(Wayland's POV)
I couldn't believe I had lost to a boy who was only nine, even though I had given it my all. Yes, I had lost to him in our first fight too, but back then, however much I wanted to avoid underestimating him and fight him seriously, I hadn't used my full strength from the start. I thought I had probably used seventy percent of my strength, so I was angrier with myself than with him.
But this fight... this fight was different. I had used all my strength and tried every technique I knew. I thought I had fought wisely too, but that hadn't brought me victory. I had been utterly defeated. He had crushed me. He had controlled the entire fight. Whenever I tried to find my rhythm, an attack would come from somewhere I couldn't identify.
I didn't know what kind of beast this boy was, but I knew one thing: no one except a grown knight could match him. He wasn't much faster than me, and he was even a little weaker physically, but I couldn't overpower him in any way. I couldn't use my physical advantage, as though I were fighting a creature made of water.
For the old gods' sake, I wouldn't have believed it if Ser Rodrik hadn't said so, but he didn't even look nine. How was that possible? If he was already a meter and a half tall at nine, I couldn't even imagine what he would look like when he grew up.
I didn't want to be his enemy anymore, but I would never submit to him either. I had to keep following my sword. Wherever that path led me, I would have no regrets. From this, I could see that Aermir wouldn't be an ordinary knight. Something told me he might become more than a footnote at the bottom of a history book about Winterfell's knights.
(The protagonist's POV)
"Hahahaha! See? See, Jon? Didn't I tell you? I told you Aermir would crush him and win this fight!" Arya shouted excitedly, tugging on Jon's arm.
Jon tried to hide his embarrassment as he said, "Yeah, I knew that too!"
"No, you didn't. You said Aermir could only win this fight with luck and a great deal of difficulty."
Robb stepped between them and said, "Arya, stop arguing with Jon."
"Hmph." Once Robb had spoken, Arya turned away in a huff and left the training yard. Sansa followed her, urging her not to act that way. I chatted with Robb and Jon about the fight for another ten-odd minutes before Rodrik came over and said he needed to speak with me. The two of us left and went to his room.
He spoke with a sly smile.
"Today, I won't waste words. I'll get straight to the point. Through this fight, you've clearly shown that you no longer need to fight the squires. From now on, I'll have you spar with the young knights."
About six months had passed since my fight with Wayland, which had been rather uneventful overall. The only things worth mentioning were my fights with the grown knights between sixteen and twenty years old. I hadn't won a single one. They all far surpassed me physically, but most of them were less talented than me, and they knew it too.
When I fought most of them, I could read what they would do and when like a book, but even if I could see the future, it meant nothing if my body couldn't keep up with that information. They were much faster than me. Even if my eyes could follow them, my body couldn't.
Even the weakest had 6.7 speed and 6.9 strength, and the strongest was Hugo Moss. I didn't even think I could truly push him in a fight. He was a real bastard, but he was certainly strong. Until my fight with Hugo a few days ago, I had thought I was pushing him, but I had been terribly wrong. The day before that fight, I had made a breakthrough with my buff in Winterfell's Wolfswood.
My buff could now provide 1.5 points in stats. My speed was 4.2, and my strength was 4. I had thought Hugo had 6.9 speed and 7.3 strength, but I knew he would still beat me even with my buff. I had thought that at least that day, I would be beaten rather than crushed.
He still won, but when he failed to crush me in the fight, he suddenly displayed greater strength: 7.3 speed and 7.8 strength. And I didn't think that was his peak either. He was serious, but he wasn't trying to kill me.
I didn't consider him a bastard because he had beaten me. As I said, I had lost to all the knights, but this bastard would keep attacking even when I was knocked to the ground, and he almost always gave me a kick when no one was watching. His behavior and words made it very clear what his problem with me was. I was a commoner, while he was a member of House Moss.
He displayed the typical behavior of petty nobles, who had to obey whatever all the other powerful houses said so that a few bones would be tossed their way. Yet at the same time, they felt that all that groveling wasn't worth it, and as a result, they turned their anger on those they considered weaker than themselves. He might have been physically stronger than me at the moment, but that would never change the fact that he was a small man in my eyes.
The breakthrough I had made with my buff over those six months hadn't come from training in the space, but from training in Winterfell's Wolfswood.
Yes, the quality of the mana in the space was far higher than in Winterfell's Wolfswood, but I had realized that the Wolfswood had something fundamental that the space lacked.
Life... because there was nothing in the space except me. Its mana was pure, without any attribute. The plants, animals, and all those vibrant ecosystems ensured that the forest's mana was filled with the nature attribute, making nature spells and nature mana easier to master in the forest.
For that reason, my buff had grown stronger, and I could now even use Entangle (inretio) to change the shapes of trees.
I couldn't reshape trees quickly, so I couldn't call it a spell yet. For now, it was just a little trick. With that trick, I had built a hut in the center of the forest by bending the trunks of four trees and shaping their branches.
