Winter's Crown: Act 3, Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ludmila suppressed the urge to swallow as she stepped forward, folding her hands neatly in front of her as she silently awaited the debriefing by the Adventurer Guild’s senior staff. Her gaze drifted from person to person, wondering who would deliver her verdict.

“We spoke with the Ogre you faced off against,” Momon said, “and we’re now reasonably certain as to what’s going on. Just to be sure, though, could you describe to us how you conducted your defence during the final battle of this session?”

Ludmila must have reviewed the fatal moment two dozen times in her mind while she and Themis made their way back from the Training Area. There was nothing she could think of that she could have improved on without relying on sheer luck to survive. What she did should have worked – it was a standard response to a simple and obvious attack. Unsure just where in the ‘final battle’ they wanted her to start, she described everything from the beginning in case there was some crucial information that she had not considered.

“Our scout detected them well in advance,” she told them. “The Ogres set up an ambush where the forest trail narrowed into a bottleneck with no other way around. Our casters had full mana reserves and we had plenty of consumables to spare, so I decided to use the ambush in our favour by starting the fight in a way that I thought they would roughly expect.”

“So you moved your defensive line forward and kept your offensive line beyond notice,” Momon said, “until the ambushers were positioned for your own ambush.”

“That’s correct,” Ludmila replied.

“I feel that this tactic is used all too often,” Momon mused. “Did no other plans come to mind that could have been carried out in that situation?”

“Several, yes,” Ludmila admitted, “but I was taught that the best plans are both effective and simple. The more complicated your plans are, the easier it is for them to fall apart. Convoluted plans are only to be used when you enjoy a comfortable advantage, and see an opportunity to pursue other objectives. In this case, our would-be ambushers had conveniently contained themselves in a narrow area where we could easily hold them while our offence would be free to operate without hindrance.”

“Except, in this case, the defence did not hold out as easily as you had predicted,” Momon said. “I understand that, if all members of your front line were successful, it would have gone as you said…which leads us to your personal performance, and the reason for your failure.”

Ludmila turned her eyes down, staring at the polished grain of the floorboards at her feet. Her time away from training with the Adventurer Guild was now catching up to her, and it was costing her heavily. Every time it mattered, it seemed that she was dealt with so quickly that she couldn’t even tell what was going on. She looked up when someone cleared her throat, and a quick glance made her realize that they were waiting for her to continue.

“We advanced to take our positions at the ambush point,” she said, “and the Ogres came out of hiding to charge our line as we did so. The one headed in my direction readied itself to make a very obvious, but powerful attack, so I adjusted my stance and weapon to deflect it away. When the predicted strike came, however, it did not turn aside as I expected…it simply went through the haft of my spear and caved in my armour. No matter how I think about it, it makes no sense how the attack could have resulted in that outcome. I understand that Ogres are strong, but I sensed that the one facing me wasn’t that strong.”

“That’s all you have to relate?” Momon asked after several seconds of silence.

"Yes,” Ludmila answered, “those are the events as I remember them. Was it helpful in any way?”

Ainzach, Merry, Moknach and Momon exchanged glances.

“You didn’t try to, uh, use anything?” Merry asked from where she stood near Lady Aura and Lord Mare.

“I didn’t have any items readied, nor was I using any concealed equipment,” Ludmila wasn’t sure what she was asking. “Any healing items or spells would have been too late.”

“And that’s how it is…” Ainzach sighed, and everyone leaned back. “Ridiculous.”

The guildmaster placed his hands on the table and looked down with an incredulous expression on his face. The sight made Ludmila cringe internally – if she had some power to make herself shrivel up and disappear into the cracks between the floorboards, she would have used it right then. She hadn’t felt this way since she broke down in front of Darkness when they first met. Never mind addressing the issue, she seemed to be the only one oblivious as to what it was.

“Eh…maybe you should explain what you mean before she jumps over the railing,” Lady Aura said.

Ainzach, who was brooding over his own statement, looked up towards her.

“Hm? Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean you in particular, Zahradnik. It’s a part of a larger problem with the Adventurer Guild at the moment.”

Ludmila furrowed her brow and shifted uncomfortably at his apology.

