Etta felt as the carriage stopped for the night, she got of her seat by the window. She was currently inside a small carriage all by herself. The carriage was half the size of the other carts. It used to be a cart for storing food items, but all the food stored inside here was already eaten away by the troupe.
Now it was instead occupied by her, a small rug and a short stool was placed inside, the former for sleeping and the latter for sitting or to be used as a table as she sat on the floor. It was very modest, as to be expected of an impromptu room. There was also an old hand mirror she took from the bathing carriage.
Placing the mirror on the corner of the wall and floor she walked in reverse to see her figure reflected in it. She was wearing a cotton shirt and brown shorts. Thankfully there was a dwarf in the party who gladly gave a pair of extra clo0thes he prepared in case he ripped any of his own.
The bath she took was truly needed. Her body was smelly from days of unwashed sweat while she was passed out, added to that with the fact she was completely covered with monster blood seconds before the bath.
‘It was surprising that they have a hot water option.’ Usually most houses only had a normal water rune, to make a hot water rune you would have to combine a fire rune and a water rune. Which if done wrong or accidentally broken would lead to either scalding boiling water or a mist explosion that would one, hit somebody with extreme force and two, fill your lungs with too much moisture.
To own a hot water rune meaned that the group she was with could afford artificers and runesmiths to regularly do check-ups, which would cost lots of money. But in every noble’s mind it was worth it.
‘I shouldn’t do anything crazy. It would be my end if a noble or rich merchant gets mad at me.’ Looking towards the door she prepared herself, outside was a plethora of people she never knew, who could either be hostile or friendly. She would never know. Hell! There could even be creeps out there who likes eating children!
‘Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out. Just breath normally’ She slowly open the door and walked out. Instantly her senses were assailed by her surroundings. Bright campfires were surrounded by mercenaries of all kinds, humans, dwarfs, therianthropes, and even a couple elves and half elves.
People were dancing, drinking, and playing games to relax and destress. She walked around timidly, taking in the view. Her heart felt heavy, her entire being embraced with gloom as she remembered her family’s demise. She shook the gloom away, trying to smile. It was what her family would want, for her to smile, to be happy, to move on. But she only managed to keep the gloom away from her face.
Walking around some more, she saw all kinds of events. An arm wrestling event hat was won by an ogre woman. A party of drunks stacked on each other. A woman leading a man into a storage carriage while both smiling. A duel for a young maiden’s love between a dwarf and an elf. But the person she was searching for, the green haired man was nowhere to be found.
Remembering that he had lots of wind mana when she met him she tried to follow the scent of wind mana in the air, but alas it was unfruitful. There was too many people around, each and every one of them leaking massive amounts of mana, contributing to the mana rainbow that enveloped the big campsite.
“Hey little girl! What you searching for over here.” A woman wearing blue robes spoke to her. She was the very same woman who told the bulky man to save her.
“H-hello. I’m searching for a man with green hair. He told me he was going to teach me footwork.” The brave girl turned timid by trauma responded.
“Ahh… You’re searching for Henry. I’m Aria the President of this troupe. Henry is probably over by that yellow carriage, he stays away from all the drinking and fun stuff.”
“C-CAPTAIN! I’m so so so sorry for disturbing and taking your time. I’ll leave right now” The girl sputtered nervously, ‘w-what if I accidentally made them mad’ she thought’. Rushing towards the yellow carriage, determined to run away.
“No worries, now don’t forget to- Haiya, she’s already gone.” The woman wistfully said. She hoped that the little girl would stay alive, at least till they reach the city. And she hoped Henry wouldn’t make her train too hard, last time his trainee broke both legs practicing.
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She saw a man with green hair sitting besides a campfire. This was the man who will teach her, to get stronger, for vengeance against that monster who killed her family. After nervously fixing her now cleaned red scarf she stepped forward.
“Hello mister, you said you were going to teach me?” The brown hair readied herself.
“Ah yes. There you are, I’ve been waiting for a long time for you.” The man stood up and step forward.
“As I told you before I’m going to teach you footwork, but you first need to know what is footwork. It’s the art of using your lower body to place the conditions in your favour, empower your steps, and even to move more fluidly and smoother. In stupid terms, how to take your next step.” The man walked around the campfire explaining the concept, each step he took was fluid and natural, purposeful even. As if ready to strike at anyone and anything.
“But why teach me, it doesn’t give any benefits.” The girl quizzically asked, unsure about the true purpose of the man. Her father always told her strangers usually always had malicious intentions behind their help.
“First and most importantly, your movement is so awful that I personally feel cringed and offended. Second, I will have nightmares if I don’t make you improve, I’m not here to ‘help’ I’m here to ‘make’ you better even if I have to use force. Lastly, I see potential in you, it would be very sad to see your talent unused.”
