My Parasite Skill System

The instructor of that guild.

I was fighting with him still.

Or, going with his own words, 'dancing' with him still.

Fighting with the man in hopes of learning some skills from him. That's what I was doing.

Learning some skills, I'd get what I needed here.

So, let's just 'dance' still, I thought. Simple, right?

Well, no, not that simple, after all. That's what I thought too, at first. It would be simple and easy. And after that, I'd set out towards yet another chapter of my life.

Though, again, not that simple.

–Seizing back my sword with all my might, I went unleashing my <Chain Attack> combo at him again!

But aside from three loud clanging sounds that rang out, as a result, nothing much of anything resulted from it.

I cut three times and was blocked three times, too.

–Not that simple. To learn something from him, I'd ideally need him to teach me something. And teaching is fairly simple: let him just show me some special moves that I can learn from it.

But it's taking too long. Or maybe I'm not going about this the right way in the first place. At this speed, I'll just K.O. myself on my own.

My endurance isn't so great I can keep up with that indefinitely. And so, as unfortunate as that might be, I gotta take it a step further.

I can do that, after all. Taking it a step further.

In fact, even though I didn't really think I would need to use 'that,' I still was set on using it if I had the need to. I simply mean to say that I thought about using 'that,' yes.

That swordsman and I were still facing each other. He was in front of me, and I was in front of him.

And with that much distance in between us, that's what I figured, he won't really attack me. He only defends when I do attack him. There's barely two meters between us.

As he was pretty much set on not moving an inch from his initial place, he either attacked when I was relatively close or didn't attack at all when I wasn't.

He just blocked off my many blows–and I darted back.

There, as I knew exactly what to do next, I didn't pause more than a second or so, barely able to catch my breath.

It was fine.

As I jumped back to him, I was close enough for him to attack–and that's just what he did.

I feared to know what would happen to me if such a sword hit me. His were powerful, decisive, and awe-inspiring blows.

Needless to say, he was very strong, yes.

But I was very strong, too.

I could either evade (that's what I usually did) or block it off with an evenly powerful counterattack.

This way, I was safe and the battle would go on.

But, no. I can't simply allow myself to drag this further. I'll need to do something about it … and it's right now!

His wooden sword–incidentally the sharpest sword I'd ever known–cut horizontally towards my left shoulder.

My sword was by my right. I kept it there. I couldn't block his sword. It was the plan.

–It cut horizontally. It was super-fast. Within only the blink of an eye, it was ready to crush me, starting off with my shoulder … but I brought my barehand against itself … ouch?

The swordsman instantly heavily frowned. What was that which I was doing? Wouldn't my hand be crushed by that? Was I actually that dumb?

He frowned and slowed his sword down lest it destroys my hand completely.

"<Steeling Claw>!" I cried out, expecting my great results.

He reduced his strength–hah, but he didn't need to do that.

I had such a skill, too, after all. My nails became claws. And these claws became steeled.

And it was then that everything would be played out by itself:

I seized the bokken with my pointy fingers. Forcefully brought it down while that swordsman was too much shocked. And I kept it that way, lower, by my hip.

And parallelly, with my other hand and sword, a regular blow was enough.

I hurried my lame towards that human.

And … hehehe, I chuckled inwardly. Of course this'll get you moving, human. That's my win!

Heh–but I didn't even have the time to think that it kind of was petty of me, right? Consider it a victory when I'd have done nothing at all, basically, aside from making him move.

"Ha, ha, ha!" the swordsman laughed.

Well, yeah, and that didn't even happen, to be totally fair.

As I painfully stretched my right shoulder and arm towards him, making sure my blow would land, with my short sword … he used that skill again.

The bokken I seized with my left hand–that same bokken I so fiercely kept on seizing and gripping that my nails started to bleed a little–simply went off of it.

It disappeared. I gripped it no longer.

The heck, I thought, alarmed.

How did it go away?–I didn't know. … But how did it go away, still?–He used a skill.

As I clicked my tongue, frowning, his bokken reappeared before me. I blinked, and it was next to my sword.

Then I blinked again, and it simply countered my calculated and ultimate blow.

Well, this one's a very, very, very strong one!... I confessed. But, to hell with that–I the strongest, too!

Being filled with but disappointment, my fighting style started to grow hurried. I didn't like it, but it just grew hurried.

I actually didn't even think about it. It happened despite myself.

My hand, going with my sword, slashed, and slashed, and slashed at him super quickly.

And he just evaded everything.

And so I slashed, and slashed, and slashed again pretty randomly, but he blocked them all off again.

"Tsk!" I clicked my tongue.

"Heh, don't you grow impatient!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…!"

With a final swing of my sword–it was a first–the unrivaled swordsman only disappeared with his sword.

My eyes hadn't even rounded to their fullest in utter surprise yet; I guess that, right at the same time, he appeared back behind myself, and … "Ouch! Hurts!"

Thump!

With the flat of his wooden sword, he bumped my bare skull!

The next thing I felt was a foot up against my back, and … "A– aah!" I was pushed from behind, super violently, for some reason.

And going with that, I simply crashed myself down, landing on all fours, my sword had escaped my grip.

"Bad, bad, bad!" that swordsman chuckled, amused.

I clicked my tongue again–I must've loved doing that–formed a ball with my fist and hit the ground, frustrated.

"No, no, no, I told you!" he repeated. "Don't you grow impatient, youth. … After so many efforts you'd give me 'this,' huh?"

"An– and– and–" I stuttered, getting myself back up, and turning towards him, "why'd you even push me down like that, hah??–you're the bad one, sir!"