“I can’t recall anything that I’ve learned from the members of the Adventurer Guild or our training sessions that would lead to this outcome,” she said. “This should be entirely my responsibility, Guildmaster.”

“What I’m getting at is that it’s something Adventurers have always normally learned over time and through their association with the Guild,” Ainzach told her. “Because you come from an Adventurer lineage, and you appear to excel in many other areas, we assumed that your upbringing provided you with everything you needed to know – everything else about you demonstrated your expertise so clearly that we didn’t consider otherwise.”

“Just checking one last time,” Merry said, “but you didn’t use any skills, spells or Martial Arts there, right?”

“I don’t know anything of the sort that could be used in that situation,” Ludmila replied.

“By the gods,” Moknach said. “But how? There’s no way she can’t! Even a brat who has the time to train hard for a while will pick up one or two – someone that’s trained for as long as it looks like she has should have dozens.”

“That was my thinking, as well,” Ainzach said, “but you heard her. I guess it didn’t help any the way she advanced. There was the first run as Copper, where we already expected her entire team to be Iron or better already, then she had to attend to some other business before we could figure out how strong she actually was at that point. When she came back, she breezed through the Silver exam in a pretty unconventional way and, for her Gold exam, she ended up going in headfirst against a bunch of Ogres from the Bloody General’s army. The first Martial Arts user she was put up against was the one that killed her, and it doesn’t help that she’s so damn quiet doing everything.”

Several heads around the table nodded slowly at the guildmaster’s words. It was not the end of what Ainzach had to say, however.

“This is definitely our culprit,” he said. “All of those who joined as Copper-ranks after the formation of the new Adventurer Guild are having the same damn problem – they’re clearly gaining in strength, but they haven’t had time to develop a lot of the things that come with it. I still can’t quite believe it, but Zahradnik’s actually a part of that group.”

“Ehh…d-does that mean I have to rebalance everything?” Lord Mare asked.

“How do you mean?”

“The Demihumans that come to participate in the Gold-rank trials as final encounters are trained before coming here, so they all have Martial Arts,” he explained, “but the summons that we use at this level don’t have much in the way of special skills or abilities. Most have one or two tricks at best.”

“That’s a good point,” Ainzach frowned. “The difficulty of the regular encounters might be too low. Once our members all have the appropriate Martial Arts, Skills and Spells, the performance of the teams should improve accordingly.”

“It appears that nothing can substitute for time when it comes to these things,” Momon said. “Now that we have a good idea of what the problem is, what can we do on the training end to ensure that we have a common standard in our membership from this point onwards, Ainzach?”

“It’s not something that the Adventurer Guild has done before,” Ainzach stroked his moustache, “but it should be simple enough. In the old Guild, pretty much every Adventurer capable of them started picking up basic Martial Arts before Gold rank: mostly around Silver, really. Copper and Iron members never really received much attention as a whole, but Martial Arts have been demonstrated as early as Iron in the past. It’s a rough idea, but, since we’re taking care of all of our members now, we can probably come up with something in addition to our regular Training Area sessions – it should give all of our antsy warrior types something to do while the casters are recovering their mana, too.”

“That sounds like a promising start,” Momon nodded. “How long until you can get started?”

“Well…even if it’s just the Iron-ranks,” Ainzach replied, “we’re going to need a large space to train in. We’re also going to want to make sure that standards are upheld through all the ranks, if possible. We’ve stripped down the first floor of the central district with the thought that we could use it as a training hall, but I never imagined that we would need it so soon. Do you think we could get some help speeding things along there, Momon?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Momon said. “First floor…central district…hmm…”

“What is it?”

“His Majesty has made personal efforts to improve exposure for the Adventurer Guild to help with recruitment,” Momon said. “This seems like the perfect opportunity to build on those efforts by creating a place where the public can observe our members.”

“...what do you have in mind?” Ainzach asked.

“We can convert part of the ground floor into a sparring area that can be viewed from the streets around it,” Momon explained. “It’s not exactly the main plaza, but you should be able to attract an audience all the same. Actually, since traffic through the central district is not severe, it’s even better: collecting spectators around the building won’t cause any issues.”

“What about the students in training?” Moknach asked, “Martial Arts take both focus and discipline to execute. Having an audience will be pretty distracting.”

