Cold Steel Reincarnation (Isekai Genre)

[ZeroXSEED]

​

When the faintly-glowing crescent moon silently surfaces.
At long last, the place where I protect my vow will open.

I sprint and dance, my blade in unison.
Crossing the line between life and death in a stage of steel.

The dress' fluttering hem slices through the darkness to tatters.
Reveal and project my future.

The Pulsing rhythm of the moment, dissonant in my chest.

Even if it resounds.

I will not hesitate.

If I'm with you.

...​

Date Aogane was just a normal high school graduate. Or at least, he appeared to be so. He's handsome, sociable, athletic, had a lot of friends, popular with girls, his high school life couldn't possibly be more perfect, at least from outside observation, and he skated through his high school life without much hassle.

However, he himself was not at all satisfied.

He never achieved anything.

And he lied to himself, his conscience is dead, and his heart turned into stone.

He was well aware that high school life was nothing more than a simple farce.

Someone he could call a real friend... he had none. In the end, people moved on because he was left behind. For them, he was nothing more than ideal, at best, a confidant. Because of his behavior, they ended up to know nothing about him, or built a solid but ultimately wrong assumption about him. In the end, he found himself estranged, lonely and dissatisfied. In fact, he even missed the chance to date someone he liked, simply because him dating that person would be a huge disaster.

There was someone like that, someone that Aogane liked. A young woman, elegant, beauty, calm and mature. People always said they would match each other well; however, she ended up loving someone else. Someone that have things that Aogane lacked. Innocence, honesty, courage. The three qualities he lacked.

He regretted it more than anything else.

Oh no, he couldn't really call himself depressed. Still, as he continued his study, he found himself evaluating more and more his past youth. Even though he had a lot of things people would kill for, he wasted all the chances he had because he was afraid to get outside his comfort zone.

Hopefully, College would be different. Maybe he could afford to be a little naughty?

Yeah, that's... that's the plan alright.

But first, he needed to spend a year as a Ronin, a wandering warrior.

It was rather unlucky of him, he was confident that with his grades and intelligence, he would easily get accepted in certain University he aimed since long ago. However, the week the entrance exam supposed to take place, he was caught with massive fever. As the result, even though he graduated high school successfully, he ended up being an NEET*.

And now he was fed up with it.

"Mother, father, do you mind if I went to grandma's house in Hoshino Village?"

His father didn't even lift his face away from the newspaper he's reading, "Sure."

His mother was barely more attentive as she served him a bowl of rice, "But why?"

"Change of atmosphere." Aogane faked a smile, "Feels like I could study better, or something."

"Don't you have friends to hang out?" His mother asked again, "Maybe even a girlfriend?"

"They all went to college or working." Aogane chuckled, "And what kind of girl would date a ronin?"

"It's their loss, not yours." His father commented coldly, tried his best to give him a hidden praise. Aogane pretty much inherited his father's manly and handsome looks, though, he also inherited softer features of his mother.

"To be fair, I would think twice too." His mother tried to crack a joke, but Aogane could only feel pain and embarrassment. "Looks are not everything."

His father folded the newspaper and took a small sip of his coffee. "Well, maybe he could find love in Fukuoka wilderness."

"Yeah, village girls are nice too." His mother agreed, "You have lots of beautiful cousins there if you're that desperate."

"Please don't even joke about that." Aogane snapped at last and slammed the table, seriously, just because his little self had a crush on his older cousin, doesn't mean his current self still do.

Besides, they can't be more wrong. Just like most youngster, a lot of people of his age would've left the village if they're given the chance.

"So when are you going to leave? Have you told Granny yet?"

"Grandma said as soon as possible, so anytime I finished preparation and get permission."

"I see." The father nodded approvingly, "About plane ticket-"

"I'm going to go with my bike."

His father and mother looked at him with slight concern.

Despite being offered to get something time and again, Aogane always been an extremely modest person. It was actually rather shocking for them when Aogane asked for a motorbike for his eighteenth birthday's present. Not because it was extremely expensive, but because it was so sudden and almost out of character. Even things like cell phone, computer and so on; they were all only requested on demand, rather than him pestering them for the best specification because of envy or pride.

Aogane intended to go to university, so him being a little brave and want to make an impression isn't that farfetched. And even when Aogane asked to buy one, he didn't frugally ask for something absurd or costly. He asked a simple, light-weight cruiser bike that cost twice that of an average scooter. His father would pay twice the money if that's what needed, but Aogane refused.

Though the mother didn't approve it, because of cruiser bike's association with gangs in Japan, Aogane easily convinced her that a cruiser bike is the best option for long distance trip also, and he promised her he won't give it ridiculous modification either.

From Chiba to Hoshino Village, 1200 km ride. What kind of parents wouldn't be concerned?

And yet, his parents didn't even blink twice.

"I see. How long you intend to stay?"

"Two, three weeks… maybe?"

"I'll get the money." His mother said as if she wanted him gone as soon as possible.

But Aogane knew it wasn't their intention. Rather, because they trusted him way too much.

His parents... he couldn't really call them neglectful, but the fact is they couldn't care less. Aogane never shows himself to be anything other than a good boy, they have nothing to be concerned about regarding his present or future self. As parents, they simply have it easy. Aogane never caused any problem as long as he could remember whether it's inside or outside the school. His fate as a Ronin was caused by something beyond his control. As cold as these parents can be, they cannot blame it on him, period.

Even so, there's always the little saying: the grass is always greener on the neighborhood's side. Whereas other children always wanted their parents to worry less, Aogane wished his own parents could worry more about him. He just doesn't have the courage to ask, there's absolutely no reason to.

He could only bitterly smile in response as he received a shockingly thick envelope with 150.000 yen worth of notes in it. Even if he went outside the mainland, this amount of money isn't small at all. In fact, most things in Fukuoka cost slightly less than in Chiba.

"I'm sending the other half to your bank account." His father finished his breakfast and then used his smartphone for online transfer, "If you have any monetary difficulties, don't hesitate to call."

Money was really never a problem. In fact, this family was always been one of the highest earners in the neighborhood. However, they were not rich by any means. The money came because they work too hard for their own good, and they can't even enjoy the money they earned at the moment because they're so busy even when it's Sunday. It's very obvious to Aogane, his parents more or less prepared themselves for eventual retirement.

At times like this, he really wanted to cry. In fact, he wondered if his parents would even BOTHER to come home if he went out for a month or so.

Aogane didn't waste much time mourning, either way, he had a vacation planned and he's not going to be too mopey about it. By the next Morning, he already packed all of his everything, from book to clothes in a single bag, and carries it on the back of his bike.

"There's no use moping." He smiled, "Here I come, Hoshino-mura!"

Aogane planned his trip in two days, one day he will chart a hotel in Fukuyama, then the second day he'll get straight to the Hoshino village through Fukuoka. All in all, he decided he will do a leisure ride rather than riding at maximum speed hurriedly. Besides his bike wasn't exceptionally powerful either.

Indeed, one can easily say that all things considered, Aogane still a relatively inexperienced rider. In fact, his parents letting him such long distance ride... well, one can say it's rather neglectful of them. Worse yet, it's not as if he was some delinquent that his parents already gave up about, instead,

Of course, it's a different story when it comes to his little sister, Akane. The spoiled brat went to an elite private girls school, and can only be described as wasteful and even naughty even if she's as good as him in the academic department. In comparison, Aogane has always been a patron saint of goody two shoes. Normally, children like him will be treated like fragile Chinese vase and will be strictly supervised so he won't stray from his path, but his parents always been an oddity.

With a low rev of the engine, dressed in all of his leather stuff, he began his journey. Tall and proud, dressed in black, he didn't look the same as Aogane Date, the school prince anymore. He felt it was a little ridiculous, but strangely, everything felt so... fresh. The strong wind of the road blasted all of his insecurity and worries.

He was free! If he could wish something, he would wish for this feeling to stay with him, forever and ever.

Only for a high-speed truck to strike him from his side.

What, the fuck.

Date Aogane, 18 years old, virgin and a ronin, died instantly at that moment. Everything went so fast that the pain didn't even register. Everything went into a slow motion as his vision faded, and his own spine twisted abnormally as his body flew across the street.

This is so unfair.

The one time he wanted to act like 'bad boy', he was punished?

Give me a break, damn it.

When he regained his consciousness, he was covered in bright white light. He tried to look around but he couldn't even look at his own fingers. He couldn't even FEEL them. In short, he was nothing but a disembodied entity in a white void room of nothingness.

Afterlife huh?

The white light dispersed and replaced by the rush of air. Aogane opened his eyes once more to realize he sprawled face down to a stone surface. He sat up to look around, and he realized now that he's on top of a stone structure of sort, definitely man-made.

From head to toe, he was covered by something more rigid than just his clothes. Armor, he was wearing a custom Samurai armor, combining solid plate torso armor and plated chain jacket. Its light blue plates were unique because they were unpainted. Rather, the color came from high-temperature metal tempering that made them slightly softer but also tougher, shortly before preserved in a layer of lacquer coating to avoid rusting. Each armor plate around the arms was connected with intricately arranged steel chains and sewn into the padded jacket, ensuring maximum protection.

His vision was slightly obstructed by steel faceplate, which one of the few things that look different than traditional samurai armor.

Rather than the infamous and distinctive demon/tengu face design of the usual Japanese mempo (half mask), he wore a combination of Japanese kabuto neck guard and ornamental crown added to western-style closed helmet. The crown itself was shaped like a crescent moon, signature of Date samurai clan. Likewise, he wore the so called Samurai surcoat/Jinbaori, also sported Date clan symbol on its back.

Like most surcoats, this cloth had no protection value and more of a decoration and status symbol.

This armor, there was no mistake. It was the armor that his grandfather designed for him before his graduation. There's no other armor that had full hybrid design like this

"Where am I?"

"AH!" A voice squeaked.

Aogane spun his body to see the small figure of a girl, or maybe a young woman. He wasn't really sure of her age, probably around the same as him though. Her pale white skin and rounded childish face reminded him of his own sister, but her eyes were sharper and slanted. Indeed, he recognized such facial feature as not that of Japanese, but a Chinese or Korean girl. Even though they're closely related, each of those three races had subtle differences, and looking at her this close, he could definitely see it.

Aogane had a secret he doesn't share with anyone: He's a small time nerd, and while not exactly historically well informed he knows a thing or two about other cultures. The girl was dressed in a combination of ancient Chinese Scale armor and traditional Chang'ao, a type of medieval Chinese formal dress. In her hand was a huge Chinese glaive, the so called Guan Dao. Its gleaming blade made Aogane realized that it was not made of carbon steel, but hardened stainless, similar to the chains of his armor.

However, Aogane's blood ran cold when the girl pointed her guandao on him. Though his armor should be able to resist direct strike to the plates, he didn't want to take his chance and retreated by reflex.

"W-w-w-w-who are you? A demon?" She asked.

"Ah, wait I'm human. I'm human!" He waved his hands pitifully, in the stark contrast to the terrific appearance of his armor. In the effort of not escalating the confrontation, he didn't grab the scattered weapons on the floor.

"Jeez, that scared the hell out of me." She gritted her teeth.

"I wonder where we are at the moment," Aogane said friendly, trying to forget how he screamed like the little girl back then.

"Beats me." She shrugged coldly.

Aogane looked outside the chamber to see that, spanning across as far as he could see, there was forest everywhere. Even more shockingly, the temple he was in wasn't at all small. The temple was constructed of stone blocks the size of vans, and easily over two hundred meters tall, easily taller than THE great pyramid of Giza.

The temple was certainly larger than he guessed, in fact; he had yet to see any temple bigger than this in person. Constructed of stone blocks, it could easily take decades or centuries, with hundreds if not thousands of labor force to construct, maybe even slaves depend on the culture and period. Its design looked pretty ancient almost resembles the Egyptian pyramids except with different type of stone being used.

And there's also the fact they're in the middle of a forest. Aogane wasn't very sure he remembered well, but maybe he's somewhere in America? Inca and Maya have similar structures right? Aogane wished he could remember everything, but he can't. His memory was rather hazy, in fact.

If only he had a cellphone. At times like this, an internet search engine will be a godsend. But since his bag was here, he's lucky.

He retrieved the scattered weapons on the floor, all of which he's strongly familiar with. The pair of sheathed katana of different length, the wooden compound bow with steel cams and pulleys, and finally a big quiver full of heavy duty arrow.

They're all made or at least designed by his quirky grandfather, Date Kuroki.

"We should go." She shouldered her Guan Dao, and Aogane noticed her solid but relaxed posture. Looks like she was pretty experienced as well.

Any girl he knew would have a hard time carrying that large halberd without complaining, while this girl didn't even break a sweat. Hell, she's even carrying a stuffed backpack with her. To say nothing about her armor…

"It's dangerous to go randomly; outside temple was covered forest pretty much everywhere." He hesitantly told her, afraid of offending her. But at times like this, common sense had to prevail. It might be safer around here than down there. All they need would be some kind of shelter and they're golden.

The girl glared daggers at him, "If you want to stay here, feel free."

Aogane smiled unabashedly behind his helm, but inside he was screaming. Just how stupid this girl could be? Traveling alone in unknown territory is tantamount to suicide!

She ignored him and instead, she inspected the interior of the temple. And she did it while crawling around, even. Every move was done carefully, as well. She knew there was something odd with this structure, and so she went to check.

"Don't worry; I've watched enough Indiana Jones not to touch anything suspicious." She grinned cockily.

"It's not traps we're should worry about." He laughed a bit. When it comes to old infrastructure, traps are uncommon; rather, structural collapse is the real threat. Then again, with this structure this huge, it might take tens of thousands years, for the structure to degrade naturally without maintenance.

He went to check and find that his clothes bag also present. He was glad to find his phone, but soon after he was miffed. There were no signals.

...Weird.

In the first place, he didn't know what pushed him to dress like this. He looked as his body, clad in armor, something that he didn't even carry prior to the accident, and possibly his death. Did he actually reincarnate? Perhaps he didn't even die, and instead transported to another world? What a joke.

If life was like in a light novel, he would suffer so much more. Until now, his life had been normal, well… mostly normal.

...Crap.

He erased the thought and decided to lift his bag. Combined with the weight of his armor, swords, bow, and arrows, it was really cumbersome to carry everything. If he could find some sort of beast of burden, then it would be great.

Compared to him, she carried a lot less weight. Even her backpack was more or less reasonable in size.

"Tie Niangzi." She said.

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Tie Niangzi. You can call me Sister Niang." She said aloud, "Who are you?"

Tie Niangzi, quite literally means Iron Maiden/Iron Lady. With her steely gaze and fierce scowl and how she basically dressed in steel scale… Aogane felt like the name suits her all too well.

"Nice to meet you." He said and bowed, "The name is Aogane Date."

"Ahh, Japanese huh? Just my luck." She snorted, it's no secret that vast majority of Chinese and Japanese distrust each other due to their centuries of sad past, though some of them found solace and peace in each other's company. Aogane himself carry no such prejudice, but he won't judge this girl for having one against him.

"So you can speak Chinese too?"

"Huh? No, I'm speaking Japanese from the beginning." Aogane shrugged, "I'm surprised you're so fluent in Japanese though."

"What no? I'm speaking Mandarin!"

Okay, this is really awkward.

So from each others' perspective, they've been speaking their native language. In fact, Aogane understood the very meaning of her name immediately even though he never learned to read or speak Chinese. It's very likely that she also understood everything that he says, even though he spoke Japanese.

It could be she was joking.

Yeah, it must be.

"Don't even joke, you're speaking mandarin!" She shouted and pointed rudely.

"Huh??"

Aogane was really speechless. She looked really furious and unlikely to lie.

"How about this?" He offered his cellphone, "Try to speak into this phone?"

She spoke normally into the phone recording, but when it was replayed, her voice came out normal, in her own language."[你贵姓大名？]"

Aogane took a deep breath.

"Let's see, we can speak each other normally, but the record will have us speaking different languages." He concluded.

"That doesn't make sense." She said as she replayed his voice, only to hear unintelligible Japanese. "...Okay, that makes sense."

That was a quick change of mind! Regardless, the fact that they don't have difficulties communicating was rather convenient. Too convenient, almost suspicious.

"So, did we really die?" She asked.

"I honestly don't know. I didn't even feel anything." Aogane weakly said.

For two people who just died, they were awfully calm. Aogane himself could not comprehend it. He might have been dreaming, even. It was unreal, the way the truck hit his fragile body, twisted and crunched every single part of it. And yet, he could not even remember the pain. But more so than that, the lack of dread and fear was what concerned him the most.

That was really abnormal, that's not how human mind works. Even laymen knew it; there was no need for a psychological lesson to know that a threat of death will shake any normal person. And considering this wasn't really his first brush with near death experience, Aogane knew that sense of terror. Like when he cut himself accidentally with a sword and had to be delivered with an ambulance to the emergency ward. So at the very least, he could consider himself as a normal person from that experience alone. His fears of dying, now and back then, it was the same.

And yet, the image of that traffic accident was so unreal in comparison to his childhood memories. It was almost like a dream, so surreal he couldn't even call it a nightmare.

"How did you die?" She sat closer to him as soon as she satisfied inspecting the temple interior. "I died in a river, drowning."

"Traffic accident." He answered, "I was riding my bike before a truck came from my side at highway speed."

She winced, clearly horrified by the implication. If nothing else, his death would be very messy and gruesome. She looked distressed, but rather than scared, more like she pitied him? Regardless, her expression wasn't as fierce as it was before.

"So let's make it short, we die, then we awakened here, someplace that we don't know, while geared in weapons and armor that we sort of familiar with?" She asked, "Am I getting things right so far?"

"That's the best explanation, yes. Either that or we're saved by something, but we don't really know what it is." He nodded. "And we end up here with our armor, weapons, and bags."

Truthfully, he had an inkling, but he refused to acknowledge it. Not until all the more rational explanations have been debunked at least. The bags and belongings prove they were not delusional or anything and the armor and weapons couldn't possibly be more real than this. In other words, they did, in fact, acquire the armor and weapons right after their accidents and possibly death as well.

"Speaking of bags what else you carry?" She opened her small backpack to show it was stuffed by... underwear? He looked away in shame purely on reflex. Her backpack wasn't exactly huge, so it makes sense she had to put some priorities on things that cannot last long.

"It's full of clothes." He smiled, "You can borrow mine if it's an emergency."

"Oh to hell with that act, you're too nice for your own good." She scoffed, "…I'll borrow it anyway."

What a spoiled brat.

"Don't have money, shit." She cursed.

"Even if we have money, there's no guarantee it will be useful." He said, "I think we'll have to be concerned first about food and water. And even then, it's easy to make food edible by cooking, but boiling water is another story. I have a bottle of water here, and water filter here."

Lifestraw, this convenient device was originally designed to support the impoverished children in Africa, whose life was bad enough that they can't get a reliable source of fresh and clean water. With this device, one can extract mostly drinkable water from dubious sources.

"Well I have one too, but we still don't have the correct utensil." She raised a round-shaped drinking bottle as well, but they cannot be used to cook or boil.

"What about them?"

She pointed at the various pots and bowls scattered around the temple. Most of them were moldy due to cold and moist temperature, but if they're rigid enough they should be perfectly serviceable if cleaned thoroughly. In fact, in many rural areas, cooking with stone and clay pot still something that common folks did.

Whether it's in Japan or in China, or any other countries, there was not much difference. After all, history of cooking already exists as far as Stone Age, since the first men discovered that fire was a thing.

"Should work, but carrying would be a bit difficult without a bag. I'm running out of space." He said, "What about you?"

She pulled a folded cloth bag out of her backpack, "Looks like we're in the luck."

And so, he decided to take the small-sized, thinnest stone pot he could find that's not fragile enough to crack. However, more carriage on him makes his movement really, really awkward.

"You're annoying." She yanked the bagged pot and then tie it to her backpack with a small cloth ropes, "Can you still use archery?"

He actually stacked his quiver on his bag to reduce complexities, with the bag straps tied around his body to secure its position. It might be a little awkward to walk like this, but he could still use his bow perfectly fine. His bag wasn't particularly big, though it was longer than her.

"Should be fine. It would be difficult to run, however. And I can't use my Katana either."

"Meh, leave the close quarter to me. You look too much of a sissy to fight anyway."

He didn't even bother to get insulted. What they're going to fight anyway? Depends on what kind of threat, wouldn't it be better to just use either bows or swords? However, he's not taking his chance yet. If it was as cliché as it sounded, then it would be something like monsters... or bandits.

Ugh, the thought alone made me scared.

Date Aogane never hurt a fly if he could help it.

"I don't think we can travel quickly, so you don't have to hurry." He told her.

"What? I want to get out of this damned forest. Of course we have to hurry."

"Sister Niang, are you well aware of what you're wearing now?" He smiled, "We carry more gear than a soldier. People are not supposed to travel in heavy armor. And from what I see, your armor isn't that much lighter than mine, you'll get exhausted easily and we have no water to drink, we might even die in few hours if you rush it."

"You... bastard." She punched him, but her fist was ineffectual against the combination of metal plates and padded cloth of his armor. In fact, anything less than a Warhammer or poleaxe probably will bounce, leaving him with minor bruising at worst. His armor was both thicker and stronger than historical design, which reflected by its heavy weight. "Don't even joke about that. So what's your plan?"

"The basic idiot guide to survival is to find flowing source of water. We find a river and follow it. We'll find human settlement eventually."

"How are you so sure?"

"That temple back there was manmade." He said, "There was not a single settlement in the world built away from a convenient source of freshwater. The only exception would be nomadic camps, and they're nomadic for very good reason. There's that saying, you can survive not eating food for three weeks, but you can't survive not drinking for three days. And since we're walking, we'll die sooner than that."

"I've drunk enough water to last a lifetime." She snarled, obviously referring to the fact that she died drowning. "But you might be right."

Both of them looked back to see, a whole mountain made of stone block. Now that they're finished climbing down, it only makes the temple look even bigger. So much that the mist makes it harder to see the peak.

The temperature was rather cool, so this should definitely reduce sweating. However if either of them needs to pee...

He shuddered to think the amount of complain that will be thrown.

Aogane had carried something heavier before, like bags of 20 kg rice, but unlike a bag of rice, armor's weight spread out all over the body. Meaning while it's faster to move around in armor than carrying equivalent bag, it's also more tiring.

Even so, he didn't feel like he's wearing heavy armor at all. No, he couldn't really call them featherweight, but he definitely didn't feel like wearing 20+ kilogram worth of padded cloth and steel either. He could say maybe, half of that? Yeah, his gears were bulky and the bag and quiver got in the way of free motion, but it also felt lighter than when he carried it without armor.

"Hey, don't you feel it too? My armor and this Guandao..." She suspended the massive halberd on just two fingers of her right hand, "...what?"

"Sister Niang also realized it." He finally spoke, "Don't you feel unusually light?"

"Now that you mention it." She hopped over a meter high, despite being encumbered by a long dress and set of an armored skirt. However, the noise she made as she fell was rather loud even though she landed in a perfect posture...

...no, she didn't get lighter in the slightest. At first, he thought it has something to do with gravity. However, if the gravity really that much lower than earth, they would bob up and down rather than fall loudly like that. He remembered the moon landing footage, and that's just 1/3 gravity of earth. He couldn't really measure it, not without weight scale somewhere. Plus if the gravity was lower here, then the atmosphere too...

Too confusing. He was just a high school graduate. There were things he didn't know or understand at all.

"No way." She squeezed her Guandao, "I won't be able to jump half that weight back then."

That was very convenient since they're not that encumbered despite this heavy load, traveling will be a little bit faster and less tiring. "Still it's better just to find a river and see where it leads."

Thankfully, both of them carried a compass. And with that in mind, they decided to head east, where the forest looks a little thinner from what they can see on the temple's peak and the ground also lower. Logically, if there was a river, it should flow in that direction.

"You know a lot of things about traveling in the wild, Brother Date." She scoffed, "Are you some kind of bookworm?"

"You can say I am." He accepted it without feeling insulted; it's a breath of fresh air to actually show how much of a nerd he always was. "I read a lot of things."

"Hmph, you must be really popular with the girls then."

How could she even guess that? Not that his popularity ever bears into fruition either. After all, since he graduated Junior high, he never got himself a girlfriend either. His fake behavior and cowardice get in the way. But with Niangzi, perhaps he could be a little more honest about himself.

It was kind of strange really. But perhaps, he could feel like this because they're strangers.

"How old are you, actually?"

"Eighteen." He said, "Just graduated high school recently."

"You went to college? Or get a job?"

"No, I'm a Ronin."

"The hell? Wandering vigilante?"

"No... in Japan, 'wandering person' can mean two things. It does refer to traveling Samurai in search of a master, yes, but it also refers to people who graduated high school but have yet to be accepted into college they aimed at. As you can see, I belonged to the second category."

"Hah, I like it better if you're masterless Samurai." She grinned naughtily, "That's kind of romantic, isn't it? A princess and a samurai, meeting in a forest."

He wished he could say it's romantic, but all he could feel was a sense of dread. They're stranded in a forest with neither food nor water supply. Though, smiling like this, Niangzi looked really cute. Even when both of them look dirtied and dusted, her face looks brilliantly beautiful, like that of a full moon.

