“Hyah!”
The dull sound of metal clashing against each other echoed through the training ground Alissa and Ethan had pretty much claimed as theirs since the beginning of their training in the other world. The two young [Heroes] were locked in mock combat, wearing full armor, just with their weapons wrapped with padding around the parts meant to hit others with.
It was far less for their safety and more so that they did not unnecessarily damage their weapon just for training, really. If they accidentally killed each other all it took was a mere ten minutes to [Respawn] once more, but if they were to damage their armor or weapons, that meant at least hours of work for the blacksmiths at the least, and neither of them wanted that.
Ethan caught Alissa’s spear mid-swing, hooking the spearhead beneath the axe blade of his pollaxe. His new one was around the same length as the previous one he used, and was of similar design, with the main difference being that the shaft was entirely made of metal this time. The axe and hammerheads were also somewhat heftier, keeping the balance roughly the same as before.
Like Alissa, his newfound strength meant that he could wield the hefty weapon with ease, the same way he used his previous one. All it took was a couple hours to get himself acclimated to the new weapon before he swung it around with confidence. In contrast, Alissa took longer to get used to hers, but her weapon also saw more changes.
Sir Inolet had taught Alissa more tricks on how to use her spear, given the options that the new design afforded her. Alissa had been practicing them for quite a bit, and it showed. Normally Ethan would have dragged her weapon down with his, but instead, she quickly grabbed the shaft with both hands – the shield on her left hand was strapped to her forearm and short enough that she could hold something with the hand still – and yanked it back violently before Ethan could do so.
Ethan was slightly thrown off-balance by the unexpected move and saw how Alissa whirled around as she brought the spiked butt end of her spear in a vicious stab. His own weapon was out of position to parry the blow, so instead he shifted the shield on his left side over to block it. He only managed a rather poor angle to block with, however, and the sharp spike slid along his shield’s face towards his hands instead.
Fortunately Ethan managed to shift his grip and used the shaft of his pollaxe to deflect the thrust in time.
“You’re getting more used to this,” he commented as he shoved away Alissa’s spear and took a step back to recover his own stance. He was rather alarmed by how quickly Alissa had been picking up the tricks that Sir Inolet taught her to use with her new spear. Just prior to the dungeon, during their sparring in that initial month, he always had a clear advantage over her.
He still had some advantage over her, at least physically. Alissa has less Body stats compared to him, which meant he was stronger and has more stamina, though her Dexterity matched his since she had some more focus there compared to his own Strength-heavy build. It was her getting truly used to using a weapon that evened the odds between them, though.
“Good move, Miss O’Connor,” said Sir Inolet in a rare praise from where he stood by the side. The old knight had re-intensified their training after a couple days of rest, and they were once more settling into the rhythm from the month before the dungeon run. “I see you have been practicing the tricks I’ve shown you. Well done.”
“Thank you, Sir,” replied Alissa as she withdrew her weapon. Both of them were used to it by now. If Sir Inolet was satisfied by their progress and interjected when they were sparring, that meant he was happy and willing to indulge their questions about the world and other things not found in the books. It was a promise the old knight made to motivate the two in their training since he noticed how inquisitive they were.
Both Alissa and Ethan agreed to make the most out of those opportunities, both to clear their doubts as well as to simply learn more of the world they were now in. They had naturally done their share of reading in the royal library, but living people at times had things to say that were simply not contained in the books for one reason or another.
“In that case, Sir,” said Ethan with a toothy grin as he rested his weapon over one shoulder. “Can I ask about the cycle of Heroes and Champions? We’ve read the books about them and got the general gist, but I feel like there’s a lot of things that those books and official records simply glossed over. Things… not suitable for the general public, maybe?”
“An astute observation,” replied the one-eyed old knight with a rare smile. “How did those frocked baldies put it in those books again? ‘The Blessed Ones shall arrive at our aid on the behest of the Gods in our most troubled times to lead us to a fated victory’ or something like that, wasn’t it? That’s all hogwash for the masses to cling to.”
