Let’s Play Minecraft in a World of Swords and Spells

Garina’s heel slammed into the side of Noah’s arm with enough force to send him skidding back across the meadow. The bow of his violin spun from his fingers as he stumbled, but a single thought banished the instrument and re-summoned it to his hands a moment later.

Noah lowered his stinging arm, his teeth gritted. He skipped back in an ineffective attempt to put space between himself and the crazed Apostle trying to murder him and buy a few moments to actually use Unstable Pandemonium.

Garina’s leg slammed into his stomach. Noah doubled over, only to catch her knee straight to the face. His nose snapped with a loud crack and a flair of pain shot through his mind as he was sent rolling back.

Noah rolled to the side the moment he had control of his body. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to gather his bearings properly yet — he just knew that sitting around doing nothing for any amount of discernable time would practically be mailing Garina a written invitation to take his head off.

He was rewarded by a deep thud in the dirt just a few inches away from where he was. Specks of dirt pelted into his side like miniature bullets as he shoved himself back to his feet, raising both of his hands to protect his head as he rose.

Even the heightened senses that the Fragment of Self gave him could do practically nothing to let him keep up with the abilities of a Rank 7. He couldn’t afford the time that conscious thought demanded. If his movements weren’t instant, then he may as well have done nothing and simply stood around to let Garina beat on him.

There was only one way he had even the slightest chance to avoid her seemingly infinite flurry of strikes.

Noah’s body twisted to the side before he’d even tried to register what was happening. Garina’s fist hurtled past his face, passing so close to his nose that he felt it tickle his skin. He dove to the side, hitting the ground in a roll.

Garina spun above him, having just sent a powerful kick slicing through the air where he’d been. Her foot came down like a falling axe, but Noah had already dodged back. There wasn’t a single thought about the fight going through his mind.

“The fact you’re already this good is infuriating,” Garina said, her fist hurtling up toward Noah’s chin in the same breath.

He dodged.

At least, he tried to. Noah simply wasn’t fast enough.

The blow connected and his head snapped back. Stars spun through Noah’s eyes as he stumbled back, trying to keep his balance. He found himself spinning to avoid another one of Garina’s punches.

Unfortunately, she had two hands.

The second fist caught him in the cheek. Blood and saliva splattered from his lips as he fell back and hit the ground with a pained grunt. His face felt like it had gotten put through a trash compactor.

They’d been fighting for… well, Noah wasn’t actually sure. They’d been fighting. All sense of time had evaporated from his thoughts. There was only survival. She was even more relentless this time around than she had been during their previous training session.

Noah hadn’t even had a chance to call upon Unstable Pandemonium yet. That wasn’t for a lack of trying. Every time he summoned his bow and violin to try and start playing, Garina’s foot decided his ass was a dangerously tight cave and it was an explorer with a wife and three kids.

He rolled to the side before Garina could stomp his skull in and then vaulted backward, narrowly avoiding a vicious kick as he landed on his feet once more. A flurry of blows followed afterward and forced Noah into an awkward retreat. He protected his face and vital areas as best he could before skipping back once more in an attempt to create space.

Garina would have none of it. She was upon him before both of his feet were even back on the ground. Her knee hurtled up toward Noah’s stomach like a missile. His hand shot down in a palm strike to drive the blow to the side.

It was like trying to fight with a brick wall. A vibration ran up his arm as his blow struck Garina’s leg and managed to move it a distance somewhere between zero and nothing. Her knee slammed into his stomach and drove the air from his lungs with a pained wheeze.

The pain that squirmed through his body barely even mattered at this point. Noah used the force of the strike to push himself back from Garina. He dropped into a roll that let a kick whistle overhead harmlessly, then started to rise.

Midway through the motion, his body decided that was no longer the play. Noah found himself twisting to the side moments before Garina’s foot slammed into the grassy dirt where he’d been.

“Damn it! Would you please let me use my damn rune before you try to finish me off?” Noah rasped as he shot back to his feet, swaying like a drunkard. “I mean, seriously!”

