Tale Of A Knight

She was on a different level. Not as high as Master Zen, he is an entirely different type of monster, but it is obvious she is way stronger than him, and if he foolishly accepted her challenge, he was confident there wouldn"t be even a wet spot left behind from his remains.

And what did she mean that he beat her in a duel? That"s insane! Who would be strong enough to fight someone as dangerous as her and take victory? Bakit was confident there was a case of mistaken ident.i.ty.

While he was running, she chased after him, screaming "Wait! Come Back!" Why would he want to come back? To get himself butchered? No thanks!

He learned how to counter air slashes from Sword Lord, but would it be enough to fight against that Jansulu person? No, it took all he had in him to counter just one of Sword Lord"s slashes, Bakit was confident that he had nowhere near the amount of strength necessary to counter multiple slashes like that.

Because the forest was large, he finally managed to lose her.

He arrived at Mekros"s place and snuck himself into the house.

Apparently Mekros noticed this, so he called Bakit out.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Trying to hide."

"From whom may I ask? Don"t tell me you got chased by a girl? Not likely…." Then Mekros saw the expression on Bakit"s face. "I hit the nail on the head didn"t I?"

"Master Mekros, you got it completely right." Bakit had to admit his teacher was spot on.

"Well, is she single?"

"As far as I know?"

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

"Then why the ha.s.sle?"

"She is insane."

"Aren"t they all?" Mekros seemed to be speaking from experience. Right, he is the type that frequents the brothels without anyone knowing, he likely had too many encounters with the crazy kind.

"Well, putting that matter aside, it seems it is time for us to spar again, let"s see if you have learned something. It has been a while since we sparred." Considering Mekros was kept being asked to do lots of paperwork by the prince to manage the knights, he didn"t have too much time to train Bakit. This allowed Bakit to sneak off to train with his other teacher Zenjuro Tamaraki, aka the Sword Lord.

"Yes, Master Mekros." Bakit replied.

* * *

With both of them armed with wooden sword, Mekros inspected Bakit"s fighting stance. Something seemed to be off. Bakit was wearing a glove on his right hand but his left hand had no glove. Also he was only wielding his wooden sword with his left hand, instead of both hands. "I see, so he has retooled his fighting style in order to fight better, but who knew he preferred his left hand instead of right, that certainly is a surprise~" Mekros was unaware that his disciple did not do that out of a choice, that simply was the only way he could fight.

"Then here I go!" Mekros was confident the fight was in his favor. Even with his lame leg and loss of much of his strength, he still was a skilled swordsman. He was a former member of Holy Swords; he definitely is not someone who should be underestimated!

* * *

"Well, this is not how I expected this to turn out." Mekros muttered. He was lying on the ground, with his opponent pinning him under his leg. Mekros"s sword was out of reach and Bakit"s sword was at his throat, with Bakit standing triumphantly over him. "My, my, this kid has a great potential! Less than a month ago I beat him so easily, but this time, this time he not only managed to easily counter all my moves but also deflect them! He is natural at this! If he trains more there is no telling how much better of a swordsman he could become! And to think he only used pure swordsmanship, no magic, no special ability, just plain skills. And he did it with only his left hand! Was he holding back, just how hard did he work to do this?"

"This is my win, Master." Bakit muttered. His nearly daily training with Sword Lord paid off. While he was nowhere near Sword Lord"s level, Bakit seemed to have grown as a swordsman. Without even noticing, he had become better, much better swordsman than he was before. Under grueling training of sword lord, Bakit thought he was pathetically weak compared to the other swordsmen, but clearly that was not the case. The teacher he once thought of as extremely strong was now at his feet. He had won. He had surpa.s.sed Mekros Renow, the former 9th seat of the Holy Swords. But if he wanted to surpa.s.s Sword Lord, then he still had a very long way to go. With only one hand, his abilities were weaker, he specialized in defense, not offense, but that was good enough, for now.

Bakit stood up, allowing Mekros to stand back up. Bakit lowered his sword.

"Well then, I suppose the student truly has surpa.s.sed the teacher." Mekros said with a smile.

"Certainly not, if it weren"t for your injuries, I am sure I would have met defeat at your hands, after all you are the former member of Holy Swords." Bakit humbly uttered.

"Maybe, maybe not. I was only the 9th seat in that order, nothing special. Still, how do you know of my former position?"

"I met a lady by the name of Rainir; she told me she was your niece."

"Oh, so that"s why! And here I thought I accidentally told you that. You see I tried to keep my former t.i.tle a secret. If the others knew how low the former member of Holy Swords had sunk, they would lose all their morale for the battle against our enemies. I definitely would like to avoid that if possible."

"Of course, master Mekros."

"Quit it with the master will you? Just call me Mekros from now on. I am no longer worthy of being your teacher, and since you have defeated me, we are now equals, at least in my eyes. And now…" he approached Bakit with his wooden sword raised. He tapped Bakit"s shoulders and head with the sword, gently.

"I officially declare your training as an apprentice squire to be over; you are now officially a squire of Tazak kingdom, congratulations!"

Now Bakit was officially promoted to a squire, a rank lower than a knight, but higher than a commoner or an apprentice. It definitely showed that Mekros"s disciple had a bright future ahead of him.