I knew Tetra was hyper but… this was too much. We visited 13 shops and she looked at nearly everything in her size. I don’t know how, but she was a mix of tomboy and girly girl. When we met yesterday she wore what seemed to be a sort of chain mail armor made with scales to allow flexibility while today she wore a crop top and shorts. It seemed she enjoyed movement more than protection.
Rose seems worn out like me as she wore black jeans like pants and a shirt. However, yesterday she wore what I would describe as fantasy pries-like garbs. Her outfit was exaggerated for her part and I had yet to understand its reason as even she seemed to not much enjoy it.
Lance wore a sleeveless shirt and jeans. His clothes were baggy but it seemed to just allow him to walk given his larger stance. If he were on earth, he would have made a great football player given his size and stature. But his armor was full plate mail so it was made since he would have a larger build than most. Although I only saw him with his ax, I could guess he used a shield most of the time.
“Are we done?”
Rose asked Tetra who nodded. She had bought two bags of clothes while the other two had 4-5 outfits. I was an outlier with 4 bags but that was because I had to buy hygiene supplies and clothes. After all, I was just dragged into another world. Lance set his bags down as he reached into his pocket and pulled out an amulet, I looked at it confused as he didn’t seem like the jeweler type of guy before I watched as his bags and mine disappeared with a glow of the amulet.
“We’re out of storage space and it’s getting late, we can either drop this stuff off or go train.”
He looked between the three of us as I laughed
“I can’t wear half my clothes till I lose some weight so let’s start.”
The three of them stared at each other as Rose asked
“Are… you a masochist?”
I looked at the three of them blankly as I sighed
“I’d rather look forward to the long-term prosperity rather than dread the pain soon to come.”
They looked at me unsurely and I shook my head
“Would you rather have to drag me to break my arm or what? Plus, I can see your fighting styles and magic in action. It's a great learning opportunity for me to understand your strengths and weaknesses, understand common fighting styles, and other such things.”
Their unsure expressions shifted to questioning ones as Tetra asked
“You… think you can learn from being beaten up? That’s taking the term learning from defeat to…. Well, there are better ways of doing it.”
I shook my head
“You guys wanna learn stuff like technology from my world, I wanna see aura and magic from this world. So until I can make a gun, the only one of us who can satiate the others' curiosity is you guys. I see this as 2 pros and 1 con. I get to learn and lose some weight but suffer a lot of pain. All I can hope is that you guys don’t cripple me.”
I smirked as Tetra shook her head in defeat as the other two looked between him and me
“How are you two so similar yet so different?”
I raised a brow as Lance spoke
“She enjoys a good fight, I enjoy a good spar, Rose would rather not fight.”
“I’d rather not fight, but I don’t wanna know what it feels like to lose an arm without a fight.”
At the same time, it looked as if something clicked for them, Tetra looked saddened while Lance looked at me with familiarity as Rose nodded in approval.
“Alright, let’s hit the armory on our way to the training area.”
“So… weapons? Wouldn’t you just… store them in that amulet thing?”
The three of them looked at me as I spoke
“I figured it’s some magic item thing that holds lots of stuff, I have no clue how it works or anything but couldn’t you guys just store weapons in there?”
They nodded
“We have our own that has emergency equipment in case the capital is attacked but… you don’t want your arm to be cut off-“
“Not without a fight.”
I interrupted Rose
“I’m fine taking a brutal beating in a controlled environment now so I don’t get one later in an uncontrolled environment.”
“Do you have a weapon?”
Terra asked with a raised brow and I smirked
“I have my hands. That’s enough for me.”
Lance shook his head
“You need a weapon, if you can’t augment your strength you can’t fight with your hands.”
It felt like I was hit in the back of my head, I stood there shocked for a second before laughing.
“Fine, let’s get some weapons.”
Rose’s POV:
I and Lance sat on chairs in the middle of an empty field, Mark had chosen a few weapons, a staff, a sword, and knuckles. But for now, we wanted to see what he could do, so he was face-to-face with Tetra
“Remember the rules, if your back hits the ground or you're pinned, fight over, no weapons or augmentations, no fighting dirty. Fight.”
