Chapter 395 - 10 Seconds
"Well then, you guessed it pretty well, huh?" Eisen asked with a laugh, and Brody nodded his head with a shrug. "It's kinda obvious they don't have higher quality weapons here. The Staff is just a stick as well, and the bow is barely passable, so it kinda makes sense that the big one doesn't have a proper weapon that he should be using instead of… that." The Demon-Orc sighed, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms and started looking around the area.
"Fair point, the buildings are pretty run-down, the quality of the streets isn't that high either… Most of the clothes they're wearing are pretty ripped up, so…" Eisen muttered quietly, and then he turned toward the six Dragons standing next to them with a deep frown.
"How could you let this place decline like that? If you really knew us, then you should also know that none of us would let this kind of thing pass." Eisen pointed out, and the Blue Dragon slowly nodded his head. "We know, we're quite sorry about that. Nobody here really has the raw exposition to become good craftsmen, and about ten years ago, we had to move villages because the old one was completely destroyed to nothing but ashes. We're sorry." He explained, and Eisen just ended up sighing in the end.
"It's fine, we can deal with that later. The town will be established in probably around ten minutes." Eisen replied immediately, and it seemed like the Half-Dragons that heard him were quite annoyed at that statement.
"Hah, right! As if we'd lose to you!" The Black Half-Dragon exclaimed, burying his claws inside of the wooden so that he could hold it more easily, and Eisen thought he should try and make use of one of the new abilities that he gained very recently when his Mana-Copy skill ranked up to 3.
He was now able to copy motions as well, as if he was recording something. It was kind of hard to do that though and it required constant attention, but Eisen was sure that he could manage somehow.
And so, Eisen quickly spread his mana around the area that they were supposed to fight in, and the Silver Half-Dragoness seemed to have somewhat noticed this fact as well, but just kept quiet about it. Out of the three of them, it seemed like she was the most hesitant to fighting as well, so Eisen just smiled at her with a nod and then started concentrating on copying everything, while Kiron slowly grabbed the box out of his pocket and pulled out his sword, immediately making the three Half-Dragons look at him surprised.
Especially the Black Half-Dragon, who was probably quite aware of how hard it was to handle such a heavy item. But even then, Kiron seemed to be able to swing this blade around as if it weighed near to naught.
"Ah, right, before I forget…" Eisen muttered to himself and then quickly called the Paladin over to him, before grabbing his hand to start wrapping it in some cloth, like most fist-fighters usually did to properly protect their hands.
But Eisen had a little bit of a different reason. While it was possible to use Necromantic Mana and infuse it into a crystal, the same was possible with other types of energy, including Holy Energy. Over the past few days, Eisen had Xenia fill up a crystal with as much basic Holy Energy as she could muster, something which she appreciated because it meant she could level up her skill a little more for her Level-Up Quest, and then, Eisen used that crystal to create some 'Holy Cloth', as Eisen figured he could call it, and mixed in some parts of other crystals to enhance its use in direct combat. That Cloth was then specially made into bandages that the Paladin was now wearing on his hands and lower arms, which would hopefully enhance his combat capabilities a little.
"Thank you!" He exclaimed, and Eisen just nodded his head and smiled at him. "Of course. I'll make you something better later as well, don't worry." The old man told him, before then turning to his Grandson.
"Both of you, do your best." Eisen said with a wink, and the two Half-Dragons then quickly turned toward the other three, before the Duel was properly started by Brody, who would be overlooking this with a strict eye.
"Start." The Demon-Orc exclaimed, and immediately, the Red Half-Dragoness started properly pulling on her bow, and Eisen concentrated his movement-mana-copy on her so that he could get a proper idea of how she used her items.
And while the bow was pulled to the back properly, he focused on the Silver Half-Dragoness who was casting a spell on the arrow, apparently, and when the arrow properly left her bow and flew toward Kiron and the Paladin, the Black Half-Dragon also started moving forward, basically dragging the log across the ground the whole time before just pulling it forward to the front of his body for the first attack.
But what he didn't expect was that by that time, his target had already moved away to attack two very different people.
The Red and Silver ones stood at the back, the Red one basically directly in front of the Silver one, and before anyone knew it, Kiron swung his large blade forward horizontally and stopped his blade just where it would be able to cut into both their necks at the same time.
At least that was the plan, but the Half-Dragoness quickly rushed to the side before the Blade hit them while preparing another shot, and in response to Brody loudly clicking his tongue in the background, the Red one became distracted for a moment, which Kiron used to trip her over with his tail. And just when she pulled her head up to keep walking, Kiron already twisted his body around to once more do the same thing he wanted to do before, just from the other side.
Now, Kiron's blade was pressed directly onto the Red one's throat while the tip of his sword was in front of the Silver one's.
