A new chapter is up.
Come in, get comfortable, and let’s see what kind of trouble waits this time ❤️
✦
Alden moved as if he had eyes in the back of his head.
He slipped easily away from the attack behind him, turned, and struck the ambusher in the chest with his wooden sword.
If the weapon had been steel, the man would have gone down badly wounded.
Since it was not, the attacker could keep fighting, and two more men closed in beside him to hem Alden in.
Most men would have panicked under that kind of assault.
Alden looked almost at ease.
His footwork was light, his body free and untroubled, and he always seemed to move just before a blow landed.
Each dodge carried a counter, and each counter found a vital point.
If his weapons had not been wooden and the attackers had not been wearing leather armor, the three men would have died dozens of times over.
Even so, several of his counters slipped through gaps in the armor and struck unprotected flesh hard enough to leave the men grimacing.
“Stop.
Stop!” One of the hired sparring partners finally stumbled back after Alden’s wooden blade found a gap in his leather and jabbed him again.
He waved both hands, stripped off his armor, and lifted his shirt to reveal bruises blooming across his body.
Breathing hard, he said, “I’m done.
If we keep going, the coin Old Baine paid us will not cover the healer.”
Once one man stopped, the other two reached their own limit as well.
They lowered their wooden swords and shields and made it clear they were finished.
Alden, the cause of their misery, stood gasping with one wooden sword braced against the ground.
He looked apologetically at the three sparring partners Old Baine had carefully chosen for him.
Two weeks earlier, Alden’s wounds had fully healed.
Old Baine, however, still had no answer from Red Lake.
He had found Smiling Will, but Will had not given him a firm reply.
He had only told Baine to wait until the Red Lake guard needed more men.
Alden was not worried.
From what he had heard in the tavern, Red Lake, Old Oak, and Goldengrove were clearly preparing for action.
Red Lake would have to call up its people when that happened.
All Alden needed to do was carry weapons onto the battlefield.
With his ability, he was certain he could produce an eye-catching record.
Add in his reputation as the Bear-Hunter, and unless the Cranes were blind, they would not ignore such a useful man.
He might not even need to begin at the lowest rank of the guard.
A higher post could be within reach.
Once he set the matter of the Red Lake guard aside, he devoted himself to training.
Endurance and basic physical conditioning were the center of his routine, but he did not neglect sword practice.
What he lacked was someone to fight.
After Old Baine watched him train alone once, the old man decided that more solitary practice would do little good.
From then on, he occasionally hired caravan guards and sellswords passing through the tavern to serve as Alden’s sparring partners.
At first, Alden trained one-on-one.
That soon proved useless.
He suppressed each opponent so thoroughly that the practice offered almost no pressure.
Alden felt the same.
The twin-blade style he possessed was too strong.
Against a knight trained for years, a duel might have value.
Against an ordinary sellsword alone, it was far too easy.
So he asked to increase the number of opponents.
In less than ten days of practical training, he could already handle three sellswords attacking together.
Judging by his current state, perhaps only five at once would truly put pressure on him.
His swordsmanship had astonished everyone who saw it, but those sessions also revealed a weakness in his endurance.
A high-intensity fight like the one just now could only be maintained for two or three minutes.
After that, his stamina would drop sharply and his combat strength with it.
That flaw could not be fixed quickly.
It would take long, steady training.
Old Baine handed bruise salve to the hired men while analyzing the problem for Alden.
“Ordinary sellswords cannot pressure you anymore.
Adding a few more will not change much.
You need real fighting, preferably against true warriors.
That is what will help you improve.”
He paused and looked at Alden, who was still breathing hard.
“For now, stop hiring men to spar with you so often.
Spend more time building your wind.”
Then he came over, gripped Alden’s arm, and squeezed.
“You are still too thin.
You need more weight on you.
I will make you more stewed meat and bean mash for a while.
That should help put some bulk on your bones.”
The plan conflicted somewhat with Alden’s own training schedule, but he did not refuse.
His routine already required a large amount of rich food.
Stewed meat and bean mash might taste poor, but it would provide the energy he needed.
Old Baine’s suggestion also had merit.
Because Alden had absorbed Peacekeeper’s combat experience, his training instincts had begun to follow that style.
Agility, evasion, stealth, and concealment had become his focus.
Everything bent toward speed, leaving him too light, especially with almost no fat on his body.
On a battlefield of cold steel, fat could serve as a man’s last layer of armor.
A fighter with enough flesh on him might take a blow that cut only into fat rather than muscle or bone, leaving him able to fight.
If Alden’s current body took a solid hit, there was little padding to soften it.
The force would go straight into muscle and bone, likely injuring him badly and stripping away most of his combat strength.
Alden nodded.
“I understand.
I will adjust my training.”
Baine looked surprised that Alden had accepted the advice without argument.
In the past, the boy had been stubborn.
Once he decided on something, he would not change it.
Even when Baine gave advice, Alden would always find words to push back.
The reckless bear hunt had been proof enough of that.
“What is it?
Is something wrong?” Alden noticed the old man’s strange expression and realized he might have acted unlike his former self.
He asked casually, as if nothing were amiss.
“No.
Nothing.
It is good.” Baine smiled and waved away the concern.
Alden had changed, but to him the change was for the better.
Another two weeks passed.
Alden spent that time training while deliberately putting on weight.
Whether because of the heavy training or because of his gift, his height and weight both rose sharply.
