Hiroshi stood in the training yard at dawn, alone except for the straw dummies lined against the far wall. The air was cold enough to see his breath, and his muscles protested the early hour after month of lying in bed.
He needed to get stronger. That was the only thought that mattered now.
The yard was empty because no one trained this early except the dedicated or the desperate. Hiroshi figured he qualified as both. He’d asked the priest yesterday where he were allowed to practice. The answer: anywhere the regular soldier weren’t using.
So. Dawn it was.
He started with stretches, working through the stiffness in his shoulders and legs. His body felt wrong still, like the healing magic had put him back together slightly off-center. Every movent required conscious thought, relearning coordination he used to take for granted.
After ten minutes of stretching, he picked up one of the practice swords racked along the wall. Wooden, weighted to approximate real steel, grip worn smooth by countless hands before his.
He took a basic stance. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, sword held in both hands at mid-guard. He’d seen enough of the other training to know the fundantals, even if he’d never been taught properly.
Swing.
The blade cut through air with a soft whistle. His form was terrible—he could feel it in the way his weight shifted wrong, how his shoulders tensed instead of staying loose. But he swung again anyway.
And again.
And again.
Ten swings. Twenty. Thirty. His arms started to burn.
He paused, breathing hard, and adjusted his grip. Tried to rember how Kenji had held his weapon. Relaxed but firm. Controlled but ready to move.
Hiroshi tried to replicate it. Swung again.
Better this ti.
Fifty swings. His shoulders scread in protest.
He kept going.
This was how it started, he knew. Not with so dramatic training montage or a master taking him under their wing. Just repetition. Hours of boring, painful repetition until his body rembered what his mind couldn’t quite grasp.
At a hundred swings, he stopped and set the sword down. His hands were shaking. Sweat soaked through his shirt despite the cold.
He walked to the well in the corner of the yard, drew water, drank deeply. The cold hurt his throat but cleared his head.
He picked up the sword again.
As he raised it, sothing flickered in his mind. A mory. The skeleton in the dungeon, the way it had moved when it attacked.
He’d moved without thinking, his body reacting before his mind caught up. Stepping aside when the blade ca down. Twisting away from a thrust that should have impaled him.
Hiroshi frowned, replaying the mory. There had been a mont–just before the skeleton’s sword would have connected–when his body had known which way to move.
He set his stance again and swung.
This ti, halfway through the motion, he rembered dodging the wraith’s claws. How he’d dropped low and rolled to the side, how his muscles had moved in a pattern he didn’t rember learning.
The practice swing completed, and he transitioned imdiately into a side step, mimicking the movent his body had made in the dungeon.
It felt right.
He did it again. Swing, step, recover. The motion was clumsy but familiar, like retracing steps through a half-rembered dream.
Again.
Again.
Sothing was building in the back of his mind. Not thoughts exactly, but understanding. Pieces connecting that he hadn’t realized were separate.
Hiroshi stopped mid-swing as heat flashed through his entire body.
The sensation was imdiate and overwhelming, like sothing dormant had suddenly awakened inside him. His vision blurred for half a second, and text appeared in his mind.
[ Experience threshold reached. Analyzing combat data...]
[Skill acquired: Dodge - Level 1]
Passive ability to instinctively evade incoming attacks. Reaction ti slightly enhanced when danger is detected.
Hiroshi staggered, nearly dropping the practice sword. His heart hamred against his ribs, and he had to sit down on the cold ground, breathing hard.
What the hell was that?
He’d gained skills from defeated enemies before, that was his unique ability. But this was different. He hadn’t defeated anything. He’d just been training, rembering, and sohow his system had... learned?
He pulled up his status ntally, the way he’d done a handful of tis before.
Skills:
- Dodge (Level 1)
One skill. That was it. Everything he’d absorbed from the dungeon monsters, gone. Never properly integrated. He didn’t know. The system didn’t explain itself.
But this–exactly the sa skill he had before– skill felt different.
Hiroshi stood slowly, testing his body. Everything felt the sa as before, but there was a new awareness settling into his muscles. Like his body was paying attention to threats in a way it hadn’t been monts ago.
