NOVEL WEB Chapter 9: Tryouts
(General POV)
The tests that every new recruit was made to go through was conducted by the Loki executives themselves while Loki watched from the side lines. It was a test of strength and skill as well as a measure of a person's character.
Finn would pick up his weapon and have the aspiring young men and women fight him however they pleased while he fended them off. His experience with fighting had taught him the value of life and how much others valued it as well.
If they valued life enough, it would show in their spirit. When one had a goal in mind, they fought particularly harder and with a certain fluidity. Of course the nature of that goal be it something personal or insidious also bled into their fighting style which the captain of the Loki Familia would feel out.
Based on these interactions, Finn made his judgement on all those who'd shown up today that had fought. And he was quite disappointed with what he'd seen so far. Nobody possessed any outstanding skill, nor did they appear to possess commitment or the strength of heart to fight for the sake of the Familia.
As it stood now, there was only one person he'd had left to test. Lyze had stood unmoving from his corner, not speaking a word to anyone but seemingly observing what was happening in silence. Though this confused everyone that bothered to pay attention to him because as far as they could see, he was meant to be blind.
But Lyze had seen it all with his powers. And it was during this that he could train his 'Thread' power that had been granted to him by way of Nekros's blood. Although he could predict the Pallum's next move, he was still unsure if he could dodge or block them. And considering that the diminutive adventurer was fighting at only a fraction of his real capabilities drove further home how much he needed to improve.
If not to gain full control of the turbulent drive of power residing in him, then at least to defend himself in the future against inevitable rivals that would seek to undermine him and be obstacles in his path. Extravagant as a successful adventurer's life could be, it was also riddled with bumps and jagged edges along the way.
And there were definitely going to be a lot of those for him from now on, especially if he wasn't accepted into this Familia. In a typical isekai situation, the MC would be brought in around the time of the main events. But Lyze had been brought here a whole 8 years before the canon events begin. It even stretched further back than some key events that built up to Bell's arrival in the city.
What was worse was that it was a grey area in his knowledge. He didn't know a thing about anybody or anything in this point of the timeline. And his presence alone would change a whole lot of things. So without being armed by mighty foreknowledge, he was just as vulnerable to the waves of fate as was everyone else.
Ais had not even taken her eyes off of him the whole time the examinations went on. He'd caught her attention the moment he'd walked in through the gate. She could feel that something was off about him. Not necessarily in a bad way but something definitely set him apart from all the other contestants.
He was of course aware of her staring but made no effort to reveal to her that that was the case. Though despite being turned away from her as if in favour of watching the fights, he used his Chaos vision to examine her. She was a total shoe in for her canon self.
But obviously she was missing a few features, most noticeable her long hair. Instead her younger self had shorter hair, just a bit longer than a bob cut but definitely shorter than a normal girls. And though she still carried an expressionless face, she was still very beautiful even at that age. He wondered if that was a consequence of her spirit blood. And she lacked the steeled aura that seasoned adventurers carried although she had her guards up for sure.
At long last, it was his turn to fight.
"You there, kid with the walking stick! Are you also here to be tested for your worth?" Finn called out to him.
Lyze nodded.
"I am. Shall I come forth?"
"Please do."
Lyze started walking towards him, using his concealed weapon as if it were an ordinary walking stick. He heard snickers of mockery coming from all around him as these wastes of space mocked him for being 'blind'.
Although he technically wasn't, to laugh at somebody simply because they had such a disadvantage while trying to join a Familia was a despicable thing to do.
One adventurer even tried to subtly spit in his way. But that adventurer found the gob of spit hover in the air for a couple of seconds before being launched back in his face. It splattered onto his eyeball and he smacked his face as the saliva began to sting him.
While others looked at him in bewilderment as his crazy behaviour, Lyze just smirked slightly as he came to a stop in front of the captain. Finn eyed him up and down. While the child was about half a foot taller than him and was obviously weaker, Finn couldn't help but find himself wanting to not underestimate the person in front of him.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"My name is Lyzof Keele, sir Finn." Lyze placed a hand on his chest bowing slightly while the other hand was on his cane. "I've been called Lyze for short in the past."
"You wouldn't mind if I addressed you the same way? Lyzof is a bit of a mouthful."
"By all means."
"Very well, Lyze. Now tell me, can you fight?"
"I can."
