EFate: An MMO Story

Structurally, the sword practice was fairly similar to the exercise Eric had done under the instruction of Firin back on Cloudview Island. Drilling them in basic sword movements and techniques. However, this was where the similarities ended. Unlike Firin, Zwei was a much kinder teacher. Disregarding the loud, brash, military-style yelling that Firin had been fond of, Zwei preferred to move amongst them, quietly helping and correcting their movements and form.

Overhead strike, diagonal slash, horizontal slash, pommel bash, straight thrust, Zwei demonstrated movement after movement for the group to copy. After demonstrating each movement a few times, he would then spend the next ten minutes helping them to correct their swings before moving on to the next movement.

In particular, Zwei focused upon Eric for his corrections, endlessly fixing the mistakes in Eric's swings.

"Raise your sword higher, your arms should be fully extended!"

Swing.

"Keep your pinky and ring fingers on the hilt, relax the rest of your grip! Use your other fingers to grip the sword even tighter as it falls!"

Swing.

Don't look at your sword, look at your target! You have full control over your blade, your target's the one you need to watch."

Swing.

"Sloppy! Just like in the battle of Lichfrost. You rely too much on your magic to make up for the flaws in your swordsmanship. That works against weaker opponents, but anyone good will exploit it. I don't care if you plan to be a magic swordsman, a magician who uses a sword, or a sword who uses magic. If you're going to use a sword, you're going to do it properly!"

Stumbling slightly at Zwei's strange turn of phrase, Eric caught himself and swung once more, earning a nod of approval from Zwei.

"Good. On the battlefield, the opponent won't care if you're confused, they'll attack any openings they can find. So you need to ensure you won't be caught flatfooted due to a strange situation. Now then, again!"

Swing.

Over and over, Zwei corrected Eric's form. Using his words and the flat of his sword to nudge Eric closer towards something that resembled proper swordsmanship.

"And… Stop! Alright everyone, let's take a short break before doing some paired drills. Rest up and make sure to grab yourselves a quick drink," Zwei shouted.

With an agonized groan, Eric let the sabre tip fall to the ground, burying itself in the soil below. His arms felt like they were on fire, each movement he made was agony. He hadn't even felt this exhausted during the Battle of Lichfrost, although granted, there had been a lot of adrenaline coursing through his veins at the time.

Cursing the game developers who'd thought to realistically model muscle pains, Eric grabbed a flask of water from his storage space, gulping greedily at the contents as he dragged his tired body to the shade provided by one of the trees at the edge of the field.

"It's tiring, eh?" Ryan asked with a grin, sitting down beside him and taking a sip of water from a flask of his own.

Lacking the energy to respond, Eric gave a half-hearted nod, too busy engaging himself in the act of voluntary drowning to provide a better response. Ryan chuckled.

"Yeah, it might not display on the status page. But Fate definitely has a stats system of some sort. The more training I do, the easier it gets, and not just because I'm getting better with the sword either. It's the same story for everyone here. Everyone seems to have a similar baseline that we start at, regardless of their strength in the real world."

"Everyone? I mean, I suppose it makes sense, but everyone starts out exactly the same in terms of strength?" Eric asked.

"You know it. See Alice over there?" Ryan replied, pointing to the plump lady who'd been teasing Zwei earlier. Seeing Eric nod, Ryan smiled. "Well she's actually paralyzed from the waist down in real life, even has a wheelchair and everything. She lost her right arm in the same accident that paralyzed her, but here she's actually one of the strongest members in the entire group, and her attacks with her right arm have been getting stronger every day. She's way stronger than she was when she first joined the group, as if everyone else here."

Pausing for a moment, Ryan amended himself. "Well, everyone except Jun I suppose. But he only joined yesterday, so it's not like he's had time to notice the effects yet. But yeah, the effects are great. And the skill levels aren't unwelcome either," he ended with a chuckle.

"How are the skill levels?" Eric finally managed, having finished off the entire flask.

"Pretty damn good. My Zedel Swordsmanship is actually at Journeyman 9, and my Militia Swordsmanship is at Journeyman 3. Most of the others in the group are at the journeyman level as well," Ryan replied.

"Pretty nice- Wait, you've learned a new form of swordsmanship?" Eric asked, his tiredness forgotten as he turned to look at his friend. Ryan nodded.

"Yeah, after studying with Zwei for a little bit, a new type of swordsmanship was learned. I think it's because he knows swordsmanship in real life. So he isn't just using the same stuff we learned in the tutorial. Either way, it's helped me level up and made me way stronger than if I'd just kept using the militia swordsmanship. So I'm pretty thankful towards Zwei."

Going silent, Eric pondered this news. If the use of real-world techniques really could create new skills, then it was possible that he could create some skills of his own using his knowledge of Tae Kwon Do. However, despite the fact that he regularly used Tae Kwon Do and other martial art moves in combat, he still hadn't gained any skills relating to martial arts, nor had his Basic Martial Arts skill been replaced by a new skill like Ryan's Militia Swordsmanship had been. Was there some hidden requirement to create a skill that his martial arts hadn't met?

