Chapter 37 First Phase

“They all left. It’s just us now.” Wall said blankly.

“The other guy who’s supposed to monitor us is also very well hidden...” Josiah added.

Most of the soldiers under test didn’t begin moving at the spot; they had to take time to digest the situation first. It wasn’t clear how they were supposed to descend.

“See that water all the way over there, filling the entire bottom area? It’s sparkling. Looks cool right?”

“I bet it’s highly toxic.”

“You bet…”

“…”

“Well…” Watt looked around. “Staying here won’t amount to anything. I think I’m going to go and find some way out, good luck, Josiah.” He left Josiah alone behind, following one of the downward spiral trails of the mount they were in.

‘I should probably do the same,’ he thought.

‘It shouldn’t be hard to climb down those mountains to approach the bottom. The problem is that the further down, the more I’m exposed to whatever mineral Watt said that was. I should probably strive to find the end which is closer to another end of the closest mountain and try to find a way to cross.’

As he was sufficiently separated, Josiah saw a bird-thing walking on four feet. It seemed like a mashup of quadruped and a huge bird. It opened its mouth on a quacking sound, and then Josiah could see teeth under the thing’s beak.

‘I feel some reaction. This must be one of those creatures which could drop a weapon.’ Josiah drew his dagger out.

‘The dagger should be better. Its attack isn’t obvious for wildlife.’

The walking beaked creature ran very sloppily toward Josiah like it was stumbling on its own feet. It shrieked while doing so. When it was close enough, Josiah tried striking with the dagger from the distance, like he was accustomed to.

The hit struck the thing, but it didn’t feel any staggering.

“What!?”

That took Josiah by surprise, he had to roll down the path to dodge the thing before it reached him.

‘Damn it! Why isn’t my dagger working? Is it my blood flow? No… I don’t feel anything different…’

Josiah transformed his fall into a rolling motion to get up like he was taught.

The thing slowly changed its direction and began aiming at him again.

‘No… It must be this thing. If the effects of my dagger is indeed a short-term poison, creatures living in the Vulture Cliffs shouldn’t be affected by it, since they live exposed to that thing anyway.’

The thing ran far faster when it was going downhill like it had evolved to climb down and not up.

‘I’m not going to have time to draw my sword before it reaches me… Should I dodge…?’ The thought crossed his mind in the brief interval in which the creature moved from up to him.

He waited until the thing got close enough and swung his body as he was trying to jump to the side, toward the wall, trying to make the creature pass right through him down the path, but the animal felt it and changed its direction only a bit in order to match the change of location.

As the creature was moving its back feet to change the direction, Josiah swung his arm with all his might. The arm got in the creatures’ mouth, or better, beak, and tossed it all the way to the cliffside.

“Get out my way you cursed thing! Think I don’t have the strength to fight bare-handed?”

Josiah rose up and finally managed to draw his sword out and turned to the animal.

It got almost tossed out. It was trying desperately to hang onto the cliff, helping itself with its many legs.

“Using the rapier to build strength for the arm really does work after all… I’m liking this usage of the thing.” Josiah thought.

He approached the beast, which glanced at him and then jumped to the path and climbed it down, running away.

‘Turns out the things here are more bark than bite. Now… Where was I again? I think this is very far from where the truck let us. I should start trying to cross instead of walking more and more down…’

Josiah heard clapping noises behind him. There was time for three or four very spaced loud ironic claps before Josiah turned himself around to see who was.

“My congratulations. You beat the beast.”

“Reeve…”

“What’s with the disappointed voice? You have something against me?”

“I don’t…”

“You better do.”

Reeve drew his knife and assumed a fighting stance.

“This time there’s no Sargeant Koda here to stop us. And if someone sees us fighting they won’t interrupt either. I have been waiting for this.”

“You’ve had that in mind ever since I beat you up fair and square the other day? Now that’s someone who can’t accept a loss.”

“Shut up!”

‘It’s very important to make your opponent hot-headed early in a blood fight.’ Josiah smirked.

Reeve advance to him fast and decisive. This time he wasn’t playing around. Josiah had to concentrate to dodge the violent hits.

‘His arms are very long. Even if the swings waste a lot of movement by being too wide I still have to focus. Plus… It’s not easy to strike back. I still remember the power of that knife of his. I need to figure out a way to at least disarm him before I can rely on my blood powers.’

Reeve kept waving the knife to him, but all Josiah could do is defend himself, waiting for an opportunity.

After he got accustomed to Reeve’s speed, he was parrying his attacks almost automatically. Then Reeve came up with a dirty trick.

He pretended to swing just like he was doing, causing Josiah to parry by swinging his arm against him, but it was actually a feint. In the end, Josiah’s sword arm actually bruised Reeve on the face. Naturally, Reeve’s blood power manifested right away.

“Argh!” Josiah felt the pain on his own face. Reeve had forced him to hit him.

“Haha! Dumbass!”

As Josiah was feeling the pain of the bruise, Reeve now swung fiercely and endlessly. There was no time to rest.

‘Damn it! He can both hit me or let himself get hit. I’m the one feeling the pain anyway.’

Josiah resorted to parrying less stylish like he didn’t mean any harm so that he could retrieve his arm in time in case Reeve came up with other of those feints.

“Idiot! Think that’ll work?” Reeve shouted.

He began changing drastically the speed of his attacks, intermediating between slow and fast. Josiah couldn’t parry the fast ones with that half-assed swings of his.

‘Damn it. I need to think of something fast.’

Josiah remembered one day he was training with Thomas before his sword started leveling up. He was five or six. He was being taught the bare-handed basics.

“I call this the roll forward jump.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“It’s exactly as the name says. You jump forward while you are rolling. IF you see yourself rolling on the floor for any cause, you can stop the motion and jump forward, or to the side, to confuse the opponent. It’s something hard for an adult to do, but as a child, your body is far more malleable. You are going to need to work on your knees strength for that one.”

“Sounds like something I’ll never use in my life. Confusing the opponent by changing direction? The enemy can just follow me after haha!”

‘I remember that old man making me waste an entire month on that motion which was seemingly useless… Just because my weapons weren’t good enough.’ Josiah thought.

He was still amidst a storm of Reeve’s strikes.

‘Roll down for some reason, heh? I could be the reason. There’s no reason not to back down and roll right now.’

Josiah started an acrobatic tumble roll, disguising it as means of getting out of the storm. He purposely rolled toward the edge of the cliff. Reeve saw a chance:

“Idiot! You’re dead!”

Reeve went in for a kick with his iron leggings straight in, without waiting. Had he kicked Josiah while he was rolling he’d have rolled down all the way to the water at the bottom.

But Josiah used the roll forward jump and changed his direction right before the kick, causing Reeve to approach the cliff instead.

“Cr*p!”

Reeve was going for the kick too enthusiastically and couldn’t control his speed. He stumbled on the dirt and his body began falling down.

‘Damn it!’ Josiah thought. ‘He’s gonna fall!’

Josiah rushed to try and get his arm before he slid all the way down.

As he grabbed his arm he felt his body being pushed down by the wight of Reeve’s body.

“Uuurgh!” Josiah had to make too much force to hold him single-handedly.

‘This guy’s heavy… I might not be able to pull him in.’