Cave

POV Switch - 1st (Yui)

The reaction from the players in town has been impressive.

Several guilds are teaming up to head to the cave... But they might be too slow.

However, a few other players are also heading out. The fastest of them seems to be Kirito.

It's a minor miracle that Hegemaniac, who typically can't stand still, has been stuck in this cave for so long. Maybe Silica has changed him, or at least tied him down. Well, I suppose I could take some of the credit.

Now, he only has to stay there slightly longer...

POV Switch - 1st (MC)

Hmm… Waiting in this cave is very irritating.

At least Silica hasn't woken up yet, though she should do so soon. She's been stirring in her sleep lately.

While waiting here, I've just been sorting out the gains I've received from the castle, and frankly, I didn't take full advantage of the situation in the treasury.

I have enough unused slots in my inventory and could have emptied some fruit-filled ones to make space and raided the treasury of all its weapons. My thought process on why I shouldn't have done it at that time is because the guardsmen and the knights that would've investigated the area after I got done with it would notice the missing weaponry and items. They would then decide to interrogate me on the details of what happened, revealing my identity and getting myself killed. But at that time I didn't know that killing the king would be so quick and simple; I didn't even know I'd have the opportunity to do it so easily.

So while it was the best choice at the time, in hindsight, I could've gained much more.

Is it worth regretting that, though? After all, it's difficult to predict what would have happened, or who could have seen the emptied treasury and raised an alarm. While the weapons would be nice, it's best not to dwell on past decisions.

Further, liquor barrels aren't all that I grabbed while checking out the treasury. I was safe after dealing with Reginald and took the chance to grab a few extra things on my search for alcohol.

For example, a crate of healing potions, some strange concoctions like 'dwale,' and an instruction manual for swordsmanship and fighting in general, along with a few other items.

This instruction manual has a name which sounds German and slightly unconventional, 'Steinberg Dämon.'

Or, with my rough understanding of a little German, Stone Mountain Demon.

A strange name for a style, but it explains why it's named that.

It has Steinberg in it because the main concept of the fighting shown is to be, quote; "Rigid like stone, unperturbed by danger and even willing to take his own life with the sword," as it says.

Strange how the manual's name is in German, along with the names of the techniques, while the rest of the manual is in English, but I won't complain about anything that is convenient for me.

I barely know German. I took two classes for the sake of prestige, but quickly forgot about the language. I know stein because it sounds like stone in a German accent, I know berg because my German teacher drilled the correlation between iceberg and berg into my mind, and I know dämon because it looks like demon.

Anyways, as I was saying. I've only read through about a quarter of it because I am trying to fully absorb the information, but the first page explains the title as I've already said. It seems to be written for people participating in 'trial by combat,' which the savage Germans apparently staged frequently. This involved a particular set of rules, and was a duel between two people to settle a dispute. Some of these techniques are tricks made for the judicial duel, although I'm more interested in what it says about proper sword technique. But at least it's about fights which are often life-or-death, and tries to be realistic about that.

That's why it wants people to be like 'stone,' because they might lack experience of a life-or-death situation and have to be willing to take risks to win a swordfight.

The sword style is summarized in the first few pages and gets more and more detailed as time goes on, with the detailed parts including one aspect I've been desiring to figure out.

My sword stance. I've just been doing the typical 'hold the sword out in front of you' that I've seen in every fantasy show because the authors have a simplistic understanding of swordfighting, but this one gives an unorthodox stance that looks like it will work well to me at least, especially after reading the explanations.

It is referred to by the manual as "Dach," or 'Roof' after my translation, and it has you put the sword on your shoulder and expose your torso to the enemy. It's called 'Roof' because the sword is above your torso, like a roof.

As I said, extremely unorthodox. However, the manual explains everything, and I am simply impressed.

In a battle, saving energy where and when you can is a very important aspect of winning. Putting the sword on your shoulder lets the fighter conserve energy, rather than if they were holding up the sword in front of them with pure muscular strength; it will get heavy after some time.