...Whelp, what are you doing, Aogane. Don't even kid yourself and be a gentleman. Perhaps this is what they call suspension bridge effect? Fear and worry that was mistaken for love. Yeah, it must be that. The young man slapped himself silly inside.

"I suppose you can say that." He laughed, masked his awkwardness and embarrassment with his usual, prince charming smile. That said, it was odd. At first, he thought they could understand each other perfectly, however, missing context still possible to happen if it was a direct translation. He would likely to misunderstand Chinese slang as well.

For example, unlike Japanese Samurai or medieval European Knights, historical China doesn't really have the equivalent of Noble Warrior class. Or perhaps, they have it before; however, advancement and centralization of Government in China were ahead of the world. Even before the birth of Christ, the kind of Warrior Caste like Knight of Samurai already vanished.

This is because strong influences of Confucianism, warfare were seen as essential barbarism, a necessary evil to protect the helpless. Scholars were the one revered the most. Thinking like this, Soldiers in ancient China were treated like Civil servants, they exist to enforce law and order.

The equivalent of a Ronin in China would be Youxia. However, whereas a Ronin travel the land in search for a place they belong, a Youxia travel the land purely for altruism since they have to abandon their wealth and home behind. Both of them, of course, featured prominently in heroic tales and ancient novels, despite their difference in background.

Hey, looks like he began to remember much of his nerd knowledge!

After spending almost an hour walking, they finally managed to locate a small river. It wasn't big, maybe four meters across, but the water was really clean and clear. He crouched to smell it, and then a taste. There were even small fishes roaming around within its calming flow.

"This should be fine to drink raw but..."

They shouldn't risk it.

"Finally, my foot already ached." She sighed in relief, "I've never seen a river this clean in my life."

"Neither have I, but it's best to be prepared." He smiled, "Let's clean the pot."

She handed the pot and he carefully carved the mold out of it with a small pocket knife, which he put in his bag. She watched him intently, his hands were extremely skilled and he finished in no time. The pot was perfectly clean of molds now, and she decided it's her turn to do it. She removed her gauntlet and crouched near the waterside.

"Hey, do you think the water is clean enough for washing? We don't even have ingredients."

"I'm pretty sure it's alright. Folks in my old village also did that, and modern rivers tend to be considerably more polluted. And the heat will take care the rest." He assured her, "I'll make the fire."

There might be a chance of acquiring an unknown disease from these rivers, but if boiling it is not enough then he's fresh out of ideas. They're going to die either way.

Sometimes, people simply forget how convenient metallurgy can be. An aluminum pot with similar capacity probably weights tenth as much as this stone pot.

"Are we sure the water isn't safe to drink raw?" She suddenly mused.

"Well, you can use this for the moment." He willingly lent her his Lifestraw. Originally, he was going to use it in Hoshino village, obviously because he wanted to drink cold, raw, fresh river water like everyone else. However, seeing an impatient girl, he couldn't just let her alone.

"Whoa, thanks." And she immediately drunk for all it's worth, the way she ravenously sucked on the straw as she bent down...

Aogane gulped and looked aside in embarrassment. Just how frustrated am I really?

"Phwa, this is awesome. Here, you try it too." She carelessly threw it back to him.

Too defenseless, he gritted his teeth. He wasn't sure if it's a cultural gap, but isn't this... indirect kiss?

Dear Date Aogane, you already sounded like a bad boy. He berated himself.

...Aogane just realized how pathetic he was for him to have that kind of thoughts when their very lives were at stake. And so he wiped it a bit and then used it himself after flipping open his visor. It was like he was revitalized. The water was cool but not too cold.

This is the kind of person he always been, he had always been too self-conscious about his own actions. One might even call that arrogance, while others would call it a worrywart.

"So why are still bothering to boil the water?" She asked, "In fact, do you think we actually NEED this pot?"

"Oh, we'll need it." He said and pointed at the small fishes swimming in the water. "We can eat these."

"...uhh, they're so tiny."

"This river is too small and shallow; any other fish aside from catfish wouldn't be able to safely breed here." He said, "However, Minnows are very adaptable. Their small size means they need only a small supply of foods and they could almost live anywhere. Anything smaller than 5 cm can be eaten whole."

He also noticed that there were plenty of crayfishes lying around the less rocky part of the rivers. "Crayfish! this is just perfect."

"Whuha?" She yelped.

It's not that she hasn't seen large kind of crustacean, however, she never see them as raw and alive like this. Usually she found them already cooked in Mala sauce. Even though sh was hungry and tired, she could not help but feel anxious. Seriously, were they always looked this disgusting?

"...you don't like them?"

"Shut up and just catch them." She hissed.

"I'll take few hours at least." He said as he sat down, "We don't really have a net."

"Wha, really?"

"The bait isn't strong enough for the Crayfish. We need something with really strong smell, like rotten meat or expired food." He explained, "If we go down we might find larger river and bigger fishes that easy to catch with hands."

"Let's just continue walking then." She hissed again, "Damn, not even two hours and things already complicated."

He laughed soundlessly. It's not that he could blame her or anything. Not everyone were raised in rural area like he did, for him, this kind of thing was child's play. As long as there's clean water there will be food.

The same can't be said with Niangzi. Aogane didn't have interest of asking about her details, at least, not in this kind of time and place. However, she even jokingly referred to herself as a princess. It's pretty obvious that she came from special family background.

"AA! SOMEBODY HELP! HEEELP!!"

Aogane and Niangzi exchanged a look shortly before they rushed to the source of noise, which unfortunately a little bit further than the small river's stream.

However, before they can get out of the bushes, Aogane raised his arm to stop her.

"What the hell? Why are you stopping me?"

"Sshh, don't make a noise." He whispered, "Let's take a look."

He slowly crept down and pop out of the bushes, helm first. Niangzi followed soon after and they were greeted by the sight of a small road. The dirt road wasn't that well maintained, and in fact, parts of it were covered with vegetations. However, the signs that there was a road were always there.

They saw a half naked man cornered by various monsters, impotently waving a small branch of tree. It was obvious that his approach did not work at all, and his life was all but going to perish.

At first, it looks a little ridiculous. A grown up man were cornered by rabbits. However, those rabbits weren't joke. They're all the size of medium dog at least, with fangs more than sharp enough to tear human flesh apart. With the way their mouth foam, it's very likely they're rabid too.

The man was indeed, in genuine danger.

"Damn it."

"Hold on." Aogane unslung his bow and began to aim. Even at first glance, one could tell he was using Japanese archery style than the more mainstream ones. The way he stood right, the way he held his bow and pulled the arrow on the string, it was all perfectly executed.

Even Niangzi, who only seen such even from Tv before, recognize it.

And she always thought it was overrated. "Why are you wasting your time?!"

*KHTUNK*

The sound of arrow hitting the target was loud; Aogane's shot was dead center on the rabbit monster's eye. The monster scream incessantly as blood and other fluids began to gush from all the orifices. The thrashing and mauling of the monster disturbed the other rabbit enough to scare them away.

After thrashing for a minute straight, the rabbit fell down and died.

"Wha… what arrow was that?" The half-naked man gasped, "What an amazing power and skill."

"That was practically point blank, there was nothing to praise." Aogane said in response, "Are you alright?"

"Ah, ah, thank you, thank you, Sir Madam." He bowed on his knees, "I was robbed of my possession, and my retinue all but killed to the last man, such misfortune. Ah. I'm sorry to show you my shameful appearance. They took everything except my unmentionables then chased me out to this abandoned road."

He must be referring to the…err, loincloth? Regardless, the man was as helpless as he could be. If they were to leave him, he would surely die.

"Forget it. Do you know any way to reach nearby town?" Niangzi ask, "Might as well go together."

"Uh. I'm not very sure; I've been lost in this forest for at least a day." He shook his head sadly, "Forgive me for being such a burden, Sir and Madam. That said, I believe if we tread this path, we'll find the main road eventually."

"Hey." Niangzi signaled to Aogane, who followed her a little so the man wouldn't hear them. "What do you think, should we really bring him?"

Aogane told her, "Weren't you the one who offered first?"

"I know about that. I'm just saying he's naked and unarmed, so that means he can't do anything to us physically. However… what if we were ambushed?"

"With due respect, what kind of man would be foolish enough to go half naked in a forest full of monster?" He pulled the bow from the rabbit's corpse. "Doing crime properly needs common sense too."

Frustrated, she kicked his shin and growled. "You think the chance is nil, asshat?"

"…No, I kind of agree with you." He sighed, "But we can't just leave him alone can't we?"

"…maybe not. I don't care if he die, but at the very least, let him die with dignity." She jeered, "Seriously, the hell is that underwear?"

"Haha you're right." Aogane pulled out a track pants out of his bag and threw it to the man, "Unfortunately I don't have extra shoe. Do you mind?"

"Ah, just how generous you can be, Sir? I am but unworthy of this excellent set of trouser. This one would fit a king."

"Even as a joke that's way too far right?" Niangzi cackled, "Sounds like a salesman, he is."

"No, no, Madam. I am not joking. This… trouser, its smoothness is godly. Not even I can afford it if I pay with my monthly income." He said as he wore it, "My God, I am truly unworthy, this is really comfortable. Such warm and smooth feelings, is this heaven? What even it's made of?"

"Cotton, it's made of pure cotton."

"Impossible, just pure cotton can result in this?" The man howled, "Truly a trouser worthy of a king."

The man keep rubbing the contour of the pants, seeing as he was a bit heftier than the slender Aogane, the pants become more form-fitting on his body.

Niangzi twitched and took a step back, "Okay now that's just fucking creepy."

"Actually… have you noticed?" Aogane mused, "His underwear's material. Don't you think they look too coarse and worn out?"

She barked with reddened face, "Who would pay attention to such blaspheme of fashion but a pervert?"

"I'm just saying… maybe… the textile industry here isn't as good." He told her seriously, "You know those tribes in the depths of various continents, who learned to weave on their own? Don't you think the quality of their clothes look similar?"

"…National geography yeah." She loosened a bit, now that he put it like this, she could actually understood his point.

"But there's no indication of him being someone with tribal background. He's clearly civilized, and maybe even educated. If his loincloth was handmade, then it's very possible that the technology is about 1000-2000 years out of date." Aogane argued.

"No way." She gasped, her eyes wide open. "You're saying we travel back in time?"

Aogane looked at the rabbit corpse wordlessly. Even though his face was covered by armored helmet, Niangzi could easily read his body language.

"Oh…" Niangzi could only muster weakly. After all that's happening, this was the only thing that makes sense.

 

[ZeroXSEED]

Neither he nor Niangzi spoke aloud about it, but they were aware of the implication. As such, the subsequent travel became a little bit quiet than before, especially with an additional person. To be honest, neither of them have yet to fully grasp the reality they're in.

That said, they at least learned the man's name.

He was Gerard Cliforde, a merchant from this region. Like most successful merchant, he was considered of an upper middle class. However, one time his whole group was careless and was driven by monsters right into bandit's ambush point. Fortunately, Gerard seems to be the type to actually know how to survive. The main reason why he couldn't evade the monsters was, that he was too tired to climb trees.

So they decided to rest in the river as Aogane put crayfish and minnow trap into action using the meat obtained from the rabbit monster, they're unlikely to continue this journey anyway.

"Speaking of which, are these rabbits normally that aggressive?" Aogane asked, "Did they catch a disease or something?"

"Oh no, they're not diseased. Rather, they're consumed by Magi." Gerard explained, "You can still safely eat them, however, they're kind of stink and tastes awful compared to normal animal meat so. we don't really eat them. We usually just dump the meat and use everything else like pelt and bones."

"..."

"The hell is a mage?" Niangzi balked in confusion.

"You don't know?" The man was shocked beyond belief, "How could there anyone who doesn't know about Magi?"

"Let's just say, we lacked common sense about this region and would like to learn." Aogane cut him off, "In fact, you should treat us like ignorant fools while at it. Make the explanation as simple as needed."

"Weird, but voluntarily learning about things is the smartest decision one can make." The man twirled his mustache a bit, shortly before explained. "Sir and Madam, Magi is a form of energy that permeates everything on this planet. Rock, soil, grass, water, snow, trees, and even animals and people. We utilize it in our daily lives. However, at certain times, Magi may be condensed to such toxicity that it mutates everything within the vicinity. Whether it's plants or animals, they'll turn into bloodthirsty monsters. Do you have something like a wooden or stone knife?"

"Don't have." Niangzi shortly replied.

"I have this thing." Aogane pulled a Japanese wooden sword (bokken) out of his bag, though its length was relatively short so it's likely something that supposed to be held one handed.

"Excellent craftsmanship if I should say." The man rummaged his underpants and pulled something out of a hidden pocket. A shining coin made of crystal, "Thank Goodness I'm saving this for an emergency. Do you mind if I carve a hole in it or something?"

Aogane handed him his pocket knife. The man looked confused as he scratched the surface of bokken. "What's with this small knife? It feels so heavy and I feel like my strength has been sapped."

"Really? You just do it the hard way then." Niangzi snarled, seriously, this man had way too much demand for someone so helpless.

With some effort and very, very long time, the man managed to cork a small hole on the bottom of the bokken's hilt which he inserted the glowing chip into. He was actually rather surprised with how sharp this strange, gray colored hard tool. He didn't even need to channel much of his inner strength to allow the blade to slowly chip into the wooden hilt.

"This is called Magiston, we normally don't use coin but its emergency now." The bokken now glows in the man's hand. He struck a random tree and managed to carve significant scar on it, somehow. Rather than the damage from a bokken, it looks like damage inflicted by a small ax. Ethereal green leaves scattered as he hit it full force. "Magiston also used to augment our weapons and tools. A magiston enhanced wood sword like this could possibly break a rock in skilled hands."

"I see." Aogane muttered. A bokken already dangerous enough of a weapon, but it can kneeled with magic or whatever it was? He feels a chill on his back for a moment.

Any Japanese who loved National history would know the legend of Miyamoto Musashi. Legends have it that he had killed countless disciples and swordsmen in a formal duel with just a humble pair of bokken. Of course, this was not without reasoning. A bokken was considerably heavier than well-made Katana. There was not that much difference between swinging a bokken and swinging a baseball bat or a crowbar. All of them were deadly instruments of blunt force, and a skilled, cunning warrior of Musashi level would utilize this to maximum effect.

"Does that means woods are most common form of weapon here?" Niangzi grimaced, unlike Aogane she wasn't entirely impressed by the trick as displayed. "Meh."

"Well, we usually don't use single materials. We also add various types of rock, animal bones and teeth, and so on. Changing the type of material used will result in different Magi properties. A pure wooden tool like this has the property of 'Wood' and 'wind'."

"How many types of Magi are there?" Niangzi asked.

"The five basic elements included fire, water, lightning, rock, and wind. There are countless of secondary elements, but actually, the most common form of Magi would be tree and beast. Most beast tools we can make from domestic animal though they are of low quality. Likewise, if you use powerful monster parts like their fangs, bones, hides, and scales, you can make a very powerful beast element tool. As for Wood, well, woods are everywhere in the region, and it's easier to make a long lasting wooden tool than a stone tool, even if the stone tool makes for a more deadly weapon. Plus, there's one more function to wood element tool."

His body glows, with the same calming ambient green and blue light on the blade as he put the blade inside river water. The small injuries that the man suffered began to disappear completely as the blue and green light swirled around his battered body.

"Wood and Water Magi can be used for healing. So you can simply put a Magiston into a bowl of water and channel your spirit power into it. Or use Water element stone like say, coral."

"Hmm? But what about infection?"

Cliforde asked, "Infection?"

"Ah..." Aogane shook in disbelief, "I guess you would be unfamiliar with Microbiology then."

"Microbi-huh?"

The merchant's bafflement can't possibly be greater than this.

"He's talking about plagues and rotting." Niangzi jeered, "You know, things about keeping food and wounds clean and all that."

"Ah, if that's the case you don't have to worry." The merchant finally gets it, "The water aspect of Magi will clean the wound, and the wood aspect of Magi will mend it. Of course, you can't really use dirty water because the rock elements within the water will interfere."

"....Bullshit." Niangzi barely able to breathe in amazement, and disbelief, and all sort of negative emotion too!

Aogane could only deadpan in agreement, "Seriously? That simple?"

What kind of silly superstition is this?!

"It worked every time! It would be foolish to simply dismiss it." Cliforde shouted, "Speaking of which, your armor and weapons look really beautiful, what are these made of?" Cliforde asked, his eyes gleamed in admiration, and definitely envy. But even Aogane cannot blame him; he's just a merchant after all. Merchant saw shiny, a merchant wanted shiny. That always been human nature, but especially those whose existence relies on trading.

Still, why did Cliforde did not recognize it? Could it be that he-

"It's Steel obviously. What, you never saw one?" Niangzi raised one eyebrow.

"No, not in my 40 years of trading and traveling. I've known few minor nobles personally and I can guarantee you, at least among them, this kind of armor and weapons wouldn't be found. I wouldn't be surprised if royal treasuries have them, but they exist to hoard all the rare one of a kind item so I wouldn't be surprised."

Though Niangzi understood the explanation, she couldn't care less. For her, such knowledge has no special place, merely informative if nothing else. She watched a lot of discovery channel but barely get a tenth of anything. If nothing else, she loved watching wild animals...

It's different for Aogane however. As someone with huge interest with history and intricacies, Aogane realized the importance of this knowledge. These civilizations either have yet to develop metal, or didn't develop metal at all. Judging from how a single tiny crystal managed to sharpen his bokken so much, he would not rule it out for the latter possibility. Aogane sweats slightly at the thought.

A civilization without metal, he could not even imagine it.

Lack metallurgy, use wood and stone tool, have fully developed linguistic communication... it made his head hurt. Just how ancient is this place?

"I other words, it would be easy to kill people around here." Niangzi's face was grim, and yet, sadistic grin splattered on her face. This disturbed Aogane to no end, but he pretended to ignore it.

Cliforde snorted. "How vigilant, but please don't recklessly pick a fight, Madam. Punishment for murder is no joke."

"What about self-defense law?" Aogane asked, "Law pertaining to defend oneself and properties. I mean you get robbed and all, did you resist?"

"Oh, of course, it's a fair game." He answered, "There's no helping it. Outside settlements like this, strength is the only rule. And if people were killed, then there's no helping it."

Cliforde sighed, his expression became mellow. "If nothing else, you won't have to be burdened by cowardice and humiliation and die with dignity. Even my son died defending his honor and loved ones."

"I'm... sorry." Niangzi looks remorseful for some reason, though, even Aogane can sympathize. Even against strangers, directly hearing stories like this couldn't be easy.

"Haha, what happens, happens. He died winning." Cliforde laughed, "That young fool was always stubborn, but perhaps his short life makes things all the more meaningful."

Come to think of it, did Date Aogane and Tie Niangzi really 'died'?

Were they die and reincarnated here? Were they hurt and simply transported here to be healed? Were they just copy made by the strange temple, and what about the original? Normal people wouldn't think something like this, but neither Aogane nor Niangzi were 'normal'. This thought was what burdened him so much. If they truly die, then someone out there at least found a closure. But what if they were simply missing?

However, Niangzi just laughed. "That's right. If one can't live the way they want, what even use of living at all?"

What the hell is wrong with this girl? Aogane furrowed his eyebrows. Did she not feel concerned with her family and friends at all?

Cliforde twirled his mustache again, "Oho, Madam sure is brave. It's good to look forward to better future, but it's impossible to get everything you want."

"Mr. Cliforde, please stop calling me Madam. Lady Niangzi is fine." Niangzi waved her hand, "Of course I'm not going to be that reckless."

"When I say you both I thought two of you are knights but it looks like I was mistaken, so I am wondering how two of you could get such beautiful set of equipment."

"Really? I'd have thought it's very common but whatever." Niangzi pulled the bottles that were used as crayfish and minnow trap. The stinky meat of the mutated rabbits apparently pulled them so fast, it's not even an hour and the bottle already filled by one half. "Whoa! They're almost full!"

"That means most minnows here are omnivorous or carnivorous. Some are documented to eat snails and clams." Aogane pointed his thumb, as he finished making improvised roasting stick with his knife and couple of twigs. "Now we can eat."

"Here's some wild onions and herb grass. It's not much but better than nothing." Cliforde handed out a large leaf, on top of which were piles of wild plants root and other stuff. Niangzi glared in suspicion, obviously because she didn't recognize most of them. However, Aogane instead inspected it, because he knew whether something is edible or not based on appearance alone. Some plants may be mistaken for something else, and these plants could always be poisonous.

Of course, that relies on the situation that plants are the same here and back in 'Earth'. In the end, he gave up.

"I really couldn't tell." He concluded and dumped them into the pot to be cooked with the Crayfishes. The three of them prayed as they watched the poor crustacean boiled alive.

"By the name of spirits, may their soul rest well with the land." Cliforde said aloud as he picked one of the well-cooked crays, "Such strong yet invigorating taste, I'm speechless! What did you add, Sir Date? it couldn't possibly be just salt!"

"It's just MSG." He bluntly answered, which of course passed over the merchant's head because of missing context. Niangzi, on the other hand, just snorted. Seriously, what ELSE did Aogane carry in his bag? He seems to be awfully prepared for anything with very few exceptions.

"You truly are survival maniac." She said in excitement, "I guess I don't need to be worried if I'm with you, this would feel like summer camp instead."

Well, Aogane couldn't be happier that he remains as reliable as always. Though the bigger issue would be sleeping accommodation. Neither of them had a cover to lie on the ground, let alone tent. Their bags can be used as a pillow and nothing else.

"Ah yeah." Aogane flipped open his visor, and that would be the first time she saw his face.

Niangzi blinked and then blushed. Even though his face non-existent with a small amount of dirt, it doesn't tarnish his fair and unblemished skin. His brown eyes were gentle, yet firm. It was full of doubt, and yet, there was no sign of fear. Such troubled look on an attractive young man, she couldn't possibly more wrong in her prejudice. "Holy crap, I thought you're an ugly punk!"

"I'm sorry?" Aogane frowned, as humble as he can be, he couldn't simply let that one slide.

"Nothing, I'm just wondering why you don't show your face to me before!" She looked aside and shrugged condescendingly, "I mean, what are the chances? 8 out of 10 men are unattractive to me anyway. I guess you're alright?"

"Glad my physical appearance is up to your standard, Sister Niang. Now eat before your stomach asks you to." Aogane popped veins before he put now slightly charred, roasted minnow into his mouth. Seriously, just who the hell was she to criticize his face? Are girls always this superficial?

"Ah, youth, such beautiful sight." Cliforde whistled before he used a bottle cap as an emergency spoon and took a sip of the Crayfish soup, for like the fifteenth time. "This MSG is so delicious. I'd wager it worth its weight in ten times Magiston chips."

...

After they done refilling their stomach and resting, they decided it's still too soon to set a camp. Besides, Cliforde said it's only a few hours, theoretically, before they can reach the main road. of course, camping in the main road carries its own danger, but at the very least, chances of finding help also increased.

The Chinese girl snorted, "But putting crystal like that in a weapon, won't they break easily?"

"Magiston in its refined form is extremely hard. Some nobles even use them as edges of their weapons. So you can say, noble weapons and armor are made of money! Ha, ha, ha." Cliforde laughed heartily, "However, once their energy used up, they'll glow dimmer and dimmer and when they're used up, and they'll become brittle and shatter easily."

"How long a single coin may last?"

"Not very long, and they're less useful than refined Magiston dust. Each coin is marked with the symbol of the coin mill which is standardized across the nation, and unmarked coins tend to be seen as suspicious, if not outright illegal goods. Magiston coin forging is closely guarded cycle held by the kingdom's government, and punishment for unsanctioned forgery isn't pretty."

"Whoa, so petty." Niangzi gasped in shock, and her eyes were wide in disbelief.

The samurai/knight corrected her, "It's not really that different in our place though. Until recently, forging money was quite a grave crime, and still is in some nations."

The girl nodded, "Well, if the government cannot control the flow of money… who else can? We really don't want people to be greedy and cause inflation, after all."

....sometimes Aogane felt like he underestimated her intelligence. And it's less than three hours since their meeting too. Aside from people who seriously study math or social sciences and pick career related to these fields, rarely people as young as her pay attention to the flow of wealth and its effect on society. AH, but Aogane doesn't really know her age, after all. She could've been working adult for all he knows.

"You said coins are not normally used, so does that mean they come in chunks of rock mined from somewhere else?" Niangzi inquired.

"Yes, in unrefined form Magiston rocks are extremely cheap, but they lose energy quickly. Raw Magiston then processed into more expensive but useful refined Magiston dust, Craftsmen use this material to reinforce the tools they make, making them tough and powerful. Magiston dust also can further be forged into a more solid object, like the currency we use."

"Talking about Magiston, it's not the only money used right?" Aogane changed the topic, "What about large scale trading? Carrying that much coin can't possibly be convenient."

The coin was rather small, he guessed about 100 yen in size and weight just over 2 grams. Even so, in a large amount, it will pile up to the point of absurdity. Whether it's made of silver, gold, or Magiston, there's no difference. A lot of coins bunched together were always a hassle.

