Without further ado, Annie begun elucidating on all the different weapons up for offer. It proved to be an extensive list, to put it mildly.
Instead of launching into a purely verbal explanation, however, the captain chose to instruct them personally and with hands-on, live demonstrations.
Slashing a nearby dummy with a longsword, then hacking down on it with a battleaxe…
Thrusting at it with a rapier, before twirling around it and bludgeoning it with a bo staff…
Dancing in and out of range, pair of daggers biting deep into straw whenever close, while a throwing knife or two accurately lodged itself into lethal spots once she created some distance…
Equinox wasn’t embarrassed to admit that Annie’s demonstration was a damn sight.
Like poetry in motion, her handling of each one told a tale of the blood, sweat, and tears sunk into practice to gain such varied expertise.
Unlike him, Wyntir swiftly settled on a pair of shortswords. Like the rude lieutenant had pointed out, she did have some training – even if it leaned more towards self-defence instead of pure martial combat, as he falsely believed.
For some strange reason he was still trying to decipher up till this day, said self-defence training included proficiency with edged, stabby weapons.
Being born ambidextrous, she had been trained to use a concealed pair of stilettos.
To quote Lady Asuna, women of the Shimotsuki line should always have a knife or two hidden up their kimono’s sleeves.
Equinox tried really, really hard not to think about it. That way only lay madness.
……
“You’re going to need to settle on a weapon soonish boyo. Your girlfriend over there already made her pick awhile ago.” Annie drawled, spiked mace absently coming down on the ragged straw dummy’s head like a bolt of judgement from the heavens above, sending bits and pieces flying in every direction.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Equinox stated flatly while rolling his eyes in tired exasperation. “and yeah, I know. It’s damn hard though. Are there really no conduits or the like meant for channelling mana fuelled attacks?”
Unfortunately, with his focus on caster- and magic-type classes in past VRMMORPGs, learning how to use close combat weapons had been of a low priority, at best. After all, with the ability to sling fire and ice or bring down lightning on enemies from a distance at one’s fingertips, why would he have bothered with learning how to hack and slash like a musclebound brute?
“We don’t have anything like that in Golden Trees Village. You might have better luck in either Goldrock or Silverhills, but you ain’t going to get there without some training in how to defend yourself, first.” Annie reiterated, spiked mace swapped out for a scimitar before she started tearing into the dummy with a controlled frenzy of slashes.
From the nuggets of information he gleaned from their back and forth, Goldrock and Silverhills were the closest town-level settlements to Golden Trees Village. As made clear by the name, the village was under Goldrock’s jurisdiction.
According to the captain, there were safeguarded routes stretching between Goldrock and her subsidiary villages.
Even so, it didn’t mean that danger was totally non-existent – especially since most of the routes went through the outskirts of the Petrified Woods.
Equinox tried to get a more in-depth explanation on the Petrified Woods when Annie first mentioned them, but he failed.
After several fruitless attempts, he stopped asking and gave it up as a lost cause; making a mental note to find out more about it whenever the opportunity arose.
Equinox nodded while eyeing up the scimitar speculatively. “Got it. Would you mind letting me try out the scimitar? I think it might finally be the one.”
Annie shot him a dubious look after sliding away from the battered dummy but didn’t ask any questions. With a practiced flick of the wrist, she tossed the scimitar at him, curved blade and leather-wrapped hilt spinning end over end.
He casually plucked the weapon out of the air before it could hit him, fully disregarding the blunt force trauma it could cause if he had failed. Worse come to worst, , he would have just sidestepped and avoided it completely.
“Good reflexes!” Annie shot him two thumbs ups before a serious look slid into place. “Now, time to get into the serious stuff. When using a scimitar, keep in mind that slashing will be your best, and only friend…”
All in all, Captain Annie spent an hour or two instructing Equinox and Wyntir on the basics of using a scimitar and a pair of short swords, respectively.
More specifically, she spent most of that time drilling him on the basics; mostly leaving Wyntir to her own devices.
Much like Maximillion, the beautiful captain could easily tell the white-haired foreigner benefitted from past training.
All she had needed to do was tweak her handling a bit here and there and voila! Experienced stabby dagger user was Transformed into a novice shortsword practitioner in short order.
The final piece of advice Captain Annie Goldbright gave before leaving was to explore Golden Trees Village and get some practical experience out in the surrounding area.
At the end of the day, it didn’t matter if they exited through the North or South gates. The monsters dwelling in the rolling planes right outside the walls were all as weak as one another.
Wyntir turned to Equinox once she was sure Annie had loped out of hearing range. “What do you think? Should we heed the captain’s advice or not.”
Equinox lightly shrugged as he paced over to the rack of weapons. “Why not? It sounds like a tutorial of sorts to me.”
“Speaking of that, did you get a quest notification or something similar after Annie gave her last piece of advice?” Wyntir asked abruptly, changing the topic as she watched Equinox curiously.
Plucking a brace of blunted throwing knives off the rack, he spun back around to face her while nonchalantly slipping his other hand into his sole occupied pocket.
“Nope. I didn’t get anything of the sort. Weird, isn’t it?” While speaking, Equinox tried to store the brace of throwing knives in his inventory. Without any fanfare, said knives disappeared from his hand and reappeared in one of the slots in the four by five grid.
