BXBX NOVEL Chapter 88 - Kicks
Foster dropped down onto the bench, looking up at the night-sky with heavy breaths.
"Oh, nice, so you're meeting your new Handler tomorrow?" Sofia asked with a curious smile, "Let's hope they're nice, mine was sort of... well, unique, to say the least."
Replying with a shrug, Foster said, "It's just a meeting thing tomorrow or something. Hopefully we'll find a handler, but it all depends on whether we end up vibing or not. Otherwise, we'll look for another one." He explained, turning his head toward the woman sitting next to him, "More importantly, I'm finally getting my guild card tomorrow. Guess that means I'll be a real adventurer."
"Meh, it's overrated. I used to be an adventurer as well, but I'm a merc now. It's a lot more ludicrous, trust me." Sofia laughed slightly. Surprsied, Foster raised his brows, "A mercenary? What's the difference?"
"Mercs are hired directly and specifically, but adventurers are paid to fulfill requests that other people just gave to the guild. Well, and mercs often do some more long-term work, and some in the darker... you know what? Doesn't matter." She jumped off the bench and looked at Foster with a slight grin, "Rather, don't you think you should keep on practicing your silent step? The only thing you've been practicing is the basic running thing. At least do some leaps or lunges or something."
"Considering that I need to know how to run so that I can properly do those leaps and lunges, I'll just wait for a while longer. I'm not really that comfortable with it yet, so I'll wait until then." Foster pointed out, of course leaving out the fact that the legacy training mode didn't let him learn the more advanced aspects of the argomna style's silent step.
"Actually, there's something else I wanted to ask you." Foster pointed out as he stood up, "Your martial style is very kick-heavy, right?"
"Mhm, yeah, so?"
"Can you give me a tip to get cleaner kicks? Like, my style is really dependent on weight and stuff, but I don't want to carry around an extra fifty pounds at all times just to properly use it. And then there's some other problems..." He explained, before Sofia crossed her arms, "Show me one of the kicks, then."
Foster quickly nodded, pressing his feet into the ground. He entered his stance, letting his legs slightly slide to the sides. Sofia looked at Foster somewhat confused as she saw the way that he stood there, "That's a stance for a punch-based martial arts. Kicks shouldn't belong in there."
Foster sighed with a quick nod, "That's exactly it, but my martial art basically uses anything it can. It has a rather wide range... Anyway, the specific stance doesn't actually stop me from quickly going into a stance for a kick, look." He said, as he quickly twisted his torso around, lifting his let foot off the ground while shifting his weight completely over to his other leg to support this sudden movement while shifting his center of gravity, followed by a rather simple kick where the top of his foot would hit the target from the side.
Sofia, as if she was in a daze, looked at Foster somewhat perplexed, "Wait, what just happened? How did you- That's so weird..." She muttered with a wry smile, "No wonder your stance looked so weird, it's made for things like this in mind, right?"
"Right, but... it's super hard to do. I can do this relatively well right now, but only when I stand still like that, so I can't really use it in a fight, not yet at least. But that's not even the issue... the kick is super light, so it's just useless. It's a northern style, so it's based on the user being heavy and carrying a lot of stuff with them, but that's not really the case for me. You got any tips to make up for that?" Foster asked. He had asked Lynol the same thing while they were training of course, but it seemed like Lynol's clan used a style based on punching, simply because kicking wasn't useful in the environment they lived in. The ground was too uneven in the mountains, and everything was frozen and snowed over, making it easy to slip at any point. That's why Lynol hadn't really been able to help him beside telling him to try and add some more weight onto himself, either through heavier armor or by simply eating more for a while. So, Foster hoped that Sofia had some ideas.
She was standing there, looking at Foster while deep in thought, although the silence in the air simply stretched out a little bit too long, "I guess not, huh?" Foster sighed, crossing his arms annoyed that nobody seemed to have an answer, "I guess I'll just get some really heavy boots to make up for it or something."
Sofia sighed slightly, "Yeah sorry, I guess that's the only thing you can really do. Besides just getting better at using this move, of course. It's clearly designed to do a lot of damage, so at some point you'll just kinda... get it, I guess. Like, this last hurdle to be able to use the move properly."
"Let's hope so." Foster said with a sigh, "Anyway, thanks for the help, again. But I think I'll be heading off first tonight. I'll try to finally get a little bit of sleep, I have a weird feeling that tomorrow is goin to be annoying and mentally straining." He pointed out, leaving with a wave, turning around the corner quite soon. It was the first time that he left before Sofia in the few nights that they had started meeting here, so it felt somewhat weird.
For now, Foster made his way back to the Inn. He walked past the person that does the night shift at the reception every day and lightly smiled at them as well. Foster knew them better than the day-staff at this point.
As he walked past them, Foster realized something, "Staying at an Inn forever seems sorta... expensive. Maybe we should buy an apartment together or something." He thought to himself, as he opened up the door to his room, "But also... how expensive is that gonna be? Urgh, I hope rent in medieval times is cheap..."
With a loud groan, Foster stripped out of his Gi and the shirt he wore underneath, and dropped down onto his bed, watching as Aster climbed out of his hair onto his face over toward his chest, rolling up before going back to sleep.
"...Maybe I should get a part-time job at the observatory for some money..." Foster groaned, "I'd be using my time wisely then, at least."
Slowly, he closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep. He barely slept the past few days, despite how exhausted he's been from the training that Lynol had put him through. But now, for once, he actually seemed to be dozing off! He moved into the world of dreams, ready to wake up more energ-
"Yo Foster, you awake? I need your help." Octer loudly knocked on his room's door, quickly waking him up again.