"Large scale trading is done with signed Royal Parchment with value agreed as written. This document can be traded for physical money to Merchant union or other nobles. That said, those documents are extremely valuable, because it uses the signature of the king and royal stamp, you can't earn it easily. Each Royal Parchment can easily worth tens of thousands in value, and there's no shortage of people who want to obtain it at all cost. Royal Parchment are near impossible to fake, especially when you have Royal accountant nearby. Even if it's a lowly criminal who obtain it, its value would be honored without question. Of course, those people would be watched closely."

"So like bank cheque?" Niangzi guessed instantly.

"Pretty much. So I guess merchant union works as a bank." Aogane hummed, "Wartime inflation sounds like it will be horrible though."

"Whatever it is, our money is worthless now." Niangzi agreed, and they both laughed in the sheer imagery.

Aogane rubbed his metallic chin, he wonders how they could obtain it. Working might be a hassle, but that depends on what jobs are offered and how much they pay. Of course, it's possible to also sell these clothes in a huge sum of money, if this strange merchant is to be believed.

Depends on what type they may encounter, it might be a good or bad idea.

"You plan to sell your clothes?" Niangzi whispered a question, to which he responded immediately.

"I wouldn't rule it out, but one has to remember these are practically irreplaceable." He quietly replied, "Everything we have is one of a kind."

"Meh, I just don't want to starve, period." She frowned.

"Of course there's that." Unlike surviving in the wild, there's absolutely nothing free when it comes to human settled lands. You can't just take everything on your own accord when it's something from someone else's private land. "However, I don't think we can survive without clothes either."

"Speaking about the nearest village, what can you say about it?" Aogane asked, "Was it owned by a noble or is it independent?"

"Oh, the next village is owned by Lady Salamancia, Baroness of Catalina. She works under Marquis von Drake."

"Marquis?" Aogane furrowed his eyebrow, "Does this means we're right on the border of a country?"

"Hmm, yes, you sure are well informed Sir Date." Cliforde grinned, "To the West is an inhospitable jungle filled with self-contained living space almost impossible to survive in, to the south is neighboring kingdom. This old road actually part of the previous expansion attempt, but all that caused was the settlers being massacred."

"What are you guys talking about?" Niangzi asked.

"Well I'm just guessing randomly, but I'd wager we're in some sort of feudal society. In terms of Chinese closest equivalent, that would be the era of Zhou Dynasty and after its fall, until the formation of Qin Dynasty. Some argue they're not identical, but the fact is there should be some similarities." Aogane happily described, "Are you familiar with it?"

"Meh, of course, I get it, just how dumb you take me for?" She glared daggers at him. "Lords owned the land, and the farmers cultivated the land in it to pay rent. In return, Lords amassed a military force to protect the farmers of their land. In Confucianism, this is called the philosophy of Fengjian (Four Classes of people)."

"Hahaha." Aogane could only look away in fear of her wrath, "I think the bigger issue is whether there is slavery. Do they still exist?"

"Slaves? We don't have slaves, not anymore at least. The system was abolished some 200 years ago, and while illegal practices can easily be found here and there, they're not widespread. It's generally much more profitable to employ tenant as the workforce. They pay the nobles by renting the land and work in the Manor's farmland."

"Huh?"

Either way, he was glad that there were no such things anymore. The historical feud between Chinese and Japanese were legendary and Imperial Japanese treatment of Chinese colonies in the previous century being the hottest topic to exist in both political and historical debates about the two Nations. He didn't want to make things even more uncomfortable.

"In other words, if we want to stay in an owned land for a considerably long term then we must pay rent or work for them?" Aogane asked.

Cliforde grinned again, "That is indeed correct, my Sir. Inability to pay or to work means eviction, unless someone can pay or work on your behalf. This process usually didn't take too long and settled by local courts."

"Bit harsh isn't it?" Niangzi concluded, though in a world this hostile one can't afford to be lenient. That doesn't mean she's comfortable with it, even so, it's still better than what she experiences back in China. Or so, she convinced herself and forced a smile.

"Better than slavery or serfdom," Aogane told her.

"Living in the city is safer and free of charge compared to being the tenant of a Manor. However, it's also more difficult to live comfortably. Everything is dirty and cramped, services and goods are expensive, and the crime rate is high with a lot of threat coming from inside of the city than outside. I find myself more comfortable as small time merchant working with Madame Salamancia." He laughed heartily, "Date, my Sir. Are you a lawman? You seem to catch up quickly despite my simple explanations. Perhaps you have a strong educated background?"

"is it really that special? I just know a little more than other people in my age." Aogane admitted that most people his age would not familiar with typical medieval structures.

"Average peasant couldn't even imagine the existence of a ruler higher than that of a Duke, they have enough problem understanding on the core of a law, and yet, when I say Marquis you already know that our current location is right on the country's border. Are you sure you didn't come from here?"

"I really didn't."

"We have no reason to lie." Niangzi added, "Besides, we do have some educational background."

"Oh really? Strange, what university you people came from?"

"I'm not in university yet."

"I don't go to university either."

"Hmm? Then what school you two went to?"

"In our old place, prior to University, you have to undergo at least nine years of education, twelve if you want to go to university." Aogane pointed himself, "I finished my twelve-year basic education program, obviously, but I haven't been accepted by university yet."

Niangzi smiled, "Same here."

"T-TWELVE YEARS?!" Cliforde shouted, "Twelve years just to get in university? By gods, that's a terrifying prospect. So much money and time wasted. Are you some form of nobility?"

"I'm not quite a nobility myself, just a rich commoner. My ancestors were nobles, but they're not relevant anymore." Aogane couldn't help but hold his laughter. Technically speaking, he didn't lie. He descended directly from Date Samurai Clan. Even though it's hundred of years since Samurai existence is important, it's still a fact that he descended from them.

The Chinese girl cackled maniacally as she made a penny-pinching motion, "I'm not even that, my dad just rich as fuuuuck."

"...I see." Cliforde looked distraught. He thought these two just some pair of wandering knight, which does, in fact, deserve respect but not quite on the level of nobility. Knights were required to have some form of education, both formally through school and informally under the tutelage of another knight or a noble. Poorly educated knights were looked down upon, those who earned their merits through pure martial prowess alone were considered nothing but a savage in shining armor.

Still, if their parents were wealthy, then these two having some form of formal education makes sense. Looks like this will be an interesting journey at least, Cliforde actually had a hard time talking with his own men, since most of them came from pure peasant families.

"What about you, Mr. Cliforde?"

"Ah, well, my father was a Scholar but even at a young age I already have talents for money-counting, so I decided to make myself living as a merchant. My father taught me a lot of things about this kingdom, so I just happen to know more about it than most people. Before I knew it it's already 40 years."

"Are people of the past this small minded?" Niangzi whispered aside.

"Rude." Aogane chastised her, "Travel is slow and extremely dangerous, the vast majority of people live and die in the same villages or town, education? Forget it, most children trained to work from very young age and help their parents. If you only live until the age of 50, would you bother to go to university instead of working? Can your parents gather enough money to send you there?"

Niangzi just glared in response and growl, "Shut up, asshole."

He didn't say anything outwardly, but inwardly he's screamed in frustration.

In the modern age, children were sent to school, sometimes even before they reach the age of five. From a young age, they were taught to remember and understand complex things that people in ancient times would not. Because of this, their brains were much more developed. That's not to say, people in the past were stupid. On the contrary, people in the past were extremely goal-oriented, there's simply no time for one's mind to go astray. Because they can only live for so long, they had to make up for it and spend their time efficiently.

Niangzi, however, was not fooled. "Bullshit. We all know it's about control. Uneducated peasants unlikely to question and argue the way it runs, since they will not develop the foundation needed for critical thinking. Whether it's ancient time or modern times, it doesn't matter. Humans will be humans."

"That..." Aogane wanted to argue, but she was right. A lot of politician during their campaign aimed precisely for that, the less educated, the easier to appeal to their emotion and gain loyalty. It doesn't change anything whether you're Japanese, Chinese, Westerner and so on. "...might be right, but still..."

"People can only be as complex as the society they're in, or did I get it backward?" She suddenly asked.

"A bit of both, really." Aogane softly answered, "Our parents and grandparents shaped the society, and we will shape the society for our children and our grandchildren."

"Meh."

What the hell is wrong with this girl?

Niangzi blinked and stopped walking for a moment.

"What it is, Sister Niang?"

"Sound of battle."

Even though Niangzi's open face helmet covered her ears properly, she managed to pick such subtle noises. Aogane didn't even hear it when Cliforde spoke, "She was right, there's a battle."

"We should avoid this road then," Aogane said grimly, it's not that he wanted to run. On the contrary, he'd rather avoid needless confrontation. If there was someone in need to help, of course, he would help. Even so...

Even so, he was really afraid. It was one thing to fight a bunch of mutated rabbits, but...

"Well you're right, maybe the person should die for all we care." Niangzi snorted, "Let's change the route a little bit."

How could she be so heartless?!

"Well... I have to agree with Lady Niang." Cliforde weakly said as fear crept into his face. Cliforde was more than well aware of how hypocritical his stance was, seeing as he was found half naked and helpless. Even so, no one could really blame him.

So few men have the kind of courage and skill needed. And in the case of Cliforde, he's not even in full cloth, let alone outfitted for battle. His fear wasn't at all unjustified, it's one-half common sense and self-preservation in the works.

However, Aogane felt like he had no reason to run at all. He had the skill, he had the equipment, to turn back now would be awful.

"That's not what I mean." Aogane said, "Let's sneak up and preemptively attack before we're noticed."

Aogane wanted to run, that much, he was well aware. However, he didn't want to regret anything. However, all things considered, he was too afraid to go alone. Talking like this, he hoped they could understand his intention. He had always been that type of person.

The type that forms groups and leads them, and then shamelessly hid behind them for protection. There is strength in number, and if there are enough people believing something, then it would be a just cause. He was just that despicable. But if being a despicable person can save lives, then so be it.

Aogane was more than willing to dirty his hands again.

"Well, I could honestly care less, but let's go with your plan." Niangzi gleefully grinned at him, "Back me up with your arrow."

"Alright." The ronin nodded, "Mr. Cliforde, you don't have to go with us."

"Even if I went alone, my life will be in danger anyway." The merchant shrugged.

Aogane felt a little ashamed for letting her be the group vanguard, but the dark side of him laughed at such notion. Let her be, you could always pretend to be the rational one. That voice always told him that again and again. He saw Niangzi's armored body swiftly ran ahead, so fast that he could hardly tell if she's carrying anything at all, or wearing relative elaborate robe and dress.

However, it's not that Aogane was slow either. He managed to keep sprinting pace despite wearing armor and carrying a huge amount of baggage.

This speed of our legs, it was abnormal. Aogane thought.

As for Cliforde, he could easily keep his pace with Aogane. Aogane thought Cliforde were all fat, but actually, he was very muscular. It's just that he also had significant body fat alongside these muscles.

"It's ahead, you guys got to hide!" Niangzi warned, and both men split their ways and disappeared in the woods along the road while Niangzi herself didn't. Instead, she went ahead and going to join the fray head on.

The scene of death and carnage unfold before her, the grass and soil splattered with iron-smelled red blood, corpses of rabbit-like monsters piled all over the place, and there were also battered bodies of people. These people, as expected, didn't wear anything metallic. Their armor seems to be mostly made of leather or wood, and the scattered weapons were similarly archaic.

The only combatants left to fight were a young woman, and a gigantic abomination of a creature, which resembles an unholy fusion of a Rabbit and a Kangaroo. Its elongated muzzle bristled with fangs and scars. Its body was so muscular that they show even under its unnaturally thick fur. Even with a dozen arrows jutting out of its body, the creature didn't seem to be too bothered. Instead, it fiercely swung its clawed paw, each missing attacks sounded like thunder as they hit nothing but air or ground.

"Holy shit, what the fuck is that?!" Niangzi gasped for a moment. Just for a second, he felt what its like to stand in the face of a real terror, a monster. It was different compared to the mutated dog-sized rabbits that could die to single arrow to the eye. Its red eye gazed upon hers with sickening lust for blood.

However, a high-velocity arrow smashed right into said eye, this broke Niangzi from her stunned state. With a roar unlike a woman or a human for that matter, Niangzi lurched forward and swung her Gunadao downward. The sickening crunch of the impact echoed within the carnal battlefield, as the full weight of the heavy Chinese glaive hit its head and send it's chin to the ground, visible slash drawn upon its forehead.

"What the, I just hit it with enough force to split a man's head open!" The armored Chinese girl balked, only for her shock to stay short lived and the scenery became blurry as the monster tackled her legs, sent her tumbling off the road right into the bushes.

"Sister Niang!"

"I'm okay!"

Aogane let another arrow straight to its uninjured eye, however, the monster responded by simply turn its body and let the arrow pierced its back, almost harmlessly. Aogane was more than aware of what happened.

Back on earth, a lot of things can be killed by 100 poundage bow. However, there's one animal that could defy this expectation. That would be Boars. Boars develop a unique layer around their shoulder, the shoulder shield. It's existence baffled a lot of layman and experts alone. This shield allowed Boars to survive the various life-threatening ordeal, reducing mortal wounds into small ones.

Coupled with almost impenetrable frontal skull, a Boar could be considered a natural tank. This monster also managed to resist the direct hit from Niangzi's extremely powerful strike, so it's likely to have the similarly powerful skull.

Rather than a rabbit monster, wouldn't it be better to call this thing a rabbit-shaped boar?

"We need to attack the neck." Aogane shouted, "Right behind the ears or the throat!"

Aogane dashed underneath its jaw and when he's done, blood gushes out of the wound inflicted by his katana. Much to his dismay, it seems that the monster had potent blood clotting factor.

"No way!"

"You're not wrong." The woman who just engaged the monster alone joined as she bashed her spearhead against it's neck with a chopping motion. Her attack resulted in small fire blast that incinerated its neck fur, which scared Aogane a bit. "Crush its spine, it's the only way!"

Aogane, in the split second passed, managed to see everything on her and analyzed it.

A crystal stone spear with the resemblance to a Partisan, it's broad pentagon blade head and curved half-circle blade bottom was designed specifically to fight against cavalry and other bladed weapons. Her armor looked like it was made of hardened leather, though the gleaming breastplate made it could easily be mistaken for lacquered and painted metal, he could tell they were not one because their structure was too plastic-like. Too smooth.

Niangzi came from below and struck the throat with her Guandao, and this seemed to throw the monster off as it gasped for air without being able to immediately retaliate, this gave the mysterious woman another chance to strike its neck with a straight explosive thrust.

Seriously, that spear is terrifying. Is this the real power of a magiston weapon?

No wonder they have no need for steel or any metal at all. The crystal looks extremely durable!

However, the rabbit regained it's footing and swiped the woman with its paw. Her body flew away from sheer momentum but looks like she managed to brace against the worst of the impact. With impossible strength and grace, she managed to land on a tree branch and launched herself forward with tremendous speed, once again smashed the monster with another fiery strike, followed by Niangzi's downward swing that sliced open the thick skin of its charred neck.

"It's working!" Niangzi jumped away, "Just a little bit more!"

"GAH!"

Cliforde's voice brought Aogane from his trance, and he realized that more and more monsters came. There was a reinforcement for the enemy! Though Cliforde managed to hold himself against one or two monsters with just bokken, he pretty much gave up and ran away as soon as he saw the sheer size of the upcoming horde.

Aogane snapped and threw his bag and quiver aside, alongside his bow, and unleashed both Katana in each hand.

"Some crowd you have there." He roared, "Let's party!

Like a whirlwind, he made zig-zagging movement whilst letting his arm went wild on the monsters. Against a human opponent, this kind of movement would be suicide.

But he's not fighting humans.

A flurry of slashes delivered against the congregating mass of fangs and claws resulted in a shower of red streaks across blue steel armor. With no bow and arrow to get in his way, his body, even with full armor, became nimble and fast enough that untrained eyes wouldn't be able to follow his movement.

Aogane felt bitterness and nauseating sensation in his throat as the scent of blood get through the gaps in his helmet.

Even under a high pressure of adrenaline, his conscience remained strong. He felt terrible, for each time he moved his arm, he carved yet another wound. Even if they're monsters, they're still living beings.

But even so...

He didn't want to die!

"Shit, the clotting blood made it dull." He growled and put one of his katana aside as soon as he noticed the reduction in sharpness. If sharpness cannot be relied upon, then he had no choice but to wield his sword with one hand, betting on the combined strength of two hands instead of one.

One thing that he learned in kenjutsu was that one should not rely on deep cut.

Deep cutting a target might be brutal and flashy, however, it makes the sword dull more easily. Instead, cutting deep enough to cut a major blood vessel, but not so deep as to burden the blade, that was the real kenjutsu as taught by his Master.

And he was surprised, not only the blade, but his skill remained sharp even with his half-assed training during his high school period, as he focused more on archery than swordsmanship.

There was something else in him that going to give up though.

As much as he boasts his skill, his stamina was, at best, only as good as a high school athlete could be, it couldn't compare to a well trained professional fighters, or soldiers.

"And they just keep coming."

A loud thundering noise came out, however, it was distinctly different than that of the crystal spear the mysterious young woman had. Rather, no one could mistake it for anything else.

Gunfire.

Large caliber lead balls smashed one, two, three, four. Four monsters died in less than five seconds, such is the power of a firearm. It's capable of delivering massive damage at range, unlike swords.

Though, the fourth monsters stood up again even when it was heavily injured. Fifth gunshots finally ended its painful existence.

"Looks like my calculation is wrong."

Aogane looked behind to see a man, slightly taller than himself, stood with one hand holding the hilt of a very large sword, and one hand holding a smoking revolver. His armor was pitch black all over, but with purely decorative silver sleek lines on center and edges of the plate. From its shape and color alone, Aogane immediately realized who it was.

"Landsknecht?!" He called out, "You're from earth too?!"

"Ooh, a Samurai actually know what he's talking about." The man laughed, "Though I've never seen a samurai with a Closed helmet before."

"Nevermind about that! Please help us!" Aogane shouted.

"Fine, fine." The man put his gun in its holster on his waist, before properly held his massive sword with both hands. "This sword really is heavy."

Easily on its last leg, the monster desperately get away from the two rampaging young women with polearms, however, the creature ran right away toward the black armored knight, who simply put a perfect stance, with one hand around the lower part of the blade.

"Half-swording?" Aogane held his breath in amazement as the man used all of his body and armor weight to push the blade through the creature's throat, and finally pierced its spine. The black knight pulled his blade and then spun it, this time held the sword by using both hands on the blade, before shortly smashed the creature away with the pommel. "Holy shit, Mordhau with a Zweihander?!"

Mordhau, also often called murder stroke, it was a famous technique designed as an emergency attack when a swordsman had to face a heavily armored opponent. Surprisingly, it was very effective, as most European swords have the weight concentrated around the pommel, the sword became somewhat effective hammer.

The black knight finished it with another stab.

"This black knight is no joke." Aogane unwittingly grinned.

The creature's eye became dim and then, it's entire body become limp. The creature shortly began to evaporate into a light, similar to one emitted by Magistone. It was strange, almost surreal sight, how such massive creature left nothing else but the mangled corpse of a mutated rabbit, which unfortunately doesn't even resemble much of the original, rather, it looks like a huge mass of tumor with some animal parts attached.

It was reveling sight as if nature itself condemned this creature into doom.

Aogane and the black knight both flipped open their helmet... and then simultaneously puked on the side of the road.

"Pussies." Niangzi sighed.

"We need to gather the corpses and then burn them all, everyone who can move please get water and wooden tool and heal yourself. I want everyone accounted for, alive or dead." The mysterious woman with partisan spear commanded, and the previously unconscious fighters began to stand up and cast healing magic on themselves. Cliforde also went to assist them with healing tools as well.

"Everyone is accounted for, milady." One soldier knelled before her, desperately holding his tears as he sobbed. "Unfortunately, Clover and Jack were..."

The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I want their corpse preserved and brought back safely. If nothing else they deserve a funeral in their home."

"Your wish is my command." The soldier stood up and relayed the order.

Aogane picked the arrow he used against the now nonexistent giant rabbit, while the black knight pried the lead ball inside the scattered corpses. Both of them looked at each other and they gave silent agreement to each other.

"It would be difficult to replace ammunition in a place like this, and looks like I wasn't wrong." The man, who apparently a westerner, said. He doesn't look that old, probably just under thirty years, maybe even younger. "The name is Dr. Eisen Schmidt."

"Aogane Date."

"Date? As in the famous samurai-"

"Masamune Date." Aogane could tell he recognize that name too, but he just cut it short for clarity.

"I see." The man fixed the position of his goggles, "Interesting. Do you know where we are at the moment?"

"Wherever we are." Aogane looked up to see twin moon began to show up on the horizon, "It's not on earth."

The man snorted, "Binary moon, what a peculiar place indeed. And I was wondering why I am stranded here for no reason as I was about to go to college seminar and instead caught in a gas explosion."

"The Chinese lady over there and me as well, we both caught in life-threatening accidents," Aogane explained as he picked out a cloth to clean his katana thoroughly from the thick blood of the monsters. "It looks like we're all people with similar circumstances upon death."

"I see, that would be consistent, if not logical." The man scoffed, "But I see no reason why I was summoned, I'm not even a real knight."

Aogane nodded, "And neither am I a real samurai. However, we're all came here fully geared for battle, don't you find these circumstances alone were odd? It couldn't be just an accident."

"That was true, first we have to assess our similarities and took a better conclusion from there-" The man said until his stomach churned aloud in the otherwise silent road. "...I truly apologize."

Aogane smiled as he handed a bottle full of Crayfish soup, it's bottleneck have been cut off and instead covered in plastic wrap, tightened with rubber bands. Eisen just looked at it warily before he smiled and say, "Thank you."

It was pretty clear that the man was suspicious, but Aogane decided to leave him as it is. After all, the first rule of traveling is that don't immediately trust strangers.

"Do you have a specific destination?" Aogane asked.

"Can't say I have."

"Why not join us?" Aogane offered, he couldn't be happier to find yet another traveling company. "The more the better, isn't it?"

The older man looked aside before shortly answered with utter seriousness. For a moment, Aogane saw his father in this man, if only from their expression and body language alone. "Well that's not necessarily true, but it's pretty applicable consider our circumstances. I don't see why not."

"Great, the name is Tie Niangzi." The girl suddenly interrupted from beside and offered her hand, "Nice to meet you."

"My name is Eisen Schmidt." The man smiled.... before getting close to a place most definitely inappropriate, that would be her chest area. "...it's a real mountain-pattern?"

This earned a loud slap to the helm from Niangzi.

"YOU FUCKING PERVERT!"

The other group, that is, the mysterious woman looked at them with ambivalence. "What an interesting bunch of warriors."

"They helped me, Lady Isolde." Cliforde bowed, "And I shall apologize for my shameful appearance, my convoy was driven away by that monster and were ambushed by bandits when we're stranded on the old road."

"I'm well aware, you missed your deadline and I received a report of the sightings of transcendent creature around so I have the inkling you would be in danger." The woman said to him, dignified, "You can go and fetch spare armor and shoe. Do you need any weapon?"

"No, though, would it be fine if I held to these healing tools for the moment? I shall pay it once we arrived at the Manor." Cliforde said as he shown the four fingers of his left hand adorned by rings made of stone and wood, with oval magistons perched on every single one of them. These are water and wood element rings.

"There's no need to pay for them. You can pay for the armor and the shoe later."

Cliforde tried to fasten the wooden armor around his body, though it was undersized and he failed. He removed it and instead switched for a tunic and loose leather vest. Two pairs of leather shoe clad his feet, though he didn't really mind barefoot, shoes were just better.

"So, who are these people?"

"I shall apologize but you wouldn't believe me if I tell you, Milady." Cliforde knelled, "It would be best if you hear everything first hand, these youngsters were truly unbelievable."

"And I shall be there." The woman's sharp gaze shine as it reflected the setting sun, she approached the three strangely armored travelers with curiosity.

 

[ZeroXSEED]

This really was not a good day for Dr. Eisen Schmidt.

First, he had to deal with conflicting Seminar schedule, and when he managed to sort out he was 'killed' in a gas explosion. And now, he found himself alive, it wasn't even earth anymore, much to his dismay. And now, the only source of salvation had slapped him on the helm hard enough to sounds like a ringing church bell.

But then again, this one was well earned. Of course, it would be improper to get that close to a young lady you just meet.

"I shall apologize for my rudeness." He said with a cold voice, "It's just that, do you realize how difficult it is to see women dressed in reasonable armor?"

"...." Niangzi glared at the older man with ire.

"They dressed rather well in Historical festivals though?" Aogane asked reasonably.

"..." Niangzi glared even harder.

"In my defense, this is the first time I see REAL mountain-pattern armor. Some thought they never exist." Eisen deflected.

"Ah yeah, that's true." Aogane gasped. He was well aware that the existence of mountain-pattern armor was rather debated heavily. For starter, there was not a single example survived, or rather, exist and found.

