Interlude - The Apprentice (Patreon)

In an encampment outside of the Regidana city, there was a gathering of people. From their weapons and armors, anyone could see that they were adventurers. A group of four had just arrived.

“Alright, looks like we’re all here,” a respectable-looking man in his middle thirties said. “My name is Torha, the leader of this punitive force. You all know why you’re here but I’ll clarify it once more. Our mission is to defeat the marauding bandit gang that named themselves the Eight Murderswords of Skreja. They are now encroaching on Regidana’s sphere of influence. We will cut them down for their transgression. Here’s the plan…”

While Torha was explaining, the newly arrived group of four conversed with each other.

“Heeh… So Firemane Torha is the leader. I heard he became Level 3 a few months ago. The guild seems to take these Level 2 vagrants seriously.”

“The eight are vicious and a menace. Rumors are they were poor farmers that practiced dark arts and became strong. Traders and travelers that often travel to that area are making sounds and it makes the residents restless. The city wants these people gone real bad and real quick.”

“They say the eight have felled a Level 3. The guy’s estate was pillaged and his family was murdered to the last woman and child. That’s why besides the Level 3, there are more of us.”

“But fifteen people against eight is overkill ain't it? I bet we four can take the eight of them no problemo.”

“Better safe than sorry, Hawke… Say, what’s with the kid?” The man looked at two people that sat on the periphery of the group.

“Don't you know? That’s Boram of the Aletro Nine Stars.”

“Oho… Is the kid strong?”

“Eeeh, he’s not weak but I think this hype about the Nine Stars is overrated. He was completely trashed by the revived Oscar in the U18 Tournament's semifinals.”

“Yeah, I saw it in person. See the other guy? That is supposed to be Boram’s master, Avel the Spineless. To save the apprentice from the last hit, he jumped onto the arena and tanked Oscar’s lightning strike.”

“And then, and then?”

“He was barely hanging on after the hit. Cuz he interrupted the match, Boram was declared forfeit but Oscar challenged the master instead. ‘For interrupting a sacred duel’, he said.”

“So what did he do?”

“Avel dared not to raise a hand against the princeling and got pummeled for five minutes straight! He was just standing there as Oscar turned him into human-shaped charcoal. Hell, the match was stopped because the umpire found it so unsightly. The moniker Spineless fell to him then and there.”

“Hah! Pathetic. He was in a full arena, right? Seen by thousands of people? Doesn't he have any pride?”

“You two, shihhh! They can hear you.”

“So what? Do they dare?”

***

Boram clenched his fist and rose from his seat, hammer in hand and heart-burning.

“Boram.”

His Master’s voice stopped him. Reluctantly, he sat back on the rock.

Boram remembered that day as if a burning iron was pressed to his skin.

After the fight against the merfolk in Fort Mercator, Boram wanted to clear the coward's label on Master Avel. He talked about it to his friends in an innocent everyday conversation.

“Then you should enter the U18 Tournament!” Harry said. “If you win, surely other people will think your master is great too! I also don't like what other people said about Mister Knight.”

And so Boram participated in the tournament, without telling his master. While Avel was busy with his lawsuit, Boram participated in the matches. He thought his master still had found out somehow but he didn't say anything about the matter so he kept participating in the matches.

It was going swimmingly. He swept through qualification rounds and into the quarterfinals, the spectators were even chanting his name when he stepped into the arena.

Then he met Oscar in the next round.

“Know your place, slave.”

Boram knew that look, familiar from the time he was in the quarry. It was the look of someone seeing the likes of insects or trash. There was hate in it too.

Even though he had done his best, Boram was defeated. He only managed to land a single blow, which made Oscar angrier.

It wasn't hard to guess the reason for Oscar's vex. He failed to win the trial, furthermore, got killed; then his father got blackmailed to save him. Meanwhile, people showered praises on the Nine Stars as if they were heavenly celebrities that visited the mortal realm.

He was forgotten, sidelined, and treated as a joke.

It was too much for the prince born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Boram was weaker than him -and a lowly slave no less- but he was one of the Nine Stars while he was not. Then the slave managed to hit him!

Unacceptable!