Before, he had been like most hunters in White Village, around five foot seven.
Now he stood closer to six foot three.
In White Village, that made him tower over others.
He had to lower his head to enter Old Baine’s tavern.
As his weight increased, his body broadened as well, and from a distance he looked like a bear walking upright.
Because of that, rumors soon spread through White Village and among the caravans passing through.
Most claimed that Alden had changed so much in so short a time because, when he killed the mountain bear, he had also devoured its spirit, gaining the bear’s shape and strength.
Those rumors made people fear him even more.
Villagers who had not been on good terms with him before now kept their distance whenever they saw him.
Some would not even look him in the eye.
Their reaction made Alden increasingly uncomfortable in White Village.
In truth, he held little resentment toward the villagers who had tried to take everything from him when he lay near death.
For one thing, he was not truly the original Alden and had little attachment to the people or things here.
For another, he did not think their choice unnatural.
In such poverty, people used whatever resources they could reach.
If he had stood in their place, he might have done the same.
Because of that, during the early days of his recovery, he had considered improving his relationship with the villagers so that he could use White Village’s manpower later.
In a backward world like this, men from one’s home village were among the most important resources a rising man could have.
Most of White Village’s people were archers, and many knew a little swordplay.
With modest training, they could become decent fighters.
Alden had imagined that if he gained a military post under some noble, recruiting men from White Village would let him form the beginnings of his own force quickly.
Now that plan had collapsed before it could begin.
The villagers’ fear and suspicion were too clear.
Even if he actively tried to mend relations and explained that he did not hate them, they would not believe he had truly let go of his grievance.
That change in thinking made him leave the mountain-bear rumor alone.
More than that, when he heard the villagers whisper that he had devoured the bear’s spirit and taken its strength, he did not deny it.
Instead, he deliberately displayed abilities he had never shown before, deepening the rumor’s hold and turning the villagers into carriers of his own legend.
The rumor soon produced results.
As usual, after finishing his daily training, Alden went to Old Baine’s tavern for the weight-gain meal prepared especially for him.
At the door, someone blocked his path.
“So you are the Bear-Hunter.
Taller than I expected.
Good.
Very good.”
A richly dressed nobleman looked Alden up and down with arrogant eyes, nodding as if examining a piece of merchandise.
Alden studied the young noble, who had grown a beard deliberately to make himself look older.
His gaze flicked to the golden crane mark branded on the saddle of the fine horse outside the tavern, then to the six soldiers behind the man.
From those details, he made a rough guess at the noble’s identity.
He did not know the man’s purpose, but he could sense a hint of hostility in his stare.
Even so, Alden showed no unusual emotion.
He stepped back like an ordinary man faced with a provocation and set his hand on the small hatchet at his waist.
With apparent wariness, he asked, “Who are you?
I do not know you.”
The noble frowned at the rude response, but soon recovered his arrogance.
He was about to signal one of his men to announce his identity when Old Baine burst out of the tavern.
“You stupid boy, what do you think you are doing?”
Baine looked ready to smack him across the back of the head.
Alden’s height made that awkward, so the old man struck his back instead.
As he withdrew his hand, he gripped the young man’s arm almost imperceptibly, as if warning him.
Only then did he bow to the young noble.
“My lord, please do not blame him.
Ever since his wounds healed, he has become terribly sensitive to everything around him, like a startled hare.
He did not mean any offense.
Ask anyone in the village if you doubt me.”
“A hare?
This hare is not small.” The young noble glared at Old Baine, making him fall silent, then looked back at Alden.
“No need to explain.
I know what he is.
The brave Bear-Hunter, yes?”
He lifted his chin.
“I am Ser Cley Crane of Red Lake.
I heard your legend in the tavern and grew curious, so I came to see what the Bear-Hunter looks like.
You are somewhat less impressive than I expected, but you will do.”
Alden said nothing.
He only watched him calmly.
Ser Cley took Alden’s lack of response as an insult.
His face darkened.
Then, as if he had thought of something, he sneered.
His eyes settled on Alden as though looking at a dead man.
“Still, I do not entirely believe the rumors, so…”
He glanced at one of the soldiers beside him and stepped back.
“If you can hunt a mountain bear, defeating this retainer of mine barehanded should not be difficult.”
“My lord…” Old Baine’s face changed sharply.
He hurried to plead for Alden, but his years of fighting told him exactly how large the difference was between an armed man and an unarmed one.
This soldier had both weapon and leather armor.
No matter how astonishing Alden’s twin-blade style had looked, Baine did not believe the boy could overcome such a gap.
“Old Baine, I know you went to Will and asked him to help the Bear-Hunter join the guard.
I am simply testing whether he is qualified.” Ser Cley cut off the plea and exposed what Baine had done in Red Lake.
Then he put on an expression of sudden remembrance.
“Ah, I nearly forgot to mention something.
Smiling Will has been removed as captain of the Red Lake guard for embezzlement.
He is in the dungeon now and will be executed with the other prisoners in a few days.
I, Ser Cley Crane, am the guard captain now.”
Hearing that, Baine understood at once.
Without meaning to, he had been dragged into House Crane’s internal struggle, and Ser Cley had come here to teach him a lesson.
The matter could no longer be changed.
Baine turned, patted Alden’s shoulder apologetically, leaned close, and whispered, “Use everything you have.
Do not hold back.”
I hope this chapter pulled you a little deeper into the story.
Stay close, because things are only getting more interesting.