Some experts theorized that the armor never existed, to begin with, and all examples within various books or statues were nothing but stylized chain armor, or God forbid, leather. Unlike in Europe, usage of leather as Armor material is well known in the various region of Asia, and China wasn't an exception. However, Leather Armor would not survive centuries without constant preservation, they simply rot and degrade by age.

"It's actually something like this." Niangzi pulled up the part of her front armor skirt, to show that underneath the thick riveted cloth was lined with overlapping steel plates. It was very likely that similar overlapping riveted plates can be seen underneath her chest armor. "Apparently the scales were just decoration."

"A brigandine!" Aogane and Eisen both shouted in excitement, both of them crouched down lower to see closer... but all it did was making them looked like voyeurs. Niangzi justifiably smacked them both. "You jerks have a fetish for armored girls huh?"

"You're right, young lady, which is the point. I relish in the sight, young and old maidens clad in padded cloth, leather straps, and forged steel, showing their confidence in physical prowess and martial skill, one cannot simply deny the charm and beauty. Unlike those whores in chain bikini and bondage gear called fantasy armor, I really love the sight of real women in real armor! Ah, but because Mountain-pattern armor supposedly doesn't exist, that's why I was shocked and curious." Eisen shouted loudly, which garnered the attention of other soldiers, "Isn't that right, gentlemen?"

The soldiers looked at each other, shook their head in confusion and bewilderment, and then resumed their work.

"Well I don't particularly that obsessed, so I apologize." Aogane smiled with the innocence of a saint even though he was screaming inside.

"So that means this is a fake Mountain-pattern armor since the pattern was just decoration than functional overlapping scales, I am disappointed." Eisen shrugged, which almost infuriating if not for the fact that the armor owner couldn't care less about his fetish.

"Do I look like I give a fuck?" Niangzi hissed, "If it works, it works. Besides, it's not my armor either. Just my old hag's leftovers."

"Well if it's a Brigandine, then it should work well." Aogane pointed, "From a certain point of view, they have some advantages over plate armor, though, in terms of total weight per protection they are inferior to a solid plate, they're generally easier to wear and also more comfortable."

"That's true enough." Eisen said tactlessly, "You can't wear full plate armor with that kind of robes, that's just idiotic."

Leave it to Niangzi to point a middle finger in response. it was true that her overlapping plate armor allowed it to follow her movement freely without causing a problem with her robe. Then again, wearing armor with a robe was dumb, to begin with. It's just that she had no room left to store it, and at the same time, she didn't want to admit the perverted asshole was right.

"Do you mind if I interrupt your conversation?"

The woman in leather armor said as she gracefully walked closer. Like Niangzi, she also fought fully dressed in a skirt. The difference is that her skirt was shaped in a way that they're not very intrusive. And there was also the fact that her skirt wasn't layered that much, it's just thick linen under leathers.

He upper gown, worn under thick leather armor, looks like made of much higher grade material. Perhaps even silk.

"8/10," Eisen commented, which garnered disbelief from both his companion.

The woman, who either didn't hear or didn't understand the flow of conversation, decided to ignore it. "Are you people travelers? Where you came from?"

Niangzi pointed to the west with her thumb. "From beyond that forest." She said cryptically.

The woman's eyes squeezed for a moment, clearly showing her suspicion. Nevertheless, she seems to be able to keep her emotion in check and smiled, "I see, do you have a specific destination in mind?"

"No, we don't." Eisen stepped forward formally and bowed with one arm across his chest, "Shall I ask who am I speaking with, my Lady?"

"I am Isolde Salamancia. A knight in service of Catalina." She smiled curtly and offered her hand, which he reached and kissed almost shamelessly. "You shall call me Isolde."

"Eisen of the Schmidt family, at your service."

In face, Niangzi felt like she was about to puke. "How shameless."

"Aogane Date." Aogane introduced himself, awkwardly bend his body a little before straightening himself up.

Of all these three, only Niangzi who refused to bow. "Niangzi Tie. You can call me Niang."

Both Aogane and Niangzi came from East Asia, where family names preceded given names. As such, they both decided to flip their name arrangement to suit that of Western style reading. They figured it would make things easier so people don't make any mistake.

"If you don't mind, would you like to join us and visit House Salamancia?" The gold-eyed female knight offered, "As thanks for helping my old friend Cliforde as well as helping us taking care of that transcendent Hare monster."

Eisen smiled, "I'm not sure if we're worthy."

Niangzi grimaced and pulled Aogane aside, much to his confusion. "What the?"

"I don't like her, she smells like trouble." Niangzi whispered, "Smell like a cunning noble brat with hidden agenda to me."

"Really?" Aogane raised his eyebrow, "Though to be fair, she couldn't be just an ordinary knight."

The Chinese warrior girl pointed happily, "See, you realize that too. better leave before she drags us."

"Oh come on, she couldn't be that reckless." Aogane grabbed his bag, Quiver, and bow and slung them at once. "Besides, this is your only chance to get a half-decent bed to sleep on."

Niangzi made a double take in response to that, "What, really?"

"You know that bed in ancient and medieval ages were mostly made of straw and grass right? Not only that, but there are also bedbugs and all sort of disgusting creatures. If nothing else, there's a good chance you can get a linen or wool mattress if you go with her."

"Shit, shit, shit, now that's a hard choice." Niangzi now felt conflicted. On the other hand, she could get away with eating random food, but bedtime is another matter. She just realized that as much as she hated the lifestyle of a rich person, she truly missed her old, warm fluffy bed.

"Well, I honestly don't mind either way." Aogane leered aside in doubt, "I couldn't say I'd accept such invitation at face value."

"Now you're talking common sense, unlike that pervert over there." Niangzi glanced at Eisen, who at the moment was chatting merrily with Isolde and Cliforde. "He must have a plan, but I don't trust him either."

And now Aogane was conflicted.

On one side, if he was to be offered a choice of sleeping indoor or outdoor, he would take indoor sleeping in a heartbeat, however, it was true that if he were to accept her invitation, then he would be at her mercy. Finally, Niangzi clearly doesn't want to follow her invitation, while Eisen wanted to. In other words, even if he didn't have a specific preference, he might be very well forced to choose, or he had to convince the other to yield.

This is yet another test given to him, whether his social skill back in earth actually useful or complete waste.

"Well, in the end, we're still in danger over here, it's full of monsters and probably normal dangerous animals as well. Putting the issue of bed aside, the issue of safety isn't that much different, you think?"

Niangzi began to show a crack in her steely suspicion.

"Let's put it like this then, we can travel with them until we reach the Manor, whether we split from there or not can be decided later." He offered.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Finally, she yielded. Aogane could consider this negotiation a success for the time being.

Eisen's eyes glinted cockily as the two returned back with mixed expression, "So, did the warrior princess willing to go?"

"I'd like we travel together until we reach safe region and then decide whether we stay or continue." Aogane firmly responded, "Sister Niang agreed to stick around."

"That's wise of you." Eisen nodded, "We will have to spend a night here either way."

"Huh?" Niangzi blinked in surprise, "Why?"

"It's almost nighttime, traveling at night is much more dangerous than camping." Eisen flipped close his helmet visor, "Setting camp and take turns watching is safer, however, the cart carrying the dead bodies will go ahead of us while carrying a message as well as the Merchantman and half the soldiers. The rest will have to go on foot, and Lady Isolde decided to stay here with two third of the soldiers."

Aogane and Niangzi exchanged a glance.

How odd, why didn't she go ahead of them?

"She intends to deal with bandits on the road." Eisen scoffed, "It's pretty clear she wanted to use us as free muscle."

"What the fuck." Niangzi bit her gloved thumb, "She's a cunning one."

"I know right?" Eisen shrugged.

Aogane gulped, though he felt disgusted with his mind, he finally spoke. "We might have to deal with bandits either way."

"I think that was the point." The man in black knight armor said as he twirled revolver in his hand. "The question is can you two fight bandits on your own? Because I'll be honest, even my gun probably wouldn't be enough. Besides, it's a 400 years old junk. Who knows when it will fall apart."

"Four hundred-what?!" Aogane's eyes widened.

"Milady! We're almost at the usual campsite." The soldiers reported, "It shouldn't be too far from here."

"Full speed march," Isolde shouted.

"That's our cue." Niangzi finished cleaning her Guandao and slung it over her shoulder. She followed Isolde hurriedly as if itching for something.

"What do you mean 400 years old? Sure it looks antique in design, however, at the same time, it looks pretty refined in terms of engineering. I've seen simpler revolver before."

"Don't you know? When it comes to guns, the simpler the better. That means less failure point and less moving parts. Sure, some features such as recoil reduction are justified, but the principle still stands. Do you know who made the first revolver?" Eisen glared at the younger samurai.

"....No."

"Me neither." Eisen smiled, "But the oldest known Revolver in the world would be Hans Stopler's prototype, forged in the year of 1597. This is the replica of that revolver, the original was stored in a Norwegian Museum."

"Eh?!"

It was true, there was this saying in the west that that "God made men, Colt made them equal". Samuel Colt made the first mass fabricated revolver designs in the world, in that his design was so much simpler than his predecessor. In that sense, Eisen wasn't wrong, the reason why Colt revolver was famous then and now was not that of precision nor complexity, but inversely, simple ruggedness.

Not only the mechanism of this revolver looks intricate, with actual ignition sliding gate operated by it's spinning chamber, the rest of the system almost looked like a clockwork. Aogane could see why Eisen wasn't that eager to rely on it, it was too finicky even for a firearm.

"This boy over here, on the other hand? I would gladly bet my life on it." Eisen smiled brightly as he patted his now cleaned blade, which rather unusual compared to how grim he looked before, "Even today, sword makers everywhere tried to find the best way to make the best swords at an affordable cost. However, if nothing else, they already successful forging a sword that would beat thousands of similarly made real medieval era sword simply by consistently using high-quality steel that only modern forge can provide."

"I see." Aogane couldn't help but laughed.

"You don't seem to be convinced."

"I am extremely convinced." Aogane pushed both hilts of his two katana to show him the blade, they have very different color and pattern. "One is a genuine Japanese blade made by a Traditional artisan with three different steel folded together, and the other is a single piece steel machined and deferentially tempered overseas, however, both of them use modern steel alloy. They handle differently, and even how they cut and stab was different, but I like the feeling of both because I'm not ambidextrous, my left and right-hand handles sword differently, and when I use both hands on one grip, I can use different techniques with each sword."

"I see, pretty strange to see a Samurai with such open mind."

"You've seen a samurai with a closed helmet before?" Aogane rhetorically asked, which made the older man laughed.

....

"What do we have for food?" Isolde asked to the cart rider that carries the soldier's logistic.

"We should be able to scourge enough for tonight but-" The soldier looked at the three extra people, "We might not have enough for full serve breakfast tomorrow because the monsters raiding it."

"How could you people be so reckless." Isolde growled, "Nevermind, this area should be full of wild hare and deer, go fetch one."

"Excuse me, is hunting allowed around here?" Aogane asked.

Isolde looked at the samurai from the tip of his crest to the metal-plated boot, "It should be, this is an unclaimed forest."

"Well, I would like to help." He said as he pulled his wooden compound bow off his shoulder.

Isolde looked at the bow and noticed the strange, intricate machinery around the bow limbs, "That's a very strange bow."

"It's a transitional design," Aogane said as he followed the people armed with bows. They all seemed to carry generic recurve, and Aogane estimated their poundage to be about 40-50 pound, which is very common for most hunting bow. However, he noticed the strange glow around their surface, marked the fact that they're all reinforced with Magiston, so they should be at least twice as powerful as they look.

His advanced bow should be more than able to compensate.

"Are these bows common for the soldiers?" Aogane asked.

"Well, no Sire. This is just hunter bow we use normally, dedicated combat archer tended to carry something bigger and more powerful. However, their arrows couldn't be fletched easily unlike this hunting bow, they need magiston enchanted arrow as well." The soldiers politely answered, thinking that Aogane was much higher in the social hierarchy. Though that was Aogane's impression, more likely that this soldier is actually just peasant levies gathered to deal with the monster threat. It would certainly explain their clumsiness and how they looked upon him so much.

"That's some huge arrows you have sir, and that bow is quite odd too."

"Huh, yeah, it's pretty odd isn't it?"

He guessed it would be something like 100+ pound longbows or recurves, as for magiston reinforcement, perhaps they're more accustomed to smaller arrows as result?

"Ssh." Another soldier said, "There's few over there."

A bunch of unsuspecting deer was about to rest, and one of the hunters draw his bow.

"Would you mind if I go ahead?" Aogane asked.

The soldiers looked at each other and then nodded quietly. Since when Aogane already drew his bow?

Admittedly, Aogane was thrilled. In Japan, hunting with a bow is considered illegal. It was actually pretty strange since archery was a revered Japanese tradition since ancient times, and even Samurai was started purely as archer cavalry. Here? The rules are different.

If there's one huge disadvantage that a compound bow added, it would be noise. Both the noise of the string, the limbs, and finally the pulleys and cams. Combined, a compound bow is much louder than that of a straight bow. In comparison, the bows that these hunters have would be background whisper.

Coupled with that would be the absurdly thick spine of the arrow and solid steel tip. A lot of archers were under impression that it would be too dangerous to use a wooden arrow in a high powered compound. In actuality, that was not really the case, the issue was that wooden shaft needed to withstand the power of a 100+ pound compound was rather impractically huge, which is why carbon and aluminum became the first choice for most people. However, when he made his bow with his grandfather, he took a liking on wooden arrows in general, and even taking account into labor cost, he considered the alternative as too expensive.

His 12.5 mm wooden arrows were designed precisely for that task. The arrow smashed right on the deer's chest, right to the heart and lung. Only a few steps of retreat and thirty seconds passed were made before it fell unconscious and dead, the rest of the herd ran away in terror.

He could just see the sheer amount of horror they show. The hunters were all shocked.

"He didn't use Magi?"

"No, I saw it, he didn't use magi."

"That's a very powerful bow!"

It's not that his bow was outrageously powerful, the idea was that he was doing it without the assistance of any form of magic, and that's what surprised them. It was true that, with equal poundage, a compound bow deliver more energy than a longbow and with a lot less burden put on the archer's arms. Of course, historically, up to 160-pound longbows weren't unheard, but there were plenty who were less powerful. After all, such powerful bow requires very expensive arrows to shoot with, and require physical prowess that few percentage of men could achieve.

Aogane tried to pull the arrow but the shaft cracked slightly from stress even though he succeeded. Makes sense, he did use this arrow at least three times today with full power draw, and two times out of that the target thrashed around which may damage its integrity. In the end, he simply extracted the useful parts and discarded everything else except the tip and neck. He had always been careful to check whether an arrow shaft is fractured or not.

"Maybe I should check the second arrow I used as well." He decided and flex the second arrow carefully to check its integrity and he was satisfied as he put it back in his quiver.

"Sir, your archery is impressive, if you were to cast magi, it would be a tremendous display of carnage." One soldier praised.

"Haha, even if I want to, I can't."

Isolde watched the entire scene unfolded before her eyes. It wasn't really the most powerful shot she ever saw, for many of the Royal longbowmen were gigantic people of tremendous strength, and their bows were matched just for them. Aogane was taller than most of her men but not that tall, and he drew his bow with such speed that it was actually faster than her levied soldiers, all of which used much weaker hunter bow. So really, that was indeed noteworthy display.

"It's very difficult to take care of because it's very complex and rigid, however, it's draw speed is faster than a mere longbow." Eisen commented, "The key points are the wheels."

The strangely arranged and shaped wheels on the bow limbs? They looked very intricate and fragile, and yet, those strange wheels allowed the bow to achieve such feat? Isolde already interested. Perhaps, even if such bow cannot be mass produced for soldier use, perhaps some archery-focused nobles would be interested.

"It could draw faster than longbows, but deliver equally powerful shot and even more. If it were combined with a Magi-enchanted arrow it would be a devastating weapon." Isolde commented, "Truly a masterpiece equipment, I don't think even royal Fletcher could build one."

Eisen flipped open his helmet and smiled, "Perhaps, Milady have interest with him?"

"I could say I'm interested in you as well." She huskily replied and stepped closer so their faces were barely one foot away from each other as if trying to seduce him with her beauty.

"Unfortunately, we're just penniless peasants at the moment." He shrugged, "Catching the attention of someone of your position would be improper no?"

"You don't talk like a peasant, Eisen Schmidt. A mere peasant don't get dressed in heavy armor carrying extremely powerful, unique weapon." Her gaze sharpened and her smile disappeared, "And the way you spoke of yourself and others, it was full of pride and confidence. Who exactly are you?"

"We have no land, no money, no jobs, no lord and ladies to serve. What do others call people like us?"

Isolde was quiet as she tried to find the suitable words to describe such existence. And she finally found one, "...Vagrants?"

"Exactly, we're vagrants. Whether I was born and raised in a wealthy family, or in nobility, whether I was a scholar or a lawman, it doesn't matter anymore. We're lower existence than peasant and that's what matters." Eisen snorted, "We mean no trouble, and we don't want to cause any trouble on your behalf."

At the moment, he let his sword blade fell to the ground with resounding impact, and then have a slight bow with his head as his arm rested on its hilt. One would have to wonder just how heavy that sword blade was to make that kind of noise, despite being extremely slender for its length.

"I'm just a lowly Knight, so rest assured I won't do anything rash." She said seriously, this man truly caught her interest, "But others might be. I swear upon the throne that I owe you and your companion, a favor for helping me and my soldiers today. I wouldn't say I owe you my life, but the well being of my soldiers was preserved because of your help."

Isolde might not show it well, but today, she barely scraped it out of a really bad situation. Had it not for their help she would never be able to beat the transcendent Hare monster on her own, and probably had to leave running, abandoning her men and women to die. As a knight, her words will be kept. Whether this man will believe her or not, is his own problem.

"It's an honor." Eisen cryptically said in response, before shortly moved toward the samurai and clapped his hands, which unfortunately came out like rattling cans because of his gauntlet. "That was an excellent shot, Mr. Date."

"Thank you. This is my first-time bow hunting, really."

"Huh, I'd be fooled if you say otherwise." Eisen hummed, "You shot that deer in dark woods without the help of night vision gear, that alone tells me how skilled and experienced alone."

"Bowhunting is illegal in Japan though." Aogane reasoned, which wasn't at all a lie.

In the end, a feast was held. The deer, skinned out and roasted, was cut into pieces and handed out to everyone present, along with hard rye bread to go along with it. For those three who were accustomed to the over-salted diet of the modern world, this dinner came out as tasteless, which is where Aogane's bottle of seasoning came into rescue.

"This is... unique." Isolde commented, "It's a bit sour, slightly bitter, it's very strong, the beef flavoring somehow override the taste of venison. I like it, it's just odd to say that."

"Welcome to shitty modern culinary." Niangzi shoved a rye bread filled with roasted meat in her mouth, "Man, I miss Chinese dish already. This bread is too rough. I want rice."

"To be honest I want rice too, but this bread isn't that bad." Aogane said, "It's not wheat right?"

"Yes, it's a mixture of rye and barley."

"Oh, that's good!" Eisen commented, "They're less likely to make you fat compared to wheat and rice because of the fibers."

"Fiber?" Isolde asked, "You mean these things in wood skin and bamboo?"

"No, I mean dietary fiber which is edible. My apologies to ask this, but are you familiar with constipation?"

Niangzi coughed and choke herself, which Aogane immediately rescued with a bottle of water. "We're eating, asshole!"

Niangzi looked at everyone else, both the female knight and her soldiers don't seem to be disgusted at all. So this is what cultural values and difference be like? Or maybe their interest override their disgust. She grumpily shut up and let them continue the conversation.

"Well, yes, we usually took care of that by eating grain bran." Isolde replied, "What about it?"

"The bran itself is made of dietary fiber and don't get digested, a small amount of dietary fiber will help stomach waste to get out easily since they absorb both fat and water. I don't know if you know or not, eating a constant but small amount of dietary fibers will help reduce the fat in your diet. As the result, you'll stay slim easier if you eat hard rye and barley bread instead of pure white wheat bread."

"...so THAT's why everyone in the nobility was so fat." Isolde snorted, befitting of a woman of her status. She realized this and immediately put back her composed face. However, the rest of the soldiers weren't as dignified and broke into massive laughter.

Disrespecting nobility is a great offense, but only if you're in their dominion. Isolde nor her soldiers have no need to follow decorum of respect and pretend of having one at all.

Because of the climate of Catalina Kingdom, wheat farming only existed in the very southern part of the kingdom, far away from Salamancia's domain. As such, Wheat became a rare commodity that only those with extra money can afford wheat.

"Ah, but too much fiber will wreck your stomach so be careful." Aogane warned, "Also, I think obesity within the nobility was mostly because eat too much and exercise poorly, not just because they ate wheat bread."

"Especially if you eat too much cattle meat, egg, and butter." Niangzi finalized, "More fish and vegetables are always good."

Isolde smiled, "Just like Gerard said, you people were extremely educated. Poor people like tenant farmers and unskilled labor have a hard time to find food at all, learning things like this would make them miserable."

Eisen wanted to raise an objection but Niangzi covered his mouth. In modern earth, it's not really that different, in that most poor people have a poor diet. However, most modern low class, so to speak, is also educated enough to know about balanced diet at all. They simply have no option to choose, mostly less about food being expensive and more because they work long enough with no time to cook properly.

There's no need for Isolde and others to know that, however.

"No matter the place and time, humans remains the same huh." Niangzi chuckled.

In the end, it was decided that this camp spot remains usable, however, everyone will have to take turns with people split into three groups. The second shift had the largest number, however, neither the three strange guests nor Isolde was involved.

"Alright, me and Brother Date shall have the third shift." Niangzi pointed thumb.

"We shall take the first turn then," Isolde said as she looked at Eisen.

Eisen soundlessly nodded as he slung his Zweihander.

Everyone else dumped the outer part of the armor, where the parts were the most restrictive and uncomfortable, if not downright dangerous. Of course, the fact is that fortunately, no one wore full plate armor which would require assistance to strap on. Even Eisen's 16th century Landsknecht black and white armor was rather simple to dons, compared to actual 15th-century Gothic full plate armor suit.

A Gothic plate armor was an intricate piece of engineered shell that could stand on its own even without occupants, this in contrast to the following century, riveted munition armor is commonplace and relatively easy to wear and remove by the soldiers alone.

Niangzi had it the easiest, her entire 'armor' set was really just thick leather coats worn over her Chang'ao, which she strips out further, leaving still modest inner dress which resembles another traditional Chinese grab; the Ruqun. This has always been the main advantage of Brigandine and various permutation of plated coat armor (like Jack and coat of plates), they're very flexible and easy to wear. Chinese collective dynasties were one of the few civilizations who more or less ignored the existence of heavy plate armor, instead, they went from scale and lamellar armor to maile, and then brigandine, which lasted all the way past gunpowder and industrial age.

Aogane was only slightly more complicated. Even though it still held a lot of traditional key points of Japanese armor it's also not as difficult as the historical example. His do (body armor) use a more westernized design that also easy to remove, simply by removing waist buckle and lift it up as soon as he's done removing his helmet and neck brace. Instead of wearing traditional separate kote (arm guards), he was wearing plated and chained katabira (jacket) allowing them to be removed simultaneously without hassle. His outer armored hakama (loose pants) also easily removable, leaving a plain trouser underneath. He decided to sleep wearing shoes, however, because the air was relatively cold.

"Looking good huh, Samurai boy." Niangzi winked as soon as he's done, he found her washing her dirtied face with a small wet towel. "You look better without that helm."

Even though Aogane was calm outside, his heart gave a strong, sudden thump in response. Niangzi was already beautiful even when she's dirtied and in full body armor, but in traditional Chinese dress and cleaned of filth, she was absolutely stunning. Her childish face matched with her average height and mature dress created a great, attractive contrast. If someone saw her like this for the first time, no one would've guessed she was really foul mouthed.

"You look beautiful as well, Sister Niang." He said earnestly, trying hard to avert his eyes in embarrassment, "But I prefer my face stay intact if someone hit me there."

"Meh, you're right. Chinese don't really full face helmet like that." She threw him the towel, "Use it, the other side still clean."

He looked at it and then rubbed it around the nook of his face where it's the dirtiest. Truthfully, everyone would take a bath if they could. But between cold weather and hostile habitat, it wasn't at all a sound idea.

"But man, not wearing armor feel so cold. If I were to fall asleep I might freeze to death."

"Everyone else is wearing armor though." Aogane pointed at the dozing off soldiers, who were uniformly dressed in armor made of wood and leather, and seems to have no problem sleeping in their armor. Whether it's due to their construction or training habit, they seem to be fairly comfortable.

"But really we're just given goddamn two sheets for sleeping? This is awful." Niangzi grumbled.

"Uh, would you like to use my tent?" Isolde offered, indeed there as only one tent in the entire camp, that tent belonged to Isolde herself. As a knight and one with Nobility background, her having more proper sleeping arrangement isn't strange, since it's private ownership. However, she was being generous and the guest may deserve better treatment than her own soldier.

"I have an idea." Aogane said, "Could I ask for some ropes?"

"We have some ropes but for what reason?" Isolde raised her eyebrow, while one soldier handed out a bundle of small braided rope.

