Clash

"You always were an eager little girl." Hjilmar laughed, readying his stance to receive Edna's charge. In the background, Sally was walking around moving to flank the giant, they were trying to pincer the giant, a classic move of trying to divert attention to one side and then hitting from another.

Edna moved fast, Curtis could barely track her, if it wasn't for the dust moving, he probably couldn't even tell where she was coming from. And then it happened, Edna with her spear had arrived at the giant's side, she readied her weapon and launched herself, like an arrow she moved swift and true, she spun the spear along with her body and hit the giant who managed blocked it head-on with the flat side of his greatsword, stabbing it onto the ground. The collision caused a shockwave, along with a sharp sound of metal hitting metal. On the opposite side, Sally appeared with her rapier, with a quick step, she shot herself forward jabbing at the giant's exposed side.

Curtis, being woken up wholly by the display before him, thought that the two had already won, the giant had lost, but he was stunned by what happened next. There was no cry of pain, there was no body that fell to the ground. The giant with an amazing show of his reflexes and strength was able to grab the rapier's blade before it had impaled him.

The two women, within a heartbeat, jumped back and regrouped, Edna still had her spear but looking closely the tip had broken off, but Sally, on the other hand, had elected to give up her weapon, not willing to engage in a tug-of-war with the giant.

"Always the smart couple you two, I half expected you two to marry." Hjilmar laughed, getting the side-eye from the two women, he had expected the attack that they were gonna do early on and had prepared for it. "You two were practically my adopted daughters, I didn't want you to marry, someone unworthy," he added the last part with a bit of an edge, getting a snort from the pirate.

Hjilmar examined the rapier before tossing it to the side, whispering about children not respecting their seniors. "Come on then, give me the best you got. No use holding back, I had wanted to give the kid a show anyway."

They looked at each other for a second before nodding. A breeze had gathered in the training ground, and the wind was currently gathering around the weaponless lady, she did some stretches, limbering up her limbs, readying herself for the next round. Sally with a nod to her friend got into a boxing stance, it looked like she wanted to engage the giant in mano a mano, having lost her weapon in the last exchange, she didn't want to ask the giant to return it as that would be unreasonable.

Edna on the other hand was holding a flame on her hand, she was melting the spearhead on her weapon, molding the metal into a brand new spearhead. She caught Curtis looking at her in wonder, and she snorted like she was asking, "What? Never seen someone on fire before?" Finishing the remolding of the spear tip, she gave Sally in front of her a tap, signaling her to start off the next round.

The sudden display of power had shocked Curtis, sure he knew that they were strong, but for them to have abilities too? This information was something he didn't know how to handle, thinking back to before he started the training, the Giant didn't really react to him having a flaming arm. It should have clicked in him that it wasn't really impressive from his point of view, seeing that the giant was still smiling right now.

"Silent treatment eh, can't say I didn't expect that." The giant prepared himself, unsheathing his greatsword from the ground and readying it for a swing.

With a spring or rather, an overloaded spring in her legs, Sally launched herself forward, arriving immediately in the giant's range, she jumped and began to fly, she circled the giant, and then proceeded to unleash a barrage of attacks; a jab there, a hook here, a chop and sometimes even a kick. Hjilmar didn't even bother to block most of the hits, only electing to block the ones that would target his head or ones that would do serious damage to him. What was amazing was that with each move she did, the wind had assisted her, she had been able to dodge punches that would have sent her flying. Her blows that the giant had blocked would have an extra oompf to them. Sending shockwaves with each punch, kick or chop that she did.

Things kicked into overdrive once Edna had joined in, she moved in guns blazing per se, holding her spear firmly, she synced instantly with Sally, the two of them performing moves that normally cannot be avoided, but the giant being like a fish in the water was able to outmaneuver the two. He was able to dodge way before the attacks were coming, it was like he was reading their minds. You'd think that the giant being as big as he is would not be able to move that fast, but Curtis could only believe his eyes, as he saw how agile the giant is. Ducking under blows, dodging by the skin of his teeth, slapping away the red hot spear of Edna, even performing counter attacks that would send them flying.

Watching the battle happening before him, Curtis could see that Hjilmar wasn't really straining himself, the same couldn't be said for his two opponents, he hasn't even moved much from his starting position, he even allowed the two to stretch beforehand without doing anything. If he didn't know any better, Curtis would have thought that he was just being arrogant, but from what has been happening, he had planned two or even three moves ahead. The giant was a well of experience and wisdom, he might have been laughing earlier, but that was only because he already knew he would win.

