Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Retrospective

Chapter 19: Retrospective

 

Parth wiped his brow with a towel and sat down on the floor. The team training had come to an end, and both the teams had settled down.

“We will have a rematch when I have built up my reserves. The only reason you won was because you have more mana,” said Andrea as she plopped down next to him.

“And you don’t think my reserves would have grown even further by that time?” he said with a smirk.

Andrea had been salty ever since the team battle. She didn't like to lose. He could relate quite well to that.

Unfortunately for her, she had the stamina, but not as much mana as him. She believed that she would have beaten him otherwise. He begged to differ. A loss was a loss. He had learned to live with his losses. At the same time, a victory was a victory. He was growing to love those.

“Doesn’t matter, mister. We will be having a rematch,” she said.

He wordlessly nodded in response. Initially, when he had seen her, there was this odd sensation within him. His mana felt all agitated, and his gauntlets seemed ready to snap out. Going by her expression, he figured that she had felt something similar too.

Only when she had drawn her artifacts did he realize why. She wore the armored boots that he had seen down in the armory. The same boots which were placed opposite the gauntlets. The same boots that had viscerally put him off, for some reason. He didn't feel anything like that now. Maybe it was due to his compatibility with the gauntlets. He was ninety-eight percent in sync with it, after all. The boots were the antithesis of the gauntlets, both in shape and function. So, it made sense to him that he had felt so when they were unbound.

Now that they were bound to her, he didn’t feel any of that negativity. Although, there was something else. It was as if the two artifacts knew each other. Like there was something long forgotten. He just didn’t know what.

He looked around at the others and saw that Kwame was flat on the ground, spent. He was not injured, but he had been physically drained after the practice.

Moira, on the other hand, had a scowl perpetually etched on her face. She had healed herself just fine, but she was still pissed. He could understand why. She faced bad matchups during the mock battle and couldn’t do what she set out to do.

Stefan was just silently sitting, looking no worse for wear. Parth hadn’t interacted with many synthires, but if every one of them had similar physical capabilities, then it would be a challenge. Hostile synthires with offensive weapons would pose a major problem. Stefan himself did not have any weapons on hand, but he had done exceptionally well with the makeshift weapons made out of Andrea's ice. It was a given that he would be loading up on other weapons before heading into the dungeon. His artifact, the Inspectacle, was not a tool of combat, but rather one of analysis. Although, any half-decent combatant with such an artifact on hand would be troublesome to beat.

Emilia, meanwhile, looked nonplussed. She was entirely unruffled after the whole thing. He would be like that too if he could wave all incoming attacks away. He could see why the Hollow Crown was feared. If the wielder was allowed time to get better with it, they would pose a great threat to everyone's chances of winning.

It still felt like a stupid reason for why people jumped the wielders of this artifact early on when it was not a game. The political angle was stupid too. It was purely driven by the fragile egos of some noble families and their centuries-old feud with long-dead wielders of the same artifact.

“So, boxer huh?” Andrea asked out of the blue, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Yup. Taekwondo?” he asked, glancing at her ruffled and singed uniform.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds before he spoke again.

"How far along were you?" he asked. Just by the fight, he could say that she was no hobbyist. This was someone who had spent blood and sweat bettering her craft.

“Tried out for the World Championships. Didn’t make it. Heck, I haven’t won any national tourneys. Came close several times. Walked away with a bronze, then a silver. Never a gold. What about you?”

“Tried professional boxing. Lost the two matches I had been in,” he said.

“Why not Olympic boxing? Didn’t try for that?” she asked.

"I did do Olympic-style boxing before I went pro. Won a few tourneys as well. But I don't know, there was always this urgency to go pro. At this point, I don't even know why. Won't ever know. Career's dead and buried since we came here."

It was nice, talking about this to someone who could understand his woes. She was the same age, so both of them had been transported before their careers could ever take off.

"Fair enough," she said before her face warped into a smug smile. "I am more advanced then. I beat you in terms of achievements. Just wait. I'll beat you next time," she finished.

 “Both of us didn’t make it out of our countries. In my book, same difference,” he said, not giving an inch.

“We’ll see dude, we’ll see,” she said right before her stomach growled loudly.   