"Making great beds." Aogane smiled, which Niangzi quickly caught on.

As such she hugged him tightly and rubbed her head on his chest, thankful. "Oh, you're awesome! Thank you!"

Aogane could only freeze.

Girls were supposed to be soft, no, he's not being sexist or perverted. When he was still a high school student, some fairly daring girls tend to cling to him shamelessly, thinking it will gain them special attention. And yes, everything about them was soft as cotton. When Niangzi did, however, everything was uncomfortably hard and solid.

What the hell? He thought, confused. He felt her chest a little, true, but everything else was just confusing. To be frank, it was like she was made entirely of chiseled muscles.

"Oh the lovebirds are at it, I'm envious." Eisen snarked, Niangzi realized this and released the confused young man.

"Well, that's..... don't you want to make one too?" Niangzi asked, whilst averted her eyes away.

Isolde gave them a small bundle of rope which Niangzi and Aogane immediately tie and knots into a usable hammock, then she put her sheet on top of it. It was crystal clear that sleeping on the hammock was much, much more comfortable for her.

Not that Isolde and other realized it, thinking that hanging bed is very dangerous.

"What about you, Aogane? Would you like to use my tent?" She asked.

"I'm fine sleeping on the ground really, I used to do it a lot as a child when stargazing." Aogane waved his hand.

This isn't even the first time Aogane did it. Indeed, Japanese Children does have a habit of stargazing, especially when it's around the time when a comet or meteor shower takes place, and more than once, sometimes children fell asleep on their picnic sheets. Admittedly this place is much colder than Japan in spring and summer, but he could stand it even with just a sheet of linen blanket. Plus he had a bag for a pillow.

Eisen chuckled. The history of Hammock... it was fairly newer than people thought it was. Europeans first encountered them being used by native American tribes, the so called Indians. In turn, hammocks were officially adopted by both military and civilian ships around 1590 because they occupy smaller space than even a small bed, allowing sailors to sleep comfortably in relatively cramped quarters.

One of the reasons that hammocks became popular in Central and South America was their ability to provide safety from disease transmission, insect stings, or animal bites. By suspending their beds above ground, inhabitants were better protected from snakes, biting ants, and other harmful creatures.

"Well, those brats accidentally introduced new technology without thinking." Eisen chuckled to no one.

Sometimes, modern people wonder why people in the past didn't do things sooner, thinking it was so easy. That's not how history worked, in the slightest. Just because they can, doesn't mean they know how. History is a very convoluted series of threads that could be easy or could be hard to change because it's influenced by countless factors.

By showing the hammock to Isolde and her soldiers, Niangzi and Aogane almost single-handedly revolutionize Military logistic. It may seem to be a small change for a person, but when you consider the logistic needed to support thousands of medieval levies, small things like that will cause a snowball effect. Just being protected from ground-dweller annoyances and threats alone would improve soldiers lives and morale in the battlefield.

He will have to warn them to be more careful next time, but for now, he will let it slide. It seems like Isolde and her soldiers have yet to realize the advantages offered by a Hammock too.

"Uh, by the way... where is the toilet?" Niangzi asked.

"Latrines? Well..." Isolde looked at one of her soldier... who raised a stone spade.

"I've finished digging Latrines over there just behind the bush." He said, "No one used it yet."

"There you go," Isolde said.

"Thank you." Niangzi said while carrying a jug of clean water in her hands and dry towel on her shoulder, "Damn it, I miss modern toilet already! Aogane, don't go asleep yet! Escort me to the toilet!"

Aogane was a little baffled, but then he followed her anyway. At times like this, being embarrassed took precedence over safety, and he decided to lean on a tree, facing away as Niangzi took private matters into hands.

"Hey Aogane, are you annoyed you have to live like this from now on?" She asked, clearly embarrassed even though he didn't look.

"Well, I honestly am. Everything feels so itchy and uncomfortable. Modern sanitation is really unmatched." He replied, "Even so, it might be fun from a certain point of view."

"Yeah, that's true." She snorted, "We can do anything here, no badgering parents, no annoying old friends. We can eat and shit anywhere we want too!"

"Parents huh."

Aogane admits, he missed them so much. Even though they're so cold and inattentive, they're still parents who raised him well.

Guess the proverb remains true, you don't know how precious something is until you lose it.

A few minutes later, Aogane could hear the sound of water splashing several times behind him, looks like she was done.

"You want to do it too? I buried mine a little so it shouldn't smell too much." She offered as she wiped her hand with her towel, "There's plenty of water left and it's still clean."

"...yeah," Aogane said, how could she say that so shamelessly? That said, Aogane didn't really hate this type of women too. If nothing else, any other girl would cry so hard helplessly. Niangzi was a quite tough young woman. That kind of mentality, perhaps, was what needed to survive this cruel and immature feudal civilization. The strong rule the weak.

Aogane finished his business too, carrying a now empty water pot.

"...You finished."

"Not the best experience but workable." He smiled bitterly.

"... hey... you crying?" She asked.

"Huh? Wha? Sorry, I, *sob* heh, how embarrassing." Aoagane said as tears keep flowing from the corner of his eyes, he tried to rub it away but Niangzi gripped his wrist strongly. Even though Aogane was trained athlete himself, her grip was strong that he had to struggle. "A man... A man shouldn't cry, right? Even Sister Niang... didn't cry."

"Brother, you're an Idiot." She smiled, "I've cried enough back on earth to last a lifetime."

Niangzi pulled him into a firm, yet caring embrace as she let him cry on her chest. There was not a single negative thought in Aogane's mind as he reached for her back and hold it, and then cried to his heart's content.

For the first time in past few years, Date Aogane can truly be honest about his own feelings and cried.

He wanted to meet his father and mother again.

 

[ZeroXSEED]

Date Aogane (伊達青金)



Tiě niángzǐ (铁娘子)



EISEN SCHMIDT

 

[ZeroXSEED]

"You know, I'm actually wondering."

"Hmm?"

"I mean, that cart." Aogane pointed at the supply cart currently guarded by several soldiers. The same cart that also carried the vast majority of their armor pieces and bag.

Because for what it's worth, long distance trip in armor isn't a sound idea. Besides, unlike yesterday they were closer to the edge of the forest where it's much less dangerous. There was no need to be in battle gear at all times.

"It's being pulled by...."

Niangzi rolled her eyes aside to see where the horses were supposed to be. She saw no horse, no two meters tall equestrian beast of burden that had been with mankind for so long, becoming symbolic proud steed of many nations.

She saw reindeer.

Huge, freaking, reindeer. Several of them, in fact. She haven't thought about it before, but she did now.

"Yeah I saw it, what are they, Santa Claus?" Niangzi balked.

"Well, first one needed to consider how cold it is here." Aogane rambled, "The horses we know in the modern age have undergone numerous breeding program to suit their eventual habitat, separated by era, for thousands of years all over the globe. It's not until later that Japanese have access to large horses, all of our eight horse breeds could be classified as ponies. Unfortunately, I'm not very well versed on this, so I don't know why they haven't breed mountain or cold climate horse."

He finished his explanation to see Niangzi puffed her cheeks as she held her laugh.

"....if you want to laugh, please do." He said with low voice.

"Pwahahaha, are you always such a nerd?" She smacked his shoulder in pity as she let the air in her mouth out, "I mean, I'm watching National Geographic at times and I don't think I have half the knowledge you have. For fuck's sake!"

"Fennoscandia countries did, in fact, semi-domesticated Reindeer, that would be Norway, Finland, and Sweden, in the northern part where it's the coldest. There's also Russia, and in fact, Reindeers were later introduced to the Alaskan region." Eisen interrupted, as they walked down the road, he was dressed in just his arming doublet, the padded clothes that knights wore under their steel armor. Isolde was dressed almost similarly, in fact. Perhaps, some things remain similar between the worlds even when others are different.

"So you people use reindeer here?"

In a display of fearlessness, Niangzi approached the two draft animals and pet their head. Their antlers were obviously cut down for safety. Probably re-purposed for something else, but they don't look too bothered.

"We used similar animals in this region since they're natural to Catalina's extremely mountainous terrain. Moose are prized for temperament and courage as a cavalry mount, and their horns can be used as a weapon if properly reinforced with magiston, but Reindeers are more useful for pulling carts around because their docile nature and their horns can be cut easily for other purposes without leaving the Reindeer useless. Of course, sometimes we hunt wild reindeer like yesterday, but for the most part, we also have them domesticated around here."

And it makes for delicious breakfast, for the most part.

"I couldn't even imagine it, Moose is fierce as hell." Niangzi hummed, to which Eisen immediately corrected.

"In the 1700s the kingdom of Sweden experimented with Moose Cavalry. However, Moose was proven to be too smart for their own good, Moose could recognize gunpowder explosion and will refuse to go to battle where firearms and cannons present. In other words, they could recognize deadly ballistic weapon from their sound alone." The man pointed, "With Moose being cultivated for hundred years, it might just be possible to use them as war horse replacement, especially with Magi being a thing. It's possible that cultivated moose can acquire certain temperament needed for them to be excellent war steed."

"Oooh." Aogane and Niangzi nodded in understanding.

The Chinese girl smiled as she hugs the huge reindeer who didn't seem to be bothered much. "You people really have no horse around here?"

"Horse?" Isolde asked, "What is a horse?"

The three world-travelers looked at each other, but Niangzi quickly realized. "Missing context again?"

"Probably." Aogane shows the female knight a simple but accurate drawing of a horse, which he drew almost instantly without a second thought. As a comparison, he even added a cartoonish drawing of himself.

"What animal is that? Did you people use them as working animal?" Isolde asked with unbridled curiosity, "No, though sorta looks like... some kind of Elk? Can't say I've seen one."

Aogane and Niangzi both furrowed their collective eyebrows, which Eisen decided to interrupt. "Aogane, you don't know much about the history of horse do you?"

"Well, not really?" Aogane shrugged, as much as a nerd he could be his knowledge had of limits.

"Horses were extinct in America until Columbus reintroduced them in the 15th century." Eisen grinned, "Even the Native Americans call them Dog-Elk when they saw the Colonist steeds. This is because they're unfamiliar with existence, and as you can tell, Elks are huge enough that horses looked like one from their limited point of view."

"OH!" Aogane gasped, "That makes sense."

"I'm very familiar with the Colonial history of Europe and formation of what we know now as the United States of America. There's a good reason why American Continent was called 'new world', the ecosystem simply cannot be compared, even though American species shares some similarity with that of Eastern Asia due to formerly connected through Siberia." Eisen said with emphasis, the looked at Isolde, "My apologies, Lady Isolde. As you can tell we were not used to the presence of domesticated deer folks."

"I.... I see. We also use Oxen around the farmland because their strength fits better for labor." Isolde averted her eyes slightly, it's clear that she was suspicious but decided not to pursue the matter further. "Well, since the southern region is much hotter, we rarely use deer there. The neighboring Kingdom use huge bird called #$%^&*((*&^%$ as battle mounts."

"What was that?"

"Missing context again!"

The two youth raised their phone and recorded, both the Chinese and Japanese found that was a rather incomprehensible word.

"Rariostadaemaias, apparently a word from an extinct ancient language." Isolde repeated, "Though a lot of people simply called them dawn birds or dusk birds due to their impressively radiant yellow and reddish feathers."

Aogane reflexively said, "That's a Choco-"

However, he was cut off by Niangzi's sneeze.

"Oh, though Africans love Ostrich riding, it's a surprise that entire civilization actually used them as steeds." Eisen chuckled, "Digitigrade simply weren't evolved to carry that much weight on their back, especially when they're bipedal. However because their body length is short then that means two legs are more than enough to support their own weight, so the issue is more about whether they have sufficiently strong joints and muscles to carry a man with his baggage."

"But aren't bird bones hollow, would their legs and back okay?" Aogane asked dumbly because that's just common knowledge.

"Flightless birds tend to have exceptionally strong leg bones and shrunken wings, so species like Ostrich and Emus tend to have very strong layers of the cortex. By the way, I'm a vet. If it's concerning Animals I know about it." Eisen pointed himself.

"What is a Vet?" Isolde asked.

"Someone who took care of animal health and cure their sickness."

Isolde blinked, "Oh, a Hoof Doctor!"

"Hahaha, one could say I was one." Eisen smiled, unusually gentler than usual, the man looked at Isolde. "Though it's not just horses, I took care of all sort of animals as well."

"I see, I'd love you to have a look on my prized mount as well." Isolde teased.

Even though she was suspicious of the wandering warriors, Isolde couldn't help herself but be drawn to this particular man. Eisen considered himself a peasant, no, a vagrant even, and yet, he behaved exactly like ranked noblemen. The way he carried an air of confidence, hidden under polite language and humbleness, it was crystal clear that had he joined a Royal Gala, no one would expect his societal background at all.

Furthermore, his equipment was thoroughly unique. Isolde never seen material that shined so bright as it reflected the sun despite being black, not even her obsidian mirror was that smooth and reflective. And finally, the fact that he was covered from head to toe in the aforementioned strange equipment. No one of peasant born can have that much armor with them unless they inherited it, found it, or steal it. And his sword, the less said about it the better. The massive blade was longer than he's tall and probably weighs as much as three lances tied together. It's pretty amazing how someone could handle it with such grace.

Finally, there's the fact that he could easily be one of the tallest men in the country of Catalina. Even though Isolde wore heeled boots for the purpose of increasing her height, she's still short at least half a head under him. That's just how terrifying Eisen look, a man this tall should eat a whole lot more than average.

The current assumption was that Isolde thought he was some sort of fallen noble or a knight, who lost his social standing whether due to political or political reasoning. But at the moment, she would refrain from asking.

She didn't buy it that they're just typical peasants, let alone just a hoof doctor. Hoof doctors might be a well-paying job that required quite amount of knowledge, but they need to be frank and unsophisticated so peasants would understand what they're talking about.

Or perhaps, Isolde simply haven't realized that she was looking at him through a biased lens. And it was foolish for her to do so.

With that in mind, the group prepared to continue their journey toward the nearby village.

Niangzi whispered aside to the blue armored Japanese beside her, "Man they're going to flirt all day will they? They should stop beating around the bush and get it on."

Aogane said lightly, "Suffer for those who dare to sully a noblewoman's innocence."

"Eh, whut?"

"Chivalry code of romance demands a Gentlemen not to do anything intimate, he could look but not touch, not unless they're tied by sacred marriage pact." Aogane said, "Of course, that's just Middle Age Europe cultural values. During the same period, different regions have different rules. So who knows?"

"That's boring, and are you telling me middle age people don't fuck like rabbits? Bullshit."

Aogane just squirmed in response, "That's the rules of nobility, and promiscuity is associated with behaviors of peasants and looked down upon, but that could just be because most of Medieval Europe is overseen by Christian Church. The purity of a noblewoman is the single most important aspect of their existence, which unsurprisingly doesn't apply to noblemen. Because, well, you know... prostitutes and mistress existed for a reason."

"Ah, I see, not really that much different from our times." Niangzi laughed, "Old-fashioned assholes and patriarchy can go die in a fire."

Aogane doesn't know if it's just Chinese stereotype or just Niangzi in particular, but just how rude this woman can be? That said, it's not like Aogane did not see her point. It just rare to see how... outspoken a girl could be. Aogane had his share of delinquent girls as acquaintances, whose lives revolve around bullying, extortion, sex and petty rebellions. And none of them were even half as brash and potty-mouthed as Tie Niangzi.

...come to think of it, there's also the fact that her body....

He erased his ill-mannered thought. And even if his darkest conclusion turned out to be true, he decided it wouldn't be right to judge.

"You know, Aogane." Niangzi said, "Aren't these people... rather short? I mean I'm not one to talk, but compared to these people, I'm very average."

Even though Chinese's average height of the women was 155.8 cm, the data was skewed toward the older generation, whereas the average height of new generation Chinese girls were about 160 cm or so thanks to vastly improved diet and lifestyle, and Niangzi could call herself average. And yet, even though she expected white girls (read: westerner/Caucasian stereotype) to be much taller, these people are not.

Even Aogane, who wasn't that confident with his meager 175 cm height, somehow managed to be taller than most men here. Isolde appeared to be about as tall, but in actuality, her height was obscured by the fact that she wore heeled boots. This still makes her one of the taller women, of course.

In comparison, the tall and slender Eisen looked positively like a giant. Aogane wasn't really sure how tall he is, but average German adult male was about 185 cm tall and Eisen seemed to be in that same ballpark if not more, maybe closer to 190 cm. His black armor and enormous two-handed sword only made him all the more imposing than the rest. And it shows, the male peasant levies looked at him with a mixture of awe and terror whenever he donned his equipment.

"Is this what they call relative perspective?" Aogane sheepishly commented, "Actually, in the late medieval age, the massive starvation and manpower shortage caused by the Black death caused the average height of Middle Age European men to shrink from 174 to 168 cm. For example, King Henry VIII was 180 cm tall and he was commented often by his contemporaries for his impressive stature. Only after industrial revolution that they began to regain their former height and then surpass it in the modern age, which results with people like Eisen being average height even though he's easily over 185 cm tall."

"Of course, diet is just a factor, there might be other things that influence it, such as physical activities, environment and so on. In general, the average height of people in modern nations had been increased by 10 cm in the past 150 years. Due to both economic and cultural factor, the mean height growth of East Asian like us had been slightly delayed heterogeneous the past few decades instead. We only recently catching up with the rest of the world."

Niangzi tried to imagine these wood-and-leather clad soldiers and then add about 10 cm to their height, and she found more or less the height gap that average Chinese girls and westerner have back on Earth. Thinking like this, those people sure were short even though they clearly resembled Earth's definition of white people.

At 160cm tall, Niangzi doesn't at all look out of place compared to these levied peasants. Generally, the women were around 160-165 cm tall and the men were 165-170 cm tall.

In fact, of Isolde's men, there's only one person who was as tall as Aogane.

"Cool, now I don't have to bitch about my height complex."

"You're not THAT short." Aogane commented.

And they continued their playful banter along the way. However, as two hours passed, things become much quieter.

...

Niangzi stopped walking all of sudden and then blinked.

"Shit, there's a battle ongoing!" She warned.

"She's right. The farming area should be just ahead of us. Gear up your armor, now!" Isolde raised her stone spear to tell everyone to stop, and then proceed to slap on and buckled all of her armor pieces that she left in the cargo cart.

Of course, the same goes with the dimensional travelers.

Poured out of the forest, the soldiers found themselves staring into a scene of destruction, where farms were set on fire. Smokes billowed up high enough to block some of the sunlight. Distant scream and beastly roar could be heard even from the edge of the forest.

And there were corpses. Human corpses. At least dozens, and some of them robbed of their clothes too.

"Bandits?" Eisen chilly asked. "Those injuries weren't made by animals."

Some of these dead bodies possessed wounds that didn't look like they came from claws or bites.

Niangzi and Aogane gawked, "What you're serious?"

"Sword user, get your hunting bows and back us, lance user will go ahead. Stay in formation but be aware of possible artillery attack!" Isolde commanded.

Aogane and Niangzi exchanged a glance, he nodded and stepped back, "I'll back you up, Sister Niang."

Niangzi smiled as she left, "Don't die, brother."

The improvised archer group went just some twenty, thirty meters behind the Lancers, who decided to charge ahead full speed in the attempt to pursue the assailant. Aogane realized that it's not just he and the other two Earthlings that moved at immense speed, but even the typical peasant levies seem to be able to sprint at inhuman speed, even though they were not as loaded as the steel-armored Wanderers.

"The first priority is to find the survivors and heal them, get a bowl of water and magiston tools," Isolde said and then switched to Aogane. "Everyone else, stay behind. Sir Aogane, would you come with me and search inside the Manor? Your swords would be handy in close quarters."

Eisen spat aside as he put his Zweihander on the cart and pulled out the katzbalger from the sheath on his waist. Likewise, Niangzi put aside her tremendously heavy Guandao into the cart and pulled the Jian in her possession.

Despite the difference in origin, both swords are straight bladed, double edged, one handed sword designed to fight close and personal.

"No worries, I'm good with a sword too." Niangzi grinned.

"Bad timing for an attack huh." Eisen said.

Isolde's eyes glow in anger, "No, on the contrary, it was too much of a good timing. I won't forgive whoever did this to the people of my land."

"I'll stand on guard here, you people should go check, whether there are survivors or enemies inside," Aogane said as he unslung his bow and joined the archer group.

The thickness of his bow, his armor, and tall height made him stood out. The other levied swordfighters-turned-archers looked at each other, and then instead centered their formation around the much more prominent blue armored vagrant.

"Monster!" Someone warned. "Archers, engage, spear, formation! Don't let them get close to the Mansion!"

The spear-wielding levies all gathered around the archer and kneel with their spear pointed out, meanwhile the archers all draw their bow at maximum strength, even though it wasn't much.

"Curses, I wish we have longbow archers." One of them said.

Aogane paid no attention to her complaint and instead adjusted his aim because he doesn't need to raise the angle as much as them.

"RELEASE!"

Dozens of bows launched, but one stood out. The metal tipped heavy shafted arrow moved at tremendous velocity compared to the other hunting arrow, and this arrow managed to pierce the skull of a wolf-like monster.

This did not immediately kill the creature but it could be said that the attack was almost as effective, no, it was most certainly even more powerful than magi-boosted hunting arrows of the peasant levies. Their arrows barely able to pierce the berserk beast's thick hide, sticking out ineffectively and draw little if any blood.

"That's one terrifying arrow." One of them said in awe, "I couldn't imagine how deadly it would be with proper magiston reinforcement."

Aogane mumbled, "With proper tooling, it should be possible to increase it's draw weight to 135 but I'd be worried about the arrow's survivability."

As a compound bow, the bow that Aogane wield cannot easily be adjusted and fixed without the help of bow clamp.And pound per pound it's vastly more powerful than straight longbow.

But that doesn't matter now, he let another arrow to go and this time pierced the monster's chest, slowing down the creature even more.

The third arrow ended its life, leaving just the rabbit-like monsters to the mercy of the rest of the levies.

Rain of magic-enhanced wood sticks left streaks of beautiful green hue in the sky, in contrast to the ensuing blood mist when the arrows hit the targets. It was sickeningly surreal, Aogane thought.

The rest of the monsters were fended off by the soldiers who carried spears with ease.

"I hope I won't run out of ammo soon." He said to himself, replacing heavy arrow in this place wouldn't be cheap nor easy.

...

In the split second between the loud thump and present, Niangzi raised her Jian to block an attack. The ear-shattering impact between metal and wood echoed within the quiet Manor. It was rather dark in the interior, however, he finally recognized who it was.

"CLIFORDE?!"

"Ah... ah, Lady Niang!" The overweight merchant dropped on his knees, crying, "I have failed yet again."

"Gerard, where is everyone?"

"They were all killed or kidnapped." Cliforde cried, "Only Lord Valencia and some of the younger maids survived."

"There's fight outside, more monsters!" A young handsome man rushed down the manor stairs. His leather laminated armor shine elegantly as much as Isolde's own, signifies his rank and position. "The levees just managed to repel the first wave and more to come."

Isolde looked like she was about to laugh but she restrained her emotion. "Lord Valencia, you survived!"

"Yes I am unharmed. Lady Isolde, we need to hurry and defend the manor." The man warned, "If this manor fall, there will be a huge problem."

"I understand what you mean." Isolde nodded, "I'll call Archers to mount defensive position on the manor roof. Please stay here for your own safety."

"No need. You'll need every hands aviable." The man said as he raised a strangely familiar, if out of place object. A crossbow, Eisen recognized. "It wasn't really much in terms of power, but it should helps."

Aogane grimaced as soon as Isolde came back with grim expression drawn on her face.

"Archers! Set defensive position on the top of the manor, everyone else, barricade it." Isolde raised her arms.

Aogane passed over her as he and the rest of the archers climbed the stairs to the safety of the manor rooftop. The stone building, just like back in Earth, was designed with both weather and human hazard in mind.

A manor by itself is technically a tiny fort designed to withstand a massive amount of rigors. Only dedicated military forts would be more resistant.

The man also followed him, only instead of a bow, the man was carrying a crossbow, not particularly big or powerful, but Aogane has no doubt it's effective against smaller targets.

Why he's the only one using it? Aogane wonder.

"That's unique bow you have there, seems fairly complicated." The man said.

Aogane nodded, "Thank you."

"No, it's not a praise." The man with crossbow said "Even mine seems primitive in comparison, how could you even made it?"

"With patience. Is that a Crossbow?"

"You mean this? I studied history before I came here as overseer of the land around here. It seems that people of the ancient past have mastered design of... whatever it is, a bow on a stick? They use this kind of device to allow untrained people to do archery."

"It's a bow that shaped like a cross, Crossbow." Aogane said again, making sure understand why it's called that.

"I guess we could call it a Crossbow. By the way, I'm Valencia von Drake. May I know who are you, Sir?"

Von Drake? Sounds familiar.

"My name is Aogane Date. I apologize if I sound rude, are you related to Marquis von Drake?" Aogane asked.

Wasn't Marquis von Drake the one who rule above Isolde's mother, Baroness Salamancia?

"That's correct. I'm the 10th grandson and seventh in the line of succession."