“Now then, lets start.” The man suddenly blurred, the calm wind mana in the air suddenly became chaotic. Funnelling into a single path.
A hand suddenly tried to chop Etta on the head, barely dodging Etta retreated. As he continued to strike consecutively she dodged, parried, and blocked. The attacks were only very barely averted by Etta, in all likelihood the attacks were specifically timed and adjusted to do so.
Their steps left tracks of marks on the ground. One track was chaotic, unpurposeful , not optimal, and generally very messy. While the other was unpredictable, fluid, smooth, and each of the marks were infused with mana.
Etta felt her hands and feet become sore, droplets of sweat forming before getting blown away to the wind. She instinctually adapted slowly improving, her movement becoming better. But it was too slow of an improvement. And she could feel it, the ceiling to improving instinctually was approaching.
Without actual guidance and reference to learn from her progress was stagnating, her insight into movement was too low. She was *I as the narrator say as this respectfully as possible.* too stupid. But the green hair’s attacks weren’t stopping or slowing down, it was getting faster, stronger, more challenging to respond to.
Finally after about fifteen minutes the flurry of attacks got too difficult for Etta to respond to. A swift chop eventually reached her head, “*Thud*”. The small girl fell down in pain, sweat flowing off her in waves and rivers.
“That’s a bit better, your movements are finally not hurting my eyes. But your far from good. Do you see my step marks on the ground? Follow and repeat them till you can copy it fluidly. You will only stop when I tell you to stop.”
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“Hyugh! *Tap* Huff! *Tap* Agh! *Tap!*” Etta grunted with exhaustion in every single one of her steps. She had been on this task for oh so very long. In fact too long, she started this quest of improvement a bit before midnight, now the sun was starting to rise.
If she could she would’ve wanted to stop. However, her movements were still too unpolished and awkward for her teacher’s liking. Even when to most eyes her footwork was leaps and bounds above normal people, thanks to her latent talent to adapt. Each time she repeated the steps all over again she would improve, even if not dramatically. Still, improvement was and is improvement.
Did she try to escape? Of course. Did it actually work? Nay, far from it. Her sensei even with his eyes closed and snoring somehow always knew when she tried to run away, constantly waking up and adding even more steps for difficulty to the pattern she had to follow, by the sixteenth time she had learned to not try to get away.
However on the bright side, she now had a deeper understanding of movement. Finally, she wasn’t so dumb as before. She understood movement wasn’t just running, or jumping around. It was a pattern of steps and movements that followed a flow to gain an advantage.
The pattern of footwork the green haired half oni taught her was apparently called ‘Leaflet Steps’ by her teacher. It was an inferior version of ‘The Ent Steps’ practiced by her instructor and his tribe. Perfect for beginner’s, having repeated the pattern for who knows how many times, the movements was almost instinctual. Keyword almost, she still had to look downwards at the marks on the ground. Lest she will trip and fall, bruising herself.
And her tutor wasn’t happy only with memorising almost all of it except for the last one percent. He insisted on her knowing every step by muscle memory. Although the harsh training was taxing on her tiny body, no matter how fit she was. A kid was still a kid.
Many times over she had cracked a bone, teared a muscle or ligament, and even fallen unconscious a few times at the cost of a bloody nose. And each time her educator would come and heal her with medium tier healing magic with complete ease and precision. Then mercilessly make her continue all over again.
Reinfusing her steps with mana she continued her monotonous task. Alone, with only her half sleeping teacher and her own thoughts keeping her company she became gloomy. Without any immediate concerns or recent problems to occupy her mind her mind became filled with her trauma.
She had started to hear the screams and rumblings again. Her mind focused on the task as she remembered why she is doing this, for revenge. Against that damned creature, that monster centipede. She will kill it, no matter what. With rage and sorrow fuelling her every vigorous movement she re-entered the sinister flow.
Faster, swifter, better, smoother. She only focused to embody those four tenets. Her steps became more instinctual, her lower body remembering every single step she had to take. As it went on her movements became even more natural, as if a leaf flowing in the wind. She didn’t even need to calculate her balance anymore. Her body moving and balancing itself unconsciously.
Through hundreds of repetitions, this pattern of footwork had become subconscious work. No longer did she stutter before taking the next step. No longer did she hesitate. Her movements were refined and purposeful. In a single long night, Etta had mastered the pattern of movements only when she was still five. While the oni tribe who originally used it would learn when they were seven and take over a week or two to master it.
The girl was talented, during this flow she gained an affinity to absorbing information, patterns, and movements like no other. She had the talent to adapt, to change herself and better herself to suit her situation more. So that she could overcome anything.
On the downside, this sinister flow was ruining her mental health through trauma.
