Chapter 45: A ‘Friendly’ Spar

When I returned to the living room, Lilly and Seyari had shifted their gazes away from each other, but made their discomfort obvious. Lilly’s armor shined a brighter blue in the sunlight, contrasting with her pink skin. Silver haired Seyari, meanwhile, was literally glowing (slightly). Thankfully neither of them looked to have made any moves toward the other. They were, however, standing facing slightly apart in obstinate silence.

Lilly broke the silence. “So, what kind of weapon do you use, Renna?”

Seyari gave me an odd look.

“I said she could use the nickname,” I shrugged my lower shoulders.

“I thought you didn’t like it?” Seyari asked.

“It’s complicated,” I replied and turned to Lilly who had an impatient look on her face. “I use a spear, but barely. I want to learn how to use a halberd to take advantage of my reach.”

My limited blacksmith training came in handy sometimes. I had passing knowledge of several different weapon types.

Beside me Seyari gave a look that said ‘we’ll talk later’.

Lilly had us stop by a blacksmith on our way. Unsurprisingly, they had no halberds, but I was given a metal-tipped spear. I was lucky: it was about the only weapon in the place. I guess in a town hidden by wards with an extremely powerful demonic leader, there wasn’t much use for armaments. Lilly held it for a moment. A glow of magic moved from her to the weapon.

“It’s not a proper enchantment, but at least you won’t snap this thing in half the first time you swing it.” Lilly said, handing me the weapon.

I inspected it with aura sight, realized I didn’t even know what to look for if there was a trick here, and sheepishly accepted my weapon.

From there, Seyari and I followed Lilly to a fallow field far from the town proper.

“Okay!” She announced when we arrived. “Here’s how we do this! You start on one end, and I’ll start on the other. You come at me with everything you’ve got and we’ll see how you do. Then! I’ll give you a small peek at what I can do.”

“Is magic allowed?” I asked.

“Of course!” Lilly beamed and put on her helmet.

She turned and walked to the far end of the field. I stood at the other end on the hard-packed sandy dirt, feeling the balance of my spear. Seyari moved about ten meters away.

I was surprised she’d not complained more. Either I was going to get chewed out for going along with Lilly, or she thought we’d get something out of this. Some insight into the Sovereign of Lust’s capabilities, probably. I hoped.

I took a fighting stance. The stance I needed to take for a spear conflicted with how I wanted to stand to fight with my claws and tail. I chose the stance for the spear since I’d more or less asked for the weapon.

“Ready?” Lilly shouted from across the battlefield.

Given her odd attitude, I’d expected her to remain in a casual pose, but she had taken a stance of her own. I hadn’t seen many people who were trained with a sword, but the stance seemed odd in a way I couldn’t place.

I’d be worried if I had any hopes of beating Lilly. As it stood, I just wanted to learn something and come out with all my limbs more or less intact.

“I’m ready!” I shouted back.

“You’d better be! You lock up like that in a real fight and you’d be dead!”

I know that! The demons and beasts I had to fight on my island had forced me to learn that much.

By the time I was thinking about the other foes I’d fought, I had already started to sprint across the field, claws digging through the sandy dirt under me.

Ten meters out, I pulled on my magic. My tail lashed forward slinging a thick arc of fire. I twisted in my run, using my lower arms to balance opposite my tail. The spear got in the way and I had to correct. I’d almost tried to get into claw range.

Lilly darted to the side and dodged my fire. She had moved right into my path. I thrust forward with the spear. The weapon may not have been truly enchanted, but I had to pretend that it was. I wouldn’t be using a weapon against a real demonic opponent unless it could hurt them.

My opponent bent her body at an impossible angle and the tip only just grazed her armor. I darted back out her sword’s range.

I knew she could move faster. I’d seen it. She was toying with me. With practiced ease, I channeled the anger that rose up through my magic. Flames lit up my claws, horns, and tail.

The spear handle started to scorch. I quickly pulled my magic back from my spear hand and the polished wood thankfully didn’t catch.

Lilly’s eyes glowed crimson. Unless she decided to go on the offensive early, that would be her aura sight.

