Kapitel 98: Pulling a Prank on Bladesmith, Practice Begins

With the gloves in-hand, Bladesmith started examining every nook and cranny that he could find on them. He even went as far as trying them on himself to get a feel for it before taking them off and scrutinizing them once more. Kirou watched as Bladesmith did this without saying a single word or batting an eye. Kirou just watched as Bladesmith examined his gloves to his heart's content without getting into the senior weapon master's way.

After scrutinizing the gloves for a few minutes, Bladesmith finally returned them to Kirou before speaking, "You definitely made another new weapon, lad. I've been around for a good while now and I've never seen another weapon master create a weapon as unique as this one. It looks like you've got a knack for these things."

Kirou put on the gloves and cupped his hands towards Bladesmith before speaking, "Your words are too kind, Senior. This pair of gloves isn't anything new, as it was something that my master designed to aid in training one's control over the wires, that's all. If nothing else, it's similar to a wooden training sword that the warriors use to train with."

Bladesmith raised an eyebrow at Kirou's words, not expecting that this new toy of his was just a training weapon. He stared at Kirou with an odd expression as he spoke, "Is that so, lad? You mind giving this old man a demonstration on the usage of these gloves of yours?"

"No problems, Senior." After saying this, Kirou activated his <Mana Control> skill to circulate his mana within his body, which he then willed to enter the gloves. Following this, a few previously hidden wires became visible as they started dancing within the air. Under Kirou's control, the wires themselves turned into various shapes, both simple and complex.

Looking at the demonstration, the odd expression on Bladesmith's face became more pronounced as he spoke, "If making shapes is all this thing could do then it probably won't be a good weapon for combat, you know. But knowing you, lad, that's probably all that you can show me while within the cottage, right?"

Listening to this, a sly smile formed on Kirou's face as he spoke, "If just these aren't pertaining enough for Senior, why don't I demonstrate something else then?" Following Kirou's words, he made a few finger movements and the visible, dancing wires stopped moving before they disappeared. Less than a second later, Bladesmith witnessed a few objects of various sizes in his cottage being moved about as if they were being manipulated by invisible people or by telekinesis. Bladesmith gave Kirou another look and saw the sly smile on his face, prompting him to narrow his eyes and survey the room more carefully. After sharpening his gaze, Bladesmith was shocked to see that all around his cottage, there were wires spread to all the floating objects that led back to the gloves on Kirou's hands. It wasn't the fact that Kirou was able to pull this off that surprised Bladesmith, but the fact that even with his sharpened eyesight, he was barely able to see the threads floating all around him.

Bladesmith looked at Kirou with a bit of shock as he thought, 'This is just a training item yet he's already able to pull off something like this, by the time he masters this, he'll be a terror on his enemies. Apart from that, once he masters this ability of his, he probably won't need the gloves to manipulate the wires anything, removing a possible tell from this already freakish person.' With those thoughts in mind, Bladesmith could only give a silent prayer to Kirou's future opponents.

While Bladesmith was a bit distracted by those thoughts, he never noticed a few threads had appeared around his boots. It took him a second to notice that he was now a few centimeters above the ground, following which he gave a snort and slight flex of his leg muscles which resulted in the threads around his boot being destroyed. Kirou looked on at this with a raised eyebrow and shrugged when he saw Bladesmith breaking the confines of his threads. He only tried it on a whim earlier, not expecting anything so Kirou was quite surprised that even someone as strong as Bladesmith, though momentarily distracted, had failed to notice their presence until he was already above ground. With that thought in mind, Kirou was once again certain that it was a good decision to make the gloves.

Bladesmith looked at Kirou with a wolfish smile on his face as he spoke, "Not a bad trick there, lad. Since you are already so gifted with those toys of yours, why don't we give them a field test right now." As Bladesmith said this, his body started radiating a reddish glow that spread around the entire room.

Kirou's response to this was quite simple. He had a casual smile on his face as he spoke to the fiendish looking Bladesmith, "While I would love to test them out at the moment, I'm afraid that I have to get a head start on this quest of mine so..."

Before Kirou could finish speaking, one of Bladesmith's hands had already grabbed ahold of his head and was pulling him close. Just as Kirou's face got close, Bladesmith's feral smile went stiff as Kirou's casual smile turned into a very pronounced sly one. The only thing Bladesmith could say to this was, "When did you make the switch?"

The sly smile on Kirou's face reverted to a casual one as Kirou spoke, "The moment you broke the bindings on your legs."

At those words, Bladesmith could only release a sigh before speaking, "Alright, alright. Go have your fun. But don't take too long, as I wanna see the strength of that new toy of yours."

"Understood, Senior." Following Kirou's words, he gave Bladesmith a polite bow before his body started dissipating, signifying that it was a shadow clone that had been speaking to Bladesmith for a while now.