It was then Avel interfered, defending Boram from a strike intended to cripple his Intio.

Although Avel wanted nothing more than to bring Boram back, Oscar wouldn't let that happen and challenged Avel to take Boram’s place. As the blood of the ruling family of Regidana, who would dare to stop him when he bent the rules a little? Avel accepted because refusal was not an option and then did not raise a hand against Oscar. He let himself be struck again and again, returning to his feet after each blow and lightning strike.

Still, it wouldn't do for someone of Oscar’s status to kill someone in a non-lethal tournament so the umpire stopped him in the end.

In the end, it was Boram who carried his master who was injured far more than him; tears flowing unceasingly.

Boram felt the worst. His actions dragged his master’s name even further down the mud. He cried until he fell asleep.

Come daybreak, he saw Master Avel swinging his sword as he always did. Even when he was bandaged all over, he kept doing his morning practice routine.

Boram felt the deepest of shame.

He reached out to his hammer immediately and went to the lawn, swinging his hammer beside his master.

“What happened yesterday is nothing,” Master Avel said without stopping his sword training. “Two men I know endured the same in Jaya. Oscar’s strikes cannot hurt me.”

“...Yes,” Boram replied, even though he didn't know where this Jaya was.

“Boram, never forget this: Cultivation is refusal to accept life as it is.”

Boram turned those words into a seed and planted it deep in his psyche.

“I will not, Master.”

Master and Apprentice kept swinging their respective weapons until their shirt was drenched with the sweat of effort.

A few days prior, Master called this quest ‘high-profile’, so he took it. This is the first step for Master to make a comeback. I will not mess this up!

“You lot, let’s move!”

Torha’s bark returned Boram to reality. The punitive force was moving to ambush the Eight Murderswords.

***

The ambush went wrong.

The punitive force who were supposed to be doing the ambushing, got ambushed instead.

“Ghakk!!? You?” Torha was suddenly stabbed in the back by one of the adventurers.

“Hahaha! Surprise!” The assailant mocked.

“Well done, Fifth Brother. Now drop it!” The humanoid shadow above the cliff roared.

“Oh no! The cliff is crumbling!”

The punitive force was traveling through a steep cliff when the ambush was sprung. Tons of earth swept through them and many got separated.

Screams of panic were loosed.

“Gyahaha! Hunt them down!”

The hunters became the hunted.

…Or did they?

***

A short while later, five adventurers were besieged by seven people. After the landslide that separated them, they made grouping up their priority as the Murderswords hunted them. The rest of the adventurers were most likely dead.

“Don't give up! We still have Lord Torha with us!”

The Level 3 got hit quite deep but by using his Unreality Field, none of the Murderswords were able to defeat him.

“Level 3? So what?”

The leader of the Murderswords unleashed his true strength. He too was a Level 3.

“Hahaha! Skreja Thrust!”

“Damn it, Storm Assault!”

The Level 3s fought in a dizzyingly fast battle but it didn't take long to be clear that Torha was at a severe disadvantage. The wound on his back reopened after the first aid.

Outnumbered, the remaining survivors were attacked from all sides by the remaining Murderswords. They were barely hanging on. Torha’s fall was the final straw. They knew they were doomed.

“Weaklings… By the way, Fourth Brother isn't here yet?”

“He probably played around with his prey again. You know he likes to torture them first.”

A head flew in the air and rolled on near the attackers.

“Fourth Brother!”

“Who!?”

The Murderswords turned to the approaching pair. They walked slowly, composed. One was wearing a knight helmet and the other was a hammer-wielding kid. The one with the helmet had thrown the head earlier.

“You’ll pay for that!” Second Brother charged with fury.

“Don't get cocky!” Fifth Brother followed suit.

“Arte - Earth Grip!”

After defending the slash from Second Brother with his hammer, Boram created a hand big enough to hold a person from the earth. The creation was so smooth and quick that the same Level 2 as Boram was unable to react fast enough.

When Avel received the Duel With Honor Arte from the Governor-King, Boram was rewarded with this Arte.

“Gwaaaahhh!”