I turned mine on as well. Her aura was big and bright enough that I couldn’t immediately see where she was focusing her magic. I quickly shut my aura sight off.

More frustratingly, since she was completely uninterested in attacking, she made no openings for me. I really didn’t think it’d be a good idea to test her patience by waiting for her, either.

I dipped into a low crouch and quickly darted to one side. Lilly moved along with me. I feinted a spear strike, then tried for a tail slap from the other angle.

Lilly moved like she was expecting it. Fighting for my life had taught me a few things, and I took advantage of one of my lower arms to throw a handful of sandy dirt in her face. Her helmet had a mostly open face. My entire plan had been to blind her for a moment.

My dirty trick landed, but a shimmer of magic stopped anything from reaching inside Lilly’s helmet. Since she was able to see, Lilly had no problem deflecting my spear. True to her word, the spear strained, but did not break.

We continued to trade blows. I didn’t manage to land a solid hit. I kept flipping between my claws and my spear and couldn’t seem to find a rhythm that made the two styles work together. At some point, Lilly called for me to stop.

“Hand me your spear.” Lilly ordered.

I handed her the spear. There was a large black mark along the shaft. The Sovereign of Lust looked at me, looked at the spear, and then tossed it lightly to one side.

“Why do you want to use that?” She asked.

“I’m tall and it gives me even more reach,” I replied then added in a smaller voice, “and it’s straightforward to learn.”

Lilly looked me up and down. “Smart. But until you find one strong enough for you, you’ll want to stick with your claws.” Lilly pointed to my hands. “You’re a wrath demon. Those are going to be more reliable than almost any other weapon you could get. Did you know you almost broke the spear despite my magic?”

“I did?” I really couldn’t tell.

Lilly smiled. “Yep! You’re probably physically stronger than I am, which is good. You’re only half bad when you fight like a berserker, too.”

“Thanks, I guess? But I can’t use my claws if I have to pretend to be human.”

Lilly giggled darkly. “Pretend to be human? Renna, I don’t give a flying squirrel how you fight things weaker than you. But you can’t pretend to be human and fight something like yourself.”

“Oh.” I looked down at my hands.

Lilly leaned forward. “You fight with that stick like a student who’s only been taught the forms.”

I winced. She got that one right. I looked back to Seyari who was watching us with a carefully neutral expression. “Could you teach me anything about using a spear?” I asked, not wanting to give up on the weapon.

“Yep!” Lilly replied cheerfully.

“Great, so can—”

“But I won’t!” The Sovereign of Lust interrupted with a tilted smile. “I can’t make you a master in a day, you’ll need to be ready to fight as you are, and I honestly don’t want to put out the effort.”

I looked to Seyari, then glared at Lilly. “I’m not going to stop learning a practical weapon.”

“I’m not saying you should stop!” Lilly tittered. “I’m just saying I want a good fight to see what you can do, and you’re worthless with a spear right now. Next time we meet, go ahead and show me what you’ve learned.”

I smiled at Lilly, showing all my teeth. “I will.”

“Good! Now! Fight me like a demon and don’t hold back. When I think I’ve seen enough, I’ll fight back and you’d better be ready for it since I won’t warn you.” Lilly returned a fanged grin of her own.

I shifted my weight and rushed her. I swung left and low at the same time. Lilly barely shifted her weight away and my claws only grazed her. I tried for a feint with fire into a grab. Lilly slipped out and flipped away, neatly, but narrowly dodging my tail. Around us the dirt compacted and scorched as we fought.

She kept on the defensive, but my glancing hits started to become more frequent. Without the spear, I put my full strength into my blows and it forced her to dodge rather than block.  My strength continued to surprise me I felt stronger than the last time I’d really fought something, back when I was up against the titan scorpion. My magic was certainly lasting longer.

A tipping point came when I finally forced Lilly to block a strike rather than deflect it. I’d managed to contort myself and get in with two clawed hands at the same time as a tail sweep.

Despite its appearance, the flat of her thin blade stopped my blow. However, the force was strong enough to bend Lilly’s arm back sharply. I heard a crack and she staggered, leaving two deep footprints behind her.

