Bear School Astartes

Sixty skilled fighters dueling with swords without armor...

Lann even suspected that, by the end, the person still standing in front of him might not have as many as ten unbroken bones left in his body.

But the final result was unexpectedly good.

Quite a few Ember Knights ended up with broken bones, but most of those standing before Lann had only sweated a bit, their silk shirts a little rumpled, nothing more.

This meant that in that extremely short but "touch and you’re injured" unarmored duel, they’d gone the whole way without ever being struck by their opponents.

They’d sent their opponents off the field without taking a scratch.

There might have been some element of luck and on-the-spot performance in those bouts.

But even an ordinary officer would never dare claim he could walk away unscathed from an unarmored duel with a farmer who’d never held a sword.

The level of these ten was, without question, very high.

Lincoln was among them.

"You’ve surprised me." Lann looked at the newly selected Honored Swordsmen standing before him. "You’re not used to using Long Blades; that’s completely different in form from the training weapons you used for the first ten-plus years of your lives in Sintra."

"Yet in such a short time you’ve already made them look decent in your hands, even added your own ideas, translating features of Sintra’s Swordsmanship onto the Long Blade to some extent."

Just as Temeria has the Temerian standard Longsword, Velen has further refined its own Velen Longsword, and Novigrad, that chaotic yet prosperous Free City, has produced the Novigrad Short Sword.

Weapon forms do tend to converge and evolve in similar directions, but because they face different enemies, fight in different environments, fulfill different tactical demands, or simply bear distinguishing traits to show their origin, their forms ultimately differ.

Most members of the Embers Knight Order were originally descendants of Sintran nobility; after Sintra City fell, they were gathered by the Palace Steward Hacksaw, then mixed into Stuart’s formation to cover the civilians’ escape.

In the first half of their lives, they received the most orthodox Sintra Knight training imaginable.

And Sintra, a mainland kingdom with a fierce, sea-going people, had long had dealings with the Skellig Islands—whether those "dealings" were raids or friendly visits didn’t matter; the influence went both ways either way.

So although Sintra, as a continental nation, still used swords due to its knightly culture, it had already absorbed a great deal of the Skellig people’s axe-fighting style.

Their swords were thicker and heavier than those of other countries, generally known as the Sintra Longsword.

In the earlier duels, their style likewise favored powerful, heavy, properly framed chops, without many of the fine, intricate techniques suited to a Long Blade.

But even that level of performance was enough to prove that the Ember Knights were no fools when it came to Swordsmanship. On the contrary, they had fundamentals, talent, and even creativity.

It made Lann very interested in them.

"Armor up. Prepare to move out."

The terse and decisive order was given, and the Ember Knights felt as if they’d returned to that glorious battlefield of old.

Unconsciously, nostalgia and excitement curled at the corners of their mouths.

To Lann’s surprise, they’d come lightly equipped, but they were leaving with ten fully armored Knights in tow.

Lincoln once more took his place at Lann’s side, serving as Secretary.

And the fellow had actually taken one of Lann’s earlier suggestions: for this kind of field operation, he’d fitted steel corners to the large, cross-body notebook at his waist, like a satchel.

-----------------

On the journey toward the area near Elrand, ten Ember Knights joined them. Inevitably, of course, the ordinary cavalry slowed the Qilin’s pace.

But this time discrepancy was still within the margin Lann had left himself in advance; it was acceptable.

The Qilin was also quite happy to slow down.

Recently it kept feeling that the pale horn on its head was growing faster than the last time it had broken.

At night, when this fine steed lay down to sleep, it seemed it could hear, through the conduction of its skull, the faint "kala" sounds of crystal growth and condensation at the top of its head.

Since that was the case, of course it hoped its pale horn could grow back properly before they officially dealt with the trouble in that anomalous region. That would be ideal.

It was no longer the carefree little Qilin on the Land Coral Plateau of the New Continent, munching on terrestrial kelp without a worry in the world.

After going on several adventures with Lann and traveling through several worlds, the Qilin felt its own experience might even surpass that of its parents.

It had already seen plenty of spooky, supernatural things; now that they were heading to handle an anomalous area with unknown conditions, naturally it wanted to appear in peak form. Only then did it feel safe.

When it first arrived in the Magic Middle Ages, it thought the creatures here all had pretty weak Life Force, nothing like those of the New Continent. The Qilin had even romped far afield for a while without a care.

Behind Ker Morhan lay the Blue Mountains; the Qilin dared run deep into them. Beyond Airetusa stretched the boundless ocean; the Qilin also dared veer off already-charted routes and explore the deep.

But as its Horizon broadened and its knowledge grew, it actually settled down.

This world’s Life Force might not be strong, but their Magic was powerful and bizarre enough!

When it came to Magic and supernatural forces, the Qilin was still utterly out of its depth.

In the Flame World, when it stayed in the dark with Rong Buqiu, the discomfort and fear that assailed its soul nearly scared it witless.

