“How do you feel the sparring this morning went?” Nicholas asks curiously once the food has been served and both he and Markus have eaten enough to take the edge off their appetite. He wants to know how capable Markus is at self-analysis.

  As Markus starts describing his impressions of the various fights he and his Bonded underwent, Nicholas finds himself pleased. The younger man is clearly practised at self-analysis and doesn’t have any issues admitting fault.

  He demonstrates a clear view of himself and his companions. His first analysis identifies that in their initial battle, the first point of failure had been the lack of information he’d had about the enemies. He admits that they should have regrouped earlier once they started getting a picture of what their enemies were capable of. Nicholas also approves when Markus doesn't try to blame the failure of the first battle on his Inspect not working – though it is a useful Skill, there are ways to defend against it and Nicholas has employed the best to protect his Bonded. Nicholas admits to a personal satisfaction that those measures worked even against Markus’ odd combined Skill – he wasn’t sure they would.

  Evaluating the rest of the morning, Markus recognises several other failures in strategy that he made in the initial battle, and also in the one-to-one and small-group fights they did after that. Nicholas was initially surprised that they did as well against the human guards that he called in to fight as they did – coming from an uncivilised world, he was expecting Markus’ group to be far more practised fighting against beasts than against humans with weapons. But given that the samurans are clearly capable of using weapons, if they had to do some in-fighting, that would explain the ease the Bonded displayed.

  “You’re aware that most battles will also include a good deal more Skill usage, I hope,” Nicholas comments. Markus’ surprised look indicates that he hadn’t thought about that.

  “What, from the guards?”

  “Most Houses employ a number of Classers as elite fighters,” Nicholas explains. “I didn’t call for them to join here as it can escalate even sparring to levels that I didn’t want today’s session to reach. It’s for that reason that I limited my own Skill usage significantly too.” In fact, he’d only used a few to empower his Bonded, not even using the ones which he has to enhance himself. He decided that there was little point in just crushing his new heir – what would they learn from that?

  From Markus’ surprised expression, he hadn’t even considered that the guards might have Skills, which he really should have.

  “I keep forgetting that I’m in a different world,” he comments wryly.

  “Beasts in the other world didn’t have abilities?” Nicholas asks with a hint of confusion. If not, then why do Markus’ Bonded almost all have abilities of their own? Though he has noticed that several of them have fire-related abilities which is unusual. He doesn't get the impression from what little Markus has said that they spent much time near a volcano in the other world.

  “Oh, they did. I just wasn’t thinking about humans having Skills,” Markus explains.

  “We are certainly the minority,” Nicholas admits. “Perhaps one in a hundred humans or less has a Class, and they are not all combat-focussed. But in conflicts between Houses, you are almost guaranteed to face fighter-Classes. You must be prepared for it.”

  “I understand,” Markus agrees. Then he looks thoughtful. “Actually, I wanted to ask you – you offered training as one of the reasons for joining your House. Would that extend to my Bound as well?”

  Nicholas feels his eyebrows twitch upwards briefly.

  “I don’t see why not,” he answers cautiously. “What training are you thinking about? Martial Skills? I can’t promise that I will allow them to have a Skill stone from the treasury, regardless of your previous success with giving your own to one of your samurans, but they could certainly train with the guards.”

  “Well, that would definitely be useful,” Markus admits, “but it wasn’t what I was thinking about.” He hesitates briefly, making Nicholas feel increasingly curious.

  “Go on,” he prompts.

  “The three Pathwalkers,” he gestures towards the three magic-using Bonded – who Nicholas notices are paying rapt attention to the conversation, “all have areas of expertise in crafting. Specifically, smithing, runes, and potion-making.” Nicholas is both surprised and not – he had noticed one brewing something over a fire the first time he had spoken to Markus. If the embarrassing first few moments after Markus’ arrival were discounted, that was. But for it not to be an anomaly? For the other two ‘Pathwalkers’ to be capable of smithing and ‘runes’? If he hadn’t already noticed that the samurans seemed highly intelligent, that would be a purple flag.

  To answer Markus’ question, Nicholas decided that it might be more effective to consider the samurans as differently shaped humans, as surprising as it is to have a beast capable of a craft. And in the case of one of the human Bonded developing skills in a craft, and especially a craft as useful as smithing, enchantment, or alchemy, it was absolutely recommended that the Tamer give the Bound the resources needed to develop the craft further.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “I mentioned on our tour yesterday that there is a village not far from there. A good blacksmith, an Alchemist, and an Enchanter all call it home, among some others. I find it useful to have such skills available to me when needed. We can include visiting them in this afternoon’s excusion. I’m sure that they will be willing to teach your Bound – the coin and favour of the heir to Titanbend will make up for the fact that they’re not human,” he muses.

  “Communication will be an issue,” Markus points out thoughtfully.