Engrossed in his thoughts, Eric almost didn't notice that Zwei had called for them to regroup at the centre of the field. Luckily, Ryan wasn't so absentminded. Hauling his friend to his feet, the pair made their way back to where the rest of the group had already gathered.

The second part of the training was paired practice. Similar to what Jun and Mikasa had been doing when Eric arrived, the group paired off to practice their techniques against each other. Every few minutes, Zwei would call for them to switch, trading partners so that they could gain experience against different tactics and fighting styles.

The hardest part about this new exercise for Eric was holding back his strikes. While he had plenty of practice with making sure that his blows didn't connect in traditional martial arts, he'd never had a reason to prevent his sword from cleaving through his opponents at top speed before today. Quite the opposite in fact, given all the things that seemed intent upon killing him in Novanalba. As a result, more than one of his opponents today had gained a couple of bloody scars after Eric failed to stop his attacks in time.

Fortunately, several members of the troop had learned healing magic from Maria, the local village priestess, which meant that after a quick healing spell, Eric and his opponent could once more endeavour to do their best to hit the other with swords without killing them.

Launching a diagonal cut towards his opponent, Eric's concentration was shattered as the innocuous silver pin he wore on his c.h.e.s.t began to glow softly. Diverting his strike to the left, Eric's sabre slammed into the grassy field beside his opponent who was looking at their own silver pin in confusion. Everywhere around the field, the same situation was repeating itself, as fighters lowered their weapons in confusion.

"Why are the militia badges glowing?" someone wondered out loud, not really looking for anyone to answer.

Wondering the same thing, Eric stared at the faintly glowing pin. Suddenly, without warning, a familiar voice emerged from the pin.

"All militia operating around Tonbura village are to report to the militia barracks in one hour for a briefing. The details will be posted afterwards, but it is highly recommended everyone attends if possible."

With that, the voice disappeared. As Eric watched, the glow slowly faded, as the pin reverted back to its normal, unassuming appearance.

"Well that was weird," Ryan quipped, coming up alongside Eric who nodded in response.

"Yeah, I had no clue the militia badge could do that. I knew it could glow, but I definitely didn't think it could do more than that. Really makes you wonder what else it can do."

"Who knows. You guys going to the barracks?" Jun asked, arriving just behind Ryan.

"Of course, this smells like a quest," Eric responded with a grin.

Seeing that everyone planned to head to the barracks, Zwei called the practice to an end. Sheathing his sword, Eric and the others began to file out of the field. Jumping the fence, Eric engaged Ryan and Jun in a discussion about the possible topics that could be discussed at the briefing.

"I bet it has something to do with the compensation for the Battle of Lichfrost. We still haven't gotten that yet, if you haven't forgotten," Ryan said with a conspiratorial tone.

"How could we forget, you only remind us a couple times an hour," Jun groused, causing Eric to laugh.

"Yeah, and don't forget that I'm due for even better rewards than you two are."

"Yeah, yeah. But we're all still owed rewards. I know that it's only been a day, well, two days in game I guess. But isn't it weird that we still haven't gotten rewards? It was a quest right? What type of game doesn't give out quest rewards right away?"

"Maybe it was more of an event than a quest?" Eric suggested. "You know that events always take longer for rewards to be sent out."

"Could be. And I suppose that Fate is a pretty realistic game, so a delay isn't out of the question."

"Exactly. Anyways, I don't think it's going to be the rewards for the battle, or at least not purely about that. They wouldn't have called all the militia to the barracks for that, just those of us that participated in the battle."

"So you think it's something else then?"

"Yeah. It's probably a follow-up quest," Eric hypothesized. "It's not like the goblins are going to give up just because we burned some of their bases, and we didn't kill all of them either. Quite a few managed to flee from the base we were at, not to mention all the goblins who got away from the other bases. Even in just the last two days, I've already noticed way more goblins prowling around Stillwood Forest than there were before the battle."

"So you think we're going to get a new quest to kill the goblins?" Jun asked, finally speaking up as he appeared to mull over Eric's idea.

"Something like that. Maybe a bounty or something? I dunno. Just seems likely. Like, the kingdom is in danger due to increased goblin presence, so mobilizing the militia to deal with the threat is the answer."

"Sounds about right, I guess we'll find out in a few minutes," Ryan agreed. As he spoke, the walls of Tonbura finally came into view, peeking over the tops of the wheat as the group made their way through the fields. "I still hope we get the rewards today though. I'm excited to find out what they are."

"Probably just a couple of silver Sricks. Maybe a weapon or something if you're lucky."

Ryan made a face at this suggestion, "Maybe, but I'd love if it was something cool, like a skill or something."

"A skill would be pretty sick," Jun agreed.

Nodding to the tired guard, the group entered Tonbura, heading for the militia barracks as they animatedly discussed their hopes for the reward. Eric and Jun used the opportunity to mercilessly tease Ryan, talking in lofty tones about how the reward for the rank-and-file would be far less impressive than the rewards that they'd been promised at the award ceremony two days ago.

"You guys are d.i.c.ks," Ryan said exasperatedly as they arrived in front of the militia barracks.

Eric smirked. "But you love us anyways."

"Debatable."