Gaining fighting experience by getting thrashed around like this , and what with the amused smile on his face, is he even buying this lame excuse of his , luckily he is going to heal me otherwise the pain would have been enough to finish me off a few times over .
I was also getting more resilient it was this or the pain was just too strong that was enough to numb my all my senses of pain completely as i felt that i was actually healing on my own but it was many times slower than when using the healing spell if my calculations were correct this amount of injury would take two to three days of rest before it was healed but with a healing spell, it doesn't take more than a few seconds .
I was also getting aware of a one fundamental thing that i unconsciously forgot and it was , that this world was a real world different than my old world but they were both real and filled with living beings,so it wasn't a video game even though it looked like one and if even the mechanism was somehow similar wearing an armor on my body didn't mean that my head and other weak points were being protected and i already forgot to always be cautious .
Just because i got a bit of increase in my strength and quite powerful equipment to support me , i forget that there are people out there that could trample me to death so it was really a wake up call of some sort .
With all that being said, why was his mood so foul , was it only because the words that Blade spoke or is it something else , now that i remembered didn't that Blade said that a MONSTERS RAID may be happening soon , i better for my own sake get as much stronger as i can before it happens .
What are you dilly-dallying for , you didn't lose your mind did you ? .
That grumpy old man will beat the hell out of me at this rate and why wasn't my sword 100 percent evasion working, wait my sword did i drop it when i was sent flying just now .
Oh, are you looking for this ?, he said while he was playing with my sword, consider whatjusthappened asanother lesson matter of fact consider them as two lessons that should always be in your mind if you encounter an enemy, always remember to not allow your enemy disarm you and always hold your weapon tighly since it maybe your only chance to turn things around , here take it , he throw the sword at me but i caught it easily and was even able to see a wound on his forefinger that was closing up , so my attack still hit even when i was sent back flying .
I held the sword and came with a prototype of a plan that could lead me to be able to counter his offense and could even be able to make a counterattack , i snapped a bit of cloth from my tattered sleeve and tied the sword with it to my wrist and i made sure that the Katana was intentionally still hanging a bit far from my hand as if taunting him , if this incredulous plan worked as it was intended to then no matter what the outcome will be, i'm content with seeing old man Regard stunned face .
Okay I'm ready, come again .
And here i thought that you learned the lesson and will tie it to your hand closely , what are you trying to do now?.
You will find out in a few seconds , and stop being a grumpy old man and attack already .
Stop being grumpy my butt, aren't you the one responsible for the sore mood that i'm having, alright then i will fix my grumpy mood by beating you up until you face become more blue than an imp butt, here i come .
Before i even ask about what he meant by that he disappeared and i cleared my mind from any thoughts other than the plan i had to take him down i held my sword in my hand tighly and it wasn't even a complete second when a red gleaming shadow appeared behind me and was going to deliver a blow towards my back .
I again sidestepped weirdly as if what i did was the most normal thing to do in the whole world and then dropped the sword which was still in my hand and it swinged backward and as it was coming forward i held itwith both of my hands and aimed for the arm he stretch out to deal his blow i was able to get my whole body leaning while passing by his outstretched hand and moved the blade in my hands forward in a cleaving motion and at the moment of impact i saw the frown on Regard change into that of a smile before one of his arms began to fly .
I was talking long breathes and even dropped my katana and looked at him with a smile of my own but then my victorious smile seeing his shocked face turned into a frown as i began to hear Regard voice from behind me saying while clapping : I'm applauding for the bold plan you came up with as you were even able to injured a clone with 50% of my strength and was using battle Aura too .
He should be in front of me then who, as i looked back i saw the clone of Regard dissipating with its severed arm which was also dissipating so a clone huh , i seem to be adapting more and more to this world as even a strange ability like that was interesting at most to my eyes now .
You really did well but why didn't you go for the head directly ? .
It's just a friendly sparring, isn't it ? .
I hope that's your only reason cause if you did so just because your conscience won't let you or because you can't able to kill an enemy, then their is no saving you on the battlefield where an act of sympathy or showing any sign of hesitation could lead you straight to your death, and as you will be able to see it for yourself , in the raid most of the monsters are actually humans .
I tried to ask how but all i got was a punch that sent me flying towards the same spot i was in before and him laughing menacingly while saying : and my most important lesson to you, never trust an enemy, even if he came back as a friend .