"Even with your obvious...impediment?"
Lyze smiled.
"I have other means of seeing sir Finn. Sight is not always attributed directly to the eyes. I'm sure you know that in the absence of one sense, the others grow stronger?"
"Indeed. I assume you have your weapon at hand then?" Finn asked, trying to see if the other boy carried any weapon on him. Finding none, his eyes settled on the cane.
"Yes, I do."
"Good. Now just like you've seen with everybody else so far, I want you to fight me while I try to gain a measure of your strength and skill. Feel free to use any move you like."
"Yes sir. But before I do that, can I request something?"
Finn cocked his eyebrows as if he wanted to go on before mentally facepalming as he realized that Lyze would not be able to see him. But it seemed Lyze continued.
"With all due respect sir Finn, I am under no illusion that I stand any sort of chance against you. And I mean no disrespect but I'm sure you understand that I have no intention of revealing all my cards in our first meeting, for my safety."
Finn nodded.
"Yes. It is a wise and mature thing to do. But is there a point to telling me this?"
"Yes. I possess a number of talents when it comes to fighting and while I doubt that I have any that could be used to defeat you...yet...I can assure you I am a more dangerous fighter than most beginners here. For that reason, could I ask you to take me a little more seriously than you have the others here? Please consider."
Finn was surprised by this request as was everybody else around. The contestants began laughing again and mocking him for being 'arrogant' and 'brazen' at demanding the great Finn to be serious with a rookie like him.
But Finn had not earnt his strength upon arrogance. Nor had his vice captain for that matter. Exchanging a glance with her, he saw her nod in agreement. Looking over to Loki, he saw that his goddess was very intrigued by this exchange. She flashed him a thumbs up while Gareth just shrugged his shoulders.
Finn returned his gaze to Lyze and smiled. Even if he hadn't gotten approval, he still would have done it. His honed senses were telling him that it was the appropriate thing to do here, as if he was supposed to wait for something.
"Very well Lyze. I shall comply with your wishes. But be warned, if I must get serious for your sake, then you may get hurt."
"I do not fear pain sir Finn. I've been given plenty of it in the last three years. I was taught to only keep my eyes on my opponent along the edge of my blade. Pain is but a distraction, a trap for certain death if I focus my attention on it while in a fight."
"Correct attitude to have on the battlefield. So, shall we begin?" asked Finn as he brandished his spear.
Lyze nodded before grabbing onto the handle of his cane. From the length of the stick, he pulled out a beautiful sharp blade that took the breath away of all who saw it. It glistened with a silver glow as he held it aloft and drove the empty sheath into the ground.
"That's a fine weapon you have lad." Gareth said from the side.
"Thank you. It was a gift from my master. I expect to carry it for all my adventurer's life."
"You must attack me first. The point of this exercise is that I assess you after all." Said Finn.
Lyze nodded in response and settled into a stance, holding Libur at eye level with his other limbs drawn close into his body. Riveria lifted her hand and made a chopping motion downwards to signal the start of the bout.
"BEGIN!"
Lyze shot forwards, almost seemingly flying towards Finn with near blinding speed. Well blinding to all the rookies that had gathered today but he was slow to they eyes of the veterans. Still Finn was surprised by the agility of the kid.
'He's fast.' He thought to himself as he used the spear to block Libur's slash. Although he obviously wasn't using all his strength, his eyes widened at seeing at how his arm jarred slightly. 'Strong too.'
Contrast to how he expected Lyze's follow up move to be, Lyze seemed to guide the deflected blow back into a series of well executed sweeps and slashes.
Normally whenever Finn blocked the contestant's strike, they would freeze ever so momentarily to try and think what to do next. Finn would then capitalize on this moment of indecision by countering with an attack of his own.
Yet Lyze seemed to predict this and had already laid out his next plan of attack in the inevitable event. Finn was impressed at the speed and precision of each attack as he continued blocking with his spear handle.
He noticed how Lyze only seemed to use minimal energy with each attack, seeming in effort to maintain a constant speed and rhythm in each chain of attack. All the while he kept his breathing steady.
To the spectators, the flurry of slashes looked akin to an elegant yet deadly dance as he hopped from one foot to another, circling around Finn yet keeping each slash clean and precise, locked onto his opponent.