  “There are ways around that,” Nicholas says dismissively. “Now, we seem to have wandered away from our original topic: the sparring this morning.”

  They continue speaking. It’s clear that Markus recognises that there is definitely room for improvement, but he seems open and willing to receive instruction, so Nicholas is satisfied.

  “Why did you not use your bow?” Nicholas asks when they’re discussing the initial fight once more. “You had to be prompted to use your Archery Skill in a later spar – why didn’t you consider using that against Attis instead of trying to stab him with your spear? He’s a lightning-focussed Tier three – surely you realised that making contact with him wasn’t a good idea?”

  Markus looks a little shamefaced.

  “Would you believe that I just didn’t think about it? I dismissed archery as an option when I went up against the rock creature-”

  “Grondel.”

  “Against Grondel, and then I didn’t think of it afterwards. That acid-spitting rabbit horse thing-”

  “Calista?” Nicholas asks, pointing at the Bonded in question. Markus nods.

  “Calista was too fast for me to consider shooting arrows at it. Her. So, I guess that I just didn’t think about it with Attis.”

  “Hm,” Nicholas grunts. A form of tunnel-vision, then. Hopefully training will allow Markus to see beyond his own expectations in the future. He noticed the same sort of thing in later battles too – once Markus got an idea of a strategy in his head, it had seemed difficult for him to adjust it to something else later.

  Added to the fact that Markus has indicated that he was a novice with all types of weapons before gaining the Skills in the other world, Nicholas thinks he might know why.

  “How much experience did you have with fighting and strategy before I contacted you?” he asks as they sit down to eat. Markus hesitates for a moment, eyeing him warily.

  “Let’s say little to none,” he admits after a moment. “In my world, at least the part that I grew up in, having to fight for one’s life…it’s not part of daily life. Not with weapons, anyway, and not with these weapons.” He hesitates a moment more and then evidently decides to continue. “When I arrived in the other world and was attacked within the first hour, that was the first time I’d killed something in defence of my own life. In fact, ignoring insects like ants and flies and so on, it was the first time I’d killed anything. The only time I’d ever held a knife was to prepare food. And I’d seen fighting on the TV, but most of the time that wasn’t even real fighting.

  “So yeah, I’ve basically been cobbling together strategies by using anything I can remember and common sense. And, as for actually fighting, that’s been a mixture of the knowledge stones you gave me, and learning from some of my companions.” He half-turns and gestures towards the group of samurans who carry weapons who are following closely on their heels.

  Nicholas is finding the samurans to be increasingly interesting the more he learns about them. He wonders briefly what a ‘tee vee’ is, but decides that it’s not important enough to ask at this moment. From what he said about it not being ‘real fighting’ most of the time, perhaps it is some sort of arena or theatre? He pushes the question aside for later.

  Overall, Nicholas decides that Markus’ world sounds…odd. Very peaceful, if all someone has to be concerned about is watching fighting which isn’t even real and cutting the food for their dinner. Though that latter is just more evidence that Markus wasn’t anyone of high status in his original world since he was doing it for himself.

  At least it explains the mixture of poor and decent tactics demonstrated in the battle. And if Markus has gone from being a complete novice in the area to being capable of at least taking down several of Nicholas’ own Bonded, including the Tier three Calista – who will be grumpy for at least three days as a consequence – then clearly he’s not a lost cause. And, if his comments during his self-analysis that referred to previously killing a Tier three by effectively using the environment are anything to go by – brought up to explain why he didn’t really use those tactics since he didn’t want to destroy Nicholas’ house – he’s a creative-enough thinker to eventually be a good strategist. He just needs practice. Besides, sometimes teaching true novices is easier than teaching those who think that they’re experts.

  Nicholas can work with that – even if it will be a lot of work. The fact is that Markus, for all his competence, is sadly lacking in far too many areas. Nicholas is becoming more and more concerned that even two weeks won’t be enough to impart sufficient understanding of this new world for his new heir to not be immediately identifiable as an outsider.

  Etiquette is one thing – that’s simple enough to teach. Everyone has to learn it eventually, and Nicholas would be willing to dedicate some of his own knowledge to creating a knowledge stone if he must. He could probably be taught to keep his conversation to appropriate subjects, especially with his new slave to help guide him in what the average commoner knows. A certain amount of poor conversational skills would be expected from an heir chosen from non-nobles.

  But his wide range of Skills? His Bonded themselves? They stick out like a riso among marlos. And Nicholas is now certain that Markus won’t be willing to leave them behind and Bind a few local beasts for protection on the journey – he’s too attached to the ones he has.

  Nicholas will have to think on it more. In the meantime, he needs to consider what training his heir is most in need of. Martial training needs to be one of the areas for sure – Markus is far too sloppy with his weapons for his System-ranked level of Initiate nine. That he’s never been given proper training is obvious. But before Nicholas can decide on the training program, he needs to know the answer to an important question.

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