Curtis' eyes were suddenly caught by Hjilmar, he was looking straight at him before he flashed a smile. And it caused him chills that rocked his whole body. The Giant's eye turned sharp, and he let out a war cry.

"AOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR"

Hjilmar bellowed out, brandishing his greatsword with two hands, he repelled the two women's attacks and disengaging before he lifted his arms and performed an earth-shattering overhead swing.

*BOOOM*

The hit had completely knocked Curtis onto his backside, the whole training ground was in shambles, dummies were knocked down, weapons were strewn about, and the two women the giant was fighting were struggling to stand up.

"HAHAHA! That was a good swing!." He let out a laugh, but then his look turned strict, like a drill sergeant he bellowed out to the two women "But you two got weak, in no way in hell should you two have not been able to even give a good hit in. All you two did was make my muscles ache even more! Your hits weren't even enough to massage me"

Edna finally being able to stand up, looked like she was about to say something when Sally cut her off. "I'm sorry master Hjlmar, I wasn't able to keep up with my training because of all the work with the council" she bowed, earning a look of contempt from Edna who whispered, "Always the ass-kisser aren't you." "Ohh shut up, you know you love me." she shot back forcing Edna to bow with her. "And Edna here wasn't able to train because of the task I gave her, she had been gone for more than 2 years."

Hjilmar looked at his two former students, no he could even call them his adoptive daughters, the time they spent training with him was short for giants, but it was already their whole lives for the age they were at right now.

"You two will train with the boy for a week, if you haven't gone soft till then, I'll get you back into shape within a year." the giant ordered before he took a look at Curtis who was covered with dust. "These two will train you until I deem you strong enough to train with me." and with that order, he sealed the fate of three people.

Curtis didn't hate the decision, having two more people to train with didn't hurt. Especially if training with them kept him away from Shitmar. He smiled to himself as he thought that this was a win for him, but seeing the smile the giant had, he started to doubt himself.

~~~

After the fight between the three, Curtis thought he had rested enough and wanted to get right back into training, his muscles and body still ached, but he didn't have the luxury to keep being weak with monsters like them being this close to him. But Hjilmar pulled him back saying that they needed to eat something first. This reminded Curtis that they didn't have any breakfast, it was still dark when he was pulled from his room and they already started training. He had wondered why he didn't feel any hunger at all when the giant answered his unasked question.

"Now that you're awakened, you don't really need that much food, as long as you're getting the essence from the environment," Hjilmar explained, before adding. I'll answer your questions later, let us go get something to eat for now." oddly, Edna and Sally were excited to go inside when they heard that they were going to get served some food.

~~~

30 minutes later. Curtis sat at the table by himself, earlier they were able to change out of their dirty training clothes and put on some fresh ones. Arriving into the kitchen Curtis was surprised that there was a set of tables and chairs for humans, the giant was nowhere to be seen, but on the other side of the room, there was an iron throne next to a giant-sized table. Looking around he found the two women looking through paintings that were hanged on the wall above the fireplace. Depicted in the paintings was a layout of the whole city. It looked like a blueprint of the city's structures, it depicted the width, size, radius, and even the sewer system of the city. It was a giant painting that ran the whole size of the wall, up to the ceiling.

Curtis decided against trying to get between the two women, they were tired, and probably sore from the loss earlier. He just sat in a chair and looked around the room. Ever since this morning, he was trying to get a layout of the house drawn up in his head. He now knew where his room was, where the kitchen is, the dining room, the bathroom, which he was surprised that there was one sized for a normal human, though he did expect it earlier when he learned that the giant had taught humans before.

Looking up at the walls he found a few that were just scripts, they looked old, the parchment they were in looked just about ready to turn into dust, the writings were still barely legible, if it weren't encased in the glass, they might've already been ruined. There were multiple parchments hanged on the wall. One particular writing had caught Curtis' attention. It wasn't because he could read it, it was because on the bottom right corner of the parchment, there was a symbol, and that symbol looked similar to the seal his family had.

"Find anything good boy?" the giant Hjilmar suddenly appeared by Curtis' side, he was shocked that such a big man was able to stand near him without making a sound.

Deciding to put some trust into the giant, as he was going to be staying here for the foreseeable future. Curtis asked about the symbol on the parchment. "That symbol is close to my family's seal, is it related to the De Leons?"