Deciding to fight back, Finn deflected another blow and used the momentum of that deflection to bring in the sharp end of his spear around in a thrusting motion. Yet despite his supposed blindness, Lyze seemed to anticipate this and leaned slightly out of the way to allow the spear to pass by him.
He'd also sued the momentum of the deflection to bring Libur around and make a slashing motion towards Finn's neck. This once again surprised Finn as it indicated combat experience on Lyze's part.
His sword work was so fluid and precise, to the bystanders it appeared to be an elegant dance. The other recruits were staring in awe and shock at how a seemingly young and blind boy was able to last longer against the Captain of the Loki Familia than any of them.
The other executives were pleasantly shocked as they had not expected for the boy to be able to keep up to Finn's speed, much less counter attack him. But for all that Lyze had on other rookies, he was still up against a level five.
Finn ducked down so fast and simply flipped his spear around. Lyze's world suddenly turned upside down as he suddenly found himself suspended in the air in front of Finn with his head to the ground and his feet pointing to the sky.
In a split second Finn had ducked and used the handle of his spear to take out Lyze's leg under him. In that moment, everyone decided that the match was decided as there was no way Lyze could defend himself while he was in mid-air.
Finn would normally skewer his opponent on the end of his spear but hey...he was against a recruit. So he spun his spear around and thrust the butt end into Lyze's stomach.
...
Or that was how it should have been, and what everybody was expecting.
Instead of finding panic and the realization of defeat on the boy's face, Finn just saw him smirk. Confused at why he was smiling, he watched as the boy brought his sword closer to him before swinging outwards.
Finn felt the blade only skim over the end of his spear before Lyze shouted out for all the courtyard to hear.
"{FULL COUNTER}!"
Finn and everybody else seemed to hear the sound of a bell chime which confused them as obviously there was no bell in sight. Then they saw it.
The air between the two fighters became distorted. Whereas as it appeared to be moving towards Lyze, it suddenly stopped and waited as the rest of it caught up to that particular spot where it had stopped.
The distorted air then suddenly launched back at Finn and everybody herd the impact as Finn's face was suddenly jerked upwards with something connecting his chin. It was possible that he had suffered whiplash.
Lyze landed on his hand and spun around on it in a clever display of acrobatics before he used the built up momentum of his spinning legs to launch a kick towards the Pallum.
But Finn's battle experience kicked in. As soon as his head was whipped backwards, he flexed his legs and propelled himself backwards to avoid the martial attack.
He backflipped in the air and landed a few feet away in a kneeling position, his spear at the ready and his other hand clutching his nose. Tapping his face a few times, he pulled his fingers away to see blood on them as blood began dripping from his nose.
Everybody was utterly taken aback, trying desperately to figure out what had just happened. They looked towards Lyze who had settled back into his stance, waiting for Finn to make his next move.
"He drew blood from the Captain..."
"No bloody way..."
"What the hell just happened?!"
"Who is this brat?"
"What did he do?"
Whispers like this were echoing around the courtyard. Loki's attention had been drawn further into this mock battle and Riveria held her mouth open in shock. Gareth was just standing there with a confused expression. Ais on the other hand was extremely surprised.
She'd seen the Captain fight first hand, and there was no way a rookie could hurt him like that. Indeed, she had been captivated by the beautiful sword dance Lyze executed. It reminded her of when her father used to train...
But even with such an intricate art, there was no way he could do to the Captain what he had just done now. So what the heel did he do? Ais was becoming more and more interested in this boy as it slowly became more and more apparent to everyone there that this kid was not what he seemed.
"What did you do to me?" Finn asked. "I've never seen anything like that in my life!"
Lyze chuckled and leaned his sword on his shoulder.
"That was one of my skills. It's called 'Full Counter'. Regardless of how powerful an opponents attack may be, be it magical or physical, I can reflect it back at them at twice their original power. What I just did was reflect the force of your attack back at you twice as strong. Otherwise there is no way that I'm capable of doing that to you."
Everyone broke out into whispers again as the Loki Familia executives suddenly realized how important of an asset such an ability would be to the Familia. The things they could accomplish with such a talent on their side were numerous.
Nobody realized that more than Finn who had received the full brunt of the attack. Having decided he'd seen enough, he settled upon a decision after giving a quick glance to Loki who nodded slightly in return.
Lyze brandished his sword again and settled into a different stance.
"Shall we continue Master Finn?"
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