I spoke, and the two began to circle, Tetra walked in a circle like normal, her shoulder facing Mark as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye but Mark faced her, hands raised near his face as he hunched down a bit. He shuffled to the side making sure not to cross his feet as the two sized each other up, soon, he dashed towards Tetra.
His movements were fast as he jabbed, making sure to keep his profile low and one arm blocked as he picked in rapid succession, but whatever this fighting style was, he hadn’t used it in some time. He was sloppy and Tetra was just dodging and parrying. As she couldn’t augment her body she was just like him physically, but she had always trained for combat. Soon, she recognized the pattern of Mark's rapid strikes and landed a solid punch to his left side. I winced in pain at the solid thud but Mark barely staggered to his right before he landed a right hook on her left kidney,
“He can punch…”
Lance muttered as Tetra winced from the strike. Tetra’s surprise became a burden as she stumbled back a half step too much as her balance shifted, and like an orc that smelled blood, Mark started a vicious assault. He stood up completely as he dropped his guard and began to pummel Tetra he crossed her arms in front of her as she curled up a bit. The position of the attacker and defender shifted as their stances inverted from one to the other. I grit my teeth as this began happening, his sticks had a pattern and it was only a matter of time before Tetra noticed the gap, but each stick was just as powerful as the last. As I was beginning to wonder if Tetra holding back would cause her defeat I recognized a major problem at the same time as Lance
“He’s out of breath…”
I mumbled, and at that moment Tetra uncrossed her arms and swept Mark’s left arm out of the way. I watched him grit his teeth as he recognized his fault Tetra landed a solid uppercut in his stomach lifting him off the ground a bit before she lifted her leg straight into the air and dropped it like an ax on his collar bone. I swore I heard a crack as Mark slammed onto the ground.
“Ow…”
He let out as his face was buried into the ground, Terra raised her hands to her face as she asked
“Are you okay!?”
He eased a thumb in the air as he spoke
“Dirty isn’t the most enjoyable thing to eat.”
He joked
“But has anyone ever told you that you hit like a girl?”
He rolled himself onto his back and he used the arm that didn’t have a broken collarbone to shield his eyes as I finally made it to his side.
“I don’t know Rose, with quips like that I don’t think he needs healing.”
I laughed at Tetra’s joke but saw him cringe
“I’d rather not please… I’m sorry…”
I heard Lance as I knelt beside Mark to begin healing his arm. His collar bone was broken quite unevenly and he suffered a crackdown on a majority of his shoulder blade as well as a fractured rib and a few scrapes and bruises. His wounds weren’t severe, but as I used my magic to check for any other abnormalities, I noticed quite a few, too many to be exact. From how they looked, they were healed but not through normal means, or rather, they weren’t healed with magic. I remembered what he said about them not having magic and such and asked
“In your world… how did you deal with… not amputation-based injuries?”
He looked at me before squinting his eyes as his face turned almost emotionless, at a glance it was easy for me to tell what concussion both of us had come to as he spoke
“Depends, metal screws, metal plates, casts, and hoping the body could fix itself.”
“That’s inefficient!”
Tetra exclaimed
“We had yet to fix problems like regenerating and such… so this is… weird…”
He said, for us, this sort of healing was normal, but I could only imagine what having bones realigning in an instant must feel like to someone who had never experienced it. I used my magic to trace the old wounds he had suffered, broken bones, and scared organs traced his body. It was concerning how many there were, but I couldn’t overextend my healing and given his reaction when I brought them up vaguely, he seemed to rather deny they existed.
“That’s good.”
I spoke as I got up, he also sat up as he rotated his arm around a few times, as if testing it out. He threw a few punches with it then grasped the air like a child learning to walk for the first time. His face made many expressions from surprise to excitement to sadness and discomfort, we stayed silent as we watched this and he laughed
“Lance, your turn.”
He looked at us with that familiar mischievous smile.
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