I quickly moved to follow up on my strike. Nearly too late, I missed that Lilly had decided to fight back. I hadn’t felt any anger from her, either. She swung her sword in an odd arc, before it split into a dozen bladed segments held together by chain.

I wasn’t able to completely avoid her strike, and the bladed segments dug deep. I shuddered as I felt one scratch across bone. Any later and she might have taken off my arm. I didn’t know if I could regenerate that.

I drew my stance back. The magic from Lilly’s sword meant the wound would take some time to close. My upper left arm was mostly useless for now. I lashed my tail and waited for the follow-up strike.

Lilly simply circled me. I watched her carefully and noticed that her form seemed to blur at the edges. Instinctively, I darted to a side, but not before I felt a blade pressing into my neck.

“Yield,” Lilly spoke in monotone.

The illusion I had been staring at disappeared into nothing.

“I… yield,” I choked out carefully.

The blade retreated and Lilly bounced on her heels back around to face me. “So! What did you learn?”

“Illusions suck,” I replied, rubbing the shallow gash on my neck.

The deep wound on my shoulder had nearly stopped bleeding.

“Really? I thought mine was pretty good!” The smile disappeared. “You should keep your aura sight on in battle. It’s a lot harder to use magic and get away with it if you have to hide your own aura while doing it.”

“You can hide your aura when you use magic?” I asked, surprised.

Lilly shrugged. “Very few demons can. Ov, for instance. Or so I’ve heard.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Lilly echoed innocently.

I sighed. She couldn’t be more obvious about dodging the question if she’d announced as much.

“Anything else?” Lilly continued.

Seeing we were done, Seyari walked toward us from the sidelines. She looked contemplative; an odd mix of shaken and disappointed.

I flexed my claws and looked to Lilly. “I should use my strength to overwhelm my opponents?”

“Eh, kinda? You need to be smart about it. What I really want to get into your surprisingly thin skull is that you should never fight a real opponent without knowing what they’re capable of.”

“Did you know what I was capable of?” I asked.

I didn’t ask about the thin skull comment. I feared the answer would somehow make even less sense.

Lilly simply smiled at my question. Yeah, okay, she knew. I could think of a few ways how and I really hoped the answer was hearsay combined with her underling Mereneth’s account of the fight on the Lady of Liseu.

I looked to Seyari and then to the spear. “I’m going to learn a proper weapon.”

Lilly shrugged. “Do what you want. But incorporating a spear into your current fighting style will be difficult and slow.”

Beside me, Seyari sighed. “I hate it, but Lilly’s right. You need a lot of work with the spear, and you’ll have to change how you fight. That won’t be easy.”

“Hey, why do you hate that I’m right? I’ll have you know I’m usually right!” Lilly pouted jokingly. At least the fight seemed to have improved someone’s mood.

Seyari’s eyebrow twitched and it didn’t take my senses to tell she wasn’t happy about Lilly’s flippant attitude.

“Could you enchant a spear, Lilly, so Seyari can teach me properly?” I asked both of them.

I may have been stuck playing referee between these two, but I’d do my best job at keeping things civil. I certainly couldn’t stop Lilly with my arm halfway off. I ignored how I ignored the pain.

Seyari was the first to answer. “I would love to teach you.” She glared a challenge at Lilly.

“Sounds great!” Lilly said with disarming friendliness. “Oh! I can have Smith make you something! I’ll even enchant the spear when I do your dress so you don’t have to worry about breaking it.”

“Won’t the enchantment read as demonic under aura sight?” I asked. “Also, Smith? Is that really his name?”

Lilly shrugged. “It’s his family name, but I call him that because it’s fun. And I guarantee no one will be able to tell a demon enchanted your stuff. I’m not going to do anything a skilled mortal mage couldn’t pull off, anyway.”

“Oh, uh, okay then. Thanks?” I looked to Seyari.

She shrugged. “You don’t need my permission. You know what I think about all this.”

“I’m not that bad! Really!” Lilly protested.

Seyari rolled her eyes, but I could see tension in her shoulders. I’d make sure we left tomorrow.