Another reason why it is there is so that your sword is already positioned for a strike; as it is on the shoulder, it is already raised up, ready to chop downwards diagonally or vertically, and is even capable of being used for feints if you're skilled enough at maneuvering a sword.

The manual is not only a manual dedicated to this sword style, it is a manual for educating men on how to fight, as well as teaching the intricacies and concepts within fighting.

I have already finished the part that teaches and details the sword style, and after this is some general battle knowledge. It's a bit confusing, since it goes over the rules of the judicial duel in detail, and assumes some prior knowledge.

Overall, this manual is a huge golden finger. If only I could find one for spears now.

Looking over at the sleeping Silica and the manual in my hands, I decided to take a little break from reading and venture out of the cave.

I won't go too far, but I need to stretch my body and perhaps kill a monster to keep my skills sharp.

Plus, I am bored.

Venturing out, I saw that it was around… midday? Maybe a little into the afternoon.

I thought it would still be in the morning, so this is beyond my expectations.

Continuing with my march around the premises, stretching as I did so, I found nothing out of the ordinary.

However, after around five minutes outside, as I was about to go back to the cave, I noticed something.

A boar, exactly the same as the ones I've been facing in the real world.

Does that mean that this "reality" that is probably a game is too lazy to think of new mobs for each area? Or does it mean that this trial takes place outside of the dungeon?

I quickly slew the beast, not receiving much EXP from it, but then I heard a shout from nearby in a language I didn't understand.

A boy - who looked to be about fifteen? - began stomping towards me, shouting in a language I didn't know, and a girl trailed behind him, trying to stop him and pull him back. He seemed to push her away using some form of magic.

Who are these people? What backwards village do they come from?

Would it be safer to kill them or would it be safer to send them on their way? I don't think that the backwards place they came from would notice that they were gone for a decent while, and it's not like I'll be waiting out here for days, I only need to survive till tomorrow morning.

At the same time, letting them go back to their village would definitively notify the people there of the fact that I'm out here, and they might come to investigate themselves in case I'm a threat.

Killing them would be the best in terms of short term benefits. I only need to survive until tomorrow morning, and while I can't be completely sure of if their village cares about them or not or even if they know the path that they went to investigate their disappearance, that doesn't discount the possibility of it happening.

However, while lost in my thoughts, the boy waltzed up to me and began shouting at me in his barbaric language.

"Se oli minun tappamani roska! Väitin ​​sen! Minun täytyy todistaa itseni kylälle metsästäjänä, mikä mahdollistaa tämän varastamisen minulta?!" the boy said in his gibberish language.

What the hell is he talking about?

Hmm… I don't want to leave a blood trail or any remains behind for monsters to flock to or for the potential investigators to trace back to me, so how do I dispose of them properly?

I remember that there was a river nearby. It was the noise that I used to relax myself while reading the manual.

Beginning to try and communicate with the boy, I spoke in English.

"Can you understand me?"

"Mitä, Hegemaniac? Puhu kunnolla!" he responded, still apparently angry.

What did he just say about me? The little punk.

"Olav kiitos! lopeta miehen kiusaaminen ja mennään kotiin!" said the girl to the boy, clearly wanting him to calm down and leave me alone.

Too late for you now though I guess. Or, since they want to leave on their own without bothering me, would it be a better choice to just let them go?

To be honest, both choices will work in my favor.

Therefore, I will do what I want to do, and I would rather see them suffer.

Signaling to them to follow me by waving my hand, I started walking towards the river.

"Mikä tämä on? Miksi nouset joelle?" asked the boy, but he still followed me, and so did the girl.

Standing at the shore of the river, I looked over it all and the two teenagers did the same right next to me.

"Look over there," I said, pointing to nowhere in particular.

They didn't understand what I said, but got the message, putting their hands above their eyes to make sure that the sun wasn't restricting their vision and leaned forward, trying to find anything hidden in the area where I pointed.