“And what was the reality like, Sir Inolet?” asked Alissa, one eyebrow raised with curiosity at the ease with which the old knight admitted that what they read – what the priests preached to the masses – was little more than propaganda at best. “I would assume you said that because you are aware of the truth behind the scenes, yes?”
“We hid the so-called ‘truth’ from the masses to keep them from panicking and dooming us, the Humans, as we know it, Miss O’Connor. It wasn’t something that sat right with me, but I understood the logic behind it,” admitted the old knight with a rather forlorn tone of voice. “Fact of the matter is, if we allowed the whole truth to circulate amongst the public, then maybe half the population would volunteer to fight and if necessary, die with the Kingdom, but that would be pointless.”
“Because the other half would get in their way and make their sacrifice useless?” asked Ethan, quickly catching on to what Sir Inolet implied.
“Precisely so, Mister Greene. The other half would panic and lose their minds. Some might go crazy and kill themselves or those around them. Others would use what they perceived as the little bit of time they had remaining to plunder wildly like bandits,” said the old knight as he shook his head. “The Kingdom, nay, Humanity could not afford such discord lest we bring about our own end.”
“The frocked baldies only mention that the summonings happen two to three times a century, if I remember right?” Sir Inolet asked the two, to which they replied with firm nods. “That’s not wrong, but didn’t go into details either. From what I know, the time between summonings varied greatly. Some happened as early as twenty years after the previous summon, while at times it could be eighty to ninety years to the next one. Every summoning period would then trigger the war between us Humans and the Demons, as you’re well aware.”
“So does that mean… that there were no wars outside those times?” Alissa asked with some incredulity.
“Nothing of the grand scale, at least. There’s plenty of raids and skirmishes, but in general neither side’s leadership wanted to risk a loss in case a summoning happened in the near future,” replied Sir Inolet. “In many ways it has become ingrained into both our cultures that decisive battles should only be pursued in the presence of [Heroes] and [Champions].”
“When was the last summoning, Sir?” asked Ethan respectfully. “And how many summonings are there that you know of?”
“The last one? That was thirty-eight years ago. I actually fought along the [Heroes] of that era, though I was not one of their companions. I was already in my third tier at the time and was thus ineligible,” replied Sir Inolet with some wistfulness in his voice. “As for how many… None of our history texts went that far back, but of the ones we knew of, this should be the eighteenth summoning in the past millennium or so.”
“Thirty eight years? But I thought you said the King’s grandfather was one of the [Hero’s Companions] of that period? That timeline doesn’t seem like it’d match up,” said Alissa with some confusion. She knew that the current king was in his mid-forties, with children ranging from the mid-twenties to toddlers. The King’s late Grandfather should have been in his eighties at the least, had he lived to the present day.
“Ah, right, you wouldn’t be that familiar with our contemporary history,” replied Sir Inolet with an amused chuckle. “The King’s grandfather was at the time known by the moniker of the ‘Lazy Prince’. He lived a life of indulgence and indolence, with all his siblings generally considering him incompetent and thus not a threat. He was in his late forties with grandchildren of his own when the summoning occurred back then, but was still on his second tier of classes.”
“Then he forced his way into becoming one of the [Hero’s Companions] I assume?” asked Ethan with noticeable interest.
“He did just that, yes. He was one of the four [Hero’s Companions] of the time, and the only one to survive the battle. In turn, that status allowed him, who was previously viewed as incompetent to win the struggle for the throne after his father the King of the time died of old age,” explained Sir Inolet. “We had needed a boost to morale at the time since the war had ended in our loss despite our having great [Heroes] and the Demons encroached into our original territory for the first time in centuries, so one of the [Hero’s Companions] becoming King was an option too tempting for most to reject.”