Watching the shadow clone dissipate, Bladesmith could only shake his head as a thought passed through his mind, 'This pup truly is a gem. I hadn't even shown any indication of attacking him just yet and yet he had already swapped himself out with a clone during my split second of distraction. It's either he's got an amazing instinct of self-preservation or he's already experienced such things before. Hehehe, now this is a pup I don't mind personally training.'

Bladesmith had no idea how close his deduction was to the truth. In a sense, both of his answers were correct. During his past life, his bastard master would normally inform him of how appreciative he was of Kirou mastering a skill to the extent of using it on him through practice bouts where Kirou was beaten within an inch of his life before being given time to rest. That had happened so many times that Kirou was now instinctively capable of sensing ahead of time the kind of danger he would be in when dealing with people after pulling such a prank. It is due to this why he was able to live as long as he did.

With the clone now gone, Bladesmith released a sigh before picking up his hammer and getting back to work. For now, he would take care of the things he's meant to do while waiting for Kirou to return. As he worked, a smirk formed on Bladesmith's face as he spoke under his breath, "You better not try to escape from my clone later, otherwise I'll be sure to have some fun educating you, young pup." That phrase was followed by a bit of laughter from Bladesmith.

*******

Somewhere outside of Elderwood Village.

Kirou was currently resting in a clearing after escaping Bladesmith's cottage. As the memories from the clone came back to him, a wry smile formed on his lips as he reviewed them. He could only shake his head at the end as he got up and chose a random direction to walk in as he spoke, "Who would have thought that that bastard master of mine giving me so many beatings under the guise of 'sparring' would have allowed me to develop such a strong survival instinct that would come in handy even in another life? Hehe, seems like that's one bad thing I should take back about him, but he's still a bastard."

As Kirou said that and started walking away, he suddenly felt a chill traveling down his spine. Instead of wondering who or what caused it, Kirou immediately shook his head and rushed deeper into the forests. For now, he got a distinct impression that he shouldn't be wasting time on random thoughts and should be spending said time practicing. If his gut instinct was correct, he'll be needing the practice later on.

Once again, Kirou's highly trained survival instinct has pushed him in the correct direction. Maybe that bastard master of his had a method to his madness while training Kirou through such abusive teachings and calling it 'intense training'. That man was still very much a bastard though.

*******

Deep within Elderwood Forest, twenty minutes later.

Kirou was currently in combat with a few Elderwood Forest Wolves. Unlike his normal combat style of either having a pet or two to accompany him or swapping weapons on the fly to suit the occasion, Kirou was currently taking on the few wolves before him alone, only making use of his currently equipped wired gloves.

Whenever Kirou dodges or parries any of the wolves, he would make sure to have some wires wrap around the offending limb or appendage that was used in the attack. To prevent the wolves from noticing their presence, Kirou made sure to have the wires wrap around them loosely enough to be ignored but close enough to the areas that he targetted. After doing this for over five minutes, Kirou finally decided that it was time for him to wrap up this fight.

Following the recent attack of a wolf that tried to attack him from his right flank, resulting in him countering with a punch to its nose, Kirou took a bit of distance from the wolves that were snarling while staring at Kirou. Just as they wanted to continue their pounce on him, however, the wolves noticed that they could no longer make any movements. Kirou looked at them with an odd expression as he spoke, "Oh, it seems like you've finally noticed the trap. Too bad, you've noticed too little, too late, pups."

After making some hand movements, the wires wrapped around the wolves finally became visible for them to see, prompting the wolves to first be shocked, followed by adopting a fearful expression. As if not noticing their fearful expressions, Kirou tightened his hands into fists, prompting the wires wrapped around the wolves to tighten and suspend the wolves into the air, quite helplessly. Kirou then pulled back with his tightened fist, prompting the suspended wolves to start whining as the wires started pulling them from multiple directions before the area went silent as the wolves were dismembered, leaving just the bloody wires suspended in the air.

Kirou looked on at this with an impassive gaze. All the dismembered bodies before him turned into masses of light that quickly vanished and was replaced by a bunch of random pieces of weapons and armor. Kirou looked at the scene and released a sigh at the sight of so much equipment. If another player was present, they would be ecstatic at the sight of so many pieces of equipment but Kirou looked on at this as if it was a waste. Kirou spent the next few minutes collecting all of the scattered equipment before leaving the area.

As he traveled, Kirou made sure to check his quest window to see the updates.

Bind your targets: 7/100

Hunt your targets and defeat them as follows:

Dismemberment- 5/100

Decapitation- 2/100

Splitting in Two- 0/100

Freestyle- 0/300

*Defeat Weapon Master Bladesmith's Clone: 0/1

Looking at the changes, Kirou raised an eyebrow at how the kills he just obtained were distributed on his quest window. Releasing a sigh, Kirou refocused his mind as he traveled to the next location that he found monsters in as he thought, 'It seems like my control is a bit off. Even with my gloves, I failed to properly control the wires for all seven. I'm more out of shape than I thought. It's a good thing I've got enough time and practice targets to get back into my groove.'

Following those thoughts, Kirou quickly rushed to the area and began combat with his new targets with renewed vigor.