"Mono/Dialogue"

'Inner thoughts'

Narration

[Message/communication apparatus]

Date: 1078-79 (roughly)

Location: Somewhere in the Western region, Kazimierz.

POV: Młynar Nearl

A camp in the wilderness had erupted into a cacophony of noises and what sounded to be encouragement. They are now spectating 2 people practicing swordsmanship, between me and her to be exact. I can also see that a certain Sarkaz companion of mine arranging bets…

Well, that might be warranted since I’m teaching Nyx how to use a blade effectively while also increasing her repertoire of foundations of arms. This has been going on for 60 minutes or so, I noticed that it is not that she doesn’t get tired, she just recovered her stamina just as quickly while her fatigue resistance is on a very high level.

With a powerful downward swing, I force her knees to touch the earth once more. The girl is capable I can give her that much, she has a promising foundation, but it is just that…

“Get up, your footing was lackluster. Even a toddler would make better progress than you.” I said with concealed amusement, something really unlike my usual indifferent demeanor towards anyone who is not my oath-bound brothers and sisters or family.

Perhaps it was due to who I’m currently crossing the blade with.

“Tch, can’t you be gentler when handling a lady?” She spoke words mired with contempt yet her face betrayed enjoyment and amusement like I do. Even with several bruises that marred her body, she came back up time and time again… I have my misgivings about certain… fascinations that she might be potentially acquainted with or, heavens forbid, interested in.

“Your hands and footing coordination are good for handling daggers, although anything with a better reach and you’re moving like a limping burdenbeast.” People have always said that they never liked my honesty, she is different.

I once taunted her with sugarcoating my words and the response was an immediate cold rage. It was a novel experience to fight the, not serious, but still dangerous, fabled Grey Serpent.

After a little bit of taunting, challenging, and to a lesser degree outright provocation, she deigned me on her usual combat style. It was a fruitful experience to face an opponent who pulled all the stops, I learned how to counter ambushes better and she learned and reinforced her foundation of combat.

There were a few full-blown combats between us, no holds barred. I won more bouts than her, with varying levels of success in terms of decisiveness. Her strength is something I can respect, her personality, the fake one, is something irksome at first for a few of my fellows but they are more or less used to it now.

She hides one thing well, there is something within her that is much more primal and dormant… My dear sister-in-law had alluded time and time again, discretely, that Nyx is not a normal Pythian, thus it might be wise to prepare for potential disaster.

There have been a few anecdotes on elders that are a cut above the rest, hers was suspected to be one of them. What is it exactly is not something either of us knows, even the person herself was genuinely clueless when Iolanta off-handedly asked her leading questions.

It is also another thing I noticed, Nyx is a horrible liar if you are perceptive enough to watch her eyes. She puts on a blank face most of the time, but her eyes can tell a lot more stories if you notice its minute change.

Even more so when my sister-in-law can tell between lies and truth like the back of her hand. Which is why she had been going from and fro between nations before settling down back in Kazimierz. She is a renowned archeologist, historian, and scientist who has been documenting and recording numerous old knowledge dubbed “precursors” technology.

My sister-in-law was also a knightess, but she mostly left that behind after she married my brother. She loves my brother dearly and Margaret is her pride and joy, thus she will stop at nothing if it means that all of them are not being left wanting.

That’s enough about going into tangent and back on the training. To her credit she did improve fast, this bout of ours had been going on for less than a month after all.

“Everyone has their pros and cons…”

“Precisely, your cons outweigh any sort of advantage of using a long sword or even a short sword, disappointingly enough.”

“… I did, to the very least, try my bes-.”

“Your best wasn’t enough, it was frankly horrible. You’re not focused, you can’t utilize the long sword effectively, and your stance is all over the place. It felt like yours were made from stitches of different lives and circumstances.” I joked, not something I do often, admittedly… so why did she go stiff ever so briefly?

“…”

“What? Starting to get cold feet? Get on your stance.”

This is another weakness of her, she is too easily on being riled towards her aggressive side… or fools would most likely inclined to be misled by. Her mental games might work at first, but after that, she can only push on ever so forward.

Nyx is not stupid, if it will grant her an edge she would gladly gallivant like a jester. It was quite amusing that I almost fell for it, if Father or Schnitz saw me getting fooled like that I would never hear the end of it for months to come.

Pushing her left leg to the side at a 90˚ angle and her right leg moves a step forward at 45˚ while holding the sword with both hands. I did the same but with my sword pointed downward, very basic I’m well aware. It was meant to bait, after all, I’m very confident with my reaction time, so it’s no issue.

