Chapter 23 A New Opponent
"Your movement is still pretty awkward, but you have a great future ahead of yourself. Especially with a bastard sword," Madison added after seeing their spar. She wasn't the type to praise if it wasn't necessary, but this little guy with beautiful blue eyes was really interesting in her eyes.
"Thank you, professor," Kye said with a smile a bowed his head. "I will do my best to improve with it."
"That's good, keep up with this attitude and you will definitely improve," She said as she went away.
Seeing her back, Ven said, "You got pretty lucky. She's not praising a lot of people usually. But anyway, let's fight agai-..." He was proposing but got interrupted by someone.
"Do you mind if I take your little friend for a little spar session?" A black-haired girl with boreal eyes said. She was 170 centimeters tall and had a scythe that was as tall as her.
Seeing her, Kye immediately looked at her watch. It was indicating the number 5. But he then shook his head. It wasn't with this attitude that he was supposed to change. However, it was still a little bit scary. A level 5 was something pretty high, especially against a level 1.
"Yeah sure, go ahead," Ven said. "I will watch from the side," He didn't think that Kye would have been able to be bullied here. So he didn't see any inconvenience in her fighting him. And it would also be a better learning experience for Kye if he were to fight multiple people with multiple fight styles.
"Thank you," She smile and got into stance.
Kye did the same. He was looking directly into her eyes to try to predict her next move.
And seeing that, she smiled and then ran diagonally toward him.
Kye didn't understand why she ran like this at first, but he understood and prepared himself after seeing how long her weapon was.
And he was right because she took advantage of her weapon length to attack from a safe distance.
Kye, instead of dodging her strike decided to counter-attack. After all, he didn't want to be the only one defending, so after putting her scythe on the ground, he swung his sword upward.
The strike was about to touch her, but bend backward and hit Kye's chin with the tip of her feet.
She then came back to her feet and took back her scythe before going back to Kye. But this time, she was heading right to him. It was the perfect moment since he was still destabilized by her move.
So she waved her scythe horizontally and it was supposed to attack him right around his belly area. But his reaction speed surprised her a lot.
The move the girl did wasn't his expectation, and that was why he got hit. But it didn't mean that his guard had been lowered for that much.
Instead, he had learned from her move and managed to dodge the strike by ducking. He swung his sword right at her feet, but she jumped right in time.
She then took support on her scythe handle to jump back and took some distance. He was quite impressive for a poor level one.
"That's good, I've seen what I wanted to see," She smiled as she walked toward a baffled Kye. "Let's say that you got the win, okay?" She then gave her hand for a handshake.
Not knowing what do to, Kye accepted since he didn't want to let her hand alone.
"My name is Lidi by the way,"
"I'm Kye, nice to meet you Lidi,"
p
"Wow, did you know her?" Ven asked after coming back to Kye.
"No, it's the first time I met her," He then turned toward Ven and asked. "Do you mind if we fight again?"
"No, not at all," Ven smiled as he got ready. Kye's spar against Lidi was impressive. His reaction speed was really good, and he didn't get surprised even by a move like the one she did. He just needed to get used to the sword now. "Ready?" Kye nodded.
This time, instead of Ven engaging, Kye wanted to do it. But he got stopped by the system.
[New quest: Defeat your opponent
Reward: Instant level up]
'Come on, how in the world am I supposed to win against Ven? that's impossible," Kye thought in disbelief, and because of that, he didn't see that Ven was just in front of him.
"If you're not engaging, then I will gladly do it," He quickly said as he waved his katana downward.
Kye only had a second to dodge, and he tried his best to do it. But a little bit of his hair got cut in the process. 'See? How I am supposed to win?' He thought and ran toward him.
He waved his sword and Ven blocked him.
*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*
They continued clashing their blades again and again, but Ven was clearly superior to Kye. So the latter decided to change his tactic.
Even though he was sure that he wouldn't win, he still wanted to try his best. At least, he will learn some experiences, so it would be perfect even if he didn't level up now.
So Kye jumped a few times back, and Ven quickly followed him.
But suddenly, the former stopped and rushed back toward Ven.
The latter got surprised and tried to block him, but barely manage.
Seeing that he got the advantage, Kye didn't let the joy take over him, nor let his advantage go, so he let go of his weapon and punched Ven in his stomach.
"Argh," Ven was shocked by that. He didn't expect Kye to use such tactics. But he couldn't help but be happy to see that too.
Kye would be an amazing opponent once he will grow up.
Since Ven was still holding his stomach because it was still hurting even though Kye didn't have much strength, Kye took back his weapon and rushed toward him once again.
But since he knew that Ven wouldn't lose just with that, he put himself in a defensive position while he was running toward him.
And when Ven slashed, he was ready to block it.
*Clang*
Kye took advantage of the time-lapse between their swing to jump to the side to avoid Ven's next slash.
He dodge it and then swung his sword back to him.
The advantage of a bastard sword was that it was still pretty long while being well balanced. So he was at the perfect distance for the tip to touch Ven.
And since his katana wasn't as long as Kye's sword, he couldn't reach him to attack Kye too.
But he still managed to avoid it, and that surprised him.
Ven had more experience with swords fight than him, so he knew that things like that could happen.
And in the end, he managed to close the distance and made a shoulder bump before waving his sword toward his neck.
And he stopped right before slashing it.
"I guess this is my win."