Chapter 39: Art of Combat

Just before I fell embarrassingly in front of the knights who were surreptitiously watching our interaction, I barely managed to steady myself with my sword, then stood up and glared sharply at the fool who’d nearly killed me

"What are you doing, you bastard?"

I shouted at him, but he completely ignored me, looking instead at little Rosa, who had wisely taken a step back, whilst he planted his massive sword in the ground and leaned on it brazenly in front of me to provoke me.

"Don’t worry about this fool. If he doesn’t get the prettiest one for you, I’ll make sure he’s beaten to a pulp,"

he said earnestly.

"You fool, can’t you see I was trying to avoid raising the death flag?" I shouted at him in frustration as I charged back at him to attack him.

" flag of what?" He looked at me blankly, confused, but he fended me off easily, which only added to my frustration. Yet he’d had his ego stroked after losing twice to little Rosa.

Then we got into a fight... actually, to say we got into a fight is an exaggeration, because I was the one getting beaten up most of the time... and although he couldn’t quite crush me with his stupid sword, I could feel shards of cold creeping right down to my bones

"it’s that if you promise someone you’ll come back when you’re off to a battle or an adventure, you’re 100 per cent dead"

"Hold on, but I make promises to Miya every time I go into battle, and I’m still alive. Why do you believe in this superstition, you fool!! Who taught you these strange things??"

"It’s real. But you’ll never understand because you’re f*cking fool."

"Stop swearing at me, you damned bastard, and get back to living in reality instead of in your bloody books."

"What’s the connection between the novels I read and this?!"

"Because they’re the only thing you read, you idiot, and they teach you things that make absolutely no sense!!"

"It makes sense."

"It makes sense, my arse."

And since we were fighting without using our abilities—because we were under the Grand Duke’s nose—he had a massive advantage over me.

Even his ordinary strikes carried an elemental aura, thanks to his frequent and constant visits to his domain, where the very nature of his energy had transformed into the element of frost.

I dodged the blow and used the fire element stored in the sword to dispel the cold around me, and I used its ability – Crush – even though it’s useless against a Roman-style warrior, especially as this sword is merely an Epic-tier weapon; but at least it slowed that bastard Roman down

I tried to exploit the frosty wind, which had blurred the vision, to catch him off guard, but it seems I wasn’t the only one who’d thought of this, for out of nowhere a huge black sword suddenly appeared in my field of vision. I couldn’t dodge it this time and barely managed to use my sword to parry it; the blow sent me flying backwards and things spiralled completely out of my control.

I rolled across the ground several times, then the frost mummified me, so I froze in place...

And so I ended up lying on the ground, defeated; my sword had vanished into thin air, whilst Roman’s massive sword was stuck in the ground right next to my head, completely freezing my hair and half my body, pinning me to the ground.

I looked at Roman in frustration, cursing him, whilst seriously considering using my ability to wipe that arrogant look off his ugly face as he approached me. Then he knelt before me and smiled gently.

"Let me help you."

"...."

I didn’t answer him, nor did I say a word, nor did I use my ability either, because if I did, I’d obviously look like a complete loser.

After he sheathed his sword, he began to remove the Ice from my body whilst giving me unsolicited advice

"Your mistake is that you hesitate to switch to a defensive stance. When I first attacked you, you instinctively grabbed your sword to strike back, but your mind immediately realised that was impossible because I was completely out of your range by the time my attack actually reached you, so you switched from attack to defence, and in doing so you were too slow and took a clean hit, losing your chance to either attack or defend... But instead of capitalising on the moment I gave you whilst I was speaking to Rosa in an attempt to steady your footing, the moment both your feet touched the ground, you rushed into the attack, and when we clashed, you failed to take into account the difference in the range of our weapons and the fact that you were entering my range before I did; your sole focus was on closing in on me to strike me, Although I know Uncle Radmir has already taught you archery, you didn’t even think to use your bow and arrows throughout the fight, even though it’s your primary long-range weapon. You completely ignored my elemental attacks; you didn’t even bother to defend yourself against them, as if that might hurt your pride. Man, you really are something."

He said this with admiration or sarcasm—I’m not sure—but he repeated, like a parrot, exactly what side Character No. 1 used to say to me.

Yet I looked at him with growing frustration with every word he uttered, for I’m already well aware of all the shortcomings he’d mentioned,

but... as I’d shouted in protest at Uncle Radmir before...

for my body to instinctively assume a defensive stance, shouldn’t I first feel threatened? I mean, how do they expect me to use my instincts to defend against a non-threatening blow?

When receiving a blow, you essentially have several primary and secondary options.

As for the secondary options, these are not taught; rather, they arise from the Fighter’s personality, his combat preferences in terms of response methods, his psychological inclinations and his combat talent.

The basic stances, on the other hand, are taught; as for the basic defensive stances, these can be summarised in seven stances which form the core of defence

- Absolute defence

- Parrying to disrupt/break the attacker’s stance

- Parrying to launch a counter-attack

- Parrying to bypass the attacker

- Dodg

- Exploiting the attack against the attacker /Using the attacker’s own strength against them

- Counter-attack.

You have less than a fraction of a second to make a decision

And after I had failed repeatedly for a long time, Uncle Radmir made me watch duels between knights so that I could understand the difference between each stance and which one was appropriate for any given situation