Nyx made her first move, a straight lunge with the point of her sword. The swords we’re using are the ones with blunted edges, to lessen injuries accrued and also to save up our medical supplies.

It is true that the force from a simple, but perfected, lunge is enough to puncture the joints in armor or outright penetrate one if both strength and sword were sufficient. Simple and swift yes, but her footwork once again failed her, it was too awkward.

Raising my sword up to deflect her stab before retracting my blade and counter-attacking with a diagonal swing. We are merely warming up for now, nothing too fancy and definitely no twirling, that’s just plain moronic to present your vulnerable blind spot to the enemy. Actually, it is still moronic even when you have eyes behind your head.

Learning from her mistake, she took a step back and pointed the sharp end towards me. No matter the weapon, length of reach played a crucial role most of the time. She is putting her right foot slightly tilted to left and her left foot is level on the ground.

Seeing that she shifted into a defensive posture, I took a swift lunge but then aborted it to deliver a downward swing instead, startling her because it was unexpected from her expression. She is really bad on the defensive with a sword, but when given a knife it is like fighting a different foe altogether.

She tried to deflect it, which she did, by redirecting it to glide down her left side of the blade. She takes a diagonal counter swing from the upper right to the bottom left. Targeting my slightly bent forward shoulder.

With practiced motion and reflexes, I easily dodged the incoming strike. Before I managed to reaffirm my footing, she pressed on with a flurry of sword strikes. A left slash would flow into a thrust after pulling her sword back, a downward strike would be recycled into an upward swing, and so on.

She struck with a left-cutting motion aimed at my neck, which was deflected easily. Another lunge, it missed. Feints and slashes that had been used in a chaotic yet planned manner, ironically predictable. Her tail wasn’t idle and I never said anything about the occasion must be strictly with sword.

She smirked ever so slightly, not that I mind. She was never meant to just wield 1 weapon, she was always much deadlier to hold 2 or 3 weapons at the same time. It is just that on this occasion she was trying to only focus on what she has.

Frankly, she should have just stayed using her dagger and bow and acted as a support element to be very effective. Her drive for betterment ultimately made me acquiesce with her plea to be taught the way of the sword, however.

Kazimierz's style of fighting can range from very basic, like this one, and some truly fantastic ones… I would still object to the notion of twirling to be a reasonable move, and I will never budge on that matter. Regardless of how, why, or even when presented with scientific findings about it.

There is no reason to show your back on the enemy unless you know what you’re doing… but even that’s still such a troglodyte way of thinking, to the point that even a brain lobotomy would be a much more preferable alternative.

The bout is coming to an end, not because of our stamina being depleted, far from it, instead the end was caused by herself. She delivered an overhead swing, a much better one now that she is getting used to using a longer-reach melee weapon.

Unfortunately, she used too much force, and coupled with her still awkward footing, her posture was broken and I drove a very painful slashing motion onto her abdomen. She immediately crumpled while coughing, but her coughing sounded unnatural… no matter, time for the usual review.

“Too much force, your footwork needs more foundation, your acting won’t work on someone who knows you, and lastly… You’re stuck in a combat trance too easily. That would be your downfall eventually.”

She is glaring at me, square in my eyes, while coughing. I sigh to add more of my piece to her.

“You’re using your tail for attack, attack, feint, and attack… you can use it for balancing your footing, recovery when being thrown off, and honestly you can even use it to create an opening to retreat… what is with you and your excessive aggression?”

“Well, *cough* fuck you *cough* too!”

“Hah… Why did I agree on this…?”

“*cough* *cough* … *hiss*… ugh… would it killed you to be gentler?”

“… Hmph, look into the mirror and observe that tin-”

“Not another word in that direction…”

“Then get up.”

“One of these days I swear…”

My fellow brothers and sisters cheered both of us on, clearly enjoying the little show. Toland’s makeshift betting booth seems to be stacked with even more money. Despite her foul mouth, she is not as deceitful as she looks. Pythian stereotype is strong, but my old prejudice was from her occupation and nothing else.

Mercenary rarely made a good impression… This girl is more like a rouge soldier who got sacked from her station because of her problematic tendencies. She is not a quitter, which is something I can respect wholeheartedly.

POV: Toland Cash.

“Hah! Look at them lovebirds.” One of my fellow adventurers shouted, clearly enjoying the bout more than usual since they had the rare chance to annoy Młynar. I have to agree though, the man was as emotive and animated as a piece of brick. He focused only on one thing, which made it hard for him to enjoy the scenery a bit more and cut loose every now and then.

