First fight

(John POV)

Asukai - "What!!!"

To be honest, I did not who this Mori girl was. But I knew Uncle Asukai well enough, and hence even I wanted to help him out with this problem.

Asukai - "Asuna, you stay here. There might be a chance that she returns home. In the meanwhile, I will go in the forest and look for her. And yes, John you also stay here with her."

John - "No uncle. You have helped me enough. Now is the time to repay favor, so I will come along and help you out."

Uncle wanted to argue but because of my firm stand and the need of the hour, he let it slide and accepted my help. It only took us a couple of minutes and we were back into the scary forest.

I was praying silently in my heart to let our outing this time free of any threats. But it seemed like my prayer was turned down instantly.

A tiger pounced on us. He had razor canines big enough to protrude out of his mouth and his pointed claws gave me a dangerous feeling. And before I could get a grasp of the situation, uncle handed me an iron sword. I wanted to ask, from where did he take out this sword, but the situation did not allow us to relax.

Asukai - "John, take this, and try to defend yourself."

I took the sword with a wry smile on my face. It has not been even a day and here I was facing one danger after another. Just how many sins did I commit, to get myself in this situation.

The tiger pounced on us, but uncle deflected the wild animal with his sword.

He must be a swordsman seeing how easily he handled these monsters. Maybe... just maybe, I could learn from him and become a bit stronger.

Uncle seemed quite angry, and why not. Someone dear to him was lost and here was a tiger stopping him from finding her. Well, maybe I should help him out but how?

While I was thinking, the fight between uncle and the tiger, seemed to have turned even. Whenever uncle attacked, the tiger defended it with his fangs and the occasional strike that passed through his defense, again made little impact against his hard skin. On the other side, whenever the tiger attacked, uncle seemed to get into a solid defense pose, making all the attacks useless.

Both were panting and I knew I had to do something. We still haven't find this Mori, and with uncle in this state, it would be almost impossible for us to fight another beast. Coincidentally, I had seen uncle attack more than a dozen of times, and adding onto the earlier time when uncle saved me before, I had seen his attacking form countless times, to the point that I can close my eyes and visualize it. And that's when I decided to take a risk.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Images of him attacking every single monster flashed past my eyes, and before I knew it I had opened my eyes and charged straight at the tiger with the same form as uncle displayed in my visualizations.

The tiger beast seemed to have become more tired by the fight... or maybe he had focused on uncle solely, and did not consider me of any threat. Anyways, I was more than happy to remain in his blind spot as I quickly reached near him.

I slid my left foot in front and twisted my torso, along with raising my sword upwards to land the most powerful slash I could manage with my current abilities. But things don't always go as you planned, do they?

The tiger instinct seemed to alert him and he looked in my direction. I could see his eyes widen in surprise before emitting killing intent, and making me almost lose my balance.

Luckily for me, travelling with uncle, I have come across so many monsters and faced their killing intents that I was more than able to keep my hands on the handle as I slashed the sword downwards over his neck.

The tiger panicked and retreated backwards, but it was too late and he could not complete dodge my attack. Still, he played it smart and brought out his fangs in front of his head, shouldering my attack.

The attack hit him and one of hands (or legs) was slashed right through as blood started flowing out in rapid succession. I was quite surprised at my strength. I did not think that this body with such an average build could pack such a solid punch.

But... I was happy quite soon as I felt my tingling suddenly, and when I looked over, the beast was glaring at me, and this time, the killing intent in his eyes had multiplied several folds. Earlier I had managed to land a strike in spite of his the scary feeling, but this time, my legs gave in and the sword dropped from my hand on the ground.

The tiger stretched forwards his uninjured claw, while I could see death calling me to its embrace.

*SPLASH*

I saw blood flying over in the sky, as I lost my strength to remain standing and dropped onto the ground with a thud. As I was giving into the despair, a voice called out from beside.

Asukai - "You did great in catching his attention, John. Thank You!"

Hmm? That's when something stuck me as I looked beneath and saw that the blood covering me was not mine. It was the tiger's who had impaled by uncle's sword right in his heart. And I was more that safe and sound.

John - "I got lucky."

Asukai - "No John, you did not. Your attack earlier surprised me and I think with some training, you could turn into a fine swordsman."

I inwardly smiled at his words. I wanted to go home and get on bed with some beauty instead of facing such life threatening dangers and becoming a swordsman. But I could not say this to his face, can I?

John - "Well, whatever. Also, we need to hurry and find Mori. You haven't told me who she is, uncle."

Asukai - "Oh, right. You see, Mori is my grand daughter, and the lady that you saw at the house was my daughter in law, Asuna. And my grand daughter - Mori, it's her 5th birthday today, so I went into the forest to hunt some animals and get her a beautiful present. It has been almost a week since I have stayed away from her. She must have been missing me, and left the house to find me in here."

Oh... the beauty is her daughter. Too bad, she is married, or I could have...

John - "Well, in that case, let's hurry and find her."

We both started to venture deeper into the forest but soon faced another big trouble. My god! I want to curse at how much I am suffering.