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Pherousa gave me a strange look, but eventually took my hand, shaking it. “You’re kind of strange, aren’t you?” she mumbled. “Whatever. Lead the way. Not like I have much choice anyway.”
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No matter where you went, whether it was a small village or a large city, guilds almost always came with their own training grounds. And while they differed from guild to guild, they tended to take the form of a built-up arena for general use. Of course, if your particular branch of the guild had a tight budget, it wasn’t uncommon for a training ground to be little more than an empty lot marked off with a wooden fence.
The one in Lucaris, however, really spoke to the local guild’s relative affluence. Not only was it a proper stone building, it had also been magically treated to withstand spells of some potency. Without such facilities, you’d have to head out into the wild and find an open space to practice your spellwork. And with that, there was every chance of a monster stumbling across you and giving you a good deal more “practice” than you’d bargained for. Thankfully, it seemed that wasn’t a concern in Lucaris.
I surveyed the training ground. There were adventurers everywhere—from what I could tell at a glance, though, most were Bronze-classers or thereabouts. I didn’t see anyone stronger.
That was probably because of the whole thing with the demon lord’s minions hanging around. Silver-classers and above, who received more personal commissions and had better connections with the authorities, were more likely in the know, while the lower-ranked adventurers would find it more difficult to pick up general commissions even if they wanted to.
I spotted Capitan and Diego easily—their movements were a cut above everyone else’s. Good enough to be Silver-class, for sure. Pulling Pherousa along behind me, I approached, stopping at a distance.
“You aren’t going to call out to them?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “They’re still sparring. I don’t want to break their concentration.”
“Would that really be a big deal?”
“Well, I don’t think they’d care, but I’d still rather not. Besides, it doesn’t look like they’ll be that long. We can wait. Unless you have a problem with that, of course.”
I expected Pherousa to consider this a waste of time, since I figured she wanted me to let her go as soon as possible, but her answer surprised me.
“Not really. Watching’s fun. They’re both pretty good.”
“Huh. You can tell?” I recalled her deft movements when she’d pickpocketed me. They’d seemed quite practiced, but maybe it wasn’t just the agility of a thief. Maybe she’d trained in some martial art or other.
Pherousa nodded. “Most fish-folk learn how to use a spear, myself included. Some choose the sword, of course. That old guy, though... What’s he using?”
She had to be referring to Capitan. It was rather mean of her to call him “old guy” without an ounce of hesitation, but I couldn’t exactly say she was wrong.
“It’s a hunting knife,” I explained. “You don’t see many people use one, but it’s a decent weapon. Has a lot of uses outside of combat, as well. That ‘old guy’ is a hunter by trade, so he’s better with that than with a sword.”
A hunting knife was excellently suited for cutting through long grass and overhanging branches. It was durable enough that it could take some pretty rough handling too. It was inferior to a sword in sheer cutting power and functionality as a weapon, but you could compensate for that with skill. Capitan certainly did.
“Hunter?” Pherousa cocked her head. “Why’s a hunter doing the whole adventuring thing?”
That was a perfectly natural question to have. After all, most hunters didn’t go gallivanting away from their villages or towns to play at being an adventurer. Most were at least registered with the guild, but few actively accepted commissions on a regular basis. They had hunter duties to attend, and adventuring wasn’t exactly the kind of job that you could do in your spare time. Their earnings would generally be much better if they focused on one or the other, so there was little point in trying to do both at once.
That is, unless you were a special case like Capitan. He didn’t much care about his earnings to begin with—he was a hunter of Hathara because that was what suited him. The only reason he was even in Lucaris at all was because Gharb had asked him to pick up some materials. Once he found the sea spirit herbs, he’d return to his daily routine without a second thought.
Well, after I’d gotten him to train me, anyway.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “Oh—looks like Capitan’s seized the upper hand on Diego.”
Pherousa nodded. “So that beast-folk man with the black fur is called Diego? I wanna root for him, but yeah. He’s being pushed back.”
It made sense why she’d want to cheer for a fellow spear user. Myself, I was pulling for Capitan.
Unfortunately for the curse vendor, there was a significant gap in their technique. While Diego was fighting with what appeared to be only basic magical enhancement, Capitan had spirit, and it seemed his mastery over it was too much for Diego to handle.
And Capitan could do a lot more with spirit than just enhance himself physically.
“Huh?! You’re kidding!” Pherousa exclaimed. “That spear stab totally connected! How did it just bounce off the old guy?! Is his skin made of steel or something?!”
Diego had used some excellent footwork and taken advantage of his spear’s reach to land a precise blow on Capitan, but it had appeared to simply bounce off the old hunter’s skin. I knew better, though—with my eyes, I’d been able to see the spear’s tip with crystal clarity. It hadn’t bounced off Capitan’s skin, but the invisible layer of spirit coating it.
He’d shown me the technique before—it involved basically layering spirit across your body like armor. Still, seeing it again had done nothing to diminish its sheer absurdity.