiment of that saying huh… “Fear the old man in a profession where men die young” before I start, I should at least round up some stats… Agile 6 with reflexive reaction 3, strength 6 and surge 3 finally Constitution 6 plus true grit 3. That’s thirteen? Finesse 6 should make it fifteen. That’s a nice round number, hope it’s enough to keep up.’

>Processing…

‘Now let’s have a look at the numbers…’

‘Vitality being the lowest at “A” rank gives me some sense of security… Though not much since it’s still dwarfed by other stats… I have to be extra careful about protecting myself and then think about improving it.’

All of this was done in just a few moments she took to pick up a wooden sword of her liking and moved into position, getting ready…

‘Still I can’t shake off the feeling of him smacking me down in the head…’

---

Left foot forward in a low stance center of gravity firmly grounded, two-handing the sword held at his hips behind his right leg as if it was held inside a scabbard.²This stance is based on Tutta porta di ferro or True iron gate. Alicia’s stance was nothing special as the surface… Tip pointing to the ground, upper body wide open although amatuer with the sword and unfamiliar with the stance…³This stance is based on Mezzana porta di ferro or middle iron gate similar to the German alber. Meaning the fool’s guard as it leaves the chest and the organs open at a glance but the sword is ready quick response to an attack

‘Low center-guard? Confident in her speed… and protecting her weapon from being knocked away…

He was reading too much into her…

Not gonna come… Guess I’ll have to take the initiative then…’

Lightly kicking the ground he quickly closed the distance using the momentum to deliver upwards horizontal slash.

In response Alicia backstepped and bent backwards just out of reach of the weapon, whiffing; not to give breather swiftly pulling back the weapon he followed up with a thrust. Stepping slightly to the side and raising her own sword to meet the incoming blade, she pushed it aside, now in a position to counter-attack instinctively she thrusted forwards in a riposte aimed at the old Elf’s throat, between the gaps of the clavicles. Now on the defense he pulled his head back and with the weapon close enough, he guided the tip of the blade using the forte⁴Literally meaning The strong, this is the area from the middle of the blade to the base of it. and the crossguard of his sword up and away from himself from the foible,⁵Literally meaning The weak or feeble, this is the area from the middle of the blade to the tip/edge of it. bleeding out the kinetic energy. Missing his neck. Alicia’s sword following the downwards slope with the leftover momentum.

‘Fast reaction speed and good judgement…’

It has been a long time for him since he last crossed blades with anyone. Warmed up and exhilarated from the action, he was sporting a hearty smile. Breaking away only to assault again with more vigor and speed. Chaining simple cuts and slashes into mastercuts. Alicia could only react and protect herself desperately thanks to her superior speed. However eventually the gap of experience caught up, small superficial hits to the forearms in time landed in more significant places before finally a clear blow to her gut was made.

---

‘Ow ow, Yup this guy’s scary… I could barely keep up with just speed but techniques are difficult to read and come from unexpected angles.’

• “You have done well! As I thought you’re no complete beginner.”
• “No wai-”
• “Next time, we’ll use a real blade. You were holding back weren’t you?”
• “Hey! Liste-”

Faenas who was quietly observing the session came up to them:

• “That was amazing! I have never seen someone keep up with Ash for that long!”
• “Sto-”

Even from inside of her head:

• “i want… to try…”
• “And I want to cry! Listen to me will you?!... I’m sorry I didn’t mean to snap out like that.”
• “is okay… i want to fight…”

‘It’s not often that Alice wants something…’

• “Erhm… Let me ask him first.”
• “Ashlan was it?”
• “Just Ash is fine. What is it?”
• “Do you want a rematch? I want to try something.”
• “Of course why not, the day is still young, Come!”
•  
• “Alright Alice do what you want, oh but no biting him.”
• “okay…”

With such conversation unheard by the others Alicia entrusted her body to her other self…

---

‘What’s this… Her atmosphere changed completely…’

After Alice took control, her eyes became unfocused, her head was hung low and she didn’t twitch a muscle… It was questionable if she was even breathing at all. Sword was held limply next to her no particular stance, full of openings at a glance. Ashlan on the other hand was tense, sweat trickling down his face. He too was completely still… he wanted to move but all his experience and instincts told him not to. It was as if he was already too deep into something’s strike zone. Even his chest moving up and down from ragged breathing seemed like an excessive movement. Feeling of goosebumps, along with an unnerving feeling of some small creatures crawling all over his body was overwhelming.

He knew this feeling well… it was the feeling of being stared down by a predator native to this forest. Even though she was insipidly looking at the ground it felt as if his every movement was being monitored, entangled in something… It felt as if she could hear his heartbeat all the way from there counting them.

‘I have to do something…’

Cracking under the eerie pressure he made the first move; jumping back. In a blink of an eye a thrust was only a few centimeters away from his body. Although he tried to push it away it didn’t budge. Judging that he couldn’t deflect it he forcefully twisted his body out the way. Even then Alice bent in unnaturally awkward by her hips turning the thrust into slash. He blocked it be that as it may the sound of wood creaking made him reconsider and instead deflect it away.

‘Not good, the sword won’t be able to bear the weight…! Forget about it being wood, if I take that hit directly it’ll break a few bones.’

After the exchange both of them remained motionless… With her finally facing him he could see the unsettling bleary eyes of Alice. Catching some break Ashlan went on the offensive, attacking from her blindside. However she was ready and waiting for it despite having no visual cue.

‘I messed up!’

Easily flicking away his weapon she counter-attacked. His posture was terrible still he tried to parry it in desperation. Receiving the attack his hand was numbing from the shock. Instead of backing off he pressed his attack. Able to protect himself only thanks to deflecting Alice’s blows off target. Landing some small hits… Yet she wasn’t fazed at all from the pain of it. Her strikes had no real thought or intention behind them, they were simple minded attacks only to overpower the opposition with sheer power and speed. Ultimately through a lucky break of meeting her thrust with his own, deflecting her attack off course and hitting her forehead with a hefty thwack did she stop.

When it was all done his heart was pounding in his chest like he just survived a life or death combat. Weakness overcoming his limbs. Yet the other party was simply rubbing their forehead, only mildly inconvenienced.

---

• “i’m sorry… lost…”
• “Don’t worry, we’re here to learn not to win.”

After helping him up with Faenas:

• “How was that?”
• “Let me catch my breath first…”

Ashlan was heaving hard.

‘Terrifying… where does such speed and strength come from these dainty limbs of hers…? My body may be ancient but it isn’t decrepit yet, still even at my prime I would have had a hard time…’

• “Here’s my thoughts…
• Swift and strong, well conditioned body, excluding the second round where you didn’t hold back you’ve trained with weapons but not formally there's a bit of a tavern brawler in your style…-”

‘Isn’t that just same as calling me a thuggish brute…’

I can see multiple points where you can improve namely…-”

---

The most damaging blow that was made to Alicia that day was a mental one…