“Hungry?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Duh. Let’s all go and get some food,” she exclaimed as she got up briskly.

Everyone just got up without any objections. The training had left them all famished.

“Food alone will not do for me, I’m afraid. I’ll meet you all later,” Stefan said as he walked out.

As the ones unused to him looked at him in confusion, Emilia spoke up.

“He needs to get his synthetic sustenance. He can eat food, but he doesn’t really derive nutrition from it,” she explained to those not in the know.

“Ah, yeah. Synthire,” muttered Kwame.

“Let’s get going. He’ll be fine,” said Andrea as she began walking out.

 

---

 

A couple of hours later, Parth’s team was back in their usual training grounds.

“I saw the footage of your mock battle. Before I begin, can each of you tell me what could have been done better? We’ll start with you, Knuckleball," said Don.

Kwame was silent for a moment before he bit his lips and sighed in dismay.

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“I could not beat her. Even when I pushed the Knuckleball with as much speed as it would allow in that distance, she was able to stop me,” said Kwame.

“Yes, but that is not what I was asking. What could you have done better?”

After another minute of silence, Kwame hesitantly said, “I could have switched targets?”

"Correct. She was countering you. You could not beat her in a head-on attack. Instead, you should have brought the blades out and sent the ball bashing into the other two people as you maintained your distance. She would have moved to block it. Or she might not have, but you didn't try it even once. So we never know. I'll tell you more in just a second," he said and turned towards Moira expectantly.

"I hesitated. I had a couple of high-yield clubs in hand. Even if Stefan dodged those, the explosion could have provided some good knockback. I was just afraid of hurting him too much, I guess. Another issue is that I took to the air too late. But I don't feel like it would have mattered anyway. He was pinpointing his throws to a ridiculous level," she said with a sour expression on her face.

"You got it all correct. Hesitation is one major issue with both of you. I can't magically beat it out of you. But remember that the monsters in the dungeon are just that, monsters. Take them out without hesitating. They are not cute animals. The people, on the other hand, you'll have to come to a decision at some point. If they attack you to kill, either you survive, or you pull your punches and die. It is as simple as that. Hopefully, such things won't happen as much. Things have changed over the years. Still, one can never know. It is always better to expect the worst and be prepared for it.

"As for your other points, I don't have much to say. You could have thrown a few cards over at the Crylleret, but it wouldn't have mattered. With the Hollow Crown in the opposition, your cards were bound to get slapped away. It was a bad matchup. Your role in this fight was not to dole out the attacks. I'll elaborate in a minute," he said and turned towards Parth.

Parth had been thinking about all that had gone in the fight, and he knew what his mistakes were. It was glaringly easy to spot.

“I didn’t lead,” he finished simply.

"Correct. You are the one with the most experience on this team. Even though it is not relevant to the situation, you have been in fights for a long time. You should have kept a cool head," he said.

Parth almost snorted at that last bit, but then he steeled himself and turned towards his team.

“I apologize. I stopped talking the moment I got into a melee fight. I was too caught up with the idea of fighting a trained fighter. Colonel over here doesn’t count. I suppose I wanted to see what a trained fighter could do with an artifact. Not to mention, our artifacts are opposites. There was this sort of weird energy the moment we entered the room,” he sighed.

"We could tell. You didn't exactly keep your eyes off of each other," said Moira dryly.

“Yeah. It’s all excuses at this point. I will be better,” he said, and the both of them nodded.

“My main issue with you lot is that you should have instantly recognized the Inspectacle and the Crown based on the markings alone. Did you not do that? Did none of you realize it before the fight even started? You did read up on all the artifacts right?” asked Don.

“Yes,” they mumbled in unison.

"Then why did you make it into one on one fights instead of teaming up? They did it correctly. They had the advantage in individual matchups in at least two cases and acted accordingly. The moment the Inspectacle knew where you were coming from, he targeted you, knowing that he'd be able to predict your cards and attack you. He must have caught your hesitation. The moment he didn't have the ammunition, he switched with the Crown. Look here," said Don as he pulled up a screen in front of them and replayed the section of the battle when Stefan switched targets.

“His goal was to never beat you,” he continued as he paused the video and moved his fingers across the screen, drawing arrows on it.