I just sat there and stared at him for quite a while before he began to awkwardly coughing saying that our training isn't finished yet and that i should get up but i kept staring at him and didn't comply with what he said after a few more minutes staring at him intently, i finally decided to break the silence as i said : If this isn't being grumpy then what was , i began to know why Liliana cursed you this morning clearly now .
Shut up, she was just joking, probably .
Whatever you said that i was the reason for why you are like this, care to explain how ?.
Memory alteration tends to remove some unwanted memories and open new gaps in the memory timeline itself and then fill these gaps with what the one having his memories being altered but the brain and especially in those who are strong tends to not forgot about anything that easily, that is why we will try to at least seal those memories away but as i said before that by doing this i'm creating a gaps in my memories timeline which could heal by itself in two or three days normally and with some strong drinks almost instantly .
Oh, I'm sorry for making you go through all that, but couldn't you get those drinks and heal your mood completely ,i can give you some silver coins if you need them , i said while having some doubts about what he told me,if i wasn't aware that he really did say yesterday that he was going to a friend of his to remove any memories about my skills and equipments , I would have thought that he just wanted an excuse to get drunk .
His smile vanished and instead his frown returned and deepened even more then he sighed and said : you are a kind kid , i appreciate the sentiment but sadly the drinks that i'm taking about here is worth 4 to 5 gold coins and no need to hide from you, the inn wasn't doing well in these last days just like that notorious Blade said if it was doing well, he won't have had the chance to book a room here , and now that a raid is coming the situation will only worsened from now on since Adventurers will have better options than to stay in this shappy inn .
Are you talking about them deciding to stay in a better inn or what exactly are you implying, i don't follow .
I told you before about the toll needed to exempt you from going to the battlefield , so what happens if someone decided to pay on your behalf while giving you a place to live and may even give you a daily salary, would you be able to say no to such an extravagant offer .
Look i only have been here for a few days and i can already tell that there's no free lunch in this world, and you just said that it is an offer so it must have some obligations that both parties have to comply to , am i wrong , and how was this related to the raids and the condition of the inn .
Regard looked at me up and down for a second or two then he smiled and began saying : you aren't wrong about the existence of some obligations that both parties have to comply to but that works only when both parties are in an equal contract but if one of the two parties were to be stronger than the other, the latter would have only one choice and that is to agree to whatever conditions the stronger party had and whatever obligations he decided for the Adventurer to do, do you know of any particular party that could act so domineering and without much scruples in the capital ? .
I know exactly who was he taking about so i said : The Nobles .
Exactly.
But why would the nobles go to the battlefield in the first place, can't they just pay the toll ?.
Some of them go to the battlefield because they are forced to by the order of king as some sort of punishment, and some go because they want to gloat over the other forced nobles misfortune , and some are there to entrain their direct descendents or to increase the strength of their own guards, and most of them go for honer and to be able to gain the king recognition of their contributions and acts of bravery .
As for how exactly does that affect the inns owners , you see all of this have connection to the raid, the nobles won't go to the battlefield unprotected and won't sacrifice their own guards who are loyal to them to act as meat shields for them and their descendents so they would start to recruit lower ranking Adventurers for that sole purpose and they offer them wealth, place to live, and if they were capable of catching the nobles eyes they might be offered to join in their ranks ,
And in those lower ranking Adventurers mind , who was in his sane mind to reject such an offer, not knowing that by them doing this,they were actually throwing their lives away ,as most of the nobles who would make such offers, will mostly have no obligation to help those lower ranking Adventurers even if they were able to , and not allowing the other higher ranking Adventurers that were also being recruited to do anything to help the lower ranking,so their fate was to be either killed or coming back alive but empty handed and believe me here in Trond this was a fate worse than death .
Those are most of the people who book rooms in inns but with them being recruited by the nobles, the business will be bad for at least a few months after the raid as even those who survives,do so at great cost most of the money they got from the nobles who recruited them would be spent on healing potions, or going to a healer to fix them up see how it was all connected now .
So just so they can keep their facade, they would be willing to forsake the life of those who were sacrificing themselves for their sake , was there really no end to this vicious cycle ?.
Regard then sighed heavily and said : It's just how the world works, your birth in a wealthy noble house will make your life a lot easier than others and the complete opposite if you were to be born into a normal family or even an orphan, but thanks to the leveling system we have, another factor was now having quite an impact on the hierarchy of authority in the kingdom and that is Strength , if you are strong enough, you can even rule the whole world, i just hope for the sake of the normal people that this raid don't do much damage to their living state as their lives are already more than enough miserable, but for now let's just continue our sparring session .
