Chapter 30 - Knight Footwork

"..."

"Are you sure?" Kendel asked while looking confused.

"Eh! You want to fight the teacher Kai!?"

Olly looked at me with surprise, Ella also looked surprised. None of them expected me to ask for a fight.

I nodded my head to Kendel's question.

I wasn't sure if he was going to accept or not, I figured I'd ask because it was the easiest way for me to understand it.

In the blink of an eye, I suddenly appeared on the stage from before. In front of me was Kendel.

"Are you ready?"

I never liked the teleporting thing, could I just be teleported against my will at any moment? How'd it work?

I got into a stance and nodded my head.

Kendel nodded his head and also got into stance before saying,

"Here I come."

He began to rush at me, his footwork ever-so confusing.

I tried to follow him with my eyes, but I could barely keep up. In an instant, he appeared to my side and punched.

I barely dodged and threw a jab towards his face, but by the time I punched he was already gone.

Where was he... I looked around but couldn't see him. The only thing I felt was the incoming punch to my gut.

Just barely I was able to move my elbow down to take the hit there instead of my gut.

It hurt but it hurt slightly less than when Ella hit me.

I tried to use the steel footwork to get away, but it was too slow, when I backed up there was already another fist coming straight for my face.

It connected half-way; I was barely able to avoid getting hit directly on the nose, but my cheek took a hit instead.

I could barely hear Kendel whisper,

"Oh? Im-"

Instead of falling back after getting hit, I decided to kick instead, I aimed for his stomach.

He was already gone; it was like trying to hit a ghost. Everywhere I attacked he seemed to be somewhere else.

Our footwork really did seem different, was it a difference in strength, skill, technique, or experience?

Kendel stood still for some reason, was he trying to think of a plan or something?

In any case, I don't think I wanted to give him time to plan.

I lunged at him and aimed for his chest

"You-"

He was in the midst of trying to say something by the time I reached him.

I hit the air, he was already gone.

I tried to spin around and punch behind me in case he was there, but he wasn't.

There was a punch coming straight for my chin and I was still mid-spin.

I ducked down to get hit in my head rather than my chin, but he stopped his fist.

"I lost."

I said and he pulled his fist back, it had looked like he wanted to say more but instead he just said,

"Any other questions?"

I shook my head; I had a gist on how the footwork worked now.

"Thank you." I bowed and he went to help the next student.

…

There were some people looking at me, it looked like the fight was shown on the screen from before.

I could hear some of the other students mumbling, but I don't think anything happened that was worth being crazy over. I had utterly lost; I don't think he was even using aura that was just his natural strength...

I forgot to use my aura during that fight as well, I don't think it would've made much of a difference though.

Olly and Ella had both come up to me at the same time and Olly started to speak first.

"Kai... How'd you do it!?"

Huh?

"You lasted so long against THE 'Ghost Sword'!"

What was he talking about? I completely lost. If he was using aura or had a weapon, I'd have been dead 20 times over.

I just shrugged my shoulders and Ella looked at me in awe.

A few minutes later they had gone back to training the footwork. I decided to run for the rest of the class because I wanted to think about it more rather than mindlessly training it.

---

After eating with everyone I headed back to my room and laid back on my bed. The A.C was constantly at its coldest because I was too lazy to keep switching it.

I closed my eyes and thought back to the fight, I was going to do my aura training a little later tonight.

His movements were always one step ahead of mine and he was able to keep getting in my blind spots... I feel like if he was less quick then I'd have been fine...

Haah, I couldn't even really use the steel footwork there... I wasn't experienced enough to use it in a fight, the one time I did try to attack he had vanished.

It'd be nice if I could just constantly fight people to get used to this footwork, but I think that's frowned upon here... Maybe if I walked around at night then I'd be attacked but that sounds stupid...

I wonder if Ozzy or Ella would spar with me... It'd probably be good for all of us, right? Actually... Wait... I fought with an orc last time, I wonder if they'd have something weaker than that?

Wait, never mind... What was this school even for again? I think Father said it was a knight academy. They probably wouldn't allow that. What do knights even do in the first place? I've never thought about it...

Eh... Whatever, I'm getting off-topic. My mind keeps thinking of too many things...

But I think I know how the knight footwork works now; I'll probably be able to train it tomorrow.

I closed my eyes and headed to bed.