“He wanted to close his distance on me,” said Kwame with a gasp.

"Yes, he couldn't approach you from afar. You could easily keep him at a distance. So, he left the job of keeping you occupied to his teammate. She was able to hold you in place while he covered the distance. When he was close enough, and couldn't do anything more against an airborne foe, he took the opportunity and jumped towards you. By this time, he was closer to you, and could easily close the distance before you could do much. It doesn't help that his artifact was designed for information gathering. He just uses it correctly.

"Also, notice how the Crown did not hesitate at all and switched tactics on the fly. Her mistake was that she could have easily overpowered Dealer and helped Inspectacle out as he just spent his time dodging your attacks. If he had a sturdy weapon in hand, he might have just done that while closing the distance.

“As for you, Mr. Pygilist, apart from your lack of communication, I have just one issue with you. You had way more mana than her.  You could have overwhelmed her quickly and aided your teammates even faster. I still appreciate that you subdued her and jumped in to help your teammate right on time. Things could have been better if you would have done it sooner. Learn to rein in your battle lust,” he finished.

They all took a few moments to digest what he had said.

“You mentioned something about my role in this fight,” ventured Moira.

"You should understand that your artifact is not a frontline fighting tool. It can do a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that you should use it as an offense-only tool. The best option in this scenario would have been for you to team up with either of your teammates and support them. Either by running interference in the form of barriers or by healing them up. If an opportunity presented itself, you were to unleash a surprise attack. We already trained for all of that, but in the heat of the battle, you forgot everything," he said.

“I don’t do this when practicing with the triplets,” she mumbled.

"That is because there was no real sense of danger or anything adversarial between you all. You didn't know this team, so the atmosphere was different. Moreover, the triplets could never counter you as these people did, so that was another factor. It is still a good thing. Not many artifacts can counter you like that, so it is good to know firsthand how some things can play out. Don't worry too much about it."

“How am I not supposed to worry? It’s not like we’ll be together from the start. I’ll have to use it as a frontline weapon till then,” she said with exasperation.

“We talked about all those strategies. You are letting this failure rattle you. Don’t,” he said as he shook his head. “What have I been teaching you so far?” he asked, looking at everyone.

"Hand-to-hand combat. And strategies on how to use our artifacts in a fight," said Kwame.

"Yes. You spent a good amount of time learning to fight. This battle was fully long-range, so the two of you couldn't really showcase anything. Not like you are at a level to showcase things. You're still beginners. I am teaching you hand-to-hand because if someone closes the distance and your artifact is far, or in the Dealer's case, spent, you both need something to fall back on. Make no mistake, artifacts reign supreme. You all have gotten better at using yours, but forgot all of that in the heat of the battle," he said.

“How do we not forget, then?” asked Kwame.

“With practice,” Don said.

Which was an issue since there was not enough time.

“Anyway, they had some good combination moves. It’s easier for them because the Hollow Crown is what it is. We aren’t going to be doing anything like that just yet. You all need more time working alongside each other to pull such things off. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of your teammates’ artifacts. That’s what we are going to be focusing on today. Also, Knuckleball, I am going to run you through extra drills. You barely spent any mana today. Now that I think about it, Pygilist can join you as well. Dealer, you are off the hook because you took hits and even had to heal yourself. But no slacking, after training, you’ll be spending all your time memorizing the artifact list once more. I want you to come up with scenarios on how to act against each one. Now, let’s get started.”

Moira and Kwame groaned as they moved toward where he was pointing. Parth silently followed, his mind going through the dressing down once more.

All of those points were simple. They had been training as a team for five days, and it was clearly not enough. It was not like they could ask for more time though. They had to make do with what they had.

Going in, he thought that a mock battle would boost their confidence. Alas, it seemed like it had rattled Kwame and Moira. Parth was used to defeat, not like this could be called such. The fight could have gone either way. There was no conclusion; and they were stopped before one could be reached.

He was confident that they would have won.

Yet, Don didn't seem to think so. The old man was a taskmaster and was most likely using this as fuel for more training. Only time would tell if this was the right approach. He'd personally never say no to more training though, so he just kept quiet and moved along.

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