For a few monts, Vorn’s companion just stood there, staring at with absolute disbelief. Then when my gaze settled on him, a devilish grin spread across his face while a wide smile broke across mine.
"You must have gone nuts. So you can change your body size, goblin! So you managed to lose the rope? What are you going to do? Beat ?"
He said it with his hands spread wide, still grinning like a madman.
He was confident in himself, and that was expected, to be honest. After all, he was an Adept, which was still a full rank above .
But two Novice classes should balance the unfair scale, shouldn’t they?
’Not that I’m cocky or anything... wait, am I cocky?’
I turned the question over in my head while stretching my arms in the air, rolling my shoulders left and then right. Loosening up, like I had all the ti in the world.
anwhile he watched with a cold, suppressed laugh. I could see it, the surprise bubbling underneath that he was trying very hard to swallow.
I fixed my gaze on him with a small taunting smile and held the rope up, wrapping it around my hands.
"Beating you is a bit of an ambition. I’m going to rely run away... hopefully, I don’t mistakenly kill you in the process."
I paused and then added quickly.
"Oh and disclair, if that actually happens, I want you to understand that I’m deeply sorry. Even though I don’t like you, I wouldn’t wish you dead... you know."
’I think...’
He lunged at without warning. As he moved, two hand-sized hamrs appeared in his grip.
His speed was blinding. He had closed the distance before I could even follow the motion, and although so part of my vision caught a blur of movent, my body was far too slow to answer it.
All I knew was that a hamr swung from below and buried itself in my stomach.
The impact tore through my core and knocked every trace of air from my lungs. That one had barely landed, I had barely begun to reel, when the second hamr crashed down on my back and drove into the ground.
I fell face-first into the stony plain. Tasted grit and copper.
And the Adept laughed.
"I can’t believe for a mont, I felt wary. Wary? Wary of what? Wary of you? You fat goblin?"
I stayed on the ground for a mont and slowly started pushing myself up while he circled .
"You think the combat lessons Vorn taught you are going to help you here? Or the asly knowledge that you’re taught by people who were cuddled up by the system of preservation and safety will serve as a dependable manual to survive this wilderness?"
He chuckled this ti.
"Boy, how delusional you must be."
I wasn’t sure where he was standing, but I felt the air leave my lungs again as his hamr found my back. My body folded and smashed into the ground a second ti. Blood spilled from my mouth and pooled against the stone.
He straightened and spoke with open disgust.
"You’re nothing but weak mundane trash."
As he spoke, despite being face down in the dirt, I let out a small laugh. Like a giggle.
The giggle caused him to go silent. His expression straightened for a mont.
"What? You’re still conscious?" He sounded surprised but quickly washed it away with a laughter.
His voice ca again, more serious now.
"Seems like he at least taught you how to take a beating."
"It’s a Novice... Transcendent Novice."
His expression twisted with confusion as I slowly stood up and straightened.
He narrowed his eyes.
"I see, I must have gone easy on you unknowingly, not wanting to break my commodity."
His expression was still confused, though. Like the math wasn’t adding up.
I straightened fully and looked him in the eye, smiling. I pointed to his face.
"There... that expression on your face. Keep it there, it’s nice. I like it."
The confusion burned into fury and he exploded forward with the sa speed. But this ti I reacted.
I wasn’t trying to be fast. He was an Adept, I was a Novice. It would be foolish to contend with him on speed.
While a Novice usually had a starting attribute of forty, Adepts began at a hundred. A Novice’s ceiling at Transcendence was the floor of an Adept’s growth. The gap was built into the system itself.
Of course, being a Mundane first and then evolving to a Novice had blessed with the fifty points I carried now. That was not the norm.
But if anything, it brought a step closer to the Adept. Gave a sliver of a chance.
I shoved myself backward and bled into a backflip as he ca forward. His arm swung down on empty air, and as I landed, I lashed the rope forward.
We weren’t taught a single combat style in the academy. We were taught the basics of everything. Ropes were not part of what we’d learned, but a Kusarigama was, among many other things.
Now, I figured I just had to apply the sa logic as one would use to wield that weapon, except I had to imagine the Kusarigama in my hand was ten tis longer than usual. Which was a nightmare to wrap my head around.
But my sub-class ability didn’t just help see the information of anything I defined as a weapon. The knowledge was pumped directly into my head.
Where to move my hand. Where exactly to swing. I was seeing lines in front of my eyes, thin as thread, and they flowed.
The first ti, I lunged the rope forward and the thing whipped out, but I ignored the guiding line. Instead of throwing the rope diagonally upward where the line wanted to go, I sent it straight.
Why? Because I was simply a stubborn brat...
Besides, I needed to throw this guy off course as much as possible. If my own ability couldn’t predict what I was going to do, neither could he.
He dodged the rope and closed in on again. I shoved myself back, but he had calculated the retreat this ti and covered more distance, faster.
His hamr ca down directly on my face.
"..."
I didn’t have ti to say or do anything. But as it flew down, I watched the hamr slide across the side of my face as if it couldn’t detect what it was supposed to strike.
’It worked!’
As he missed, three long lines spread out from where I stood, wavering like threads pulled taut in the wind. One drove forward, vertically. Another stretched behind and curved over my head. And the third one cut diagonally to the left.
The diagonal line was red instead of white.
And I instinctively knew.
It was going to be a critical hit.
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