The Lone Wanderer

As it so happened, the two sides weren’t evenly matched at all. Their numerical advantage aside, the villagers seemed to completely outclass the raiders in both skill and the quality of their weapons. Hell, even if their numbers were reversed, Percy was confident ‘his’ people wouldn’t have struggled much.

Within mere minutes, over half of the invaders were dead, gutted like fish by the sharp slashes of the villagers. At least, Percy had to give credit to the survivors as they showed no intention of surrendering. They probably reasoned that it was better to die here than to go back to the jungle. After all, everyone could see the vines already swaying in unrest in the distance.

‘I’m the only one still taking my time…’ he smiled bitterly, as he looked back at his opponent.

He was a man seemingly in his thirties – maybe, though Percy wasn’t an expert on these people’s physiology. He donned a crudely forged cutlass, its edge dull and its blade covered in dried bloodstains. Evidently, Sengo’s advanced crafting techniques weren’t quite as widespread as Percy had originally thought. Of course, he could have defeated the raider already, had he put his heart into it. However, Percy was still struggling to rationalize killing a stranger just to help more strangers.

‘Let’s try to learn something in the process, at least.’

As early as their first exchange, he had noticed an impulse to move and react in a specific manner – in a way he wasn’t used to. Apparently, his host’s muscle memory bled into his own combat instincts, driving him to switch up his fighting style.

Percy could have easily resisted the impulse and made quick work of the man if he wanted. After all, he had plenty of experience himself. Besides, it wasn’t like Micky’s fighting style was any inferior to the locals’. But he didn’t do that. He was curious to see how Takeo fought.

The Dance of the Savage Gods involved a lot of exaggerated movements and quick footwork. Its central concept was achieving dominance over the battlefield, wearing down an opponent with multiple opportunistic blows. The natives’ style on the other hand couldn’t have been more different. It involved much smaller movements, focusing on the delivery of sharp, deadly strikes at an opponent’s vitals.

‘This style might be more compatible with my soul affinity.’

It was easy to see why. Both worked better with sharp weapons and were best at ending a fight in an instant. Recognizing the value of this art, Percy allowed himself to sink into Takeo’s memories as he entered a kind of trance.

His enemy tried to cut him open with the cutlass, but Percy wasn’t in a rush to fight back, merely sidestepping the blows one after the other, waiting for an opening of his own. Some of the attacks did come dangerously close to injuring him, but he didn’t care too much. Worst case scenario, his clone died a couple days sooner.

‘There.’ Percy thought after seeing the man overextend.

Taking a step forward, he swung his katana as swiftly as he could, barely stopping an inch before his opponent’s neck. The raider stumbled back, swallowing a lump of saliva after realizing how close he had come to losing his head. Though he frowned a second later, upon seeing Percy hadn’t tried to finish him.

“Again.” the latter said, gesturing at him to stand.

The man complied, soon engaging Percy into another round. The two fought for several more minutes, as the young man continued to use the raider as a whetstone, trying to mix and consolidate Micky’s and Takeo’s styles in an accelerated manner.

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His body was weaker than he was used to, but not as bad as it could have been. While at Red, Takeo had clearly pushed himself to his limits. In fact, Percy was confident he could have used Circulation with it if he had a functioning core and the necessary channels cleared. Though there wasn’t any need for that right now, as he had plenty to learn from even the mundane bout.

Dodge after dodge, slash after slash, his body oscillated between the two styles as he circled the raider and pivoted on his feet, trying to use the dance to create opportunities for the finishers. As for his opponent, he was constantly on the backfoot the entire fight. That said, he seemed to have calmed down after a certain point, realizing Percy had no intention of killing him.

“Stop.” the man spoke eventually, raising his hand.

Percy barely halted mid-swing, only now registering what was happening. The other villagers had long finished their own opponents and were all gathered around him, giving him strange looks.

“Why?” the raider asked again, clearly as confused as the rest of them.

“I’m not going to kill you.” Percy shrugged, before sheathing his weapon. “Though I don’t really care what the others do with you. After all, you did attack us.”

Turning around, he headed for his house, but not before tossing his father a glance. Sengo’s expression was cold as ice, probably realizing that Takeo was acting out of character.

***

Percy watched silently as Sengo hammered the red-hod lump of iron, losing himself in the rhythmic sound. Every now and then, the old blacksmith would dip the metal in water to cool it, before using a brush to coat it in a layer of clay mud. According to Sengo, this treatment would prevent the sword from rusting.

Next, Sengo placed the lump back inside the forge to reheat it, before resuming the tempering process. Each time, he folded the thinned sheet back onto itself, forcing more of the impurities out with each cycle.

‘No wonder it’s so much stronger than what we have back home.’

They actually did have steel back on Remior, the idea of fusing multiple metals into alloys not being that foreign to them. However, Percy was willing to bet they hadn’t perfected the process to this degree. Sengo’s work bordered on obsessive.

Once he was done, Percy watched the man sharpen the blade against a rotating grindstone, powered by heat like all of Sengo’s tools. Soon, an intricate wavy pattern took form along the edge of the katana. It was probably only a side-effect of the forging process – not there intentionally. Still, that didn’t detract from the sword’s beauty at all. It could probably fit inside a gallery just as well as it could on a battlefield.

‘It’s remarkable what he has achieved with the most common of materials. Maybe the philosophy behind it can be applied to my own constructs…’ Percy thought.

Of course, it wasn’t the same, as his spells were made of mana, not metals or stones. Still, he did have some ideas as to how he could approach this when he returned.

But Sengo hadn’t finished quite yet, breaking Percy out of his thoughts as he attached a wooden hilt to the blade. Next, he wrapped it in a thin strip of cloth several times, forming a vertical pattern of diamonds. Finally, he checked the sword one last time, hammering it some more here and there, to straighten any lingering imperfections along its length. As for a scabbard, he didn’t seem to have one ready, so he just rested the sword on a cushion before turning to his ‘son’.

He appeared like he wanted to speak – to explain something perhaps – but he ultimately remained silent. His eyes wavered for a moment, before he averted his gaze entirely. Even looking at Takeo was difficult.

‘He knows, doesn’t he?’ Percy realized.

Sengo hadn’t spoken a word since the altercation with the raiders. While Percy had never found the courage to tell him the truth about his son, the man seemed to have figured it out on his own. After all, what sort of father wouldn’t have noticed something like that?

‘I should still explain everything clearly. It’s the least I can do after everything he’s taught me…’ he decided.

Though he didn’t get the chance.

A tremor suddenly shook the house, as Percy heard a couple of screams coming from outside. Both he and Sengo rushed to the window, trying to understand what had happened. The sight before them was horrific. Multiple tendrils as thick as a tree’s trunk had sprouted all over the village, all of them covered in countless thorns. The demonic vines lashed at any building within their reach, trying to tear the cement walls down one blow at a time.

The sound of something breaking came from behind them, as Percy and Sengo both turned around, only to see another of the tendrils digging out right in the middle of the workshop.

‘Father’ and ‘son’ both clenched their weapons tightly in their grasp, ready to face off against the demonic jungle.

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