With the third one I fought, it felt much more comfortable this time. But it was a bit strange that their starting attacks were all the same; a lunge and jab with the spear.

I could see the door now and a final lizardman. Since I really couldn’t die so easily, I decided to risk it and assumed his first move would be the same as the others. So I sidestepped and grabbed onto where I was expecting the spear to be and managed to get a strong grip on it. But I was too surprised to do something about the success, that he threw me into a wall with the swing of his spear making me drop it.

“For once you do something smart but you still fuck it up.”

I rolled my eyes, getting up and immediately having to dodge another jab by crouching. I reached up grabbed the strap of its single-shoulder armor and pulled it down and behind me hard rolling him over me. I got up quickly behind him and punched him in the head hard. It took only one more blow till I felt its brain matter on my fingers.

“You have a sword, why don’t you use it?” 

Why didn’t I use it? 

I looked at my hip and it was in its sheath. I didn’t remember putting it away earlier.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you got it done either way I guess, let’s continue then.”

I pushed the door open. Again the lights lit up one by one around the room revealing a Lizardman with much better armor. Well better in the sense that it actually covered his chest and shoulder and he had a helmet on. The helmet didn't make much sense to me, I mean it’s the head of a lizard. How and why would you even think of how a helmet would fit on their head? I mean clearly, he has a helmet on his head but why?

Then I was thrown across the room and slammed into the wall. I coughed hard from losing all of my air.

“Get up, this isn’t the time to be lazy.”

I groaned, forcing myself to stand back up. I looked up just in time to see the lizardman pick up his spear which he had apparently stabbed into the ground and do a fancy twirl.

This wouldn’t be as basic as the other ones I guess. I drew my sword and dashed towards him. I saw his arm move in a familiar direction, so I swung my sword to parry the movement. I managed it, cringing at the sound of metal clashing metal.

Soon the constant parrying I was doing was getting to my head, I couldn’t stand that noise. I put some more force into one more and threw his arm back a bit. I sheathed my sword and dodged the next attack.

I had switched from parrying to dodging, but at least the clanging wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure why I was so annoyed by it now in comparison to all those years before. But I didn’t think about it too long. 

I closed the distance between us quickly and caught the shaft of his spear under my arm as he swung it at me. I guess he wanted to throw me quite the distance again, but I buried my feet into the ground with force, and for some reason felt the ground give a bit. 

I slammed a fist into his hand, but he didn’t let go. He grabbed the scruff of my shirt with his other arm in an attempt to pull me off. But I launched myself head first into his chin. His head jerked back, his grip on me was gone and the grip on his spear loosened.

I slammed another fist into his hand and he finally let go. I took the spear itself and launched it across the room. I tried not to give it another moment to not be stunned and pulled my sword out as I closed the distance going straight into a downward slice.

I felt the resistance of the leather chest plate hit my blade as I pulled it down and towards me to slice through it. I felt it give a bit more, so I did my best to turn that first movement into a connected slice in the opposite direction, jumping into him to give it some more force trying to knock him down onto his back.

He stumbled and swung his arm out to grab my shoulder. He did so but I threw my body weight and my sword at his arm, lodging my sword into it almost made it completely, but it got stuck with only a bit left of the arm to go through. With my left arm, I struck upward at its forearm pushing his arm the rest of the way through my blade.

He screeched stumbling backward finally on his ass, clutching at the stump of his arm.

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I muttered as I gripped the handle with both hands and sliced downwards at him.

Again I only made it a few inches into his head hitting the skull, but after a few more hacks his head was almost cut in half.

I sat down panting and then there was a ding.

“What was that?”

“What do you mean?”

I looked at Alcoroth. 

What comment was he going to make this time? 

The training we had done together initially didn’t have this style of sword in mind, and even between getting it and entering the tower, we didn’t even have much time to go over how to use it properly. I thought I was doing pretty well.

“You put your sword away mid fight. Why?”

“The noise of parrying was bothering me a bit too much.”

“So you put your sword away?”

“Yeah well it was really annoying me to the point of distracting me so wouldn’t it’ve been better to just not use it?”

Alcoroth sighed, “I can only do limited amounts of magic but I can put a sound dampening noise around your blade if you want.”

“What do you mean?”

I don’t think I’ve heard of magic like that before, and how could it be so concentrated to just affect my blade?

“Pull out your blade.”

I did so and he put his hand on it, some incomprehensible words came out of his mouth and there was now a faint glow around my blade and a small magic circle right by the hilt.

“Try hitting his spear now.”

I stood and went over to it. I swung while looking away and cringed before I expected it to hit, but I didn’t hear anything. I looked back at it and hit it again.

“That’s so cool!”

I did it a couple more times; this was awesome.

“It won’t stop the sound if you’re with other people, but I can figure out how to help in that situation for you if you want. But why did it bother you now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe earlier I was always so focused on other things, and I never parried that much, so it happened and I forgot about it. Maybe it was just the repetition of it so I was able to notice it more?”

“Well either way, you did surprisingly well, let's continue on then.”

Mezu was already at the door beaming. I looked at Alcoroth’s back.

That move was quite out of character for him. I dropped the spear and followed him.

“Why’d you help me?”

“That was such a small thing to do for you. If it helps you look like not a complete embarrassment then I’ll do it. Your behaviors reflect on your teacher after all.”

I looked up. Did that monarch or whatever ask him to do it?

I looked back at him. Well, the monarch could have done it himself if he wanted to help and then I would have gotten an announcement or something telling me that he did something.

“Thanks.”

“Pick up the pace, you need to feed him soon.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”