“So it was a gamble on his part, keeping himself ‘useless’ with low levels in the hopes of a hero summoning to take place before he was too old to participate, huh?” muttered Alissa with some surprise. She was surprised at the audacity of the gamble, given its all-or-nothing nature, but she supposed that was the way it goes for royalty who were fighting for the throne. “What do you mean by great [Heroes] though, Sir?”
“Right, [Heroes] generally come in two kinds. Most commonly, they are like you three. Young people who were summoned from the other world to answer our need,” answered Sir Inolet. “Sometimes, however, the summon brought spirits of great heroes long departed to answer our call. We call these the great [Heroes] or [Champions].”
“Are there… any conditions or rules for their summoning? Do both sides always get them in the same summoning period?”
“Not that anyone had known of. The chances seemed entirely arbitrary. Sometimes we have them and the Demon’s doesn’t. Sometimes it was the other way around. At times both sides received them, while at other times neither did,” replied the old knight honestly as he shrugged his shoulders. “Even now we have no idea what sort of [Champions] the demons had, which was partly the reason we refused to allow you three to go to the frontlines before you’re better prepared. Great [Heroes] and [Champions] are far stronger in the lower tiers, though ones like you often could match them or grow even stronger once you were at the fourth tier.”
“How… often has those like us beaten these ‘Great’ [Champions]?” Ethan asked with some curiosity as well as a hint of urgency to his voice. “Just curious, honestly,” he added, though not even Alissa would have bought that pitiful excuse.
“Not often,” replied Sir Inolet, who also saw the question for what it was but chose to just let it be. “There was one case where such a victory on our side was recorded in history, and another when the Demons proved themselves victorious in the same way, though that was mostly told as a fable from beyond times we had clear records of, so I could not speak of its veracity. The best we can do is hope that the Demons had not summoned Great [Champions], to be honest.”
Avitue
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“Hyah!”
The dull sound of metal clashing against each other echoed through the training ground Alissa and Ethan had pretty much claimed as theirs since the beginning of their training in the other world. The two young [Heroes] were locked in mock combat, wearing full armor, just with their weapons wrapped with padding around the parts meant to hit others with.
It was far less for their safety and more so that they did not unnecessarily damage their weapon just for training, really. If they accidentally killed each other all it took was a mere ten minutes to [Respawn] once more, but if they were to damage their armor or weapons, that meant at least hours of work for the blacksmiths at the least, and neither of them wanted that.
Ethan caught Alissa’s spear mid-swing, hooking the spearhead beneath the axe blade of his pollaxe. His new one was around the same length as the previous one he used, and was of similar design, with the main difference being that the shaft was entirely made of metal this time. The axe and hammerheads were also somewhat heftier, keeping the balance roughly the same as before.
Like Alissa, his newfound strength meant that he could wield the hefty weapon with ease, the same way he used his previous one. All it took was a couple hours to get himself acclimated to the new weapon before he swung it around with confidence. In contrast, Alissa took longer to get used to hers, but her weapon also saw more changes.
Sir Inolet had taught Alissa more tricks on how to use her spear, given the options that the new design afforded her. Alissa had been practicing them for quite a bit, and it showed. Normally Ethan would have dragged her weapon down with his, but instead, she quickly grabbed the shaft with both hands – the shield on her left hand was strapped to her forearm and short enough that she could hold something with the hand still – and yanked it back violently before Ethan could do so.
Ethan was slightly thrown off-balance by the unexpected move and saw how Alissa whirled around as she brought the spiked butt end of her spear in a vicious stab. His own weapon was out of position to parry the blow, so instead he shifted the shield on his left side over to block it. He only managed a rather poor angle to block with, however, and the sharp spike slid along his shield’s face towards his hands instead.
Fortunately Ethan managed to shift his grip and used the shaft of his pollaxe to deflect the thrust in time.
“You’re getting more used to this,” he commented as he shoved away Alissa’s spear and took a step back to recover his own stance. He was rather alarmed by how quickly Alissa had been picking up the tricks that Sir Inolet taught her to use with her new spear. Just prior to the dungeon, during their sparring in that initial month, he always had a clear advantage over her.