Aogane barely able to maintain his composure. A Grandson of a Marquis? Crazy encounter he must say.

"It's a honor to fight alongside you, my Lord." Aogane said with clarity. It's not that he want to suck up conveniently, but he just felt it's the right thing to do. Isolde might be a Knight and daughter of a Baroness, but this young man, he's on entirely different level than that.

The man put the crescent-shaped butt of the crossbow on his left shoulder and pulled the string back with little effort, almost as fast if not faster than the bow levees pulling their hunting bow.

It's design was anachronistically modern, with it's butt shaped like that of a rifle. However, the rest of the parts doesn't seems to be noteworthy, everything is made of magiston-laced wood and animal parts. There were no sign of metals at all.

It doesn't seems to be very powerful. He'd be shocked if the hunter bow used by the levees aren't more powerful than this crossbow.

Aogane's amazement did not last long. he need to concentrate with what he saw right now.

Another rain of arrow launched, this time at two hundred meter range. Because the speed difference, neither Aogane nor Valencia raised their trajectory too much to hit the intended area.

However, the bolt launched by Valencie stood out with how bright it shines, and when it landed on the enemy, it released enormous amount of shockwave, enough to crush the target into a pulp and send the other creatures into state of confusion and paralysis. In fact, Aogane was surprised by how powerful that attack was.

"...what powerful shot." Aogane said with heavy breath. "Magi sure is convenient and interesting."

It was likely that even with such weak weapon, someone who mastered the use of magi can use devastating attack like that with ease. Aogane already seen that before with Isolde and her strange stone spear.

"Where did these monsters came from?" The man cocked his crossbow again, grunted as he did. "They just keep coming. At this rate, we'd be more worried about diseases from rotten corpses."

In less than ten seconds they let another salvo. However, by the third salvo, the enemy horde was less than forty meters away, practically on their doorsteps.

They let a salvo directly to the enemy instead of going for ballistic approach, hoping to use gravity in favor of them.

"KEEP SHOOTING!"

Like an enormous lawnmower, the levied soldiers on the ground swung their spear up and down. Alternating it so that there were little gaps between1 the attacks.

Their main job wasn't to permanently hold back the tide of beasts but rather, give enough time to retaliate.

A red dragon of fire leaped from the back of the formation and smashed right where the group of monsters was the thickest. The explosion threw charred and scalded bodies of the hostile creatures, scattered meters away from the impact site.

Isolde stood up, her armor glow with unearthly beautiful light. Sparks and ashes flew as the smoke began to subside, and her coat flared wildly like devil wings.

"Lady Isolde! That's dangerous!" The man roared as he rushed down, almost in complete disregard for his own safety. "Using that much beast element is too risky!"

"It's not as if we have any other choice," Isolde said, however, her voice came as hoarse, and almost bestial even. It was barely sounded like a human and more like a grand predator imitating a human's voice. "I'm not losing yet more people."

"Ge, that's some creepy shit." Niangzi brazenly strolled forward and stood aside Isolde, and looked at the taller woman with a terrified expression. "The fuck are you doped on?"

"Never seen people using this much beast magi huh?" Isolde gleefully said, showing her elongated fangs as she grinned. Her eyes twisted in shape, where her irises contracted into a pair of slits.

Eisen's massively tall body walked forward, in comparison to that of average men, his black armored body looked like moving behemoth made of granite.

And his gigantic Zweihander slung on his shoulder.

"You better rest now, let me take care of this. The creatures have been demoralized and wouldn't be able to overwhelm your soldiers."

It was true that in the presence of such overwhelming existence such as Isolde, the little monsters' self-preservation instinct awakened in the direst of times. Even though they were all doused with beastly Magi, their intensity was but tiny candles in comparison to the searing hot volcano that was Isolde's Magi.

When the monsters decided to take the risk and attacked Eisen, they were all but bisected in half with just one swing of his blade.

Such vulgar display of violence, even Isolde was amazed.

He didn't use his Magi, I couldn't feel anything. Isolde pondered. He might have used his inner strength but even so...

Was it the strangely reflective blade?

"What the damned?! Where's that giant came from?!"

"Very interesting, right?" Isolde asked as her face and voice slowly and surely returned back to more humanlike. "They didn't use Magi like us and yet...."

Niangzi brought down her Guandao with such force that she literally exploded one of the monsters into an unrecognizable mess from the impact. Miraculously, the weapon itself somehow remain intact. Niangzi's attack only intensified as more and more monster regained their morale and decided to win, or die trying.

Polished clearer than an obsidian mirror and significantly denser, what kind of blade they possessed? Valencia's brain ran that question over and over, and he wasn't the only one being awestruck.

However, it didn't last for more than few minutes. Both Eisen and Niangzi retreated as soon as they were out of breath, wobbling left and right which forced Aogane to support both to prevent them from falling on their face.

Fortunately, the number of monsters were thin enough that the armed levee decided it's the right time to attack and swamped the leftover with spear and blades in hands.

"This is too much for an old man like me," Eisen said as he flicked open his visor, sweat poured down his face. "I wish I can strip myself bare and jump into a lake."

Aogane let them down, their back against the hard wall of the manor, he handed the water bottles as he continued to speak. "You two didn't drink enough water in the morning"

"No shit." Niangzi said. She did not realize she sweats more than she drinks.

Eisen limpidly unbuckled his armor, letting sweat on his arming doublet to evaporate freely. It might be dangerous without armor in the midst of battle, but he didn't want to die of heat stroke either.

Niangzi however, didn't. As her anachronistic armor wasn't actually made of solid metal but rather, metal plates under a leather coat, it still had some room to breathe and she simply loosened the coat to let the wind cool and refresh her body.

The cold weather helps, but the air was fairly humid and makes perspiration less effective.

"Brigandines sure are convenient," Eisen mumbled to himself.

"There were more monsters that have yet to notice us. Let's exterminate them all as long as we have the chance." Isolde requested. "Please help us, I will compensate you for anything you lost today, including your arrows."

"That's fine." Aogane smiled as he looked at his quiver, however, his mind told him otherwise. "In a world without steel tools, how could you replace them?"

Aogane vividly remembered the story of Japanese's hardship prior to modern metallurgy, and sometimes even then (as shown in World War II). Japanese were dependent on iron sands for their steel production, which yields poor quality steel that needed to be heavily treated before they even considered passable.

The only historical people with consistently worse quality steel than Japanese would be the Norsemen, or more popularly known as the Vikings. They don't just rely on easily extracted sands, even, they have to rely on the minuscule yield of a bog to find chunks of iron oxides.

Well if he put quality aside, he should be more than able to make replacement arrowhead.

The group split into two, with Valencia leading one-half while Isolde leads the other half of the group.

The two Groups swept the acres upon acres of devastated farmland in the hopes of removing all threats and find the survivors.

...

There were no survivors.

Only endless trails of corpses all around, one after another.

It was a sickening sight.

The images were burned into Aogane's mind, as the sky turned bright blue, orange, and then black. One day passed quickly, but it feels like he's been here forever.

One day feels so long, way too long. He wished he could forget.

But then...

Red, it was red everywhere.

Graves were dug, monster remains were burnt. Excess spiritual energy from the sheer amount of death was so thick it almost as visible as mist, and it was surreal. It was as if a heterogeneous mass of vengeful, restless spirits roam in the sky.

Grotesquely disgusting was the best description Eisen can make.

"We are special, we were all bestowed with a massive amount of potential to use Magi, beyond our physical size implies. Animals grew monstrous, bestial, and lose all semblance of control when they receive excess magi, but humans, humans are different. Our willpower, our sense of self is greater than that." Isolde explained, "However... when a creature dies, their potent spirit released back to the land. And that's why, when humans die, they release a massive amount of energy. And when plenty of people die, you'd see a cloud of Magi so thick it's almost hellish. Oftentimes, it was bad enough that in the midst of an uncontrollable plague or especially bloody war zone, the concentrated magi get absorbed by everything around the area, and animals within vicinity turned into gigantic monsters."

Out of two hundred and fifty village inhabitants, ninety corpses were recovered. The rest was missing or perhaps even devoured.

In a world this vicious, no one could be sure anymore.

"So what's next? What is your plan?" Niangzi stood from her chair, as everyone finished dinner, or at least, an attempt of one. With everyone brooding,

"Wait and observe. We have enough supply to last for weeks here and I've sent a messenger to the neighboring village. With luck, we'll get a reply tomorrow morning, possibly even reinforcement."

"Sounds awfully risky." Eisen commented seriously, "Was it worth the risk?"

"This Village isn't just your normal manorial territory." Valencia explained, "This village is a lifeline that supplies our border fort to the south. Even though we have plenty of guards, the sheer scale of monsters attack was abnormal."

"First it was quiet, a few hours later, thousands of monster came down like a hungry tide. And then..."

Valencia gulped, as he clasped his hand, one could see how they shook wildly to the point that he shook the table with his elbows.

"Valencia..."

"The bandit came and the monsters ignored them!" Valencia shouted in desperation as he shook the female knight's shoulders, "It doesn't make sense at all, Lady Isolde! Why would they ignore the Bandits?!"

"Calm down." Isolde held his hands gently and push them away. "I know you're hurting, but we're going to do this. Together."

"I'm sorry!" Valencia frantically bowed, "A-anyway, like I said, the bandits seem to take their sweet time robbing us and kidnapping people when the monsters attacked. They probably ran away as soon as they noticed your group."

"Who they kidnapped?"

"I'm certain they kidnapped Mr. Troy and his daughter at the very least. I'm not sure who else was brought along. They didn't seem to be particularly interested with slaves. The maids were ignored... for the most part."

"Mr. Troy is the Reeve of this manor, is the one who managed this village under my mother's authority." Isolde postulated, "Could it be that they want ransom?"

"A Reeve he may be, but what use of a Manor without familiar workforce? Even if new tenants were brought, sure enough, they would like to choose their own leader."

"What is a Reeve?" Niangzi whispered.

"Someone who manages a manor village. The village is owned by Baroness, but it's impossible for her to micro manage them all, therefore, a Reeve is usually chosen amongst the tenant as delegation and leader. They're basically village chief." Aogane explained, "Please excuse me. I would like to get some fresh air..."

Aogane sluggishly walked upstairs, straight to the Manor roof. He stood there as the sea of star bathed the devastated hellscape with uncanny majesty, all of it for him to see.

As he sat on the edge, he curled down and hit his face on his knees, thinking.

"Brother, you're crying alone again." Niangzi approached him.

Both of them took a bath and changed their clothes when they got a chance, even so, Aogane could still vividly remember the hot and disgusting feeling of blood ran on his exposed fingers.

It was awful.

But more than that, he was terrified.

"... I'm afraid. I didn't know any of them, but, I remember their faces. In a single day, an entire village got depopulated. Just... think about it for a second."

His voice wavered as he forced a smile in front of her. Is this the same person who could pull the impression of a murderous tornado with his two blades? The same person, but just because he had the skill of a warrior doesn't mean he had the heart of one.

"It couldn't be helped. If you're not strong enough, you die. That seems to be the rule in this world." Niangzi said matter-of-factly.

"I wish I could help." Aogane said, "I wish I could do something to save them."

"Of course you can. You're strong, we all are." Niangzi bluntly told him, "But are you really sure? Are you willing to shed more blood in your hands?"

That was true.

At first, Aogane was all but squeamish, but after the dozenth time he cut open the blood vessel of his enemies, he could only feel boredom, tiredness, perhaps even a little bit of catharsis at times.

But those were just mindless beasts, creatures of hazards.

Animals.

As nice as Aogane could be, at the end of the day, his empathy for their well being can run dry too.

But what if he had to fight other people? People, who have their own future, family, and friends?

He'd be shocked if he could draw his sword at all.

"I'm not the type to fight for mere concepts." She walked closer to him and sat on the battlement edge as well. "I fight for myself and I'll kill anyone and anything to survive."

"Not even a moment of hesitation?" He asked desperately.

How could she say that easily?

"When you've done it once, twice won't make much difference, does it?" As her face grew closer and closer, he could see her eyes darkened and her faithful smile became hollow.

What did she mean with 'once'?

"If you decide that you want to fight not to kill, then I won't say anything. But don't count me to always cover your back, or fight the same way as you did. I'm neither that kind nor merciful."

What did she mean? What about kindness and mercy?

Where did the caring and loving Niangzi that comforted him just the night before?

Was that all just carefully crafted persona, and he was fooled by it?

What about the foul mouthed and expressive Niangzi that always complain and curses at the smallest thing? Was that one fake too?

She could've been lying and joking. Or perhaps, she misunderstood and caused some accident that traumatized her and brought a sense of regret.

Perhaps she lost someone important and blamed herself for it.

But as much as he wanted to trust her, they meet each other less than 48 hours ago.

Between the suspension bridge effect and his poor, self-inflicted social isolation, Aogane admitted he already grown attached, or perhaps, even emotionally dependent on her.

But even so, this was way too much for him to digest.

It was sick and nauseating.

Aogane tried hard to rationalize her words and saw her in the best light as he could muster.

He failed.

She was really beautiful, and the pale moonlight only serves to make her clean and prim appearance all the more outstandingly attractive.

But all Aogane could feel at that moment was a sense of dread.

"I'm not a guardian, Brother." As the tip of her nose brushed his own, she seductively whispered to him.

"I'm a murderer."

 

[ZeroXSEED]

As the deathly cold air seeped in through the cracked windows, Aogane snapped from his nightmare-filled uneasy sleep, cold sweat poured down his skin endlessly and he had to reach for something to wipe it out.

He managed to find his way in the vaguely lit great hall, with only the faint dawn sky and dying cinder being the source of light. He picked his towel and wiped his sweat thoroughly, along with the grime that formed because unlike modern houses, medieval manors weren't ever clean of dust.

The issue was rather complicated. Not only most people were too busy to actually fully clean their houses, but old houses tend to have poor lighting which means being squeaky clean wasn't needed, plus the type of fuel used for internal heating -wood and coal- means there will always be smoke indoor, even with fairly complicated fume disposal.

In the end, it doesn't matter how much a modern world traveler like him complained, it was an issue that cannot be easily resolved by cleaning stuff even harder.

And this was a noble house, one could just imagine how filthy typical peasant house would be.

Not that he actually cared enough to complain, that would be more Niangzi's share.

Speaking of Niangzi...

She didn't look bothered at all, in fact, she slept peacefully like a log, in the cradle made of rope. One side tied to the stone pillar and another side to the sturdy and heavy feasting table. Aogane though, he didn't care and he slept on the dirty floor just fine, with just one thin linen blanket underneath.

It's not as if Isolde didn't offer them more dignified accommodation. But said accommodation involves three grown-ups in a tiny guest room designed for maybe two people, an important person, and an aide or servant. It's both cold and cramped. In the end, only Eisen accepted and both Aogane and Niangzi decided that the great hall suit them just fine.

"...don't..."

Aogane blinked, she noticed the shuffling on the blanket, and she shivered.

"Please..."

A nightmare?

Her face formerly looked pink and healthy, became pale as soon as the shivering started. Her grip on her blanket got so tight that her fingers could easily get bruised.

Not that her fingers were particularly delicate. As someone experienced with various Japanese martial arts, Aogane could tell how Niangzi's scarred and calloused fingers have experienced months or even years of physical training.

If not martial arts, then dedicated sports. That said, she likely had martial arts background regardless.

He still vividly remembered what she said last night.

Both her words, her tone, and her expression.

It was mortifying.

And yet, as soon as she fell asleep, she didn't look any different than any other girl he ever met.
"Better wake her up."

He slowly but surely reached for her hand, knowing very well that it could be dangerous if she thrashes around and falls off her hammock.

Only for her hand to shoot up with lethal speed, reaching for his neck.

If it was anyone else, they would freeze in shock. But Aogane's survival instinct took over as his own hands grabbed her solid wrist with force. And he barely managed to hold.

Though, even when that happened, Aogane was only inch-away from pissing himself dry. Her murderous glare met his terrified one.

And she yields.

"So... sorry." She said with a hard breath, she was just as shocked as he was. Her chest shook irregularly as she tried her damnedest to calm herself down.

"It's alright, have some water." He said as he handed her a bottle of clean water, which she halfway emptied with no pause.

"You... don't look like you got a lot of sleep." She told him when she could get a clearer image of his face. "Some nightmares?"

He just ambivalently smiled in response.

"How could I not get nightmares after... yesterday."

As Aogane looked through the broken window of the great hall, he saw dark, terrifying scenery. As the gentle light of the sun began to shine from the east, the reflection also reached his eyes.

So much damage, so much destruction.

So many dead people.

It was almost unreal, and even now, his stomach churned and he clenched it tight.

"Rather than moping because you couldn't do anything, wouldn't it be best if you do things you can actually do?"

Niangzi took her armor coat from its hanger near the fireplace. Just close enough for the heat to dry the sweat but not enough to damage it. Aogane taught her how to dry-clean her brigandine because a bit of coal stain and the burnt smell is much more preferable to wet odor and mold.

"I mean, you know a lot of things that I don't anyway." She said as she brushed and wiped the steel plates with rags.

"Your armor is also stainless steel huh."

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Not particularly no, they're slightly inferior to carbon steel, however, because they're rustproof you don't have to oil them. In fact, you need to keep them away from oil. They'll last forever even if you need to put them to different coat."

"I see, the leather should be kept the same as normal leather jackets and bags right?" She said as she brushed the fake mountain pattern scales on the chest part. As for the leather, she's referring to the leather liner around the edges of the cloth.

"Yeah, if it's just tanned leather then it should be treated levees with damp cloths and soap. Careful not to wet the plates."

Aogane himself simply rubbed the heavily lacquered surface of his metal armor. And he'd do that happily when it's not needed. At the very least, it would be a good distraction.

"My God, Sir and Madam, what are you doing?" Head Maid, whose age was showing asked with haste, "It would be a disgrace for you to handle such menial task despite being our guest, please visit our armorer while at it."

"It's not like you know how to handle steel equipment, no offense." Aogane bluntly said. The worst thing they can do is to break his irreplaceable steel weapons and he couldn't have that. "But if you were so kind please show us the workshop?"

"Please follow me."

The workshop was hardly large but just big enough that four or five workers could easily work here and move around carrying piles of working material. And when they arrived there at least three armorers, all of which was part of Isolde's levied troops, already work their way with weapons they found all over the field.

"Good morning Sir, Madam. Would you like your arms to be taken care of?"

"No, we just want to borrow some tools." Aogane said, "You have oil here?"

"Oil? We do have some for fire hardening but..."

"Let me take a look."

Aogane looked at the varying types of oil there and picked a bottle, "This one should be good for carbon steel."

"What about mine?" Niangzi asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, what are your sword made off?"

She pulled it to show the highly reflective, almost mirror like surface to Aogane.

"This Jian is also stainless, you don't need to oil them or anything, just rinse it with water and wipe with a dry cloth and you'll be fine. Same as your Guandao."

"Man, non-stainless tool sounds like a pain in the ass."

Aogane pulled both his sword to show the difference between them. One of them resembles more like Niangzi's Jian, while the other one had beautiful patterns drawn on its surface.

"As you can tell, this one is hardened stainless steel blade body carved through industrial machining and high precision tempering. It's a bit heavier, and dull easily, however, just like your weapons, it will not rust as long as it's kept dry permanently." Aogane said before he switched to the more artistic one, and then oiled it. "This one is made by laminating thirty thousands of layers of steel, hand forged by master artisan, and tempered differently between the blade and spine with the use of traditional clay mantle, it made a very sharp arrive that handles excellently. However, it's easier to rust so I will have to oil it regularly, every time I use it in fact."

"Those are interesting weapons you have, Sir and Madam."

"Everyone kept saying that." Niangzi glared, "And call me Lady, I'm not that old."

"Could I get some arrow shaft?" Aogane asked.

"We have some, not much, what kind of shaft you'd like, good Sir?"

Aogane threw a complete arrow at them, it's thick and long shaft paired with stainless hunting head made it look strangely majestic instead of fiercely intimidating.

"About that thick."

One could see the horror on the armorer as they looked at it. For a moment, it was as if they held something searing hot and passed it to each other.

"Umm Sir I don't think I've ever seen arrow shaft this thick. Not even the Royal Archers use something like that."

"Just fletch it and no complaining." Valencia arrived, "Lady Isolde had promised to reimburse everything he lost in the battle yesterday, and he's an important guest."

"Alright, Lord Valencia." The three armorers decided to drop their current job and focus on fletching the shaft Aogane needed.

"Ah, I just need the shafts, alright, not the entire arrow." Aogane pointed. "Ten would be more than enough."

"Why, aren't you being too humble, let them do their job." Valencia frowned.

"I'm afraid they can't-do that exactly up to my specification because my Bow is temperamental and anything less than exact will be shattered to pieces."

Faking arrogance was always been something that fully traditional and polite Japanese like Aogane hate, but at this point, it's better to say the hard truth.

"Sir, which type of wood do you prefer?" One of the armorers asked Aogane. "We have many types of wood here..."

"What you have?" Aogane asked.

"Poplar is the most common, we have some Ash and Birch as well." He said, "We actually got some weird Cedar from the north but they kind of smell. It's different than Cedars that grew here, but I'm not sure it's good enough."

Aogane noticed the three wood samples provided and sparkly them, from the grain and smoothness, and even smelling it after he grinds its tips.

He nodded with satisfaction as he finally decided.

Niangzi actually pinched her nose, "What the hell is that smell?!"

"It's Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Or at least similar enough to count." Aogane pointed, "Anyway, I'd like to use this Cedar for the shaft. Please make measurement exact according to my arrow."

"You're being modest again." Valencia sighed, "Our royal archers prefer ash. "

"It smells bad when you grind it to get tips and nocks. However, they're straight and durable, making them great arrow material. Certainly easier to make than either Maple or Ash." Aogane grinned confidently.

"Your bow sure is really powerful." Valencia nodded, "But I have the feeling you're holding back. You don't even use your will to boost it."

"Will?"

"In this world, there are two kinds of power, your Will and your Magi. Both are two sides of the same coin, both exist to augment your mental and physical strength beyond what normally possible. In terms of definition, Will is a power that comes from within the body, while Magi is a power that came from nature."

"Here, let me show you." Valencia brought them outside.

He calmly cocked his crossbow and fired it, with small "Thunk" sound the short bolt launched normally like it should.

"What a pathetic shot."

"And with my Will focused." He fired it again, however this time the bolt whistled with such ferocity, it surprised her.

Especially the hissing sound it made, and how the bolt moved erratically like...

"A snake?"

"A Dragon." Valencia corrected her, "By focusing your inner strength, you can do impossible things, also makes your shot two or three times as powerful. And that's just the basic."

"So how could one use Will?"

"You don't, normally, trained warriors will use it unconsciously when they're in a heated battle for survival. However, the same cannot be said for archers, and this is the problem. Many beginner archers cannot use their Willpower effectively, relying too much on Magi."

"Royal Archers were trained since they're little to be an archer, not only their basic muscle strength was enormous, their skill, sense, and their ability to use both Magi and Will effectively in combat were renowned. Catalina is a country that put their pride in archery." Valencia proudly explained. "And that's why everyone in this country is obligated to learn how to hunt and kill with bows. My dream is to make a powerful bow that everyone can use with not as much training, and I have the feeling this is a good start."

Valencia said that as he raised his low power crossbow happily.

Aogane simply laughed bitterly, because he was more than well aware of the history of bow and crossbow development in real life. However, he decided he won't say anything at the moment.

Eisen, after all, warned him not to recklessly spread technology without taking advantage of it himself.

Though Aogane felt like it wasn't an entirely right thing to do, it was also something he needed to keep in his mind. This world, it was harsh and unforgiving.

Knowledge is power and must be spread and used wisely.

"So how one could use this Willpower-thing in archery?" Aogane asked.

"Just think the moment you're about to die, overcome that hurdle, and focus that feeling into your arrow." Valencia told him, "It might require some training. If it was that easy, people wouldn't struggle with it. Indeed, Magi is easier to use and to master."

"What a vague answer."

"AHHH! JUST REMEMBER SOMETHING!"

Niangzi and Aogane looked at the source of the screaming, only to notice (thankfully clothed) overweight merchant man running toward them.

"Good Sir, Lady Niang. I just remember there's something similar to what you have." Cliforde said between huff, "Though I'm not sure if it's exact same material, Lord Lucaris von Drake have something similar."

"Lucaris?"

"That would be my brother." Valencia said, "Are you referring to their gleaming blades and armor? If that's the case it's different."

"What's the difference?"

"Something like this." Valencia yanked out a sparkly pendant from underneath his armor, for Aogane to see.

"I see, so there are silver crafting here." Aogane mused as he recognized the metal piece, "It must be very expensive."

"It is, however, it's incapable of being reinforced with magiston. One could say it's completely useless beyond being decoration."

"Wait, metal is incompatible with magiston?" Niangzi eyed him with disbelief, "You've tried?"

"Even the best craftsman cannot do that. This " Valencia shrugged, "My brother actually forged a mirror out of these things, and sell it at a high price to other noblewomen. The greedy scoundrel..."

