Chapter 33 Odd One Out

The emerging talents. People who are chosen from newly recruited personnel or not fully experienced soldiers who are believed to have a natural potential for combat. They are offered a severe schedule of training and instruction on fighting skills.

On that afternoon Josiah was arriving in the middle of the daily paired practice.

He was in a large room, together with the other faces, waiting for the instructor to arrive.

A few faces inside there were familiar.

The teenage boy several years older than him he saw whispering at his back when he first arrived the army was one of them. But his friend wasn’t there.

That boy who smiled when Koda scolded him in the room was also there.

All in all, it seemed none of the faces there were very friendly toward him. And that’s probably because of his age.

Not many eight-years-olds make it to the selected group in one day just like that. In fact, the teenage boy around his thirteens seemed to be the second youngest. Apart from that, there was also a very tall child who looked like he had a baby face, but he was so tall he’d be mistaken for an adult at any time.

‘I guess I’m the odd one out. People are going to treat me as a baby here…’ Josiah let out a sigh.

“What you sighing at, babyface?” The youth who laughed at him in the bunkbeds approached asking. “Think you’re better than us?”

‘Oh, geez. This guy must think the world revolves around him or something…’ Josiah considered as he tried to come up with an answer. In the end, he didn’t answer anything because the guy just seemed to be looking for trouble anyway.

He was using an army uniform. The uniforms had those metal plaques engraved with the owner’s name. Josiah read the name of the annoying guy: soldier Reeve.

“What’s up? Cat’s got your tongue? Get your sword. Let’s spar.”

“Hum.”

Josiah didn’t have any excuse. He did need a sparring partner anyway, and he knew nobody there.

“You! Get in pairs and start the training. In the first quarter, we are going to allow bloodbound weapons. The one without any pairs can spare with me.” The instructor crashed in the door already ordering. The voice was familiar.

Josiah looked back. It was sergeant Koda again.

‘What? Wasn’t this guy responsible for the other team…? Who’s in charge of them now? It seems the worst people keep following me around.’ He thought.

Sergeant Koda directed at him on a lower tone, after the other people in the room began arranging themselves in pairs:

“You… You were already wielding your big friend before I came heh? Can’t you spend a minute without holding it? Next time, wait for the order.”

Obviously, Josiah ended up paired with Reeve. He was carrying a knife. Not so small a knife to be called that, more like a knife-shaped short sword. But it was still shorter than Josiah’s weapon.

The signal sounded and the pairs started sparring. Josiah watched Reeve’s confident face as he waited for him to make the first movement.

‘He’s waiting for me so that he can counter… Which means he’s probably agile. I should go for a feint, like I did early today.’

Josiah’s plan was perfect: on the first trade, he anticipated Reeve’s trajectory and redirected his swing, striking right in the middle of Reeve’s body.

But he was the one who felt the pain instead.

Josiah’s body was thrown back with force after he hit Reeve. He felt like something pierced his own stomach.

“Ouch!”

Josiah heard laughter.

He looked around and some of the other men were giggling and commenting about them.

“There he goes with his knife again. Reeve is merciless.” Was one of the comments he heard.

‘Focus.’ Josiah recomposed himself. ‘People are saying about this guy’s knife. Sgt Koda did say we are allowed to use bloodbound powers. Which means the hit I got is doing of this guy’s weapon.’

He paid attention to the knife’s level. Reeve’s thumb was partially hiding the number.

‘That’s a 9? Or maybe 19…?’

“Which level are you?” Reeve asked.

‘That’s right. This is training after all. We can just ask!’

“Sixteen.” He answered.

“Good. This means my attacks are going to be strong.”

Reeve was the one who started the next trade. His speed was admirable, but nothing like Thomas’ speed. Accustomed to dodging those kinds of straights, Josiah avoided the attack and struck back, this time aiming for Reeve’s arm.

‘If I can hit his arm and make him drop the knife…’

But after he hit the youth’s arm, Josiah was the one who felt pain in his arm instead.

He almost dropped his sword. He had to lower it down and back off before he got finished while he recomposed his stance.

‘I see what’s going on. Looks like I’m the one who receives the pain of my own attacks whenever he’s the one holding that knife… He made the whole trick pretty obvious. Now the question is… How do I deal with that?’

Josiah had been very dependent on his weapons as of late, but he hadn’t forgotten everything Thomas taught him back when he only had a low level sword to work with. The teachings about bare-handed fighting.

Even in pain, Josiah didn’t wait much time to strike. He charged right at Reeve, with a somewhat obvious but fast swing.

Reeve didn’t seem to mind the attack very much, he parried it easily with his knife, with a smirk on his face.

‘Right, he fell for it…’ Josiah thought.

Josiah had set up a trap. He anticipated Reeve would feel it’d be too obvious to take the hit since Josiah now knew the damage he received was redirected at him. So he knew Reeve would think the next direct swing would be a trap and would parry it instead. Josiah did this pretending he’d just pretend to swing and pull out another weapon to strike with, and he even faked the motion with his free arm while he was swinging.

But instead of pulling the ax or the dagger from his back, he jumped to Reeve and revolved him with his arms while still on the air, finalizing in some kind of arm wrench.

He then spun his body ending in the back of Reeve, grabbing him from behind.

“Let it go, you…” Reeve said as he tried to free himself.

Josiah hit the back of Reeve’s legs with his knees. They were the knees of an eight-year-old, but he was still wearing the leggings, which were pointy on the knees.

Reeve felt that one and his body slid down.

“You…!”

‘As I expected, only bloodbound attacks are affected by the blood power of his weapon. Something on his blood must resonate with the nerves when it feels threatened by the power of a natural bloodbound weapon. But since it is heavily based on the properties of the blood and the weapons, it shouldn’t do anything to regular damage by other types of contact.’ Josiah analyzed.

The next minute Josiah was trying to make Reeve stop from behind and Reeve was angrily shouting at him to let go. The whole thing stopped being mere sparring in a very crude manner.

“Let me go, I’m gonna show you a lesson, you little baby t*tsucker!” Reeve shouted while still trying to free himself from Josiah’s arms.

Josiah, on the other hand, couldn’t find anything to do against him because he was putting all his efforts into grabbing the big boy. The sparring partners in the room were beginning to diverge their attention to the two.

“You two! Stop it! Now!” Sergeant Koda ordered.

“But he…” Josiah wanted to complain.

“NOW!”

Josiah let Reeve go. But since Koda was watching, the rival couldn’t do anything to Josiah as he said he would. Instead, Reeve kept staring at Josiah with a frown.

Koda put an end on that fight with a familiar phrase:

“You two… You are in charge of cleaning the room tonight..”