Chapter Fifty - Ten Things

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Rosario took in a deep breath o f the air, truly filling her lungs to their maximum. It was... simple. At the same time, it felt good. There was a simple joy in being able to breathe deeply.

It most certainly helped that the environment they were in was enjoyable. The air was crisp and cool, coming in from the north over the distant mountains and carrying a faint scent of mud and grass and fallen leaves. 

“Ah, what a beautiful morning,” Cricket said. 

She was laying halfway out of her tent and staring up at Rosario with love in her eyes.

Rosario let out her breath. “Fool,” she said.

“That I am!” Cricket replied. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Hardtack,” Rosario replied.

That turned out to not quite be true. They still had some perishables, and had stolen a few things from the bandits as well. They ate, stretched, and complained about this and that, then they were off. 

Rosario gave Lucky a solid half hour of normal walking before she had her give her backpack to Cricket (with much winging) and walk with her arms outstretched to her sides. Each step was a lounge, trying to get as much distance as possible in a small burst of motion. 

“The idea,” Rosario explained. “Is to learn to activate the muscles in your legs to push your forwards rapidly. I’ve noticed that you’re rather fast.”

“I’m a horse girl,” Lucky said.

“And that makes you rapid?” Rosario asked.

Lucky nodded. “It does! We’re all pretty fast on our feet.”

“Good. Let’s take advantage of that, then,” Rosario said.

“Isn’t taking advantage of a natural talent bad?” Lucky asked between two lunges.

“No? Not necessarily. Why would you think that?”

“Well... I suppose it’s that a true swordsmaster should be able to fight and master the sword regardless, no? Shouldn’t the art transcend inborn talent? Or... something like that? And if that’s the case, natural talents, I suppose past a certain limit, are really just crutches, no?”

“Interesting,” Rosario said. “You’ve been working on your Wisdom?”

Lucky flushed, which had Rosario smiling.

“I think that you’re broadly correct. If you rely on only one natural talent, then you become a one-trick pony. Pun not intended.”

“Coward! Thou must always intent thine puns!”

She ignored Cricket. “I don’t think there’s any harm in using natural talent, however. The harm lies in using nothing but that talent. If all you have is the speed of your legs, then you’ll fail because you lack flexibility, or dexterity, or strength. I think that’s one of the reasons why monsters can be defeated with relative ease. They tend to naturally hyper-focus.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lucky said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome?” Rosario said. “You know, you don’t have to do what I say, or listen to me at all.”

“I know,” Lucky said. 

She continued to do lunges until noon came, and then she simply collapsed at about the spot where they decided to pause for lunch. 

Rosario grabbed Lucky and placed her closer, then started a small fire with a spell and some spare logs she had in her inventory.

“You must be so strong,” Lucky said.

“Hmm?” Rosario asked.

“To carry logs around. They’re heavy. No one with normal strength would do that. I knew someone once, who used to carry a big heavy axe in his inventory. An old [Lumberjack]. It was a way to show off.”

“I see,” Rosario said. “Well, it is what it is.”

Lucky snorted indelicately. “You’re a strange one, Swordmaster Thorn.”

“Just Rosario,” she said for not the first time. “And yes, I’m afraid that I might be a little strange.”

Lucky stared at her for a long time. “You’re not just a [Swordmaster] are you? And I don’t mean the levels in [Seamstress].”

Rosario felt a small smile sneaking onto her lips. “Quite observant.”

“It took a few days.”

“Still,” Rosario replied. “I’ll tell you what I am, if you want. It’s no great secret.”

Lucky nodded slowly, and despite how tired she was, she leaned forwards. 

“I’m a maid.”

“Huh?”

Cricket found this very funny, and eventually Rosario was pulled into laughing as well. The befuddled Lucky stared at them both, then shook her head and gave up. She got extra rations in apologies.

They took off later, and this time, to spare Lucky’s poor calf muscles, Rosario had her swinging her practice sword around.

