The next monster was an orc.

I’ve heard other people always say that they looked like pigs, but I didn’t see the resemblance. The closest thing I’d say they look at all similar to would be a wild boar with like the coloring and the more visible hair. But that would only be in reference to their tusk like teeth.

Otherwise, they just looked like really tall buff brownish gray skinned dudes. With faces that also seemed buff.

This one didn’t wear anything but a loin cloth and had no weapons in his hands. I was assuming it would get a bit harder from this point on, so I wasn’t too relieved by the lack of a weapon. 

It charged at me and I stood my ground unsheathing my sword. Luckily, with my odd instincts for hand-to-hand combat I could read his moves. While his right arm seemed to be leading the second, he stepped in front of me his left came swinging at my stomach.

I swung my blade and sliced through the thinnest part of his wrist. After the thickness of the lizard men’s skin, I put much more force into my swing. I still felt the blade bump slightly before slicing through the joint, but it went all the way through.

I spun on one foot with my remaining momentum, gripped my hilt with both hands and swung downwards slicing into its chest. Damn muscles are thick to cut through, if this really was like a pig I think there would be so much more fat. I mean whenever I’ve had any pig meals, I feel like there was quite a bit of fat still attached to the meat. 

Or maybe I’m remembering wrong.

It took about four consecutive swings to get a deep enough gash in his chest, down to his ribs. My left arm was grabbed and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was practically numb to pain in that arm, the pressure would have been enough to distract me.

He lifted me into the air by my arm and his stumped arm came at me. I pulled my lower body up to avoid it curling into a ball above the ground. As his arm went back for another swing I hacked at its head. 

“Use your brain you idiot! Why do you keep hanging onto an arm that can just grow back!”

Alcoroth’s yell would normally have made me respond with something, but this time he was right, I didn't need my left arm.

I sliced through it with my blade at my elbow and dropped, landing badly on the ground. I rolled out of the way as his foot came down to stomp on me. Since I was on the ground anyway, I went for his ankles. Even though my slash wasn’t very deep he toppled over after I heard a slightly familiar snap

I stood up quickly and put my blade at his neck using my foot for leverage and pushed it down through his neck.

I sat quickly, panting hard. Sure, running around all the time had improved my stamina, but at the end of the day not having a lot of combat experience was bound to tire a person out. There was nothing I could do about it.

 I looked around and saw Mezu pull my arm from the orc’s grip and hold it out to Alcoroth. 

 Why did he do that?

 Alcoroth then rinsed my arm off where it was touched by the orc before allowing Mezu to eat it.

 “You need to start seeing your limbs as expendable for a fight. With the contract Mezu can speed up your healing but it makes him tired and more hungry. Currently it’s only possible once a day but as time goes on he will be able to do it multiple times”

 “But if it’s mid fight and it's my leg will it even be fast enough?”

 “I mean we’ll have to see, but at the end of the day I cannot allow you to die so we’ll step in at the last moment.”

 “Really?”

“Yes, you finally having trouble against an enemy would be a great time for you to train. And I’ll be sure to bind them down until you heal completely and can go at it again. No matter how many limbs you lose or however long it takes, you will fight them on your own.”

The grin on Alcoroth’s face sent shivers down my spine. I wasn’t sure which was better, experiencing that or being Mezu’s portable food source and Alcoroth chopping my limbs off whenever he felt that Mezu was hungry. I had a feeling it was the latter, but I guess we’ll have to see when I experience that.

“We should have gotten you better gauntlets instead of a sword.”

“What why?”

“You’re not really that good at using it, if you just used your fists like your body seems to want you to do, I think you’d get things done a lot faster.”

“Well then why did you bother training me on that sword in the dungeon?!”

“You know the reason. If I was more knowledgeable about compatibility with swords, I would have trained you on a blade similar to the one you have and not a rapier like I had. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so awkward with your current sword and you wouldn’t depend on your fists. But we can’t change that now. ”

Alcoroth sighed and started cleaning his glasses.

“We need to get you some decent gauntlets as a backup.”

“Come on, can’t we like try to teach me to use it properly instead? Cleaning up after punching something’s brain in is going to be annoying.”

“Hah?! Is that what you’re concerned about?"

“You just cleaned off my arm cause the orc gripped it, I thought it’d bother you more than me.”

“Being able to clean the you--Mezu’s meals is not something I’m against. But you clearly have a lack of aptitude when it comes to the sword.”

“If you want to speak about Fluffy formally just do it!” I yelled.

It was so annoying he was so bad at hiding it.

“Look, you know I have no interest in complicated things, so just speak the way you want to. I won’t ask any questions about it.”

Alcoroth looked at me and sighed, “your complete lack of curiosity continues to annoy me but, alright then, I can give you some directions. I still think you sticking to hand to hand would make this go quicker.”

“Just because something is quicker doesn’t mean it’s useful. If I lose a hand while fighting then that is one less thing for me to use. Plus, if I don’t have my sword out how can I just get rid of my arm mid fight?”

“Well pulling it off is an option. If they’ve got a grip on it and they’re stupid enough, they’ll just want to rip it off. So why not help it along.”

“I don’t think I could actually put in the force for that,”

“I’m sure with practice it will make it much easier for you. I bet most people couldn’t actually just freely cut off their arm as easily as you do.”

I stared at him in disbelief. That made sense to me. Was I spending too much time with him that he no longer seemed to be teasing me and that I just started agreeing with his statements? Has he always been this way? Maybe he was intending to tease me but what he’s saying is actually true, so it no longer feels like he’s teasing me.

Alcoroth sighed, “Oi idiot, don’t let your head spiral like that, it's not healthy for an idiot to think that much.” 

Yeah, no he’s still teasing me, I think.

I stood up and looked at Mezu who was poking the orc’s body in various places.

“Well let’s continue then. Might as well practice fighting with one hand like this anyway.”

Fighting with one arm was slow and awkward. I tried to follow Alcoroth’s occasional shouts and suggestions, but the second orc seemed faster and smarter than the first, so I didn’t have too much time for my brain to register what he had said, and even less to act on it. So, yet again, it was more me and my instincts. 

Between the second and third orc my arm had mostly healed but the third orc had sliced what had healed off. Which pissed me off and I kind of attacked completely bare handed. I mean it wasn’t much with my one hand but it turns out if you put enough force into it and hit at the softest parts of the body you can eventually break skin. 

I didn’t want to know the color of an orc’s throat, but now I do. And its surprisingly not the same color as their blood.