"Silver is much softer metal compared to iron, let alone forged steel. Its value as a weapon beyond additional weight is minimal." Aogane explained, "Even if you make a sword of silver, they would be almost useless. A wooden sword would works better even if you don't use magiston."

"So what your sword is made of?"

Aogane handed him the sword, which Valencia carefully weighed.

"So heavy, and what is this weird flexibility?" The young noble asked.

"A Metal sword will flex when it hit a hard target, both to protect itself from shattering and to prevent injury to the wielder." Aogane said, "Because fibrous nature of the wooden weapon, they don't need to flex and naturally absorb impact."

"I see, though hard to understand it makes a lot of sense." Valencia grinned, "Though I am wondering about... what is this feeling?"

"Like your strength being drained isn't it?" Cliforde handed out both the knife and bokken he borrowed from Aogane back then, "Here's your previous tool that I've borrowed, I'll return your trouser once I am done washing them, Sir."

"You can have that trouser, Mr. Cliforde." Aogane smiled, much to the merchant's shock.

It probably will grow loose by this point, due to the sheer difference in waist size between them.

"What do you mean your strength being drained? That doesn't make sense at all!" Niangzi complained, "I need explanation."

"Let me borrow this just a minute."

Green light emitted by Valencia as he focused his wood magi into the sword, however, the sword itself refuse to let it flow, and keep scattering it.

In desperation, bursts of energy were released by the young noble, and the man swung the surprisingly heavy Japanese blade with all of his might, and create a small gust of wind.

"...Nice trick." Niangzi pointed with a deadpan voice.

"This is insane, how could this happen?!" Valencia roared, "Is this sword cursed?"

"Maybe because it has no magiston in it." Aogane said, "Don't you need magiston to do that?"

"No, my entire armor is enhanced with magiston, so they should be more than enough for me to cast wood or beast element magi. Not only this sword refused to absorb it, it seems to scatter my magi into nothingness." Valencia was frustrated, it was like his pride being the wounded, "I should be able to create much more powerful wind than that."

"Maybe it is cursed, so you should turn it back to the owner." Niangzi snarked, though mentally, she ridiculed him for blaming the sword for his incompetence.

"That's a weird weapon alright."

Aogane put back the sword in the scabbard.

It might just be his imagination, and Valencia didn't seem to give it much thought.

However, Aogane had an inkling that there were connections between all of them. He needed to experiment some more...

"My apologies, Lord Valencia. I believe it's about time for breakfast, so everyone needs to gather in the Great Hall." Cliforde reminded.

"That would be nice."

...

"I just received a message through dragon delivery." Salamancia said, with a tiny feathered dragon sat on top of her shoulder, "Both the village next door and the border fortress will send reinforcement as we speak, they should arrive somewhere before sunset."

"Pardon my rudeness, Milady. Wouldn't this weaken the border?" Valencia asked.

"Not necessarily, Lord Valencia. To begin with, the border fortress was relatively overbuilt. Remember, we're not the only one who was under threat of monster attacks. Apparently, the southern neighbor faced it too, but the fortress itself remains unmolested." Isolde firmly answered, "It is very unlikely for our neighbor to try anything with this kind of threat looming upon their territory."

"Those are super cute dragons," Niangzi whispered, as she held the urge to grab and pet them.

The dragon itself looks about the same size and shape as a small hawk, with the only difference being slightly long neck and lizard-like head.

With feather that thick, Eisen actually itched to test whether they're cold or warm blooded. It's very likely that this 'dragon' really just some form of late-era dinosaur that survived to the modern age. Eisen also studied Paleontology in his spare time, and some theory actually considers Dinosaurs being warm-blooded animal due to either sheer size or activities.

"So at the very least, we should hold out for the next eight hours." Eisen commented, "What kind of reinforcement are you expecting, Lady Isolde?"

"Longbow Archers and Knights, alongside their followers." Isolde said, "Despite not having knights on its own, this village supposedly have the best-trained levies in all of Mother's domain. And yet, they were overwhelmed by the tide of monsters and bandit, with at least one-third of the tenants confirmed dead. What does that tell you?"

"We're all fucked." Niangzi put it simply, much to the discomfort of the nobles. "Even with five of us and your soldiers, it would be impossible to survive another onslaught of similar scale."

"And that's why we put a... I guess you could say a guarantee." Isolde said, "If we were to face an invasion bigger than what we personally fought yesterday, we should immediately evacuate. I already prepared all the transportation. We have enough to carry everyone at once."

"If there were to be evacuation we should split into two, one heading to the nearby village and one heading for the fort." Isolde closed her eyes, "The levees should escort Lord Valencia to the nearby village while I'll try to divert their attention and bring them to the direction of the fort."

"That's dangerous, Lady Isolde, I'm against it." Valencia protested with deathly cold voice.

"With due respect, Lord Valencia, it is my duty to ensure you're safe." Isolde barked, her voice changed from the usually calm and gentle to demanding one. "And I would put my life before yours."

"I am not that weak."

"You could say that again once you beat me in training." Isolde haughtily taunted.

One could see the inflated veins all over his face as he smirked, "Then I guess I will just have to beat you."

Niangzi gleefully commented as she picked yet another piece of big meat to eat by herself, "Oi, oi, oi. What it is, lover spat?"

"Sounds like sibling fight to me." Aogane shrugged.

"Maybe it's both, I thought you Asian people would understand better." Eisen, he took a bottle of wine and then decant it into two glass until it reaches consistency he wanted, "This wine is nice."

Niangzi protested, what did he mean Asian would understand better? Make no sense.

"Childhood friend perhaps?" Aogane stood and follow the two tense nobles who left the great hall with a sour note, while the levies simply left them alone and continue their feast. "I mean it's very common for childhood friends to grow up as close as siblings but at some point, it just became awkward."

"Ooh, I see." Niangzi nodded, she could actually see his point now.

"Mr. Cliforde, did Lady Isolde and Lord Valencia always been that close?" Aogane prodded politely.

"Mmmmh, yeah, they've known each other as long as I've known them. That is since they were still inside their cradle. In fact, I believe that at one point arranged marriage was involved, though they were far too young back then. And since Lady Isolde have decided to dedicate herself to Knighthood their relationship became null and void." Cliforde raised a piece of bread that he shoved in his mouth wholesale and then gulped.

"Even so, their bond remains as strong as they were decades ago, and recently there were pressures from both sides of the family for them to marry as soon as possible."

"Pfft, how cliche." Niangzi guffawed, "Kind of romantic though."

"I wish I can have that kind of sappy story with someone in my childhood." Eisen snarked, "Let's watch just in case they decide to kill each other, shall we?"

"I don't think they will go that far." Aogane sheepishly laughed.

Of course, Aogane was soon forced to eat his words.

It was true, for safety reasons, neither of them used live weapon reinforced with magiston, rather, they both use mock-up weapons and fought in full armor.

Even so, the ferocity of their fight was real as it could be as if their pride and life were at stake. Even though their weapons were made by laminating softwood over hardwood spine, every connecting hits would hurt something fierce.

It was as if two whirlwinds collided, every time their swing their weapon, small gust could be seen, every impact hits with ear-ringing tone, their passionate fight alternated between beautiful dance and unbridled savagery, and it was pretty clear that both of them knew each other's styles so much that it might as well a contest of endurance.

And in a contest of endurance, the less experienced would be the one to lose.

"Lord Valencia will lose," Eisen commented lightly.

"Really? How you can tell?" Niangzi questioned.

"Well one is a knight and one isn't. It's pretty obvious who will win stamina fight between them." Aogane mustered, "And the moment one of them felt exhausted, the chances of making a mistake becoming higher."

And they were not far off the mark as Isolde's sword struck dead right on the chest of the nobleman, sent him two steps backward, but before he could recover, Isolde put the sword right on his helmet.

"Strike one."

"Alright, alright you won." Valencia stumbled backward and removed his helmet as he struggled to even breathe, meanwhile, Isolde barely even sweat.

Both of them quickly stripped themselves out of armor plates to let perspiration took the rest, while the levees all cheered.

"Lord Valencia is amazing, he could keep up with Lady Isolde for so long even though he's a scholar."

"Such is a mighty nobleman of holy blood, they are blessed by myriads of talent."

It was odd, she won the fight with clear superiority, and yet, it was the loser who was sung praises to. One might consider his pride and whatnot, but that would mean empty gestures and words aimed to please the man of higher position.

But as it turns out, those words came out as honest. It wasn't merely the peasant being sycopanths (though sometimes they are), it was genuine praise aimed at him.

It's not that he deserved it. Valencia von Drake was very skilled, to the point that even Aogane wasn't confident of taking on him alone in an equal state of combat equipment. Even so, it seemed to be a little much.

And Aogane was well aware of why, as he saw Isolde left the ground with a strangely sad smile drawn on her face. Aogane decided to follow her quietly.

"Why, are you trying to seduce me when I'm weak, Aogane?"

"Ah, no, it's just that I think I felt a bit weird over there." Aogane laughed awkwardly.

"You seem to understand what going on." She smiled teasingly, "Do tell."

"May I? I don't want to offend you."

"I'm not easy to anger with words, trust me," Isolde assured him.

"It was the expectation." Aogane told her, "You're a Knight, being strong and skilled is in your job description. It's expected, to see you perform so magnificently, it doesn't really phase anyone."

"You do actually understand huh, have you've been in that position before?"

Isolde looked astonished that he could actually see that just from a glance.

"Sometimes in the past perhaps. I wasn't unto archery until three years ago." Aogane said, "I always been talented in the art of swords, it was to the point that, when I was 15, I became the national champion. Of everyone in my age group, I was the most skilled, the strongest in the entire nation."

"But I wasn't at all satisfied. My family descended from that of noble Samurai, they have a long history of swordsmanship. From the moment I get a hold of a sword, my fate was decided." Aogane looked at his hands, "Even though I became the strongest, I was not satisfied, I cannot at all prided myself. It was all in the family name, it was all in the family history. And that's why I learned to dig deeper into the roots of my family."

"And then I picked up a bow, and it was like being born anew. It's something that I choose for myself, and through the past three years, I honed my skill, harder than I've done before. I might never catch up to everyone that started much earlier, but I felt satisfaction in my accomplishment." Aogane smiled, "In a sense, that kind of sentiment, don't you think it's similar to Lord Valencia as well? He's trying hard to catch up to you."

"That's true." Isolde thoughtfully held her chin, "You understood both of us very well."

"I'm glad I was right because if I was wrong I don't think I can bear the shame." He wryly grinned, "Again, my apologies."

"It was the same for me." Isolde continued her walk, "I was born into nobility, and yet, I wasn't destined to be an inheritor, that was the duty and fate of my older brother. I was born and destined to be someone's wife and nothing more than that, and it hounded me since my childhood. Can you imagine it? People think I didn't understand what it means, people think I was clueless, and I was five years old back then."

Aogane winced.

It must be tough childhood.

"And so, I decided to carve my own path, it wasn't easy to start from scratch. Twenty years ago, I decided to be a Page." Isolde looked at the vast area of broken farmland, "I have decided, instead of handing my life to some man I'm not familiar with, I gave it to the Kingdom itself. I walked the path to Knighthood. My family... less than pleased, but I endured it. The dissatisfaction, the humiliation, I endured it, and here I am. Dame Isolde, Knight of the Catalina in front of you."

They both entered the stable where animals were kept, and Aogane inspected whether there was much difference with the stables on earth.

As it turns out, nothing at all. There was absolutely no difference, and they even have a bed of hay for animals to sleep on.

Isolde continued as she rubbed the head of the moose, her prized moose. "For me to feel sad that someone like Valencia to catch up like that even though he didn't spend as much effort, that only means I am still the same mentally fragile girl as I was back then. All I can do is to stay quiet and run away from my fate. If my heart was strong, then I won't have to feel this sadness."

"Did you regret it?" Aogane asked.

"I didn't. Not in the slightest." She chuckled and leaned on one of the stables' cage door, "Even so, sometimes I wondered, what kind of life I would experience had I not decided to be a knight. Would I be the same trophy wife that I was born to be?"

"It's not true. I mean, your mother is a Baroness right?"

"Only because my father is dead and she decided not to remarry." She shook her head, "If nothing else, female nobles being at the top of the chain of command aren't the majority."

"The fact that she decided not to remarry, it's something she decided. Could you imagine otherwise?"

Isolde was quiet, how could Aogane understand? Then she answered bluntly. "No. In fact, she was courted by Duke of Corritani, the very little brother of the King himself. And yet, she refused."

"Then I suppose you will do the same and reject such loveless marriage." He confidently told her, even though they only meet two days ago, his words touched Isolde so much she...

She was torn, whether to praise him or to berate him. Maybe she should do both.

"You are too kind Aogane," Isolde said, trying to brush it off. "Even so, do you always make assumptions of other people like this?"

Aogane blinked and bowed, "Please pardon my insolence."

Aogane understood people too well.

And because of that, he was afraid. He was afraid to show other people what he's like, what he wanted, what he expected out of them. He could easily let out sweet words and cheer anyone.

It's just that this was the first time he actually told the person in question that yes, he was making an assumption of them.

Not only embarrassing, he might have been putting his neck on a guillotine.

"I'm sorry, I said that even though I was the one who asked you." Isolde's eyes turned a little mischievous, not befitting a woman of her age or her social status for the matter. "Not everyone can accept the truth or the fact they were the one in the wrong. If it was anyone else, they might be offended and decide to punish you."

It was like seeing his older cousin again. And they absolutely love to drive him into the corner.

Only this time, he might just die because he just can't shut up. He didn't understand why, if at all. He usually just kept quiet unless people really need him to say anything.

Perhaps, because he was being quiet for way too long.

"Because I have the feeling that you want the truth to come out." He said frankly, "You don't want lies and pleasantries."

"You should be a lawman, people wouldn't be able to fool your eyes."

"Thank you." Aogane bowed, "If I may ask a question, would you grant the permission?"

"Ask away."

"Why did you trust us?" Aogane asked, "No matter how one looked at us, we're too suspicious, were not the type to be trusted."

"Men and women of your skill, they're one in a thousand." Isolde said with confidence, "And yet, many of them decide to inflict injustice and suffering to the weak. You, you are different. Your combat strength is equal to a knight and yet, you don't have the eye of one. I find that quite interesting myself, you three have such colorful eyes. Eisen, Niangzi, the three of you are unique. And I have the feeling that three of you are fated to accomplish something amazing. Perhaps, even carve a legend of your own. Rather than me taking you along, I feel like I was about to be taken along to an interesting journey."

Aogane could only look at her with sheer disbelief.

Isolde chuckled again, "You don't look like you believed it."

"If I have to be honest, not in the slightest," Aogane sighed.

"And yet you are here, what are the chances? Where did you even came from?"

What Isolde said... it was true.

The way Aogane came here, it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.

Something with power, beyond that of mortals, it summoned him here. And worse yet, Aogane have read more than enough Light Novels not to get the cliched signs.

"I couldn't say." Aogane shrugged.

"You know what, I believe with miracles, so let's do another test."

Isolde brought him to the last segment of the stable, only instead of a moose, this one had something... different.

A bird stood tall, taller than maybe even a horse. It's majestic golden feather reflected the sunlight with such beauty that it made Aogane almost breathless.

"It's a choco-" Aogane muttered, and then corrected himself, "A dawn bird."

"Correct. It's a dawn bird." Isolde proudly said, "It was a gift from neighboring nation's noble, a late friend of my father. However, I have the feeling he just wanted to get rid of it, because it was very rebellious. No matter how much we forced it, it refused to be ridden. A truly wild steed that decided its own fate."

The bird looked at Aogane.

With contempt.

Then it shrugged and looked away.

Aogane blurted, "Did it just insulted me?"

"Yes, Dawn Birds are smart enough to express complex emotion to humans." Isolde laughed hard, enough that her voice echoed within the stable interior. "I'll just leave you two."

Isolde opened the door and let the bird walk out with the riding equipment installed, curiously, it doesn't run away. Rather, it simply strolled slowly and surely, in fact, one could say, it was rather an elegant way to come out.

Too elegant for a bird of its size.

Rather than an ostrich, it behaved more like a peafowl?

"Seriously who are you trying to impress." Aogane already felt annoyed.

Isolde herself came out riding her prized moose, and seemingly have fun with it. Aogane, meanwhile, struck with the strange bird on his side.

The bird seems to pay no attention to him and simply peck on the ground, crunching everything it deemed edible. The bird ate the scattered, half-ripe rye seeds without care.

Only then Aogane could see its eyes as soon as it's done.

The bird looked at the sun above and then on the distant horizon on the south.

It was a disheartening sight, and Aogane simply patted it on the back.

"You're lonely huh," Aogane said, "Must be sad for you to be forcefully separated from your friends."

The bird then looked at him.

"You know, me too." Aogane laughed, "I didn't manage to get into elite college, and I don't want to get into local university. I guess you simply didn't value something enough until you lost it."

The bird shrugged.

"You wanted to meet your friend, don't you?" Aogane asked earnestly, "Do you understand?"

The bird looked at him incredulously and then whacked his back with its head.

"Ow, what the heck."

The bird, instead, looked away and then sit down.

"Why are you even sitting in a place like this?"

The bird whacked him again.

"Ow, what the heck is your problem?" Aogane winced and rubbed his stomach this time. "Let's see if you can still be prideful with someone on your back."

Aogane carefully rode the saddle and put his feet on the stirrups where they belong securely. The bird stood and then suddenly jogged.

As the bird ran, Aogane could tell just how smug the bird was, like telling him with its eyes; "Foolish human, you can't keep up."

Certainly, it wasn't as comfortable as riding a horse.

"Don't you kid on me." Aogane struggled to balance himself and finally managed to hold the reins properly. "You like challenges? Well, I like challenges too!"

"Aogane, you've actually done it!" Isolde yelled from his side as her moose paced itself to keep up. "It's yours now."

"Wha? Really?"

"Well as long as you can take care it yourself."

"Sure, let me just try and-AAAA!!!"

Aogane screamed like no tomorrow, for this bird certainly ran faster than horses ever could be. It certainly left Isolde and her moose in the dust, much to her amazement and delight.

"At last, it could run free." She mused to herself, "This young man, Aogane, sure is interesting."

Not only him but Eisen too. Meeting them felt like it was a fateful opportunity, they fired something within her that she thought she hasn't.

She wondered, what kind of person is Niangzi actually?

Isolde was eager to find out.

 

[ZeroXSEED]

Niangzi was a little miffed to see how Aogane seems to have very good time talking with the female knight, however, her pseudo-jealously ended as soon as she found the man sitting on top of a huge chicken, seemingly excited now that he gained a steed on his own.

At first, Niangzi laughed because Aogane bobbed up and down, and in the verge of screaming, but then he gained control and managed to sit properly as well.

It actually looks kind of cool.

"So that's Dawn bird, I keep expecting them to have a smaller head and fatter body," Eisen commented as he carefully brushed and wiped his Zweihander. As it's made of normal carbon steel it requires the same maintenance as normal steel sword.

"Why smaller head?"

"On earth, all of the running birds have the same exact feature: tiny head, long neck, rounded torso. Moa, dodo, ostrich, and even their dinosaurian ancestor like the Raptors have the same anatomy. It would be a hassle to explain everything, but this anatomy didn't come without reason. For Dawn bird to defy that pattern, it was odd to say at least. Proportionally speaking, it looks more like a giant rooster."

"Well, you're saying small head and long neck, doesn't the messenger dragon looks more like what you described?"

"That was true. But even if I spend my lifetime doing solo research on all these animals, it would simply be too much. If possible I would like to look at what the current science in this kingdom can offer and expand my research from there."

Now that Niangzi looked at it, the bird does, in fact, resembled a giant rooster from the side, though the head is different.

"Accounting to the shape of the beak, it's adapted to eat hard feed, like big seed unless I'm wrong."

"That's correct. A dawn bird's main diet is composed of plant scraps. From twigs, roots, bushes, and of course, grain bran. They occasionally eat insects, mollusks, and lizards. Their hens also love to eat on crushed bones and clamshells. In general, Dawn birds are rather easy to fed." One of the armorers said, "Do you need anything else, good Sir?"

"That's enough," Eisen said as he covered his enormous blade with a bundle of cloth. He pulled his katzbalger and went to sharpen it with a whetstone.

"Both your weapons are ordinary steel?"

"Why yes, everyone and their grandma who collect swords knows stainless steel is not the best option." Eisen said lightly, "Brittle, heavy, expensive, pick one weakness."

"Well my Guandao is VERY heavy, but so far there's no problem." Niangzi retorted, "But what about my Jian? I have the feeling that its weight isn't going to help much."

Eisen went to inspect the Jian and noticed something. When he tried to flex it, he found it rather difficult.

"It's a wall hanger."

"What?"

"It's not battle ready. It is sharpened, but you really don't want to smack it on anything other than a soft target." Eisen said, "Don't use it unless you're really desperate. It's really brittle and might shatter like glass if you hit someone in armor or their weapons. Because at the end of the day it's nothing more than decoration."

"Why didn't Brother Aogane say anything?"

"He might have missed it, did he even touch it?"

"No, probably." Niangzi sighed, "Plus he seems to be very focused on his weapon. Might be a little distracted."

"Well he's 18, I am shocked how knowledgeable he is at that age." Eisen scoffed as he flexes his own short sword, showing how it bend properly. "I actually didn't notice it until I tried to flex it. A normal Jian made of good quality steel should flex like crazy, more than my Katzbalger, actually. This Jian is too hard and thick."

"Can I use it to kill monsters? These things basically just rabid animals after all." She said as she tried to swing the sword,

"I'd rather not recommend it, but if your choice is between a wall hanger and nothing at all, the choice is obvious."

"Emergency only got it." She twirled the sword and sheathed it.

"So, have you studied kungfu or something? Your movements aren't lacking at all, but I have the feeling you've done much more than simple martial arts. Your movements weren't artistic, those are moves to kill. I expected flashier and more acrobatic stuff."

"I've done a lot more if that's enough for an answer." She cryptically smiled, much to his chagrin. "That only makes it better, didn't it?"

Eisen scoffed as he finished and stood, "True enough."

From the direction of the forest, arrows launched upward and exploded, Eisen noticed that they were some kind of signal, but what kind of signal?

"Something happened," Niangzi muttered and pulled her Guandao from its cloth cover.

"Dr. Eisen! Sister Niang!" Aogane stopped, still riding on his new steed.

"What happened?"

"Something happened with the hunter team." Isolde said, "It's probably not an emergency, but we could use help here. That's a signal for someone injured and they couldn't take care of it themselves."

"I need wooden poles and ropes. Now!" Eisen reacted, and the men nearby immediately followed his order without even questioning.

"Stretcher huh?" Niangzi and Aogane immediately caught up. While rudimentary transport such as carts was used to carry the injured, in this day and age, the existence of compact stretcher would be pretty much unheard, just like a hammock.

It's a simple yet very helpful technology that no one simply hasn't thought about. And Eisen was more than aware of it, and yet, since it's an emergency, there was no need to hold back.

"Let me carry it. Lady Isolde, do you mind?" Eisen asked as he carried the poles and bundle of ropes in front of his chest.

Isolde ordered her moose to sit down, allowing Eisen to climb and ride just behind her.

"I'm going too! Brother!"

The bird didn't seem to be uncomfortable even though it carried both Aogane and Niangzi at once. And even though Niangzi has difficulties she managed to hold on tight on his back.

"Kyaha, this is a really uncomfortable ride," Niangzi said.

Aogane was, as always, felt embarrassed. However, once again he was very baffled. It's not that he wanted to disrespect her or anything, but the hard contour of her body feels uncomfortably familiar to him.

Like the people in Judo club, in fact.

"Sister Niang, what kind of training you usually do?"

"Me? I did MMA. I'm actually this close being a national champion in high school until... nevermind, there were some things so I failed to get into the final match on time and get disqualified."

"I see, MMA huh. No wonder you're so strong." He laughed.

"Why? You think my body feels like a man right?"

Aogane didn't answer, but she took that silence as confirmation.

Then he opened his mouth and defied her expectation. "Not really, there's something on my back."

Niangzi smacked him in embarrassment.

It was true that, for better or worse, Niangzi still have some semblance of mammary. For a truly dedicated female athlete, having breast at all is a blessing, because they burned vast majority of the useless fat in their body in favor of hard, dense musculature.

"Glad you noticed, bastard." She huffed.

The bird they ride just chuckled in response to the comical suffering it's current 'master' undergo.

"Did you just laugh at me?" Aogane winced, there goes what's left of his dignity.

On the edge of the forest, they were greeted by the sight of the hunter team surrounding the unconscious body of a woman. She was clad in the unmistakably metal armor of some type, though everyone was too distraught to remember what.

Eisen was the first to jump and approached her, he checked all the vitals and then everything else, including her eyes and the inside of her mouth.

"No major injuries as far as I can see seems like she's starved." Eisen said, "As for her wounds, they were all minor but we need to clean and disinfect it. Can you use Magi healing?"

"We tried to use wood/water magi combination, but so far her scratches just won't heal and keep bleeding. They seem to be cleaner than before but..." The hunters shrugged, it seems that they have tried the spell several times before their arrival.

Aogane was quiet for a moment before he finally commented.