Normally the earth hand was used as a means to trap agile enemies but because of the boost from Investiture of Soil, Boram’s Arte had enough force to crush an enemy at Second Brother’s level. His body was soon deformed by the crushing grip and after multiple snapping sounds, only blood oozed out from the conjured hand.

Meanwhile, what Avel did was more straightforward. He parried the sword of the Fifth Brother. While his posture was broken, a slash took the Murdersword’s hand. Before he had the chance to scream in pain, or even feel the pain, Avel had already cut off his left leg. The returning slash of Avel’s blade also cut his right thigh to the bone. The blade fluidly returned to the scabbard on the helmeted man’s hip who continued walking as if nothing happened.

As the Fifth Brother fell to the ground, Boram unhesitatingly swung his hammer at the man’s head using a golf swing motion. With the container utterly smashed, the thousand pieces of its inside were exposed to the air and sprinkled the earth with gore matter. Boram hastened his steps until he was side by side with his master.

Enemies and allies alike were taken in by the showy spectacle.

“I’ll take care of the Level 3. Can you handle the other four?” Master Avel asked.

“Master… Four people is a little bit-”

Avel made a grabbing motion with his hand and the closest Murdersword was suddenly pulled in by an unseen force. Seventh Brother tried to resist but Avel had bisected him from the crown of his head to the crotch before he was able to do so.

“How about no-”

“Blasted thing! I’ll grind your bones to dust and feed your flesh to the maggots!”

Avel and First Brother’s sword clashed which created a loud shockwave that swept through all of them.

“What the fu-”

“U-U-Unreality Field!”

“Spineless is Level 3!!”

As Avel and First Brother fought, Boram moved away and fought opponents of his size.

“Rest assured Master. None of them will escape!” Boram charged at the remaining three Murderswords.

“Fucking kid!” Third Brother cursed. “Sixth, Eighth, formation red-”

Arte - Groundslider.

Boram wasted no time, shrinking the distance between him and the closest enemy and gave the Eighth Brother a good smack with his hammer.

“Arghhh! M-my arms!”

He’d defended against the direct blow but it shattered his magical shield and still broke both of his arms.

“We’ll help too. Guys-”

“Unnecessary! Sit down!”

An adventurer woke up from their stupor and wanted to help but Boram shut them down harshly! He was the one that insulted his master the most earlier. If his master did not say to save the adventurers, Boram would have turned the guy into meat paste.

The pressure he emitted made the adventurers back down. Boram paid no more attention to those people and fought three on one.

“Flame of Skerja!”

“Flame of Skerja!”

“Flame of Skerja, dieeee!”

The three used the same Arte and blasted flames at Boram from three sides. A high heat area was created.

“Ha! He’s ash no-”

Boram emerged from the fires wearing Rock Skin Arte and caved in Sixth Brother’s face with his fist. A second punch to the ribs and his heart stopped from extreme blunt force trauma.

“No way!”

“We can't wi-”

“Stone Barrage!”

Hundreds of small pebbles shot out with the force of a shotgun. The Arte gave Third Brother hundreds of new holes. This was one of the first Artes his master had given him, and Boram trained with it a lot to increase its power.

Eight Brother, the one with both arms broken, ran for his dear life.

“Earth Grip.”

Unlike before, the earth hand only held Eighth Brother in place.

“Wait! I surren-”

Boram jumped. He spun once midair like a wheel and his hammer struck the enemy with a force that broke the Earth Grip. The ground below cracked in the pattern of spider webs.

“Rocky Smash!”

The Murdersword failed the physical integrity check.

“Pheew…” Boram let out a breath, wiping the blood splattered on his face. It looked easy but that was because he put great power into each of his Artes. He judged he would win even against four people but one might get away or disturb his master’s fight.

What about Master?

Boram turned and saw the surviving adventurers were no longer paying attention to him, the fight of his master against the Level 3 Murdersword captivated them far more than his fight. Boram knew the look in their eyes: awe.

So that’s how it is. Master doesn't mind his bad reputation because he can change it whenever he wants. Master is truly the best!

Boram also beheld Avel’s fight. It was his first time seeing his master using his Level 3 powers and it would be good learning material later on.