He picked up the practice sword again and took his stance.
This ti when he swung, he noticed things he hadn’t before. The way his weight distribution affected his balance. How his grip influenced the blade’s trajectory. Small details that had been invisible now stood out clearly.
He worked through another set of swings, fifty this ti, focusing on correcting the problems he could now see. His form was still rough, but each repetition felt slightly more controlled than the last.
The sun climbed higher. Other people began filtering into the training yard, soldier in worn leather armor, Church soldiers running morning drills, a handful of young squires being shouted at by their instructor.
Hiroshi kept to his corner, ignored by everyone.
He transitioned from vertical swings to horizontal cuts, rembering how the skeleton had attacked from different angles. His body wanted to move in response, wanted to dodge imaginary strikes that weren’t coming.
He let it.
Step, pivot, recover. The movents were unpolished but purposeful. He was teaching his body the language of combat, one repetition at a ti.
An hour passed. Then two.
His arms felt like lead. His legs trembled with fatigue. Sweat drenched his clothes despite the morning cold, and his hands were developing angry red blisters where they gripped the wooden sword.
But sothing else was happening.
As he worked through the basic attack patterns, overhead strike, side slash, thrust, recover, his mind kept circling back to monts in the dungeon. Aria casting spells while he’d provided support. Kenji shouting commands. Marcus engaging with enemies head-on.
He’d watched them fight. Absorbed details without realizing it.
The Kenji stance before each engagent. The way he’d read enemy movents and positioned himself accordingly. Not just reacting, but anticipating. Fighting with awareness that extended beyond the imdiate threat.
Hiroshi stopped mid-swing as that sa heat flashed through him again.
[ Experience threshold reached. Analyzing combat data...]
[ Skill acquired: Fighter Instinct - Level 1]
Enhanced awareness of combat situations. Slight improvent in reading opponent intentions and tactical positioning.
He sat down hard, breathing raggedly. Twice in one morning. Two skills ford not from absorbing defeated enemies, but from understanding. From experience crystallizing into sothing his system recognized as growth.
This changed things.
If he could develop skills through training and understanding rather than only through his copying ability, then he wasn’t limited to whatever enemies he could defeat. He could actually build himself up from nothing, piece by piece.
Hiroshi rested for ten minutes, drinking more water, letting his racing heart slow down.
When he stood again, he picked up the practice sword with renewed focus.
He’d been swinging randomly, no real structure to his training. But Kenji had fought with technique. Proper form. Strikes that flowed into each other like a conversation rather than disconnected words.
Hiroshi tried to recreate what he’d seen. A downward cut transitioning into a horizontal slash, then pulling back into guard position. The movents were rough, poorly executed, but he could feel the logic behind them. How each position set up the next. How defense and offense weren’t separate states but parts of a continuous flow.
He worked through the pattern slowly. Strike, slash, guard. Strike, slash, guard.
Faster.
Strike, slash, guard.
Faster.
His muscles burned. His grip was slipping from sweat and developing blisters. But he kept going, because he could feel sothing building again. That sa heat gathering at the edges of his awareness.
He pushed harder. Fifty repetitions. A hundred. His form degraded as fatigue set in, but the pattern remained. Strike, slash, guard. The fundantal rhythm of swordplay, crude but present.
At repetition one hundred and forty-three, the heat exploded through him.
[ Experience threshold reached. Analyzing combat data...]
[ Skill acquired: Sword Mastery - Level 1]
Basic proficiency with sword-type weapons. Slight improvent in attack accuracy and weapon handling.
Hiroshi dropped to his knees, gasping. The practice sword fell from his numb fingers and clattered against the dirt.
His entire body shook with exhaustion. Every muscle scread. His vision swam at the edges, and he knew if he tried to stand right now he’d probably collapse.
But he’d done it.
He’d proven that growth was possible. That he could build strength through effort rather than just scavenging from defeated enemies.
Hiroshi sat in the dirt for a long ti, breathing hard, staring at his blistered hands.
Reviews
All reviews (0)