Then Nyx entered the picture. We were all skeptical really, news and rumors about her not-so-by-the-book and downright criminal method made us really distant. She didn’t mind it and even laughed dryly when one of our much more upright members berated her for her inhumane conduct.

Młynar is ruthless but decisive in his execution, he won’t torture pieces of shit needlessly and give them a quick death. Nyx is ruthless and sadistic, she revels in how much pain she can inflict before her target is broken, then adds some more pain on them if they are at death’s door.

But here comes the puzzlement, there were several times we stumbled upon her… teaching children. When I said it to my comrades, they looked incredulous except for Młynar who looked intrigued. After I proved it, by leading them there anyway, they finally believed it.

Sounds unbelievable really, since our first meeting was… less than ideal… to put it mildly…

Flashback

We’re just a group of bounty hunters and errant knights plus squires and local commoners who have little to lose. Well, we do look different and not really a uniform group. This little group of ours is the same group that has been going around the more rural area of Kazimierz, helping the poor, downtrodden, and even the ostracized infected.

Especially when the scars of war are still fresh. There are too many grounds to cover and too little care from the stuck-up and fake national council. The Adeptus are overwhelmed because they have too little manpower to properly scour the land. The nobles are divided between useful and greedy fucks, the merchants are buying stuff wholesale and driving up the price down like crazy.

Then the matter about mercenaries is that they are not working without payment, which made people like us gather with a singular goal; getting some peace and quiet after all is said and done. Of course, a lot of groups are looking at us like a bunch of lunatics, but we couldn’t care less.

There is a single man who stood above the rest of us both in stature and presence. With golden blonde hair and standing around 191cm tall. His bright skin tone that complemented his good looks and his Pegasian lineage didn’t diminish the terrifying scowl etched on his face. He can laugh and smile yes, but those are few and far between.

He also has a sword strapped on his waist, looks ordinary but looks can be deceiving. Wearing light armor that glistens but is not so dazzling that it will hurt your eyes. He has said golden hair tied into a rather messy rattail. The sword in his hand is a sublime piece of steel that glistens in gold, so much so when he uses his art everyone can get blinded.

This guy is Młynar, our de facto co-leader. He joined our merry band not too long ago, but his conduct had made him some sort of an idolized hero to our group, much to his chagrin. I will never let him live it down, and I’m probably the only one who can rub it in his face so openly too.

“How far are we?” Said the man’s companion, which is me as one of the world’s most handsome Sarkaz, my skin is darker but I think it complemented us as a duo of leaders for this band of merry men and women. I’m a solid 180-ish cm tall Sarkaz bundle of raw muscle and power, also speed I guess. Got this from my dad, fuck him and bless him, and from my dear Ma who would most likely strangle me when I ever returned home, regardless of where.

I did look more like a thief or rouge, but meh not like I cared all that much about how to present myself. We are all a bunch of idiots, idealistic idiots. We wear it like a badge of honor because it is one simply because we think so and it is what it is.

“Shouldn’t be far, Redravich was having some trouble with undesirable.” The blonde man curtly responded to my question, I can only shrug with exasperation and amusement really.

“Welp, whatever it is then. Sir Knigh-” I got interrupted, he doesn’t like any title. Even something as mundane as ‘Sir’ or ‘Knight’ irked him a lot.

“I’m not a Knight, Toland.” He keeps on going without even looking back.

“Yeah, Yeah… You Nearl are uptight as ever. Always playing with the… um… what was it called again? Semantics and Pragmatics yeah?” I just smile at my buddy's eternearlly uptight demeanor.

‘Bloodline of heroes eccentricity I guess’ I mused in my mind, he is the youngest son of Kazimierz National Hero and I must say, an apple doesn’t fall far from its tree. Młynar is every bit a hero like his father is, he keeps saying his brother is better than him, but we don’t care. In our eyes, he is the best fighter in Kazimierz.

“Let’s camp there.” The not-really-a-knight said to me and our comrades. They immediately moved with due haste and speed that’s a bit too fast for a group of men with heavy luggage on foot. We always traveled during the day, but there were also times when we moved in the dark.

We are now overlooking a hill while preparing to camp the night, Reasons? The dark sky above their map pointed to be where Fasarika was. It is definitely a catastrophe and from looking at it, the town is wiped out.

Catastrophe varies in sizes and types but all sucks and it would be prudent to halt our advance else we want to sunbathe with originium dust as an improvised sunscreen. Sadly some lunatics did sunbathe beneath catastrophe… Their fate is as true as that dark cloud hanging on top of the sky like the reapers themselves.

