Chapter 139: Thump

My adventurers were useful: they taught me about things I didn't know and took me out each day so I had something to look forward to. But by now, if I was to be honest, they had outlived their usefulness to me.

So my hand simply waved "bye-bye" to them all. Spending time with them sure was "fun," but the affairs I was about to take care of then promised to be even more satisfying and fun.

So I faced these doors again. The first time I visited, they stood in front of me, and to enter the empty dojo, I had to kick both creaky doors open to make way for myself. Today, these two doors were just as I left them: lying down on the smooth wooden parquet of the place, a little to the sides.

My feet were thoroughly planted there. Unable to either go forward or backward, I simply stood there, watching my fists clenched into balls, nervously growling. Obviously irritated, I forced laughter out of me, then I jumped in.

As the day before, I found everything here untouched, as if I had hopped in the past, seeing it all for the first time again.

The same instructor of a shabby guild, sitting as formally as he could and looking straight ahead of him, staring at not particularly anything, resting right in the middle of this little gymnasium of his. The same bokken he had yesterday was by his side, and everything was unchanged. Or maybe not so much. The coins I left there for the guild master yesterday, still were placed on the ground, but they had been swept to a corner of the dojo as if they were mere pebbles.

I didn't hop in the past so much, after all—

"Oh, heyo," the instructor turned to me, greeting me with a beaming smile and pleated eyes, obviously happy I came back.

"Oh," I groaned, forcing a twitching smile on my face, irritated. That caught me off-guard. "...Is that a hey, or a yo?" Unable to know how to react to the freak's friendly greeting of peace, I momentarily spouted whatever nonsense flashed through my mind, obviously awkwardly.

The swordsman picked up, thankfully, and didn't just stare at me silently. "Doesn't have to be either. Hey plus yo. Both of 'em. Heyo. 'sup?"

"...A'ight then. Heyo, sir. ...Nothing much, sir." After I carefully assessed the freak's mood and decided that, today, he was not so much freaky and unpredictable, after all, I fully stepped inside the dojo.

The man asked me "what's up" and I replied "nothing much," but the truth was different. A lot was up. An awful lot. My existence was up. Life was up. The fact that I was a unique monster-type was up, so the fact that nobody, to this day, still fully understood how I worked, was up too. The System was up, also. Plus the Game, too. ...But mostly, my skills were up.

After I "created" my "character" with the help of the System, back in the days, that System hit me up with a notification: Once the "Skill Interface" was opened, I was given a notification teaching me how to open the System Menu again, but at the time, I didn't mind the notification much. "To open the Skill Interface again, the Player will have to—" and it was gone.

There I was, today, having thought about it all for quite a long time, and finally with enough time and a plan to go forward with fixing my past mistake.

Stepping inside the empty gymnasium, I sat in front of the instructor, looking quite formal, too.

"So?"

"That skill you used to block me off... to parry every one of my attacks, yesterday..."

"What of it?"

"Teach it to me. I have money."

After a moment of silence... the freaky swordsman seemed pleased. "Heh~"

I quickly got up, with a bland expression. "Get up. I have money," I repeated.

The freaky instructor's grin grew wilder, and he was in a mood to tell jokes. "—No, but... aren't you forgetting something else, boy, hm?"

"...I don't think I do? ...Wait... OH!?"

"That! Is! Correct! 'OH!?'" he mimicked my shocked expression, snickering. "So you forgot about my divine cooking skills, eh? Not cool."

The swordsman unpacked his lunchbox, placed the whole of it in between us, and we ate, being as casually chatting with one another like yesterday. After the man used some washing spell on both his hands and mine, we ate. Thus, five minutes passed, and my bond with the freaky swordsman grew stronger. Both he and I were freaks at heart, and the more time passed, the more I understood that.

"Well!" he said.

I got up and nodded down at him. He got up after me. "So... you wanted to dance, boy. Today again."

Rather than simply mindlessly "dancing" like we did yesterday, I wanted to learn a skill and I made it clear.

"To learn a skill," he repeated. "Right." Leaning in, he picked up his wooden sword and spoke again. "Of the things that haven't changed from yesterday, there is your sword, too." With his sword, he pointed to my right. Lying beside the wall, the sword I used to fight him yesterday was still there, outcast, as if still dwelling on its defeat.

"I know that."

"You know that," he repeated, again, as he often did. "But what of it? Won't you rather pull off the same trick as yesterday, producing a new piece of steel altogether to fight me...?" By now, the change became noticeable: The freaky swordsman acted just as he taught me yesterday—there is a time for laughs and fun, and there is a time for work and discipline. "Get a new sword? One that hasn't been humiliated?"

"Heh," I listlessly laughed, naturally acting like him: stern, stiff, and cold; basically disciplined. "One that hasn't been humiliated," I repeated his words, further imitating the man. "I won't. ...Besides, this one sword hasn't been humiliated."

"But your hand has."

"Tsk," I clicked my tongue. "Is humiliation then not fixable?"

"Hah!" he sighed, amused. "I'm afraid it isn't." The freaky swordsman's eyes bore into mine, and he clenched his jaws with a mad smirk. "...I'm afraid it isn't: not if your master and teacher is I." By that, I understood he meant that, with such a skillful master of the sword teaching me how to fight, defeat should never be accepted from me. "But, hey, why don't you consider it that way, boy. If your master and teacher is I... your defeat was inevitable, but more than that, it was pedagogic."

"...Hm," I nodded, listlessly wishing to see my blade through his throat.

"Enough talk?"

"Enough talk," I repeated, agreeing with him.

Going to my sword, I snatched it up and prepared to fight. I asked the man to teach me a skill rather than just fight it out with me, but oh well. I guess he liked better having a real match more than doing some petty tutoring, just like me. Still, I kinda needed to get what I came here for. Then again, I could always catch him off-guard, use the "Dwelling" unique skill on the man, and learn a bunch of skills as easily as I could... but I didn't want to kill the man in a monster-y way lest I'm found out as a monster-type.

Well, whatever, I thought. Then again, I could also have just gone to some other random ass guild in order to learn one skill... but spending time with a fellow "monster" seems way more fun in comparison. Not to mention that the System wants me here. So be it. I just need to mimic him... probably. Doing that, I should be learning from him.

But would you look at him! Standing a long 15 feet from me, the man's eyes turned icy cold and his face reached its sternest point. Now that I thought about it, he also resembled my old man, somehow. Really, this guy was a strange person. Right then and there, he became a statue—no, a wall. A defensive wall. A wall I felt I could never overcome.

Shaking my head, I chased the thoughts away, quickly bent my whole body forward, lowered my knees, placed my hand on the hilt of my sword, and shot forward in a flash. Momentarily, I was an arrow carried by the mightiest wind, and then, a clash of swords shook the whole dojo, and two monsters fought.

Needless to illustrate with words the same fight again; the freaky swordsman, even with a wooden stick, was mighty as hell. I used everything I had. <Chain Attack>, <Quick Pace>, [Reinred School — Sword Style +7], <Intimidation>, and even <Steel Claw>, desperate to catch him off-guard even if I risked being found out as a monster-type. Not a thing worked.

And the fight ended when, as I could tell I was the one losing, so grew impatient and irritated as heck, I went all-in with the most reckless and random plan of attack, and managed to somehow almost catch the swordsman. At that time, he simply vanished from where he stood as if he never ever had been there and I just imagined all our fight, and reappeared behind me, swinging his bokken at my thick head.

Thump!

The next thing I felt was a foot up against my back, and from behind, I was pushed forward, super violently, and I crashed down.