"We need to remove her armor." Aogane said, "At least the big ones. Only then she could be healed."

He proceeded to inspect the buckles and buttons and removed everything that tightens the protective plates around the woman.

"Sister, help me remove her greaves, it's a bit difficult."

"Sure. Let me."

With some effort, Niangzi and Aogane managed to remove the armor pieces, and much to their surprise these metal pieces were lighter than they thought.

"That's not steel, it's too light. And this coloration..." Aogane said as he dropped the unnaturally light brigandine from her body, "Some kind of... Aluminum?"

"Aluminum didn't make good armor material for their weight. Now, hardened titanium would be another story." Eisen said as he lifted the round shield and then knocked it aloud with his hand. "If it's made of Titanium, this shield could probably deflect a pistol shot or two easily."

"Seriously?" Niangzi furrowed her eyebrows in disbelief, she wasn't dumb enough not to know the actual killing strength of a pistol. And while she knew police and military have bulletproof shields, they usually big and very heavy.

"Yeah, this is more or less a small SWAT shield in the shape of an Aspis... Ancient Greek style shield that exists before Christ even a thing."

"I think I've seen in the movies, something about 300 Spartans..." Niangzi tried to remember, but she cast that aside as soon as she looked at how trails of magical water and leaves cleaned and healed the dirty wounds of the woman, leaving almost invisible scars that couldn't easily be noticed without effort.

Now that she's healed from the possibility of dangerous infection, her malnutrition was the only thing that needs to be dealt with.

"Either way, let's carry her on a stretcher."

The improvised stretcher did its job well, allowing the four hunters to carry the woman's body with ease. However, her armor and weapon need to be carried separately, which is why Aogane walked on foot while guiding his steed that worked as a pack mule to carry her armor and shield, while Niangzi carried her spear and Guandao at the same time.

"Aogane, why do you know we need to remove her armor to heal her wounds?" Eisen asked.

"Some hypothesis. If my guess is right, it seems that steel weapons and armor scatter the Magi concentration around them, making spells almost impossible to cast properly." Aogane informed, "I don't know if they have realized it or not."

Eisen rubbed his chin, thinking. "Interesting, do you know what else they do? What material works against it?"

"Silver didn't seem to positively or negatively impact the influence of Magi at least. I only guessed it from the silver pendant that Lord Valencia is wearing and it doesn't seem to bother him, so I could be wrong."

"So steel and titanium have anti-magi properties, while silver didn't have much influence." Eisen confirmed, "You two better keep quiet about it, then."

"Why?" Niangzi finally asked.

"Think about it, it's totally double-edged sword. If for example, our armor protects from all spell indiscriminately." Eisen warned, "Too easy to exploit, don't you think?"

"That's true." Aogane sighed, truthfully, he felt it wasn't right. But his rationale works much better against his recklessly stupid gut feeling.

"Meh, whatever." Niangzi was too tired to argue, it's not as if they're wrong either.

"First we need to give her soft and sweet food, how quick you people can make porridge?" Eisen asked the maids.

"Let me do it, crushed peas should work better than oat right?" Niangzi said as she rolled the long sleeve of her long dress. "You people have anything sweet?"

The maids within the room stuttered, "Umm, umm yes but-"

"Let the maids take care of it, Lady Niang." Isolde pleaded.

"It'll be too much hassle. Show her the kitchen." Eisen said as he inspected the woman further. "Aogane, could you please leave?"

"Alright. Everyone, please get out of the room." Aogane said as he made pushing motion with his hands.

Isolde's eyes bulged out in shock when he saw Aogane sending everyone else out and Eisen began to pull the woman's clothes carefully to check her body.

"With due respect, Eisen, what are you doing?"

"I am a doctor," Eisen said with extremely cold tone, his gaze cut sharper than even that of an obsidian surgical knife. "Her outer wounds might have been healed but who knows about internal ones. A clean blanket please?"

Isolde was flustered a bit, she didn't expect him to react with such cold manner that...

It was almost charming. Mysterious and enthralling even.

After he was done, he fixed the clothes and put a blanket on the woman for extra modesty. All was done without him even blinking twice.

"Huuungryyyy...." The woman whispered weakly.

He sighed in relief.

"She's half-conscious but unhurt, some good food should help. It doesn't seem that she suffered dehydration at least."

"I see." Isolde awkwardly nodded, "Eisen, you seem to know a lot about this. Aren't you supposed to be Hoof doctor?"

"The first two years of Veterinary school aren't that different from normal medical university. A few years extra class and internship where all I need to deal with human patients." He said lightly.

"I see." Isolde didn't know how to react to that, "Sometimes I forgot that you're a scholar."

"Well back in my old place at least." He smiled calmly, showing his usual, nobility-like behavior as he bowed. "You don't have to worry, Lady Isolde. I am extremely confident with my skill and knowledge."

With that statement, he walked out of the room.

"A serving of pea and honey porridge coming!" Niangzi yelled while carrying a bowl of steaming food, "Hey you, lift her a bit so we can get a half-sitting position."

Niangzi didn't care if it sounds rude, she simply told one of the maids to do just that and she complied. Besides, they already feel guilty for letting her do all the cooking.

"Raise her back more, ensure she doesn't choke. Yes, there we go."

Niangzi took a spoonful of the hot porridge and blow some air to reduce its temperature, after making sure it was warm enough to eat safely, she slowly feed the half-conscious woman.

She could tell the woman need it so much, with how quickly she gulped it.

"Keep doing this, don't give it to her while it's hot." She handed the bowl to one of the other maids, "If she feels thirsty, give her the warm honey water I made. If she's awakened fully, make her sit comfortably."

"Yes, Lady Niang." The maids said simultaneously with the high tone of respect she didn't expect.

"Good, I guess we can go now." Niangzi nodded, "Please excuse me."

Isolde simply followed her out. Outside, there was only Aogane as every other people returned to their previous works.

In the dark and cramped interior of the manor was rather uncomfortable. In fact, Niangzi already wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

"Damn it, why is everything so small in here?"

"At least you don't HAVE to mind the ceiling while walking." Eisen snarked. Because of his height, sometimes he needs to bow down to walk through the doorway.

Those people were too goddamn short.

"How could you even stand sleeping in that cramped room is beyond me." Niangzi said, "Ah, no offense, Lady Isolde, I appreciate your kindness, but I prefer the great hall to sleep in."

"It's alright." Isolde wrily smiled, "This is one of the smallest Manor owned by my mother, so it's understandable if it feels a bit restrictive. Usually, only the Reeve and the maids live here."

Niangzi blinked with surprise on her face, "Eh, really? So no one from your family lives here?"

"You have to think that Most manor is like a home-office." Aogane said, "It's not quite as good as dedicated houses, which is where the problem comes from. Even though a Manor looks large from the outside, it has to be able to function independently, and thus you have everything crammed inside. Someone like say, a Baron or Baroness, may only stay in their largest, most important Manor. The rest of the manors simply there to provide accommodation during a visit."

"That's correct, my mother owned eight other Manors like this," Isolde explained, "Our largest manor is about four times as big as this one. It was where I was raised, and its location is close to the capital of this March. That's why I've known Valencia since both of us were little."

"Holy shit, did I hear EIGHT?!" Niangzi couldn't help but expressed her shock, just how rich was Isolde's mother? One manor as small as this one didn't faze her at all, but eight of them?

...

Reinforcement finally came. No less than two knights and twelve royal archers arrived just before the sky turned dark, alongside steeds and even small group of cavalier. They came with their own logistic fleet, some included their wives and husbands. Because of this, they appeared to be a larger group than they actually were. In general, Niangzi counter just under two hundred people coming at once, and it feels rather restrictive to her looking at so many people she's not going to bother and remember.

"I thought those were soldiers but they're just peasant?" Niangzi twitched.

"That's how war generally in medieval ages were. A fleet of civilians following small core group of elite fighters." Eisen said as he fastened his helmet. "They provide everything, food, weapons, service. Sometimes it's their own spouses and even older children."

"Because travel is slow, logistics cannot be delivered easily between places. And thus, the soldiers must always be followed by their own logistic group. And when they cannot resupply-"

"They raid the local villages and town." Eisen spat, "That's just how it is in this dark and gloomy age."

Isolde looked like she was about to protest, but she decided to instead clarify his discontent. "While that may be true in wartime, there was no need to do that today. They worked for my mother and therefore, their pay will come from the land my mother owned."

"Huh, you mean they will settle here permanently?" Niangzi was surprised to hear that.

Eisen snorted, "Alternatively, wages will be paid if their time of service exceeded their yearly service quota."

"Service time is mandatory for everyone that were physically able to, so technically speaking, you three are working for His Majesty, King of Catalina, as we speak," Isolde told them.

"Really? That's weird." Niangzi hummed, "Not that I mind, I just need to kill some monsters right?"

"Well, it's not like they have a concept of national citizenship." Aogane finally donned his majestic, newly cleaned jinbaori on top of his armor. "Should we introduce ourselves?"

"That would be preferable."

Valencia came in tow with the two knights that came as reinforcement. They couldn't possibly more contrast in appearance than the three steel-clad travelers themselves.

One of the knights was almost as tall as Aogane, but broad and muscuar His armor gleaming black under the sunset, marking the fact that it was neither made of leather or wood.

His helmet completely hid his face.

"...Stone armor?" Aogane thought. It was almost unbelievable to see one actually being worn to battle. It seems almost counterintuitive, what with stones easily break to impacts compared to literally any other material in existence.

That said, it resembled something else: road asphalt.

However, he decided to put that thought aside, because there must be other reason why it's used that way.

The other knight doesn't seem to be even halfway elaborate. Her armor looks much simpler than what worn by Isolde or Valencia. She also wasn't exceptionally tall, only a little bit taller than Niangzi.

Without a helmet, there was nothing to obscure her identity. Her eyes were sharp and yet prominent. Her hair was ashen white, which doesn't seem to be an indication of age.

Her posture and expression were much stiffer than that of Isolde's.

"Greetings, Lady Isolde, we came here per your request. Unfortunately, these men and women were all we could get. The situation in the fort wasn't any better, and we cannot afford to lose it." The female knight said.

"I understand that very well, Lady Silvia." Isolde nodded, "And this is..."

"Gideon of Black Knights." The massive man introduced himself quietly.

"I see, it's an honor to work with you, Sir Gideon."

"The sentiment is shared." The man replied.

"And those people would be?"

"My guest, they weren't knights, but each of them is a warrior of exemplary skill." Isolde proudly introduced the three of them.

The female knight with ashen white hair inspected them, and her curiosity was replaced quickly by skepticism.

"I don't mean to be rude but like you, I have met countless warriors, and I've seen none here." Sivia didn't waste much time with pleasantries.

"No shit, we're scholars." Niangzi snarked in response, much to the woman's annoyance.

"A scholar dressed like going to war, couldn't have fooled me even if I'm drunk." The woman retorted with arrogance so high one could measure it with mountains.

"So what? Even if we're just penniless hobo it's not your problem." Niangzi spat, "Did anyone tell you not to be rude to guests?"

"I'd respect people who know their place. Who are you to consider yourself deserving it?"

Niangzi just replied with a middle finger, this rude gesture, of course, flies in the face of people of entirely different culture.

"What does that even mean?"

"Fornicate yourself," Eisen said with ultra-deadpan tone.

"How's that even possib-" Silvia mused before she realized what it means, "You!!"

"Know your place and don't you dare to touch my guest, Silvia." Isolde's voice boomed as her Magi flare up, enough that the volume of her speech could be heard echoing across the field, making a crowd of birds flies from shock.

This warning was more than enough to freeze the angered knight, but even Niangzi seems to be terrified.

"Please forgive my transgression." Silvia kneeled, "But I still don't believe they have what it takes to be more than being your burden."

"...how immature." Eisen chided and left, he knew that chivalry romance is a lie and many of the historical knights were nothing but arrogant thugs, but meeting one this soon only gave him sour mood.

Valencia just laughed as he followed Eisen.

Aogane doesn't at all feel annoyed, so he simply smiled in response to her glare. It's not as if she was wrong.

Niangzi, on the other hand...

"All bark and no bite, maybe you just inherited that position from someone else?" Niangzi cockily stated, "What makes you think you earn the right to look down on me?"

"Lady Niang!" Isolde snarled, "If you dare to disrespect her position, not even I wouldn't let you get away with it."

"Is it part of the chivalry code to disrespect people other than themselves?" Niangzi didn't even budge as her eyes meet Isolde's.

Such conviction, it was as if this young lady didn't fear death. Isolde still feels concerned, but in the end, neither of them were willing to back down.

"How could you let her get away with that?" Silvia asked with anger. "Such display of disrespect from a mere peasant."

"So, if you were in my place, what are you going to do?" Isolde asked.

Silvia gritted her teeth.

"Put her in the place where she belonged."

"Then try." Isolde was about to lose her patience, and she had enough of this petty conflict. "Lady Niang, if you mind a duel?"

"Sure enough, fine by me," Niangzi replied with confidence. "Bring it on, bitch."

Isolde threw Niangzi a wooden training spear and wood sword to Silvia. "Standard code of sparring, the first to lose their weapon or fall to the ground lose, no attacking the head."

Aogane wondered if Niangzi can win. In terms of stamina, it's very obvious that Niangzi had a huge disadvantage. However, if the skill gap is big enough...

Niangzi wasted no time but to go ahead and swung her spear down, however, before she could gain enough momentum, Silvia intercepted it with a parry.

Aogane wondered why Niangzi would open with such predictable attack, as Silvia pushed Niangzi away with her strength.

A spear had the advantage of easy handling and reach, however, with Silvia continue to press forward, the long shafted weapon has a disadvantage.

Niangzi gave a short stroke with her arm only halfway the shaft length but it was dodged, and Niangzi's spear cracked the ground when it hits.

"...are we sure this is safe?"

Aogane was already amazed at the ferocity of Isolde and Valencia's sparring, but both of them certainly held back with their 'Will', and because of this, their attacks weren't as devastating.

Niangzi and Silvia on the other hand, they were fully intended to kill each other if needed, with only the rules being the only thing holding them back.

"Don't worry, I'm sure it will be fine." Isolde said lightly, "They're both on whole different level than the levies, and they have scores to settle."

Silvia danced around with ease around the movement of Niangzi's spear as the Chinese girl delivered rapid stabbing movement, much to the latter's frustration. Even so, Silvia herself was unable to score anything despite having the advantage in such narrow gap.

Niangzi jumped and then unexpectedly made a downward strike, using her weight to her advantage, and this attack managed to make even Silvia bothered and her Parry was barely successful.

"The opening." Niangzi manically grinned as she pushed the spear, which in turn widened the gap between them.

However, Silvia was still shaken and her footing wasn't properly secured as Niangzi rushed in with all of her strength focused at the tip of her spear.

The smoking friction and heat could be seen momentarily as Aogane's vision accelerated, Silvia desperately protected her chest with the flat of her sword as the tip of Niangzi's spear pressed through, hair away from her breastplate.

That was when Niangzi struck her waist with her knee.

Taking the full power of the blow, Silvia's body was thrown violently and tumbled on the grounds several meters from the place she stood. She twitched a bit and was shocked as she struggled to even recover, and barely able to stay on all fours.

Though her armor and inner strength dampened the damage, the pain from the impact still lingered.

As she raised her face to take a good look at Niangzi, she saw murderous glare and humiliating smirk.

Niangzi said as she crouched down. "If you want to beat me, you ought to remember what you fight for."

"Lady Niang..." Isolde looked sadly at her, it was crystal clear that while Niangzi gave it her fullest, Silvia herself was too distraught and reckless.

...

When she was awake, she found herself in a dark, dusty room with just a tiny candle on the wall to light barely halfway through the entire chamber.

Noticed her body felt lighter, she realized that her armor had been removed.

"The lady is awake." A voice said, which followed by multiple whispers, soon enough, the woman heard footsteps coming.

Standing the tallest was a man of extremely tall stature, to the point that he barely fits under the ceiling. Alongside him was another man in blue armor.

"Where am I?"

"You're safe now." The tall man said calmly and handed a card, "Doctor Eisen Schmidt, there's nothing to fear."

"I see, thank you for saving me, doctor." The woman nodded, "I thought I'd die starving, if not having some monster catch me from behind."

"I am amazed you can survive." The man in blue armor looks younger, younger than her even. She would be surprised if he's out of high school. But to be fair, he's not even a caucasian. His facial feature and appearance all said 'Asian', Japanse or Korean perhaps. "You traveled alone for three days right?"

"Yeah, three days, I ran out of food then I remember following some footprints along the road." The woman sighed, "Thank Lord I am safe, my name is Oriana Agathe."

"Oriana Agathe?" The doctor perked up, "Aura the lance maiden?"

"That's me." She nodded and pointed herself.

The doctor, Eisen Schmidt, shook his head in disbelief and amazement. "Amazing, simply amazing. I really like your performance in the last Olympic."

"Uh, I don't know what happened but my name is Aogane Date. I'm just graduated from High School and on my... resting period."

"Oriana Agathe is the Italian Gold medalist winner in Javelin throwing during the previous Olympic event, 77.69 meters. A whole new record in the women's category." Eisen proudly introduced her. "As fellow European, I couldn't be more honored to meet you in person."

"That would be me. Nice to meet you, Aogane. And once again, thank you, Doctor-"

"Eisen, Eisen is fine."

They exchanged a handshake to formalize their meeting. Eisen, however, looks very giddy and almost uncharacteristic.

"Do you feel hurt anywhere?"

"No." Oriana felt her body to check it, "In fact, I remember being much worse."

"So the healing spell works perfectly."

The rumbling request out of her stomach pretty much said what was her main complaint would be.

"Just in time for a dinner." Aogane shrugged, "Would you like to join us?"

"Sure."

Oriana followed them a bit hesitantly, it was true that those were people she just met less than minutes ago. But even putting that aside, she already felt like dying, and the fact that they saved her was more than enough to convince her that things couldn't be worse if she behaved obediently.

She was greeted with a massive chamber, easily tens of meter long. Inside, long tables and rows upon rows of chairs were neatly arranged with many people already sitting there.

"She's awake now?" Isolde asked, "Welcome to my Manor. My name is Isolde, Knight of Catalina. In behalf of my Mother, Baroness Salamancia, I shall invite you to join our humble dinner."

It wasn't exactly five-star banquet, but it wasn't certainly humble. Piles upon piles of food of varying type being served to everyone present and the maids guided her to the empty chair near Isolde.

Oriana decided to introduce herself shortly. Only the closest sitting people paid attention to her introduction, for everyone else was too busy chatting and laughing by themselves.

She arrived on the opposite side of the temple, which among the reason why she was separated from Aogane and Niangzi, Eisen managed to meet them by chance, but Oriana missed that chance and was stranded on her own.

"You didn't meet anyone else?" Niangzi asked.

"Not a single one, unfortunately. I guess you people also came here... involuntarily, to put it modestly." Oria hummed.

"That's British level understatement if I ever heard one," Eisen commented.

"Well, now that you're here, you are welcome to stay. Here, would you like extra meat?"

Oriana felt a little overwhelmed to the point that her natural red hair became pale in comparison to the tone of her skin. Regardless she tried to keep her composure and be professional in the face of such overwhelming kindness.

"Oh c'mon you don't have to be shy, you're going to pay for it anyway." Niangzi said shortly before she shoved a whole chicken drumstick in her mouth, "With your body."

Oriana blinked and her reddened face became pale white and sweat badly.

"She means fighting, fighting monsters." Aogane frantically waved his hand and clarified, "I mean... can you?"

"Ah, I see, fighting monsters." Oriana sighed, she was expecting the entirely different method of payment. "Yes, I might be able to give a little help."

"As you can tell, this village is under siege." Isolde said with exceedingly formal tone, "We lost a lot of people yesterday, and I don't want that tragedy to be repeated. I would sincerely request your assistance, however much you could provide."

"I understand."

"If you need anything, weapons, munitions, you may ask anything." Valencia offered, "Our craftsman will prepare it for you."

"Javelin." She replied without hesitation, "Throwing spears."

Isolde clarified, "You mean hunting spear? Those weren't used as weapons anymore these days."

"Lady Oriana is very well trained with Javelin, just like Aogane is great with his bow. So it would be best for her to have it." Eisen said on behalf of the Olympic athlete.

"We should have spare woods to use. Could you give a visit to the weapon workshop after the dinner? I'm afraid our enemies aren't going to wait for sunrise to attack." Isolde nodded firmly in acknowledgment.

"Did monsters have good eyesight?" Aogane asked.

Valencia shook his head, "No, actually, most monsters have very poor eyesight, it's just that their sense of smell got stronger and that's how they track their prey. That's a well-documented effect of the overwhelming presence of beast magi. That's why we burn all the corpses, to prevent immediate second attacks. But there's absolutely no guarantee that we'll be safe until our scout group confirmed so."

"Understood."

"In the meantime, I believe it would be best for everyone else to rest early," Isolde said. "Servant, please escort Lady Oriana to the workshop."

"If you don't mind, I can do it." Aogane stood, "I still have to retrieve the arrow shafts I requested."

"I see, please do." Isolde nodded.

"I would like to rest early, thank you." Eisen smiled.

"I'm going to the roof a little bit." Niangzi bumped her fists excitedly. "I'd love some light exercise before sleep."

Niangzi walked up the stairs, and as she arrived on the roof, she carefully removed her dress, revealing a set of thighs and sports bra and nothing else.

By the standard of the modern era, those things could be seen every day without shame, but by this world, it's probably extremely scandalous display, and that's all the more reason for her to get as much privacy as she could. And at this time of the night, no one stood on the roof.

She clenched her fist, and shortly after she made sure she got her food digested, began light stretching to loosen the knots in her musculature.

After she made sure of that, step by step, she practiced footwork and then her hands followed. Punch, push, parry, these were firm yet elegant movements, a mixture of Shaolin Kungfu and kickboxing.

Switch tempo, step down, pace up, the stark contrast between the smooth flow of her maneuver and high-impact punches and kicks engraved more impression on the moist air of the night.

"My body is even stronger than yesterday, weird." She hummed, "Oh well it's not bad at all."

She continued to practice her movements, shortly before she picked her Guandao and spun it.

After wearing her armor for so long, she almost forgot how absolutely heavy they were.

As sweats began to form, she quickly wiped it with a linen towel, so as to avoid getting too cold. Her body cools down very quickly due to the air, and this made training in the half-nude all the riskier. However, she didn't have that many sets of clothes, in fact, she had exactly two sets of clothes, a ruqun, and a chang'ao, the latter of which is necessary to pad her armor.

She had plenty of sports underwear in her bag, however, and this means she had many spares to change with.

Aogane was kind enough to lend her an upper jersey, it was very comfortable to wear in her sleep. But without modern amenities such as soap, washing clothes is a huge chore.

"I know you are there, show yourself," Niangzi said with a hostile tone.

From the dark tunnel to the stairs, the white-haired female knight, Silvia, came. Her expression was... ambivalent, and with very little light provided only by the sky up there, it was hard to read.

"Just what are you doing dressing like that in public, peasant?" She asked.

"I see no 'public' here. Which is why precisely I train here. In fact, aren't you being rude for spying on a semi-naked girl?" Niangzi taunted in response.

"Because someone is making a ruckus on the roof." Silvia responded, "Did you always train intensely like that?"

"Yeah, this is what I'm doing on my free time. Unfortunately, doing it in the middle of the day would have crept everyone. So I'm doing it at night before sleep."

"I see."

Niangzi continued her shadow fighting, ignoring the presence of the other person.

"You have a... exquisite body." Silvia said awkwardly, "Like chiseled marble statues of the ancient, your body had been thoroughly carved and formed to such length, it's pretty much pure perfection."

"What, you joking? Back in my place, this body would be considered visual hazard, ugly beyond recognition." Niangzi laughed hard and mockingly presented herself. "Men prefer their women have some useless fat on them. I mean, would they make love to a piece of a hard log? like this?"

Silvia turned bent red from all the dirty talk Niangzi threw without an even slightest bit of shame.

"Though I honestly don't care." Niangzi flexed her lean yet solidly formed bicep, "I become this fully aware of what I'll miss."

"I train hard because I was weak... No one would protect me, so I learn to protect myself. From strong people, who would look down and bully the weak." Niangzi smashed the final nail in the proverbial coffin of Silvia's dignity, "From people like you."

"How dare you to make an assumption of me." Silvia screamed, "I was only concerned with how suspicious you people are, and only worried about Lady Isolde's misplaced trust of people."

Niangzi cockily raised her eyebrows, "Misplaced?"

"I admit, I made a mistake, and I should apologize, for questioning your abilities and Lady Isolde's judgment." Silvia sighed, "But really, there's nothing more I want to do than to keep my comrade safe."

"I see." Niangzi sat on the edge of the battlements, her radiant smile was unnervingly calm and friendly. Rather than murderous grin of a warrior, it was indistinguishable from that of innocent young noble girl. "I'm sorry for being rude bitch then, and good luck."

For a moment, Silvia was shocked.

Just how many faces can Tie Niangzhi make?

Meanwhile, Isolde accidentally listened to the conversation through her open window and simply grinned in amusement.