When I asked Deckard for guidance, I expected another story from his time in the army, not actual combat advice. After all, he has simply ignored most of my questions so far. Thus my surprise when he now seemed more like the trainer Rezso mentioned, and I so desperately needed. It made me all the more disheartened when, according to him, I had no other way to win the upcoming struggle, that was my training, other than by beating the mossbear to pulp.
It wasn't advice I hadn't heard before, either. They taught me the same thing in self-defense classes or by Rezso when I was training with him.
Eyes, ears, nose, crotch. I repeated to myself, knowing that there were many more weak points on the human body, but not all of them could be applied to the massive beast that I was about to face.
"What about the throat?" I asked, thinking hard of something I could use to my advantage.
Deckard nodded approvingly. "Good thinking. Yeah, you can use the throat too. Just not to block its breathing with a punch. It's got too much fat in there for that."
"Then how?" I asked, pretty desperate to hear something that would give me an edge.
He looked at my hands. "If your claws are sharp enough, you could cut its throat. Or at least an artery."
His calm, confident tone and attitude, as if this struggle was no big deal, was oddly reassuring even though he was basically telling me I didn't have much of a chance to defeat the beast. Or so it felt to me.
"Can you think of anything else?" I asked frantically, almost adding, "Please."
He thought, shuddered, and sighed. "There's a spot on their bodies..."
"Oh, which ones? Where?" I asked when he paused.
"One that even humans shouldn't forget to protect," he said, and when he looked at me, his gaze went down to my waist. While I blushed under his gaze, not knowing what he was talking about, he waved it off. "Forget it. It would probably just piss it off."
That Deckard refused to tell me this possibly critical information for my survival pissed ME off. Yet before I could let my emotions out and use harsher words to get it out of him, my brain connected the hints. The ire that I felt turned to understanding, quickly replaced by embarrassment as I grabbed my ass instinctively in defense.
Deckard smirked. "Not a pleasant thought, is it?"
Red in the face, I couldn't help but shake my head in agreement. It was not a pleasant thought at all.
"As I said. Forget it, girl," he stated seriously, looking at Esu. "The big guy wants to train you, to experience the actual fight. And to me, it's the best way to see what you're made of. Do that, fight, train, learn, and remember that most creatures have the same weaknesses, including you."
"But..." I wanted to argue that this didn't seem like good training to me, that I had almost zero combat experience, but he hadn't finished yet.
"Protect your floppy ears, guard your throat, don't forget the moss on its back. The shoots can gouge your eyes out in a second. I've seen it happen many times."
Yeah, the death of the thief and mercenary woman who were caught by the moss was still vivid in my mind, as well as that amazing-smelling carcass that ended up being delivered into Esu's mouth by these shoots.
Be wary of shoots, got it!
He shrugged. "I don't know what else to tell you. Be faster, be smarter. Don't get caught."
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Lament of the Slave
काल्पनिकThe world is not always as beautiful and forgiving as one would imagine, and Korra Grey, a young florist, who is abducted by a creature of the children's books, finds herself in another world quickly learning that life can be even crueler than she t...