He gave me no chance to reply before he began to attack me from all sides,he was moving so fast that i was beginning to feel that i'm fighting two of him and this might be true since i was now aware that he can use a cloning skill, i was able to evade most of his attacks when a magic circle began to appear in his hand as he pointed towards the ground under me , and it crumbled directly leaving my guard now opened and incapable of even dodging he then used my situation to fire some ice shards at me but my armor was more than capable of withstanding those magical attack of his he again used a wind spell that sent me flying , so Regard had 3 elemental affinities who is really that old man was, back to fighting he then unleashed a flurry of attacks at my weak points and unprotected face but i kept moving my body strangely in the air so that i can parry those attacks of his with the armor while also trying to counter his attacks from time to time using the same strategy as before which at least was able to give me a few minutes to catch my breath .
We spent 3 hours like this and i won't lie i really felt as if i was getting more skilled at fighting as i was even able to move almost the same moment he tried to use any spells and was able to perfectly evade it or tanked those magical attacks of his by taking advantage of my armor, we were going to continue but my stamina was now almost depleted and i was so hungry too .
So we stopped our sparring session and he told me of how did i do : well, with this much strength i have no doubt that you can go head to head against rank A adventures but you will have to get a lot stronger if you were trying to survive the next Monsters raid .
I thanked him and remembered that i wanted to ask him about the permit that Tina gave me yesterday .
The permit is for you or your party to be capable of using the teleportation circle outside of the city to teleport you directly to one of the safe zones that was fully occupied by humans Adventurers otherwise if you want to reach it by going through the forest itself, it will be quite the hurdle and yeah try to visit the capital's library before you head to the Wicked Forest, more knowledge about the monsters living there would only benefit you , and always remember to not lose or trust anyone with that permit in your hands if you lost it you will have to pay a fine of 1 gold coin and that if you were able to come back without using the teleportation circle on the other side in the first place .
Ohh, another fine how generous of the king , i nodded at his words and he asked where i would be going and i told him that i will be strolling around in the capital while searching for some new clothes to wear and he gave me quite recommendations of a places that will satisfy my needs and even gave me a pouch of coins and departed without giving me any chance to say anything, another dept of gratitude that i will certainly have to repay some day .
My wealth is up by another 10 coins so my current purchase power is 29 silver coin , i hope that i can find some good quality clothes with this much money .
As i was engrossed in my thoughts and a few minutes later after Regard departure a voice rang into my mind suddenly saying :
Confirmation : The individual Sakurai Ryuu was able to meet the two passive skills ( Pain Resilience) and ( Physical Fortitude ) Requirements and was able to successfully learn them .
I was shocked for a few seconds, did i get those two skills just now because the beati, the training session with Regard awesome let's see what is there effects .
Appraisal :
( Pain Resilience ) : Reduces the perceived pain from injuries by 100%,
( Physical Fortitude ) : Reduces damage taken from all physical attacks by 100 % .
It was worth it, it was worth every thing that i have been through just now, was fully worth it, with these kind of effects aren't i'm invulnerable to any physical attacks from now on , i need to calm down as i have realized earlier , it is good to be confident but not to the point of arrogance .
I was still happy about learning those two skills as i greated Liliana with a beaming smile which she replied to me with one of her own before i bid her farewell and went out , right i probably should check my status window too , i was about to use Appraisal when a rogue voice came from in front me yelling in my direction it was one of the city guards telling me to stop .
I stopped since i want to know what was this about he then came to me and asked for my ID which i showed it him then his whole demander change as he said with politely with a smile : Dearsir, could i ask you for your corporation in an investigation that we are currently doing ? .
I replied positively just because he was polite and he already saw my ID so their no escaping this now : Oh, sure ask away ?.
Did you happen to see the heroes procession that took place yesterday ? .
Yes, i was in the crowd like every one else , why is there a problem ? .
No, of course not, you will have to come with me to answer a few questions and you will be good to go, i'm sorry for the inconvenience .
Is that so lead the way then .
We kept turning between the alleys until we arrived at a secluded area when the guard leading the way suddenly vanished from my sight
A shadow appeared on the air from above me it was the same guard but was now holding a dagger and he was currently having a menacing smile on his face and was saying :
In your next life try to be more careful about who you are messing with, die .