Chapter 2
“Ahh... ha... uwahh!”
The sword swinging to these strange shouts swished around, cutting nothing but air.
Right afterwards, the blue boar (which moved surprisingly quick considering its bulk) charged fiercely at its assailant. I burst into laughter, watching him fly through the air and roll on the hill after getting hit by the boar's flat nose.
“Hahaha... not like that. The first movement is important, Klein.”
“Argh... that bastard.”
The complaining assailant, a party member called Klein, got up and glanced at me while answering plaintively.
“But Kirito, even if you say that... I can't do anything about the fact that it's moving.”
I met this person, who had reddish hair held up by a bandana and simple leather armor worn over his thin body, a few hours ago. If he had revealed his real name, it would have been hard to omit the honorifics, but his name (Klein) and mine (Kirito) were both names we had made up for our characters. Putting -san or -kun at the end of them would sound comical more than anything.
The legs of the person in question started shaking.
“Seems like he's a little dizzy.”
I picked up a pebble from the undergrowth at my feet and raised it above my shoulder. As soon as the system detected the first motion of a sword skill, the pebble started giving off a slight green light.
After that, my left hand almost moved by itself and the pebble went flying, drawing a straight line of light and hitting the boar between its eyebrows. *Ggiik!* The boar squealed in fury and turned towards me.
“Of course they move, they're not training dummies. But if you begin the correct motion, the system will put your sword skill into motion and hit the target for you.”
“Motion... motion...”
While muttering this like some spell, Klein raised the cutlass that he held in his right hand.
Although the blue boar, officially named «Frenzy Boar», was a level one monster, Klein had lost almost half of his HP from being hit by counterattacks due to his wild swings. Well, even if he died he'd just respawn at the «Starting City» near here, but coming all the way out to this hunting ground again was somewhat annoying.
It seemed like there was one move left before the fight reached its conclusion.
I cocked my head as I blocked the boar's charge with the sword in my right hand.
“Hmm, how should I explain... It's not like one, two, three, then strike. But more like gathering a bit of energy and then, as soon as you feel the skill start, it goes BAM and you feel it hit the monster...”
“Bam, eh?”
Klein's roughly handsome face grimaced itself into an unsightly image as he leveled his sword at his waist.
Inhale, exhale; after taking a deep breath, he lowered his stance and raised his sword as if he was going to shoulder it. This time, the system sensed the pose correctly and the arcing sword slowly started shining orange.
“Ha!”
With his low yell, he jumped off the ground with a movement that was completely different from the ones before.
*Swish—!* With this crisp sound, the sword drew its flame red trajectory through the air. The «Reaver», a basic skill of the one-handed curved sword, struck the boar right in its neck as it was about to charge and got rid of the rest of its HP, which (like Klein's) was about half full.
