Chapter 113: Much to Learn

The grove at night, with the starry fires of the refugee camp reflected in the distance, and the ebb and flow of conversation.

Grid looked up at a moon that was clearly visible between the canopy of trees and said, “Let’s do it here, the moonlight still shines through, everywhere else is pitch black.”

Jace nodded, taking off his cloak and setting it carefully aside, leaving him with just a small shirt that was still a little chilly in the wind.

“Don’t want to part with that king’s new coat?” Grider asked.

Hearing this, Jace glanced at Grider, wondering if he was just playing a trick here or if he was really asking that in a literal sense.

Did Azeroth have the famous story of the King’s New Clothes? He found himself somewhat starting to confuse the tropes of the two worlds after living here for almost 20 years.

“Of course I don’t want to part with it.” He picked up the wooden sword that was resting on the trunk of the tree and said, “It costs dozens of silvers to fix it once it’s broken, so it’s a straight dump.”

Grid grinned a hefty grin and said, “Then we’ll come here every day after that to practice swordplay, and slowly train you to become a master swordsman, so the little characters here won’t be able to touch you, and then you won’t have to worry about your clothes getting ruined. See, there are so many benefits of practicing sword, you can even save money.”

“There are people out there, and there are lesser characters here who can’t touch them.” Jace said, “But of course there are plenty of benefits to practicing with a sword, just tossing around mage stuff is tiring enough for one day, plus some messy crap, it’s easier to get out and move around with you.”

Grid nodded and said, “Me too, Jace.”

The dwarf also picked up his sword and said, “We two haven’t seen each other for so long, let’s have a real fight first to see if you’ve regressed.”

With that said, he picked up the sword a little bit with both hands and aimed the tip at Jace.

His still somewhat playful demeanor cooled a bit as Jace looked at him, the dwarf still having a rather frightening intimidating presence despite his wooden sword.

Those were the eyes of a man who had killed who knows how many enemies.

Jace subconsciously avoided the sight for a moment, shaking his shoulders and holding his wooden sword steady in both hands in readiness.

Grider said, “Come on, attack!”

Remembering the techniques Grid had taught, Jace held his sword steady against the enemy and moved a little closer. The opponent didn’t back off or adjust his posture, just stared right this way.

He suddenly raised his sword in an arrow step up to a smooth downward slash, which the dwarf easily deflected away with a twist of the sword with his wrist.

This one deflection didn’t disrupt Jace’s rhythm, and he backhanded another quick parry …… not expecting Grid to be faster, his sword thrusting forward over and wrapping around Jace’s sword a few times in its path of travel, surprisingly dissipating this quick parry while continuing forward with strength, coming straight for Jace’s waist!

Jace hastily swung his sword to block as he stepped back, clanking between messes as the tip of the Dwarf’s sword had smashed into his hand along his blade and guard.

It was a series of phasing blows, but only for two or three seconds.

“Hiss ……”

Jace grinned and switched his sword to a different hand, gripping his smashed and raw right hand slightly.

If this was a real battle, his own hand would probably be ruined. He had thought his movements were fast and furious enough, but the threat was limited in front of the dwarf.

Grid didn’t take advantage of the situation, he gathered his movements, the expression on his face didn’t change in the slightest, and he didn’t say anything.

Jace took two steps back, pondering how to break through his opponent’s defenses, and the confident, even vaguely scornful look in the Dwarf’s eyes always made it impossible for him to concentrate on tactics.

Truth be told, the bloodbath with that naga had boosted his confidence in close combat, giving him little to no fear when facing thugs like Erlend.

But all the confidence that had been boosted in the meantime was killed quite a bit by the look in Grid’s eyes in this moment.

The weirdest thing was that the dwarf didn’t say a word, not a single word, just remained silent, staring, making his image farther and farther away from the habitual drinker and meat-eater Griddled that Jace was familiar with, and more and more like a completely alien barbarian hammer dwarf.

In the end, he was no longer a Gred, but a true elite of the Eagle’s Nest Mountains, a meat grinder who had once slugged it out in Amani’s military formations, an aerial grim reaper who rode a griffin amongst the pine forests of Cintron and put trolls and orcs on the scent.

It only hurts one eye.

Jace did his best to dismiss these increasingly fugitive thoughts, focusing himself on the sword as best he could.

Stay calm, stay patient, stay focused.

He told himself that as he adjusted the tip of his sword for his next attack.

Jace approached step by step, and when he was almost in attacking distance, his muscles tensed again in preparation for the jab, this time he was going to make Grider pivot and fall back in a lumbering fashion, and then he was going to take advantage of the situation by jabbing his opponent in the arm ……

But he didn’t want Grid to give a fierce gulp without warning, Jace’s rhythm was instantly disrupted, not only was the stab not strong enough or fast enough, but even the pace of his feet was messed up with it, Grid easily side-stepped the messy stab and kicked Jace in the waist to knock him to the ground.

Grider laughed out loud and said, “Stand up and do it again.”

Jace spat the dirt and weeds out of his mouth, stretched, and looked at Griddle again after he stood still.

Is this some kind of frustrated roar?

In the process of climbing to his feet, though, he had already come up with another strategy.

Attacking while blinding his remaining eye with a light spell and then charging straight through to see if he could think. Jace rushed forward with a padded step, raising his sword with one hand from a still long distance, and Grid glanced at the tip of his sword, then at his arm, and saw the expression on his face change a bit.

“Ljosa!”

A sudden burst of light was released from the palm of Jace’s wide-open left hand, yet under the darkness of the night the light shone not only across the room, but on himself as well.

His eyes went white, and he could only gauge where Grid was almost in position to swing his sword down hard, but it swung wide at once.

The light spell disappeared and Jace felt a strange force behind him himself and flew forward, falling back down to scrape some distance in the mud.

Before I could get up, my back and ass hurt.

“Trying to use these little tricks against me, huh?” Grid smiled, “Honestly though, you’ve made a lot of progress Jace, it’s only been about a month since we started practicing with swords, half a month tops, and I think you’re better than the vast majority of people I’ve seen slashing at people with swords in Stormwind. After all, your offense is a real threat, and I have to take it seriously, there’s no way I can relax as much as I did in the beginning.”

“So don’t get frustrated.” He said as he pulled Jace to his feet, “After all, you’re dealing with a master!”

Jace wiped his mouth and asked, “How did you guess I was going to use magic?”

Grid patted his stomach and said, “Ha! Compared to those elf mages and trolls, you’ve literally got ‘I’m going to use magic’ written on your brain. Do you think I was joking with you when I told you I had a lot of experience in dealing with mages back in Red Ridge Mountain?”

“Then again, if you’re planning to use your fear spells against me, I might not really have much to offer, Jace Sesso. But well, since we’re using practice swords, we shouldn’t use those overly destructive magics against me, after all, our purpose is to improve our skills, not to finish each other off, don’t you think?”

“I wasn’t going to use it.”

Jace patted the dried blades of grass on his body, thinking of the naga he had killed that day on the shores of the Wild West, and thinking that it was kind of a shame that Grid hadn’t seen it.

Now that I think about it, Grid probably didn’t know how many monsters more powerful than that little banshee he’d taken down, and if he’d been on the beach at that point, the banshee probably wouldn’t have even been able to pronounce the first weakness curse before he’d smacked her brains out.

You still have a long way to go in practicing the sword yourself.