Cheering internally at the unexpected success, he was brought out of his internal revelry when Wyntir walked right up to him and poked his newly unoccupied hand, brow pointedly arched in clear curiosity.
After poking it once, she poked his hand several times more before taking his hand in hers and rotating it about this way and that, as if wanting to check, with her own eyes, that the brace of knives had truly disappeared into thin air.
“Did you really just steal those throwing knives?” She asked after relinquishing his hand, once her curiosity had been sated. “How bold of you.”
“The captain didn’t say we couldn’t take more than the scimitar and shortswords, so… why not.” Equinox responded with a carefree grin, getting a light poke to his side immediately thereafter.
His hand darted out, aiming to clamp onto her prodding finger, but Wyntir hopped back and out of range; anticipating his response, knowing him as well as she did.
Huffing at his umpteenth failed attempt, he stuck his tongue out at Wyntir before retrieving the specific scimitar Annie had been instructing him in the usage of.
Wyntir did the same right next to him, taking hold of two shortswords—one a touch longer than the other—before both vanished into thin air after she momentarily held her own spatial pouch, tucked away in her pants pocket like his. Unlike her, Equinox only stored away the scimitar briefly before taking it back out, allowing it to hang loosely by his side as he recalled the information offered up by the spatial pouch.
Training Scimitar | Grade: G
Capable of slashing open wounds with effort, but works better as a curved bludgeon, truth be told.
A duo of rapid pokes to his side brought Equinox out of his thoughts. Sparing a glance down at the crown of silver braids, he aimed a jab at Wyntir’s side but missed her when she danced away; amused curl to her full lips.
“Time to go, ne?” She teased and spun away to face in a roughly southwards direction. “The world awaits~!”
It didn’t take long for Equinox and Wyntir to reach the South gate.
A bit of confusion was had when Equinox tried to convince Wyntir to take a detour and head for the North gate, instead, but she managed to convince him otherwise; at least, after several none too gentle pokes to his side.
The buzz of chatter reached a crescendo as Equinox slid into the end of the line stretching from the South gate to the last establishment in the Southeast quadrant; stained in a garish shade of gold, a painted pitch black cauldron full to the bursting with golden coins standing out even more starkly against its eye-watering backdrop.
Wyntir continued glaring—even if subtly—at the inn even after joining him in the queue. “We will never be staying in that… monstrosity, understand Nox?”
He held up his hand placatingly. “No need to use your young mistress voice on me. You’re not going to see me insisting on staying in a place with such terrible taste.”
She nodded sharply. “I am glad we are on the same page. Speaking of…”
As Wyntir trailed off, she gestured at a commotion going on at the front of the line, happening right in front of two sturdy gates; banded in iron, papered over with glimmering pyrite leaves, and thrown wide open. “What do you think is going on there?”
Following her subtly pointing finger, he beheld a bunch of otherworldly foreigners heatedly facing off against an obviously bored guardsman. Owing to the surrounding noisy crowd, he failed to hear what, exactly, the argument was all about.
But considering that another guardswoman standing nearby her bored counterpart looked faintly embarrassed, he had a feeling it was more like to be something ridiculous than not.
“I have no idea, and I really couldn’t care less.” He stated dryly. “Knowing how other players can be such drama queens in VRMMORPGs, it’s best to steer clear.”
“I understand, but I feel bad for the guardsman.” Wyntir murmured with a slight pout. “Perhaps we can ask after him once the uncouth barbarians have taken their leave?”
He shrugged a single shoulder while casually leaning the Training Scimitar’s spine against his other one. “Do whatever you want. It’s not like I can stop you.”
Wyntir concealed a pleased grin behind her blouse’s long sleeve, implicitly agreeing with his matter of fact statement.
The line grew progressively shorter as they idly talked. Luckily for the pair, no more otherworldly foreigners got into an argument with the guards guarding the gates, meaning that they found themselves facing the duo in what felt like no time at all.
The bored-looking guardsman spoke before either could offer a greeting.
“Welcome to the South gate leading out of Golden Trees Village, foreigners.” He intoned in a dull drawl. “As commanded by my higher-ups, I will be giving you a short briefing before I am permitted to allow you to leave the village proper.”
Equinox bit back a sigh as the guardsman took in a lungful of air before continuing on, clearly uncaring about getting a response.
“Right outside lies the Hushed Plains, where colonies of landbound monsters skulk.
“From low, rolling hills to grassy flatlands, all manners of beasts call it home.
“If you wish to remain safe, retreat back to tightly packed dirt roads slashing their way through the planes, for Goldrock and Silverhills have imbued protections along their lengths.
“But take heed. Overstay your welcome and remain beyond evenfall at your own risks. Only the Gods can help you then, for we shan’t: the gates will close when the last rays of the Sun winks out.”
Pausing once more, the bored guardsman ducked down and disappeared out of sight beneath the booth he stood behind, resurfacing with a pair of small leather satchels gripped in both hands a moment later; clearly insincere smile stretching his features.
“Finally, before you leave Golden Trees Village, might I interest you in purchasing a beginner adventurer’s kit?”
Just based on the guardsman’s disingenuous look, Equinox was tempted to bite back with a, ‘fuck no!’.
