Bear School Astartes

"Thank you for your help, Jandry. Please make a sheath for this short sword, and add the cost to the final bill."

A calm and friendly voice came through, awakening the blacksmith apprentice from his daze.

The sturdy young man instinctively blinked and shook his head, then saw the exceptionally handsome customer in front of him, looking at him inquisitively.

He suddenly became fully alert.

Was I just spacing out?

Jandry was a bit uncertain if he hadn't been resting well recently.

But that wasn't a big deal, nor did he need to pay it much mind.

Once awake, he followed Lann's gaze to find the item the customer wanted.

It was a short sword about the length of an adult's forearm, with a red leather-wrapped single-handed grip, and a blade just over ten centimeters long.

"Sir, the sheath will be ready soon, and it's on the house."

Jandry accepted a Silver Deer Coin from Lann's hand and returned some coppers to him.

The Silver Deer was a currency valued below the Gold Dragon and Silver Moon.

Generally, a Silver Deer was enough to buy a decent longsword, but Tob Moote's reputation and craftsmanship meant that even a short sword the length of a forearm was priced in Silver Deer Coins.

Jandry handed over the item, completing the transaction, and returned to the forge to continue working on the ox horn helmet.

The shop's owner had been dozing away on a reclining chair throughout, too lazy to glance up for a small sword sale, whether it succeeded or not.

It was all like one of the countless insignificant transactions the shop usually went through.

Lann was quite satisfied with this kind of 'normalcy' and walked back with Alia.

"This is for you."

Lann handed the newly purchased short sword, hilt-first, to Alia.

"Your rapier is good, but if I'm going to teach you a few things, it's better to have an off-hand short sword for parrying."

In fact, every Son of the Emperor has a finely honed, complex swordsman library in their head.

Swordsmanship to them is like a tool for creative art.

So, even though they are beyond ordinary people and rarely have opportunities to apply a 'rapier + short sword' flexible combo, they certainly know how.

For Lann, daily Memory Deep Dive sessions had become routine, except for those two nights of fighting Da Gun or hammering Count Steza to death.

Even if he might not pull off those outrageous swordsmanship moves, his horizon is undoubtedly vast.

Using a short sword for parrying has an advantage over a longsword because it forms a more effort-saving lever structure in sword duels.

Basically, it would allow Alia not to fall behind in swordplay against normal boys of her age.

Of course, the premise is that she has already managed the initial impact of the longsword's swing with her technique and is in the grappling stage.

"Ha! Thanks!"

Alia smiled and took the short sword, strapping it to her right side, balancing with the "Needle" on her left.

She was already eager to see what kind of swordsmanship Lann would teach her.

Lann listened to her thanks, nonchalantly nodding. They had already agreed that he'd teach a few things, so how could he shirk?

Meanwhile, his ears twitched slightly, and in a motion that seemed like he was relaxing his neck, he glanced over his right shoulder.

There was a dark alleyway.

And from there, several voices were discussing something in normal tones.

They didn't know how sharp a Demon Hunter's hearing was; what was meaningless noise to normal people was information to a Demon Hunter.

"That guy's sword on his back, just the hilt... no! Just that silver pommel carving shows how much it's worth!"

"But he's with the Hand of the King's daughter!"

"Ha, a big deal, huh? So what? We won't harm the girl. In King's Landing, even the Hand can't have the city's decent folk investigate just because his daughter's guard got robbed, right? There are hundreds of thousands of them! After we rob, we can just slip into another street and lie low for a few months, right?"

"Hey, he is wearing some armor that looks pretty daunting."

"I don't think it matters, there are ten of us. We drag him into the alley and beat him with sticks; he won't last. Plus, he doesn't even have a helmet. A good hit on the back of his head might knock him out for half the day."

The noisy voices were chirping and debating back and forth in the alley.

Finally, a leading voice cut through all the arguments.

"I think we can do it. We didn't dare act freely before because there were only so few fencing spots; if the Gold Cloaks wanted to investigate, they could find out. But now... haven't we just been enlisted by our 'respected master'?"

"Our 'master' has money now, doesn't matter where it came from; he just has it. Plus, he's keen on collecting these oddities, this exquisite sword should fetch a lot of money!"

The leader spoke with an interesting tone.

When he said 'respected master,' his tone carried a mocking and teasing sense rather than respect appropriate to the words.

If Lann could describe it, it was like seeing a bumpkin who just hit it rich.

Truly wealthy. Also truly disparaged.

Just who was this 'master' with a penchant for collecting oddities?

Perhaps a frontier noble far from the Royal City? A newly successful merchant?

Lann was rather curious because this 'master's' goals seemed somewhat aligned with his own.

So... "Bang bang," two soft knocks.

The ten thugs in the alley now all looked stunned towards the mouth of the alley.

A tall, silver-haired young man had just withdrawn his hand from tapping the wall twice, his elegant posture like a banquet host tapping a glass to give a speech.

A little girl, full of curiosity, followed behind him as they walked together into the alley's shadows.

"Gentlemen, I have a slight interest in this 'master' you speak of."

As they walked, Lann smiled and unfastened the longsword strap on his chest, placing the two swords in Alia's arms behind him.

"Care to enlighten me?"

The atmosphere fell silent.

The ten originally in the alley stared blankly at the intruder.

He was their chosen prey, whom they planned to drag into the shadows, knockout, and strip in five or ten minutes.

But now, beneath the opponent's smiling expression, they felt... they were the prey.

The first emotion flooding up was astonishment.

But after astonishment came a sort of mixed anger tinged with delight.

Delight at prey walking in, anger at the other's... graceful elegance!

In other words—that completely indifferent expression!

"You son of a... bang!"

One thug closest to Lann held a stick and cursed, intending to swing it up.

But before he could lift it over his head... an impossibly fast, large hand directly slammed into his face!

"Bang!"

"Ouwah!"

Pressing the head, he made the back of the head collide with the face of the person behind him.

The one with the face pressed against immediately went limp after that, only staying from collapsing into a heap on the ground because the hand held his face.

And the one whose face was hit had blood flowing from his nose like a faucet.

Now he could only lie on the ground, breathing dazedly through his mouth.

"Woohoo! Lann, I won!"

Alia cheered softly, holding the two swords.

"My bad." Lann didn't look back, and the hand he hadn't used flicked a Silver Deer Coin from his palm into the little girl's forehead.

The remaining eight were pale in front of those slightly glowing cat eyes.

"What a pity, I thought the local gangs would at least show some manners."