After unloading our baggage, we start setting up our tent. We usually paired into 3 – 4 people for every tent, and 2 – 4 people on watch every night. Kazimierzian wildlife always moved in packs, courtesy of how wars and border conflict always happened sporadically, so these beasts instinctually gathered beneath an alpha.

There are exceptions, and those exceptions are the real pain in the ass. Unlike the packs that can be driven easily, the lone wolves are a different matter. Since those getting stronger with time, the largest and oldest often posed problems.

This is why I must start climbing up a tree and pull up my binoculars.

‘Hmm… east is fine, the thicket is kinda in the way, but I see nothing of actually concerning matter. Now that I think about it, Kazimierzian is still pretty much forested… unlike Kazdel, which is 70% ruins… on a great day…’ I moved my binoculars south and it is the same way… at first.

“South is ok… oh? Some packs of fangbeasts are snarling at one another. I wonder if the peeps below are up for a little fun? Meh, I’ll better look where we are from…” I moved my eyes west.

‘No one seems to be tailing us, the weather is fine, and we forgot to pick up some extra cheese… God damn it… Kalinia would be cross again, that Elafia girl really needs to get her cheese addiction in control or we will burn through our provision again… scratch that, she has a personal stash somewhere inside her bag…’ I sigh before moving my eyes nort-

“What the fuck?” I see a river upstream and… a woman in the middle of taking off her clothing. I can’t see her face, but her hair is ashen grey or something… why did it shine silver?

“Holy shit… Is she a local from somewhere around here?” I tried to ascertain closer and found that the woman had a tail on her back and before I could continue ascertaining her identity… The woman's head snapped in my direction, and I felt a sudden chill struck me before tumbling down. That hurts, but my mind is too preoccupied with the image.

‘That was NOT a fucking local! That is the daemon herself!’ I was horrified to meet her, here of all places.

‘Way to go Toland… I just did something I shouldn’t when meeting a woman for the first time! Are we screwed?’ The rumor of her being ruthless is not a rumor, we had seen a village that was painted red. The original inhabitants had already left, thankfully, so the dead there were bandits… it was quite a picture, let’s just say that.

“…” I just realized that everyone is now looking at me puzzled. I can understand though, I rarely fall off a tree without a clear reason… and this one is dire…

My blonde pal only took one look at me, his handsome Sarkaz compatriot, and already pressed his temple, preparing himself for the headaches that were about to come. Well, yeah. If you accidentally spied on someone like her, in the middle of her private moment no less, of course you’re in trouble.

“What did you see?” Młynar inquired me, honestly I would be asking him the same thing too.

“… The daemon herself?”

End of Flashback

“Heh…” I chuckled now looking back at it. She did actually come to our camp, we were thinking that we were about to fight only for her to hail Młynar and forget the rest of us. The man was beyond annoyed, but couldn’t really do much since she has a good relationship with his family, especially with his sister-in-law.

Imagine our shock that she has a connection with the Nearl. Młynar then asked her what is she doing this far from the city, and she answered, I kid you not, she just collapsed a mine filled with bandits. She said that she was so happy, thus thinking that a little dip for relaxation was a good way to reward herself… which got interrupted by me.

She smiled at me, the same smile that promised an unimaginable level of pain but she didn’t follow through with it since she understood that I was not actively trying to ogle her. Why does her understanding of said circumstance have this… what was it called… bro code vibe? She kept herself from being angry, which was justified after I explained myself.

Still got slapped though, but it could be worse like getting thrown into a river with weights…

From there we kinda… meet every now and then, she is not half-bad. It is just that outside of work this woman is just such a slob that she made our own resident slob, Orlo, look diligent. Like, who would think that a single branch is good enough to avoid the rain? She can make something more comfortable but nope, a branch is good… and that’s not all.

How she would only wear light clothing, like a tank top and short pants, outside of combat uncaring with the gazes as long as people weren’t getting in her way. How she would just go up a tree branch for a nap, not even bothering to pick a nicer place. How she would maintain her gun while laying on her back which was really dangerous. Then the most damningly was when she just poked a landmine, causing a chain reaction, because she couldn’t be bothered with it, and so forth.

We also know that despite her cold demeanor, after some time we realized was fake as fuck, this girl is an unrepentant airhead. She thought that she managed to sneak unnoticed every now and then to knit dolls somewhere, it was honestly adorable how she would smile in a rather goofy manner every time she finished a doll and returned like nothing had happened.