The center of the forest was like a focal point. Mana flowed there from the forest's outer reaches, then returned to the ground and spread throughout the forest again, nourishing every root along the way.
I had a high affinity for nature mana, perhaps because I was a Druid. In the six months I had spent there, I had accumulated more mana than I had collected in a year, and I now had 91 mana points.
Thanks to this forest, my mastery of two elements had improved. As I mentioned before, the first was nature, and the second was earth, which nourished nature. Formoheba (Shape Plant) was the spell I used to shape plants. It was a cantrip rather than a spell because the larger the plant it controlled, the slower it worked. It had taken me several days to build that hut. Even a sloth could run faster than the branches moved.
Formotegon (Shape Earth Spell) allowed me to move soil or stone much like Formoheba. The greater the volume of soil, the slower it moved. But this wasn't a simple spell, because I could use it to throw an enemy off balance. With this spell, I could move up to one cubic meter of soil.
I had tested this spell on animals, and when I moved the ground beneath their feet, they stumbled and fell, even though they had four legs. If the soil I moved covered only the small area beneath a person's feet, it moved fast enough to trip someone.
The next spell had become my favorite: Primaferus (Primal Ferocity). Thanks to this magic, my nails turned into razor-sharp claws three centimeters long. They were like perfect concealed knives.
Of course, they were still nails. They couldn't pierce armor or bone, but they could tear through skin and muscle. When I used my claws to rip open the belly of a pig I had caught, I felt like Marvel's Iron Fist.
But this spell had a drawback too. If I used it for too long, my hands hurt like hell. Human hands weren't designed for clawing, and this spell only strengthened my fingertips and nails. The other bones in my hands, especially my finger bones, remained normal bones.
The last spell was tegonspi (Earth Spike Spell), which, as its name suggested, was an offensive spell.
It was much weaker than tegonden (Earth Shatter Spell) in terms of damage, but it had one advantage over Earth Shatter Spell. Earth Shatter Spell needed time to reach its target and take shape, but tegonspi (Earth Spike Spell) sprang up instantly beneath the target. It was perfect for ambush attacks.
Another breakthrough concerned the range of the Promodynes (Find Animal) and Promoheba (Find Plant) spells.
They had originally only worked within a one-kilometer radius, but that had now increased to two kilometers, and I had discovered another use for Promodynes (Find Animal).
I could use this spell to find humans within two kilometers. After all, humans were animals too, so I could practice my spells in the forest at ease.
These spells had previously lasted fifteen minutes, had a thirty-minute cooldown, and cost ten mana points, but now they lasted thirty minutes, had a fifteen-minute cooldown, and cost five mana points. Ever since I had realized I could use this spell to find humans, I had done so before every magic training session.
"Promodynes (Find Animal), humans." I felt mana radiate from my body like a wave. As usual, it made no contact with anything, and I thought that day's training would be comfortable too. But a few seconds later, I began to see lights within the spell's range. They indicated that there were humans in the area, and from the points of light, I could tell there were about twenty people.
The points moved around one another like busy ants, and suddenly one of them disappeared. I wondered what had happened. Thirty minutes couldn't have passed already, and they weren't near the edge of the spell's range either. These people were about 1.5 kilometers away from me. I could think of only one explanation for the light's disappearance: that person had died.
Then the reason for all that rapid movement had to be a fight. A sudden curiosity arose within me, but alarm bells rang in my head at the same time. I didn't know whether I should listen to the voice of common sense and stay away, or listen to my curiosity and go take a look. This wasn't a difficult decision at all. The answer was obvious. Of course I would go take a look.
It would take me some time to get there, but first, I sent Bo and Erebus in that direction and told them to contact me when they saw the people. Just then, another point of light disappeared.
I ran at full speed and had already begun to hear faint screams and shouts when Bo contacted me:
"Dad, we've reached the humans. They're fighting. One, two, three... eighteen. Ah, one of them died. Now there are seventeen left."
"No, there are only ten people."
"Stupid Erebus, you're only saying there are ten because you can only count to ten. Dad, don't believe Erebus. There are seventeen. Oh, another one died. Now there are sixteen left."
It felt strange. Bo and Erebus arguing was like a twisted version of Sesame Street. People kept dying, but they kept counting.
I was about 100-150 meters away. I knelt on the ground for a moment and connected to Erebus through our vision link, telling him to quiet down and see what was happening.
This had to be a forest trail from Winterfell to Deepwood Motte. I called it a trail, but the people of this world would call it a road. It was an uneven stretch of compacted dirt only wide enough for one carriage. Of course, someone used to the roads on Earth wouldn't consider it a road.
As I looked around, a terrible scene lay before me. They must have tried to take a shortcut and been ambushed by bandits. Two carriages stood on the road, with blood and bodies all around them. As far as I could see, thirteen people were still alive. There were about fifteen corpses nearby.