Chapter 862 (1/2)

Dozer scratched his head, looking at the rather empty parade ground. “Not much to look at now, but when the Squads are all gathered… well, it's impressive. Very moving, to see everyone drilling in unison. Alana lectures sometimes and draws a thousand people.”

Helen nodded absently. Surely, the large flat ground surrounded by low wall and outbuildings was impressive, but it wasn’t anything compared to the Colosseum of Hastam where the under 25 Tournament was fought. It honestly seemed to be rather hastily erected. And constructed of wood, rather than heavy stone.

Instead of focusing on the background, Helen was fascinated by the dozens of people training on the grounds, even now. Although Dozer spoke dismissively of the people here, it only took a glance to see that they were all very competent with their weapons. And some people with weapons that Helen had never even seen.

From what she could understand, this Donnyton held a very important place in the heart of this Earth. It was with pride that some of the people in Alana’s squad boasted that they were the strongest army on Earth.

Perhaps not due to numbers, but simply looking at complexity and fluidity of movements, Helen could believe it while watching these Squads practiced.

Groups between five and twenty-five moved together and toward each other. It seemed that there were several practices going on concurrently in the area. There were more… Helen struggled not to say spellspears… spellcasters, likely about ten, two to each group. Although they were not the core of the Squads that Helen saw, they were definitely important. To see that they made up such a large part of this world’s armies was a shock.

When Helen had heard Randidly talk casually about tactics during his first visit to Tellus, she had a difficult time understanding him. It was true that the spear wasn’t infallible, but it was the greatest weapon ever invented. It was used by the Spearman to save the world. It was in her blood to worship the spear.

After being exposed to Randidly’s energy and straying some from her home planet, Helen was able to finally grasp how the Spearman had shaped the world with his spear. Not necessarily to Tellus’ detriment, but there was a cost by the excessive focus on the spear.

It only took a spar each with Annie and Ptolemy to realize how costly abandoning all other weapons truly were. Against Annie, Helen could do practically nothing; the other woman was able to fire off a string of deadly projectiles from a distance without giving Helen a chance to approach. With the Domain restrictions on her strength keeping her speed down, she had no chance to close the distance.

Ptolemy was a more manageable matchup, but his cantrips and Skills often left Helen infuriated. So much so that she had unleashed a diatribe of filth so overwhelming that he had hurriedly put an end to the spar, believing the anger to be real.

Well, it was real, Helen admitted. But it would only have lasted until I smashed his face into the ground.

“...It’s…” Helen opened her mouth to respond to Dozer, but the emotions were too tightly wound in her chest. The strange exhilaration of seeing the world that birthed Randidly. A frustration that the passage to this world had so restricted her strength. Wounded pride that she hadn’t won a single spar against Dozer. All of it conflicting and exacerbating each other, until Helen didn’t have a nameable feeling remaining within her chest, but simply the seemingly endless beat of her own heart.

Again, Dozer scratched his cheek. “You’ve got that look.”

Trying to play off the growing kernel of excitement in her chest, Helen casually shrugged. But that kernel of heat was dangerously close to igniting those compressed frustrations she held in her breast. “Huh? Don’t project your emotions onto me.”

“This thing you do isn’t cute,” Dozer grunted. “I can see it on your face. You want to spar.”

For several seconds they held each other’s gaze. Then Dozer looked away. He whistled. “Hey! Clarissa. You in the middle of something important? I need some help putting someone through the Hound’s Ladder.”

The two larger groups that were fighting each other with brutal efficiency the moment before slowed and peacefully disengaged from one another. It was incredible to Helen that they were at each other’s throats one moment and then peaceably laughing the next.

There is a comradery to the violence they wield, Helen realized. It held none of the brutality that she had learned from her mother or the stern disapproval that was the attitude of most of Tellus. No, this… this way of viewing fighting… it’s the same acceptance that Randidly shows...

One of the mages at the back of the group walked out, leaning against her tall staff. Her hair was frizzy and greying at the edges. “Nothing important here, just helping a lower thirties Squad by letting them practice with us. But this will be fun for them, too. Who's the sad victim? You want a go, Dozer?”

Dozer jerked his thumb at Helen. “Never again. This one. A masochist. Brought around by Randidly. Wants it more than has it, but possesses a lot of potential.”

Helen wanted to curl up into a ball and die while simultaneously beheading Dozer. It wasn’t that she didn’t have it, it was that Randidly had deprived her of it with his stupid Domain.