An Unwanted Promotion

A blaring alarm wakes me. My body feels refreshed after a good night sleep, barely any soreness remains. Tom and I eat a quick breakfast since we both have places to go. We part ways at the street corner and on my way to the bus I notice a change in the subway's entrance. The military checkpoint is gone, and people are walking in and out. 'Finally, traffic was really getting annoying.' I arrive to the hunter's association and head towards the gym.

Most of the trainees have arrived already, even though the training begins in the afternoon. 'Wow, the redhead and his friends are early too.' After warming up, I begin to go over what the instructor showed us yesterday and some regular exercise. Soon enough, I hear a yell coming from the gym's entrance,

"Everyone! We will follow yesterday's format, split up into your weapon groups. Those who sparred yesterday, I'll give you personal pointers so that you work on your mistakes," Says the instructor.

While waiting for the instructor to get to my group, I observe the other weapon users. In particular, I focus on the mages and archers. Both of those met my criteria of creating distance from the monsters, yet I chose neither. Mages are rare in lower ranks since we lack the mana capacity to cast a significant number of spells. Only lunatics that couldn't let go of their dreams of chucking around fireballs dare to spend large chunks of their mana with each attack. Speaking of which…

BOOM!

A massive fireball explodes against a training dummy, the redheaded kid is panting across from the dummy's ashes. 'At least the power matches the mana consumption. But… wasn't he a fighter? What's he practicing spells for? The instructor mentioned we should all get familiar with using spells, for emergencies. But what he meant was support spells like small flames, not wasting all your mana on a bomb.'

With bows, the issue is that the strength behind the attacks relies strongly on the weapon itself. With melee weapons, as long as they don't break, you can output as much power as you want. Bows on the other hand, can only be pulled back so far. Higher quality materials or a complex design can improve their power, but those cost more money. The instructor gets to the spear group and starts explaining,

"Yesterday, you learned about thrusts and slashes, now you have to introduce footwork into them. Footwork is everything in melee combat, it defines your power, your agility, and your defense. An unstable base will make you unable to output any significant power, it'll slow you down, and make you prone to falling."

He does a couple of mock attacks, and when he thrusts his arms, he matches it with the legs. When parrying, he lowers his body and braces with his legs.

"You need to be able to add your weight into every move, making them stronger. You also must know how to remove weight, making them faster. The key to melee combat is a trained body and good battle instincts, I can only help with one of those," he says.

The instructor answers the group's questions and moves on to the next one. I attempt to replicate the moves on the dummy. At first, I'm sluggish and clumsy, but after a couple of tries, the sense of familiarity returns, and I enter a trance. The nightmare gains life, it begins to dodge and parry my attacks. After a couple of exchanges, it finally counterattacks. As I thrust at its head, it dodges by dashing diagonally, getting closer to me. It is too close now; I can't attack it with the tip of my spear. It leaps towards my face and I try to bat it away with the butt of my spear, but it's too fast. A dozen rows of teeth engulf my vision.

thud!

Snapping out of my trance, I realize my back is flat against the floor. The nightmare dummy is sitting still and is in the same spot as always. The people around me are staring at me, some are confused. I can hear the others whisper,

"What is wrong with him?" says a woman next to me.

"Must have quite the imagination," replies a man, mocking me.

"That's enough. Get back to practice," the instructor says this in a serious tone. He glances at me for a second before returning to answering the axe group's questions.

Disregarding those around me I go over what happened. 'It was way too fast and agile. Its size is also a problem, it was very hard to get an accurate thrust in. I also panicked, after it dodged my thrust, I forgot to readjust my feet. No wonder something so small had no problems tackling me.' Too distracted by the flaws in my technique, I fail to realize how bizarre the whole ordeal was.

Throughout the session, I tried to imagine the nightmare moving again, but it never did. Although disappointing, I can't do anything but continue practicing like nothing happened. Training ends with nothing of note happening, the instructor dismisses the class and I head home. When I enter the apartment, Tom is waiting for me in the living room.

"Oh, you are home early. You didn't hang out with your friends today?" I ask.

"No, I knew that a certain idiot would forget to eat lunch." He replies.

On cue, my stomach emits a low rumble. 'Oops.'

Next morning, I head back to the association for another day of practice. This time, everyone arrived early, and we all warm up and get some exercise in. The instructor separates us again, but as I head towards the dummies, he calls out to me,

"No, you get ready for a spar."