“All the better, I say,” Momon answered. “Adventurers are supposed to be able to function under pressure anyways. Consider it an aid.”

“Fair enough,” Moknach grunted. “We’re supposed to be a government organization now, though. Are you sure it’s all right for our members to show their stuff in public?”

“Any sort of widespread knowledge shouldn’t be a problem; those sorts of Martial Arts aren’t considered secrets anyways. Even more advanced ones used by higher-ranked Adventurers aren’t really that…” Momon looked up from his musings, “How many unique Martial Arts do we even have right now in the active membership?”

The Adventurers fell deep into thought, but it didn’t take long to arrive at an answer.

“I think the members of Rainbow are the only longtime veterans of the guild that have them,” Moknach finally said. “But we’ve specialized in commissions revolving around Undead, usually in the Katze Plains. I’ve got a couple, Merry has quite a few, actually – seeing that she’s as old as time itself, that shouldn’t be a surprise, I guess.”

“Hey! I’m not that old,” Merry scowled. “Moknach’s right though. In addition to all the usual Ranger stuff, I have a Sensory Art for locating Undead, and both ranged and melee attacks that do all sorts of nasty things to ‘em. It’s the same way in other places: if you’re specializing in whatever the place has to offer, you end up figuring out better ways to do your job. Most unique Martial Arts come about through developing what you need.”

Ludmila’s ears perked at the mention of a Sensory Art. It sounded something like the ability she had gained during her time in Fassett County. She tried using it while they discussed amongst themselves, but, as expected, she couldn’t.

“In that case,” Moknach said, “it could be that the Martial Arts that we consider unique may not actually be. There may be other places in the world like Katze Plains, and the people that fight there independently come up with the same techniques against Undead.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if similar Martial Arts were developed that way,” Merry replied, “but they’re bound to have their differences. Even basic Martial Arts do – though we tend to just lump ‘em together to simplify things. The ones that Demihumans use are effectively variants of what we use unless it brings something into play that we don’t have: like a tail or wings.”

“I suppose it doesn’t hurt to err on the side of caution with this,” Momon told them. “Ainzach, what’s the earliest you’ve seen someone employ highly advanced Martial Arts?”

“Hmm…Mithril, probably?” The guildmaster replied, “Maybe people start developing their own stuff before then, but I’ve never seen anyone pull one off before that. Not publicly, anyway. Around here, you’re more likely to see people using combinations of basic stuff at that point.”

Ainzach looked at Moknach and Merry, who shook their heads in response.

“Let’s go with that, then,” Ainzach said. “We’re still trying to raise the quantity of Gold-ranked members, so it’ll be clear to use the first floor to practice for a while yet. People that want to develop their own Martial Arts can do so in private at some other place we’ll prepare in the future. For the time being, we’ll be making sure our Iron-ranks learn Martial Arts, or the skills and abilities appropriate to their rank as we determine what they should be. Exams from this point onward will be modified to ensure that our members can use them in a manner appropriate to their ranks, and that should be the end of members slipping by our notice like this.”

“Can changes be implemented on your end to reflect this, Mare?” Momon asked.

“U-un,” Lord Mare nodded. “I’ll ask the Demihumans around the Sorcerous Kingdom to send lower levels to participate on the dungeon teams. I’ll adjust the difficulty of all the summons and things as well.”

“As long as we have what is needed to create the conditions required for our updated exams,” Momon said. “I would say that this is a solid step in the right direction.”

“I-it’s good that we can make fixes.”

Lord Mare’s gaze rested strangely on Ludmila with the last phrase. He jumped up with a cry after Lady Aura jabbed him in the ribs with a finger.

“Anyways,” Ainzach cleared his throat, “we’ll have sessions in the Training Area for Silver-rank and above put on hold until Mare is ready. Meanwhile, we can put our heads together on the details of this supplemental training.”

The guildmaster looked around the table to see if anyone had anything else to add, then his eyes fell on Ludmila.

“Oh, you’re still here,” he said. “Sorry for making you stand through all that.”

“It’s alright, Guildmaster,” she replied with a light smile. “I found the discussion quite informative.”

“I see,” Ainzach said. “Well, since you’ve heard it firsthand, I’m sure you know what’s in store. Head to the reception counter and trade in your Silver plate for Iron: there’s some training in store for you.”