It was lighter than the bone sword. Balanced differently. The weight sat closer to the hilt, steadier.
He tested it with a slow swing. The blade cut through the air with a clean sound. He adjusted his grip and tried another swing, then a downward strike. The recoil felt different from bone. He attempted a thrust, slower this time, watching how his wrist aligned with the blade. It felt awkward at first, but controlled.
He practiced two more swings, careful not to make too much noise. Then he sheathed it again. If he was going to keep hunting, he needed to understand what he held.
He stepped out from behind the tree and resumed walking.
He continued practicing small threads of mana control as he moved, letting it coat his fingers, then dispersing it before it became unstable.
About half an hour later, just as he began to think the forest would stretch endlessly in the same pattern of trees and roots—
He froze.
Ahead of him, through a break in the trees, he saw three figures. He dropped lower instantly and slid behind a trunk, slowing his breathing.
Three of them.
Two girls and one boy.
All dressed in the same black clothes he had seen before, the Vladiric symbol stitched near their shoulders. Each carried a dagger. They were not fighting seriously. They were sparring.
One girl stood back with her arms folded, watching closely. The other two moved in front of her. The boy lunged first, fast and clean. The girl twisted aside, her dagger flashing up to deflect and then sliding toward his wrist. He stepped back in time.
"Your footwork is too wide," the watching girl said calmly. "You're giving her space to counter."
The sparring girl exhaled and reset her stance.
"Again," she said.
They moved once more.
Ivor watched their steps carefully. Their weight stayed balanced. Their shoulders relaxed. They didn't swing wildly. Every movement had purpose. He felt something tighten inside him.
They were trained.
He had survived through instinct and desperation. They moved like they had been taught from the beginning. Without realizing it, he began inching closer. He forgot about the mana coating practice. He forgot about the ache in his leg.
He crouched and moved from tree to tree, slow and silent, his senses stretched wide. The smell of sweat. The scrape of boots. The rhythm of their breathing. He reached a trunk just behind the girl who was acting as referee. She stood only a few steps ahead, focused fully on the spar.
He could see the small cuts on her sleeves. The steady rise and fall of her shoulders. He watched the pair in front of her exchange strikes again.
The pressure behind his eyes stirred.
They were better.
But they were tired.
Their movements lost a fraction of sharpness. The boy's next lunge came a heartbeat slower. The girl deflected, but her shoulders sagged when she stepped back.
The referee girl noticed it immediately.
"That's enough," she said, lowering her arms. "Both of you are slowing down. If this were real, you'd already be dead."
The two exhaled and dropped where they stood, sitting on the ground and wiping sweat from their faces. One of them laughed weakly.
That was the moment.
Ivor moved.
He stepped out from behind the trunk as if he had always been part of the clearing. Silent. Barefoot. Masked.
The sheathed metal sword was already rising in his hand.
He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and swung.
The flat of the blade crashed into the back of the referee girl's head with a heavy, solid crack that echoed between the trees. Her body stiffened for a split second before she pitched forward and hit the ground face-first.
The sound snapped the other two upright.
They looked up, confusion turning into shock as their eyes found him.
For that brief pause, they were still trying to understand what had happened.
Ivor did not give them time.
The world tightened around him. The pressure behind his eyes sharpened his focus until there were only two targets in front of him.
He lunged.
Three steps.
On the third, he drove his knee forward with everything he had.
It smashed into the boy's face just as he tried to rise. The impact lifted him slightly before his head snapped back and struck the ground with a dull thud.
Ivor let the momentum carry him. He rolled over the fallen body, came up on one knee, and brought the sheathed sword down hard onto the boy's dagger hand.
The crack of impact was followed instantly by a scream.
"AHHHHH!"
The boy's fingers spasmed open as the dagger slipped from his grip.
The remaining girl let out a sharp cry of her own, scrambling backward on her hands and heels, eyes wide and unfocused as she tried to process the speed of it.
The sound made Ivor's face flinch for a brief second, but he did not stop. He rushed her before she could find her footing and swung the sheathed sword straight at her face.
It struck cleanly at the center of her face, cracking her nose in the process. She collapsed without raising her hands.
Silence returned, broken only by the boy's pained cries as he clutched his head and wrist.
Ivor stood there breathing hard, chest rising and falling quickly.
He moved immediately.
He searched the boy first, hands quick and precise. Inside the pouch he found four crystals and several mana tokens. He took them all. Nearby, he spotted a bag resting against a root. He opened it quickly. Water. Four canned food tins.
He took that as well.
The boy was still moaning on the ground.
Ivor did not look at him again.
He turned to leave—
"What the hell?"
Suddenly, the voice came from his left.
Ivor's head snapped toward it instantly. At the edge of the clearing stood a boy about his age, frozen mid-step.
Beside him stood a beast. A hybrid collared beast.
Both of them stared at him.
The boy's expression shifted from shock to anger in a heartbeat.
The beast lowered its head slightly, lips peeling back just enough to reveal sharp teeth.
And Ivor felt the pressure behind his eyes surge.