He still had some advantage over her, at least physically. Alissa has less Body stats compared to him, which meant he was stronger and has more stamina, though her Dexterity matched his since she had some more focus there compared to his own Strength-heavy build. It was her getting truly used to using a weapon that evened the odds between them, though.
“Good move, Miss O’Connor,” said Sir Inolet in a rare praise from where he stood by the side. The old knight had re-intensified their training after a couple days of rest, and they were once more settling into the rhythm from the month before the dungeon run. “I see you have been practicing the tricks I’ve shown you. Well done.”
“Thank you, Sir,” replied Alissa as she withdrew her weapon. Both of them were used to it by now. If Sir Inolet was satisfied by their progress and interjected when they were sparring, that meant he was happy and willing to indulge their questions about the world and other things not found in the books. It was a promise the old knight made to motivate the two in their training since he noticed how inquisitive they were.
Both Alissa and Ethan agreed to make the most out of those opportunities, both to clear their doubts as well as to simply learn more of the world they were now in. They had naturally done their share of reading in the royal library, but living people at times had things to say that were simply not contained in the books for one reason or another.
“In that case, Sir,” said Ethan with a toothy grin as he rested his weapon over one shoulder. “Can I ask about the cycle of Heroes and Champions? We’ve read the books about them and got the general gist, but I feel like there’s a lot of things that those books and official records simply glossed over. Things… not suitable for the general public, maybe?”
“An astute observation,” replied the one-eyed old knight with a rare smile. “How did those frocked baldies put it in those books again? ‘The Blessed Ones shall arrive at our aid on the behest of the Gods in our most troubled times to lead us to a fated victory’ or something like that, wasn’t it? That’s all hogwash for the masses to cling to.”
“And what was the reality like, Sir Inolet?” asked Alissa, one eyebrow raised with curiosity at the ease with which the old knight admitted that what they read – what the priests preached to the masses – was little more than propaganda at best. “I would assume you said that because you are aware of the truth behind the scenes, yes?”
“We hid the so-called ‘truth’ from the masses to keep them from panicking and dooming us, the Humans, as we know it, Miss O’Connor. It wasn’t something that sat right with me, but I understood the logic behind it,” admitted the old knight with a rather forlorn tone of voice. “Fact of the matter is, if we allowed the whole truth to circulate amongst the public, then maybe half the population would volunteer to fight and if necessary, die with the Kingdom, but that would be pointless.”
“Because the other half would get in their way and make their sacrifice useless?” asked Ethan, quickly catching on to what Sir Inolet implied.
“Precisely so, Mister Greene. The other half would panic and lose their minds. Some might go crazy and kill themselves or those around them. Others would use what they perceived as the little bit of time they had remaining to plunder wildly like bandits,” said the old knight as he shook his head. “The Kingdom, nay, Humanity could not afford such discord lest we bring about our own end.”
“The frocked baldies only mention that the summonings happen two to three times a century, if I remember right?” Sir Inolet asked the two, to which they replied with firm nods. “That’s not wrong, but didn’t go into details either. From what I know, the time between summonings varied greatly. Some happened as early as twenty years after the previous summon, while at times it could be eighty to ninety years to the next one. Every summoning period would then trigger the war between us Humans and the Demons, as you’re well aware.”
“So does that mean… that there were no wars outside those times?” Alissa asked with some incredulity.
“Nothing of the grand scale, at least. There’s plenty of raids and skirmishes, but in general neither side’s leadership wanted to risk a loss in case a summoning happened in the near future,” replied Sir Inolet. “In many ways it has become ingrained into both our cultures that decisive battles should only be pursued in the presence of [Heroes] and [Champions].”
“When was the last summoning, Sir?” asked Ethan respectfully. “And how many summonings are there that you know of?”
