32 Training IIII

"Now!" Noah roared.

Isabel thrust her sword at the monkey hurtling toward her. Its lips were peeled back in a furious snarl and its claws outstretched, reaching to claw her to shreds. Isabel's sword was longer.

Its tip slid clean into the monster's head, impaling it like a gristly, overcooked shish kabob. A very smelly one. That particular thought made Noah grimace. Perhaps it was wiser not to relate the disgusting monkeys to food items, especially ones that he liked.

Luckily, the monkey had no such worries. It was busy being dead. Its arms swung by its sides from the momentum of its jump, but no life remained within its eyes. Isabel flicked her sword and the monster slid off, thumping against a tree before sliding to the ground.

"I did it!" Isabel exclaimed, spinning to look back at Noah and mistakenly splattering some of the blood from her sword. Todd lurched back to avoid it and glared at her, but Isabel ignored him.

"So you did," Noah said, taking care not to let the relief show on his face. The monster had been much closer to Isabel than he would have liked, but there was no real other way he knew to train her. She was a close range fighter, after all. "Brilliant job. And look at that, no running in terror of a monster half your size."

Isabel nudged the monster's body with her foot. She let the sword shimmer and fade away. "That was the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life."

"We all have to start somewhere," Noah said. "Good job. Much better than having to rely on a shield that barely even works, eh? If you keep this up, by the time you actually get around to buying some real shields instead of making them yourselves, you'll be in the practice of fighting without them. That will do you a lot of good, especially if everyone else was thinking the same way you were."

"That's assuming we don't die first," Todd said. It was a joke, but the underlying note of concern was evident in his voice.

"You're right," Noah agreed. "That's assuming you don't die. Nobody said getting strong would be easy. If I were you, any spare money I had sitting around would go into healing potions."

"Is that what you spend all the money the Linwicks give you on?" Isabel asked.

Noah frowned.

Do I get a stipend? I actually have no idea, actually. What if they've been giving Vermil things? Hell, what if they're the ones that set him up with the poisoned healing potion? Egh. Too many damn things to think about.

"Yes," Noah said. "Though they don't give me as much as you seem to think. Don't forget, I'm a failure. An embarrassment to the Linwick family. Isn't that right?"

Isabel and Todd both tore their gazes away from his, looking at the ground in shame.

"You might be a little more competent than we thought you were," Isabel admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. "You really didn't help your image, though. Why didn't you just act like this all the time? You'd still have been fairly incompetent at Runes, but people would have respected your combat ability."

Ah, yes. The whole Rank thing and combining my Runes. I'm working on it, Isabel. And it would be wrong to make you and Todd feel too bad about insulting me. I'm pretty sure a lot of what you knew about Vermil was correct.

"I had a bit of an awakening. We can't all be lazy sloths forever." Noah clapped his hands together and his students jerked their eyes back to look at him. "Now isn't the time for this. We have quite some time left to practice, and I'm not wasting any of it. Our goal for today will be to hunt more small monkeys and build your confidence. If you haven't each killed five of them by the time we get pulled back to Arbitage, I'm giving you extra homework."

Isabel and Todd grimaced. Noah smiled to himself and continued into the forest with them close on his heels, each scanning the trees as they passed in search of prey.

For most of that day and through the night, everything passed completely according to Noah's plans. It took time, but Todd and Isabel were slowly gaining confidence in their abilities. Considering they were, at least in his eyes, more than competent, Noah felt like all he'd really done was reach the starting point they should have been at already.

Still, he couldn't help but feel pleased with himself and his students. Even though neither of them looked forward to the fights, they weren't terrified of fighting without their shields anymore.

Todd had the definite advantage between the two. His ranged attacks and the monkey's penchant for charging to their death in a straight line made the entire exercise one of confidence rather than actual skill, and he performed perfectly.

Isabel was considerably more cautious, and for good reason. Noah watched every fight she took intently, a wind blade waiting to let slip at his fingertips every second the monkeys still drew breath.

She only needed to be saved once, when her foot caught on a root and she tripped over herself. Even then, Isabel had rolled to the side and Noah was fairly certain she would have dodged the monkey's attack had his spell not taken its head off.

He'd feared the event would impact her willingness to continue, but was elated to find that Isabel just gave him an appreciative nod and fell back in line, waiting for Todd to take his turn on the next monkey so she could try again.

Twice, the group ran into Slashers. Noah dispatched them with brutal efficiency, taking a few moments to demonstrate their attacks to his students. As much as he wanted to rush them on and get them killing Slashers, he knew all too well the danger of the monsters. There were still three weeks before the class exam, and he refused to risk Todd or Isabel's lives any more than he already was.