In this situation, to make sure that they die and that no supernatural abilities are at play, I'll use my own two hands and then let the river do the rest of the work.

Wait. Supernatural abilities. I don't know how much these kids or if their associates can do with them, so killing them could lead to even more danger.

I can't be sure of their supernatural status, but since it's a video game-based world, I most likely shouldn't take chances.

Pulling my hand away from my sword, I patted them both on the head as a sign of goodwill and began walking away. Not to the cave, of course, I don't want to show them where my hideout is, but I began walking away in a general direction.

Hopefully I look like some mysterious foreign traveler or something. While I can't be sure of anything in this situation, that is exactly why I should be as passive and cautious as possible.

"Minne olet menossa nyt? Mitä järkeä siinä oli?" asked the boy, however, he didn't follow me this time, and neither did the girl.

Probably asking me where I'm going or what was all that, but it's not like I can answer him.

Continuing with my walk, I looked behind me and didn't see the two following me still. I began walking back to where I came from and they weren't there anymore; they have most likely gone back to where they came from as well.

Well that walk was worthless. It was probably more of a bad decision than anything else, because now those two know that I'm here.

If only I wasn't so rational. Then I would've killed them.

(A/N: I don't like the above part, it's quite bad. But it was in the original version, so I left it here. I don't know why I wrote it that way in the first place, must have been drunk or on drugs or something.)

Not bothering to continue with this train of thought, I went back to the cave and began to review the manual again.

One of the things I noted with this style is that using a two-handed sword for it is the best option, and I am lucky that I brought Reginald's sword with me.

It's a well-made cruciform longsword with a Christian cross on the guard, and I don't care about the symbols associated with it as long as it's a good sword.

It's not like I'll become religious from using it.

Another thing it details about the sword stance, "Dach", is that it keeps one half of your body hidden and safe because your hips are turned, your whole body is cocked back, ready to make a powerful strike. However, it exposes the other side, which is why defense should be a thing constantly on the user's mind.

Moving on from the style, it mentions more about general combat, like how predicting what the opponent will do and gathering information on them as the battle goes on is paramount to victory, as well as detailing the ways to counter certain types of strikes.

(A/N: Removed embarrassing section from the original about how sword combat involves 'smacking the opponent's sword to the side.' I mean, really, this chapter was quite poorly written the first time around, and MC was a complete idiot. But this version should pick up soon.)

There is one particularly strange technique it mentioned for when you face an armored opponent without a mace or warhammer, which I already knew about prior to reading, and that is grabbing the blade with both hands and using the hilt as a blunt weapon, smacking it against the armored opponent to deal blunt damage or shock damage, since slicing will only destroy the sword.

Good thing I have the leather gloves Reginald gave me in case I need to use this.

Another very important thing it talks about is thrusts versus cuts. Some of that is in German, so I didn't understand all of it and had to use my imagination to make any sense of it, but I still found it interesting because it reminded me of my hatred for the rapier.

Firstly, he talks about the damage done by thrusts. While it's severe, he says that it is the responsibility of the swordsman. After a few paragraphs which I can't understand, I think he says that cuts can be effective for doing damage that isn't fatal but weakens the opponent. That makes sense. If you get stabbed in the leg with a rapier, of course it is going to be a bad situation, but not nearly as bad as if you get your leg cleaved in two from a large strike.

An argument made for thrusts is how all of the force in the strike is concentrated into the tip, technically giving more power, while slashes have that force throughout the whole surface area of the blade. But from my perspective that small surface area of the thrust is the bad aspect of it. It won't do enough damage in combat.

I can't be sure what precisely his conclusion was, but I think that as a reasonable man he probably came to the same conclusion as me: thrusts and rapiers are much better for dueling where one does not intend to kill the enemy, merely to strike first, but in a battle where one is aiming to kill, they are not the optimal move.

"*YAAAWN…*"

Sigh. Looks like Silica's awake.