They hadn’t even encountered an enemy; the natural environment alone was enough to unsettle it.

Then they reached Ardan. Smaug’s scale armor, miasma, and Dragon Flame are one thing, but what the hell are Zhao Ge Luyin’s claws?!

Spatial slicing!

Even with thunder wrapped around its body and its physique reinforced, Qilin still wouldn’t be able to tank a single hit!

So now this Ancient Dragon from the New Continent doesn’t dare run too far off to mess around either.

Just leave it at that, isn’t it nice to live quietly.JPG

On the march, the Ember Knights’ quality ensured that, with Qilin controlling the pace, nobody lagged behind or failed to keep up.

Setting out from High Hill Castle, originally located deep in the southeastern interior of Velen, neighboring that ancient oak atop Bolder Mountain, by nightfall they were already in central Velen.

This area retained an utterly primal look, untouched by civilization.

The forest was dense and stiflingly hot, swamps mixed with meadows, and one misstep might have you sinking in. As night fell, strange rustling sounds rose around them, along with wolf howls and monster cries.

Only the faint outline of a dirt path trodden into the ground showed that people still passed through here, that this wasn’t completely wild and forsaken land.

"Splat!"

The clean, crisp sound of a blade sliding into flesh rang out, followed by the sound of steel pulling free of a body, the scent of blood spreading from the wound into the air.

Accurate, decisive technique kept the blade from scraping against bone or catching with a dry creak; the motion was smooth as water.

"That’s the last wolf in the area." an Ember Knight said as he drew back his spear, wiping the wolf blood, fur, and grease from its tip. "Are we eating wolf tonight?"

"Too much trouble, forget it." Lann said casually. "I’ve got plenty of supplies in my pack; no need to go to all that effort."

So the Ember Knight stowed his spear and headed over to the lit campfire.

The Embers Knight Order revered Lann like they were venerating Divine Beings, but their relationship wasn’t distant.

Back when they were coordinating guerrilla raids in the occupied Sintra border regions, they’d always eaten and lived together.

When things were relaxed the Knights would even joke with Lann, like how he was actually younger than most of the Knight Order, that sort of thing.

Lincoln was currently grimacing, holding a small mirror while shaving his beard.

Lann had said his beard was in that awkward phase and looked way too ugly, so he might as well shave it clean.

Lincoln himself always wanted to look a bit more mature, but once the commanding officer spoke he had no way out. He could only grit his teeth, hold up the mirror, and let the Knight Order brothers behind him laugh as they scraped it off.

"Come eat, meow!"

By the campfire, the small Three-Floral Elu Cat was full of energy, shaking the pan while calling out.

"Butter-fried bread slices with salted meat and cheese crumbs! I even found some wild chives nearby, chopped them up and tossed them in, meow!"

Rong Buqiu had helped out in the kitchen among the chef cats of the New Continent Expedition Team; whether the food tasted good or not was another question, but its skill with all the steps was solid.

With the help of two other Knights, it quickly finished cooking at big-pot-for-the-whole-squad efficiency.

"Thank you, Lord Rong Buqiu."

"Ah, no need to call me that so seriously, meow! It makes me kinda embarrassed, meow!"

When Rong Buqiu heard that form of address, the triangular ears on its head twitched uneasily.

The Elu Cats’ brave, optimistic, energetic, work-loving nature made them hard not to like.

The two Ember Knights who had been starting the fire and cooking with it had initially only shown a bit stiff and distant respect because Rong Buqiu followed at Lann’s side and they weren’t familiar with it, but they soon relaxed into joking and chatting too.

Even though Lincoln had been ordered to shave his beard and now looked like a beardless seventeen- or eighteen-year-old again, he still got the watch and alert shifts arranged and the food distribution sorted.

Qilin folded its four legs and lay behind Lann. Its whiskered, maned chin was boredly rubbing back and forth on the ground.

It wasn’t until the Demon Hunter’s hand reached back and brought something that looked hard as a brick to its mouth that Qilin snorted happily, opened its jaws, clamped down, and started crunching away.

That was the special ration Lann had custom-made with Alchemy after he’d implanted the Bone Enhancement Organ, to meet the material demands of his violently growing bones.

Later, once the rapid bone growth period was over, he’d stopped eating much of it, but there was still a crate of the brick-like stuff stored under his bed in the secret culvert, literally propping it up.

The hardness of the stuff really was enough to serve as bricks to support the bed.

But when he came back this time, Qilin had taken advantage of Lann not being in the secret culvert and somehow dug them out on its own and started gnawing.

According to Qilin, it suddenly felt that the smell in that place was kind of tasty, so it tipped the bed over, found the rations, and started eating.

Before, even though it smelled those special rations, it’d never had any interest.

The fish and kelp in the sea were clearly much tastier.

As for the situation now, Lann didn’t know if it had anything to do with how fast Qilin’s horns had grown this time.

But Lann was well aware of just how absurd New Continent creatures could get, so he planned to see what Qilin could turn itself into if he just let it run free.