“The last one? That was thirty-eight years ago. I actually fought along the [Heroes] of that era, though I was not one of their companions. I was already in my third tier at the time and was thus ineligible,” replied Sir Inolet with some wistfulness in his voice. “As for how many… None of our history texts went that far back, but of the ones we knew of, this should be the eighteenth summoning in the past millennium or so.”
“Thirty eight years? But I thought you said the King’s grandfather was one of the [Hero’s Companions] of that period? That timeline doesn’t seem like it’d match up,” said Alissa with some confusion. She knew that the current king was in his mid-forties, with children ranging from the mid-twenties to toddlers. The King’s late Grandfather should have been in his eighties at the least, had he lived to the present day.
“Ah, right, you wouldn’t be that familiar with our contemporary history,” replied Sir Inolet with an amused chuckle. “The King’s grandfather was at the time known by the moniker of the ‘Lazy Prince’. He lived a life of indulgence and indolence, with all his siblings generally considering him incompetent and thus not a threat. He was in his late forties with grandchildren of his own when the summoning occurred back then, but was still on his second tier of classes.”
“Then he forced his way into becoming one of the [Hero’s Companions] I assume?” asked Ethan with noticeable interest.
“He did just that, yes. He was one of the four [Hero’s Companions] of the time, and the only one to survive the battle. In turn, that status allowed him, who was previously viewed as incompetent to win the struggle for the throne after his father the King of the time died of old age,” explained Sir Inolet. “We had needed a boost to morale at the time since the war had ended in our loss despite our having great [Heroes] and the Demons encroached into our original territory for the first time in centuries, so one of the [Hero’s Companions] becoming King was an option too tempting for most to reject.”
“So it was a gamble on his part, keeping himself ‘useless’ with low levels in the hopes of a hero summoning to take place before he was too old to participate, huh?” muttered Alissa with some surprise. She was surprised at the audacity of the gamble, given its all-or-nothing nature, but she supposed that was the way it goes for royalty who were fighting for the throne. “What do you mean by great [Heroes] though, Sir?”
“Right, [Heroes] generally come in two kinds. Most commonly, they are like you three. Young people who were summoned from the other world to answer our need,” answered Sir Inolet. “Sometimes, however, the summon brought spirits of great heroes long departed to answer our call. We call these the great [Heroes] or [Champions].”
“Are there… any conditions or rules for their summoning? Do both sides always get them in the same summoning period?”
“Not that anyone had known of. The chances seemed entirely arbitrary. Sometimes we have them and the Demon’s doesn’t. Sometimes it was the other way around. At times both sides received them, while at other times neither did,” replied the old knight honestly as he shrugged his shoulders. “Even now we have no idea what sort of [Champions] the demons had, which was partly the reason we refused to allow you three to go to the frontlines before you’re better prepared. Great [Heroes] and [Champions] are far stronger in the lower tiers, though ones like you often could match them or grow even stronger once you were at the fourth tier.”
“How… often has those like us beaten these ‘Great’ [Champions]?” Ethan asked with some curiosity as well as a hint of urgency to his voice. “Just curious, honestly,” he added, though not even Alissa would have bought that pitiful excuse.
“Not often,” replied Sir Inolet, who also saw the question for what it was but chose to just let it be. “There was one case where such a victory on our side was recorded in history, and another when the Demons proved themselves victorious in the same way, though that was mostly told as a fable from beyond times we had clear records of, so I could not speak of its veracity. The best we can do is hope that the Demons had not summoned Great [Champions], to be honest.”
Avitue
If you enjoy this story, please consider leaving a rating or review to help it gain more exposure, thank you! Or help support the author by leaving a tip!
Read ahead on my Patreon! For 5$ a month patrons will gain early access of a week's worth of chapters ahead (3 chapters), or for 10$ a month, gain early access to ALL the available Advance Chapters! (as of the moment of this writing: 21 Chapters ahead. This number will likely increase further in the future.)
Or you can subscribe to all my stories and get a discount on the price!
Join the Discord for silly stuff and chat with us!