In the meantime, the Paladin also took care of the Black Half-Dragon. His movements were incredibly slow, and it took a while to recover from any attack that he did, so the Paladin had more than enough time to get a few attacks in with the other Half-Dragon, constantly using Holy Energy to do general, spread-out damage to important body-parts of his. So of course, it didn't take long for him to get his final hit in either, a simple, open palm shot to the bottom of the Black one's lower jaw.
The Holy Energy penetrated his skull and made him stagger in confusion a little bit, because while it maybe didn't do any physical damage, it was enough to interrupt proper, logical thinking.
And when the Black one ended up letting go of his Log, the Paladin had enough time to make use of one of the techniques that Brody taught him, a simple way to hold an oponent bigger and heavier than you down.
He flipped the Black one onto his stomach and pressed his knee into his lower back while pulling one of his arms onto his back while twisting it in the most unnatural direction, and on top of that used his tail to make sure that the Black one couldn't somehow use his own.
And so, the fight which had started merely 10 seconds ago was already decided.
"The Winners are Kiron and our Bronze Buddy." The Demon-Orc said with a proud grin, considering that he did spend a lot of time over the last little while making sure these two gained more proper techniques for their combat-style.
But one of the three losing Half-Dragons had something slightly against this outcome. Well, all of them did, it was just that one of them was the fastest in speaking up. "Hey, that's not fair! He distracted me!" The Red Half-Dragoness exclaimed as she pointed at Brody in response to him clicking his tongue during the fight, but the Demon-Orc just twisted his face in annoyance.
"The fuck're you talking about?" He asked while crossing his arms, before the Red Half-Dragoness just glared at him. "You deliberately made noise to mess us up, you asshole!" She yelled, and while the Red Dragon was feeling his soul slowly leave his body at what his Daughter was saying, Brody stepped up closer toward her with anger in his eyes.
"Alright, let me make something very, very clear here. Yup, I clicked my tongue, but that wasn't deliberate. I wouldn't ever mess up a fight like that on purpose. It was nothing but a reflex at your selfish idiocy. Just ignoring the fact that the composition of your group is completely messed up, if this was a real fight, your friend over there would be dead and you would have just let this happen. What a fucking coward are you? You didn't even turn around to check if she was alright, not for a single moment. That's why I clicked my tongue, because you're a pathetic idiot." Brody said with an angry glare, making the Red Half-Dragoness back off with each and every word that he said.
"B-But even then, this was so unfair! Look at that guy's weapon, that's just an unfair advantage!" She exclaimed, and Brody couldn't help but grind his teeth in response to this. "Right, and a three versus two isn't an unfair setup? On top of that, the other one fought bare-handed. Just because you're not smart enough to understand that you should have planned this all properly beforehand doesn't mean you're allowed to complain afterward. Now, shut the fuck up already or I'll snap your bow in half." Brody told her annoyedly, before turning around and heading toward the other Originals while mumbling to himself, and Xenia slowly looked at him with a wry smile.
"Everything alright at home?" The High-Elf asked, and Brody slowly kept grumbling and looked away from her, "Of course, I'm happier than I've ever been, I have a lovely, beautiful wife, we're expecting a bab- I'm happy, alright?" In the middle of hte sentence, Brody stopped himself from continuing to speak, but at this point, the other Originals already heard what he started to say.
Everyone else was luckily kind of busy gathering around the five Half-Dragons, so they could speak somewhat freely. "Oh, so that's what it is? You getting cold feet about being a dad?" Xenia asked, kind of split between mocking him and actually feeling sympathetic to him, but Brody immediately shook his head.
"What, no! I'm excited about being a dad, I really am, but…" He said and then started rubbing the bridge of his nose, "We found out last night… She did like five pregnancy tests and they were all positive, but we didn't go to a doctor yet to find out for sure. But when she called her parents, they of course said they'd be coming over immediately, and my in-laws are very, very… very…"
"Annoying?" Eisen suggested with a smile, and Brody immediately nodded his head. "That's a calm way to put it. Her dad's been trying to talk to me about closing the martial-arts school down for years now to start some bullshit as an office guy in his company."
"Ah, yes, I remember In-Laws like that. My Wife's were the same, they wanted to convince us to stay in Japan and wanted me to learn under my father-in-law." Eisen pointed out, before Brody nodded his head. "I bet… I mean, I ain't gonna budge, it's not like that, but he keeps making me feel bad about everything I'm doing. It's probably gonna be the same with the capsule." Brody said with a sigh, and Eisen chuckled in response.
"Well, it's gonna end up find if you and your wife are on the same page with this." The old man said, and Brody slowly nodded his head and smiled.
"Yeah, we are."