'Eh? A spar? Is he crazy?'

Despite my thoughts, I keep quiet, knowing opening my mouth would make things worse. No complaining. I obediently wait by the sparring area, shaking like a leaf. I spot the redheaded kid walking towards me. 'Oh no, what now.'

"Hey, don't be so nervous. The instructor might look mean, but he is a good teacher. You won't be seriously hurt," he says, with a charming smile.

'Charming? What am I thinking? And why is he going on about not being seriously hurt? Aren't you the guy who beat the shit out of someone on the first day!?'

"Uh, yeah thanks." I reply.

The instructor finishes telling the weapon groups what to do, faster than he ever has. 'Is it me or does he look eager?' When the instructor arrives at the sparring area I ask,

"S-so, who am I sparring with?" I ask.

"Me," replies the instructor. "but don't worry, I'll hold back a bit."

'Shit.'

He heads towards his bag and pulls out a pair of daggers. They are slightly curved and resemble… oh. They resemble a nightmare's front legs.

"Get in," he barks at me.

Daggers in hand, he curls his back, switching into a low stance. Somehow that massive body of his is compressed almost in half. The orcish figure is gone, replaced by the image of a large nightmare that's ready to pounce.

"Ready when you are," these words come out of his mouth like a growl.

My own stance changes, legs bracing with the ground, I lean forward. The tip of my spear is overlapping with the nightmare's face. My surroundings fade to black, the sounds of training, growing faint. Now, it's just the nightmare and me, surrounded by nothingness. It begins moving, darting straight at me. I move as well, short thrusting forward, anticipating its speed. It sees the thrust and sidesteps, dodging with ease. Thankfully, as a short thrust, little commitment is put into it. I can quickly readjust the spear and perform a small sideward slash. The slash nears the nightmares shoulder, but it parries. Feeling like my spear hit a brick wall, it bounces back, leaving me wide open. The scythe slices through the air, threatening to split my head in half, but it stops.

"I told you slashes are bad. You never slash away from your center line, only towards it," says the instructor.

The sound of the world returns. A dagger sits still in front of my eyes.

"Ah! Then what am I supposed to do? You are too fast," I say.

"Exactly. Nightmares are C rank monsters; they outclass you in every way. You need to know your limits. Skill will allow you to close the gap between ranks. But from E rank to C rank? That's not a gap, that's a chasm," he replies. "Let's go again, I'll restrain myself to low D rank. It's good practice anyway."

The instructor and I continue sparring throughout the day. Even though he's slower and weaker than the first fight, I still failed to beat him a single time. He would always outmaneuver me, or I'd end up falling for a feint and get whacked on the head. Feeling like tenderized meat, I make my way to the subway after training was over. 'The gap between ranks…' Finally, I arrive home, exhausted.

"Hello, oh, you look like shit. You hungry?" Tom asks.

"No, sorry. I do feel like shit, I'll just wait till dinner."

"Alright, how was training? Anything interesting?"

I proceed to tell Tom everything that happened during today's training. When I mention the instructor nearly splitting me in half with daggers, Tom says,

"Isn't that dangerous!? What if he slips by accident?"

"Don't worry Tom, he is a B rank veteran. He can control his body incredibly well," I reply.

When I finish describing my training, Tom's face gets filled with concern.

"Are you sure this hunter thing suits you? It sounds like you suck at it," he says.

"Well of course I suck! I've never held a spear before training started. And… I don't know. There are these times when I can feel every inch of my spear, like it's another part of my body. When all I can see is the opponent in front of me and all my anxiety leaves me. I grow calm and… I feel complete. You know?" I say, waiting for his reaction.

"What a nutjob. You feel at peace when fighting? Did they hit you too hard in training? Should we go to the hospital? No, wait! We don't have the money for hospital bills anymore!"

We begin to wrestle again, but this time, I have no mercy. I easily overpower him and start tickling him non-stop.

"Hahahaha-stop please- hahahaha," Tom pleads, but to no avail. Its time for my revenge....

Later that night, I wonder about what's been causing my trances during the fights. Only then do I notice, a faint outline at the base of my index finger. 'What is this? I thought I washed my hands after dinner.' I turn on the lights in my room and try inspecting it closely. 'It kind of looks like a tattoo of a ring… oh shit.'