“These aren’t kata. They’re very, very basic cuts. This one is left to right, at about shoulder height. Then from up left to down right, up right to down left, and this is a low jab, and this is a high stab. Four basic moves. Can you do them?”

Lucky did as she was show, swinging and stabbing through the basic motions. 

“Good. Now, at the end of each, return your sword to your side like... this. Yes, that’s right. It’s a neutral guard. You’ll learn more guarding positions later, and how to transition from each guard position to each standard cut and standard stab. You’ll find that some professional sparring is basically just a game of knowing which exact move counters each guard and vice-versa.”

“I understand, I think,” Lucky said.

Rosario watched her move through the motions a few times, then stopped her. 

“Did I do it wrong?” Lucky asked.

“No. Well... you lack some grace, and your returns are slow and sloppy, but you’re getting better. Once you’ve cycled through all four moves, switch hands.”

Rosario tossed her own sheathed sword from one hand to the other, then repeated the motions she was teaching Lucky.

“Are thy ambidextrous?” Cricket asked. She wiggled her own hands. “I always found the elfoid tendency to need one hand more than the other strange.”

“Are bug... kin like you, not right or left handed?” Rosario asked.

“No! We can please with both!”

Rosario sighed. “Knowing how to fight with both can be exceptionally useful... Hmm... let me tell you a story, of one of the greatest swordfights to ever occur, in this world or any other.”

Rosario allowed some magic to leak, and she found that both Lucky and Cricket were paying rapt attention as she described the scene. “And so, the Spaniard gave the Man in Black his word, and the Man in Black said that he had never seen its like.”

“What is a Spaniard?” Cricket asked.

“A man from Spain... a faraway place with legendary swordcrafters,” Rosario said before she cleared her throat and continued the story. Soon enough she was reenacting a fight between two sword masters, though... perhaps with some added flourishes since no one could stop her, and she was having a bit of fun without.

Of course, she kept the destruction aimed away from her friends, who continued to walk at a slow, even pace even as they watched her fight.

“Ah, but you see,” she said, mimicking the voice of one character. “I am not left handed!”

Lucky gasped, a hand over her mouth as Rosario pretend-fought a back and forth that was clearly one side. 

“There is something I ought to tell you,” she said in the voice of the Man in Black. “I am not left handed either.”

She concluded the scene with a few extra flourishes, concluding the back and forth and the scene as a whole before she bowed to her audience of two. Both of them clapped.

“Now, back to your forms,” Rosario said. “I... may have play acted the scene a little, but I hope you can see the ten lessons hidden within.”

“Ten? H... I’ll do what I can,” Lucky said.

Rosario wondered that Lucky would pick up from that.

They soon came across their first slug.

It was a massive creature, half again as tall as Rosario was, and covered in a fine layer of glistening scales. The slug was inching its way across an open plain, leaving a wide path of burnt grass behind it. 

A plain slug. The one they saw was an upper second tier, but they came in stronger forms. 

They were dangerous, but only to the entirely unaware or foolish. The slugs were quick to notice things and scoot towards them, but they moved at a pace that could be beaten by a geriatric person walking with determination. 

Rosario remembered people simply sprinting past the area they were in. The only thing in true danger were small buildings and things like carts that tended to get caught in the rocky, roadless terrain.

The slugs had interesting drops, but killing one gave so much of the semi-rare resource that they had, that they simply weren’t worth farming. And farming them wasn’t necessarily easy.

The slugs were tough. They had a ton of HP, in gaming terms, and decently high resistances. They were sponges for damage and their acidic blood made them tricky to fight up close. 

Rosario had her friends simply walk around them. Maybe they’d fight one later, with her assistance... a small one. It might be worth it to see if the experience of killing something so much stronger would be worth the effort, but she suspected that they couldn’t power level that way. 

But maybe it was worth trying anyway?

In any case, she was... happy, better than the day before. Hopefully that would hold for a bit.

***