So yeah… we kinda have accepted her, because her brutality was not used indiscriminately and every hostage situations, which she is famous for shooting the damn hostage, was always handled by my pals or me. In exchange, she is always the one who scouted ahead and cleared minefields… which included the one time she was almost killed by one… wait, she has done that a lot actually…

Nyx was trying to assure us that she was fine, even with a large gash and a few shrapnel adorning her wounded leg, but Młynar was having none of it. The man was genuinely angry when she said that it was just what was expected of her, and that was the day I knew that he could be a grouchy but attentive dude if he wanted to.

Suddenly everyone groaned and cheered, looking back at it, Nyx was on her knees again… looking as livid as ever, but her scowl had the briefest, nigh-unnoticeable, upturn on the corner of her mouth.

“Damn, she lost again…”

“Aight honor the bet! Or you can bet your sorry ass to go on without a bed tonight!”

“Goddamn it, Nyx! That was my cheese!”

“…” Nyx glared at them, suffice to say that since she has mellowed a lot more, she can be more forthcoming with us. Of course, the girl in question is still under the illusion that no one here knows that she is just faking her blank face and tone. No one said anything, because it is hilarious.

“That’s it for today.”

“No, one more.”

“Class is done.”

“No, one more.”

“Class. Is. Done.”

“I’m done if you knock me out.”

“…”

“Bring it.”

“… I have enough of you.”

“Sure~ then please, do punish me for being so disobedient~” It suffices to say that rolling her words with a flat tone was a truly jarring experience. Everyone, who had been watching their sparring-slash-duel, instinctually flinched from how badly delivered that line was…

My pal’s Arts flared a little there, nigh unnoticed, except for me and her… Who would have thought that a sufficient level of annoyance is enough to make him lose control briefly, this woman is something else.

Nyx’s eyes light up in a form of emotion that is definitely not something to be encouraged. She took her stance once more, and suddenly her body started sweating and the grip on her sword faltered, but her eyes turned manic and more excitable than ever. We’re all alarmed, Nyx only shows this expression when she is so close to danger, and judging by how Młynar gaze is now completely cold, guess she is truly, and well, screwed.

“Have you never learned restraint?”

“Would you be so kind to teach me then?”

With the kiddie gloves off, Młynar blitzed like a whirlwind itself, his sword strike produced a gale of its own. Nyx strained herself, and she barely dodged the diagonal swing that would have ruptured inside like a badly scrambled egg. Taking in his advice, Nyx didn’t try to use her tail for a complete offensive maneuver, she instead used it as an anchor.

For each strike Nyx managed to deliver, she was forced to deflect and parry, no blocking, at least 5 of Młynar’s slashes. She gained up in speed, her movement became more refined and finally managed to improve herself to shorten her counter with a 1 to 3 ratio. The audience is getting rowdy once more, some of them even restarted their bet, and… Kalinia should stop betting using her cheese stash.

Then all it takes is a single mistake, she tripped on her own footing, and her battle trance once again had reared its ugly head. Młynar didn’t stop his sword from coming in a full-powered swing, a sickening crunch silenced the cheering… and how Nyx’s crumpled like a doll, but the damn girl just glared up from her kneeling position. She still managed to smirk challengingly, no matter how thin, while Młynar could only sigh… but I spotted the tiniest bit of grin on his face as well.

“Care to listen now?”

“… Damn you, insensitive jerk… I’ll go for a nap.” With that, she collapsed on her back. Welp… guess she is well and truly spent now… Hmm? Młynar just goes up beside her and picks her up gently. He just left with her in his arms like that… He really doesn’t give a shit of the staring.

Once he’s out of view everyone starts chattering up a storm, including certain someone who just cried for losing another batch of cheese.

“Man that was surely painful as hell…”

“MY CHEESE! CURSE YOU NYX!”

“Can you stop betting on her then!? Here! Take it back, I feel like a thief for betting this time around…”

“ARE YOU MOCKING ME!?”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT, WOMAN!?”

“He rarely goes that hard during sparring, guess even he has his limit huh?”

“Wanna bet if those two already tumble around?”

“Nah… Hey Toland, where are we going off after this?”

“We’ll talk later after the prince has tucked his princess to bed and sing her a lullaby.” We all chuckled at that bit. Though, we can see that she has hots about him, didn’t help that she is still in denial and my bro just brushed it off.

‘Hopefully, this little group of ours can be something worth talking about when we all greyed out and old… if only Terra can be quiet by then…’

[END OF CHAPTER]

Author’s Note:

Hello there, this is me, myself, and I, the author who is too excitable and has too much time all of a sudden.

Just conjuring, creating, or whatever something up for... Yeah.... Uh... That's all really...

P.S: This chapter manifested because I couldn’t help myself. :)

Ciao