บท 50: Favor
It took Zaos a full month for him to become good and fast enough to finish his work and have some time to learn a thing or two from Rolim. First of all, he learned how to keep a good sword sharp, and he was caught off guard when he heard that voice.
Your Blacksmithing has reached level 01
"How weird… to think that doing this simple maintenance job would fall in the blacksmith category," Zaos said and then frowned.
Although it was rare to find armor or sword that needed to be sharpened or repaired, since the time to do a decent job was long, only a few of those were more than enough to keep Zaos busy. Now that Zaos had three skills that could increase his health, he was fairly certain that he would be more or less fine in the defense department. However, considering that Laiex was holding back on the spars, Zaos still felt like he needed something more… as if that wasn't enough. He wasn't confident that his speed would reach a decent level before he became ten years old. Zaos had to train his vision and reaction speed, and he could think of a single way to do that…
"To think that I would have to bow my head to a seven years old child…" Zaos said and then sighed.
Drannor trains with Zaos now and then, but just doing that once every two weeks isn't enough. In order for Zaos to become fast enough to follow his father's movements, he will have to get used to Drannor's speed and then force him to become faster as well.
"Mom, do you mind if I train with Drannor in the mornings?" Zaos asked when they were having dinner.
"No, but you should tell him first if you are planning to do that," Lyra said. "Drian is also a busy man, so they don't have much time alone. It would be better if you convince him to train together at another hour of the day."
Zaos could understand since, unlike his father and him, Drian and Drannor had a good relationship with their father. The problem was, Drannor was too good with a spear for his own good. He was so good that he only trained for two hours every day. That was insane from Zaos's perspective, who trained two times a day, and each session lasted for three hours. That was as insane as it was humiliating.
Regardless, the next day Zaos left his home around the same time his father left for work, and then he headed toward where Drannor lived. In the end, a walk of ten minutes had been just enough for Zaos to reach the place. That had been the first time he had been on the left side of the palace. Still, he didn't imagine both residences would be so identical… the walls, the gate, the mansion, everything was pretty much the same. Zaos assumed both houses had been with the idea that they were equally important for the royal family.
The guards of the place recognized Zaos, his mother, and also the guards escorting them. It has been a while since the incident in the castle, but both houses still were being careful. Putting that aside, Zaos found Drannor taking a nap in the training grounds. He concluded the training session had just finished since the bot still was wearing his practicing gear. Although he was snoring pretty loudly, Drannor woke up when Zaos approached.
"Zaos?" Drannor asked with a sleepy expression while he was scratching his face. "How weird to find you here?"
"I have come to ask for a favor," Zaos said. "I want to spar with you every day until I manage to land a clean hit on my father."
Drannor looked at Zaos with a blank expression, and after a while, he actually yawned. However, it didn't look like he paid attention to his words…
"That is not possible," Drannor said.
"... Why?" Zaos asked.
"Because I only train five days per week," Drannor said. "Lately, I have been thinking that I should increase my training time since I am not improving as much as before, but I don't want to train every day. Still, I don't mind sparring with you for a while in the afternoon."
"All right, that is good enough, I guess," Zaos said.
"I feel like I suddenly lost something, but whatever," Drannor said. "You owe me one, Zaos."
Things went as much smoother than Zaos had expected, and while he owed Drannor one, that was just a minor nuisance. In the end, Zaos physical training was increased by one more hour. Thus Zaos would have a little less time to study magic, but that much was fine since he already could practice some spells like Iron Skin in a fight. Besides, he needed to look for another magic book to study.
The next day when Drannor showed up, Zaos was already ready with his wooden longsword. Training with armor was fine, but he needed to become faster, at least when he spars with Drannor.
"Attack as fast as you can," Zaos said. "It doesn't matter if I get hit one hundred of times. Just keep going."
"Okay then," Drannor said.
Since both boys were already ready, they began to train. There was no need for rules aside from the ordinary ones since both of them want to improve. As usual, when Zaos entered his range, Drannor began to thrust his spear in his direction. In one moment, the spear was at a resting position, while in the other, it was about to hit Zaos's chest. Zaos, who had assumed a defensive stance from the very beginning, was forced to take a few steps back, even when his wooden sword blocked most attacks. When he failed at blocking, one single attack on his stomach almost made Zaos bend his knee. However, Zaos's eyes didn't wave after a single good hit. Even more than that, he smiled while he touched the area that was hit.
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