Noah’s head snapped to the side just in time to dodge a punch. He dropped like he was a puppet whose strings had been cut, then jerked to the side to dodge another two rapid strikes, then backpedaled to avoid having his lower jaw relocated into his brain by a knee.

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“Are you asking me for time to cast your magic? In the middle of a fight?” Garina didn’t even try to hide the derision in her voice. “Does the big baby want a sucker and some armor as well? Maybe I should cut you some fruit and feed it to you while we fight?”

“Fuck you.”

Garina smirked. “That’s better.”

She blurred, reappearing before Noah in an instant. Her fist was already moments away from his nose. Noah arched backward, practically flinging his head toward the ground. He kicked his feet up in the same motion.

His knee slammed into Garina’s chin. There was a loud crack.

Pain exploded through him as his kneecap broke.

Noah still finished the movement, landing on his good leg and stumbling back as a slew of curses spilled from his lips.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?” Noah asked. “Fighting you is bullshit!”

Garina’s foot whistled toward his head. Noah ignored the pain shooting through his leg — it was considerably easier to force past injuries when some deep part of you knew that they weren’t going to stick around after you died and came back — and dodged out of the way.

“Took you long enough to get pissed off,” Garina said. “Seriously, I was beginning to wonder if you were a saint or something. I’ve been beating the life out of you for forever. At least nobody can say you’ve got anger issues.”

“What?” Noah asked, his voice nasally. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, this has nothing to do with the training,” Garina replied as she bore down on him again, her strikes blurring to drive into Noah from every angle. “I was just curious to see how far you would go before you snapped. Even if you don’t care about dying, it can’t be a very fun experience.”

Noah managed to avoid the majority of the strikes, but one of them still caught him in the side of the face. It snapped his head to the side and sent him stumbling several steps as another spike of anger drove into the back of his mind.

I forgot how much of an asshole Garina is. Suppose that’s what happens when you get this old and have to sit around babying a continent of little shits.

“What use is training if you’re just beating the shit out of me?” Noah demanded. “I need to practice more than my physical abilities, you know. Would it kill you to let me work on my runes first?”

“No, but it’ll definitely kill you to need to stand still every time you have to play a stupid song,” Garina replied. She twisted and her foot snapped out in a straight kick that whistled right over Noah’s shoulder. “Seriously, do you think your enemies are just going to stand still and wait for you to finish your magic?”

Noah blinked.

“I—”

Then Garina’s leg, which was still extended right past his head, hooked around the back of his neck. Noah’s eyes only had an instant to widen before he found himself hurtling through the air.

He hit the ground in a grunt, rolling several times before skidding to a stop at the base of a hill. The world spun around him violently. Noah drove a palm into the ground, fighting against his rebelling body as he unsteadily rose to his feet.

She’s right. I need to adapt. I can’t just expect people to give me a chance to stand still and get my magic to where I want it to be. Even if Unstable Pandemonium can block blows, I still have to get the song started. That means being able to use my violin in any situation, not just in the ideal ones.

At least, that was what Noah wanted to believe he thought. In truth, his thoughts were more of a garbled mess of flickering desires — and a solid half of them were just hitting Garina over the head with a very heavy frying pan.

“I’ll give you a pass on that one,” Garina said as she stalked toward him. “I’m pretty sure you’re a bit concussed. Maybe it’s time to wipe the slate and get your mind cleared up. The night’s still young. No point wasting precious time when you can’t even put two thoughts together.”

She blurred forward and her foot rose into the air like an executioner’s axe.

Noah lunged to the side. His violin and bow materialized in his hands and he set the string of the bow against the violin. He just needed to get the song started. That was his goal. One step at a time.

Garina twisted toward him, blurring into a spinning kick. She wasn’t about to let him get away so easily. Noah arched back, letting the kick just barely pass by him. He pulled the bow of the violin across its strings —

A fist was in front of his face. Noah jerked to the side. Garina’s knuckles scraped across his shoulder with enough force to spin him, but Noah barely even noticed. His mind was too battered to process anything other than his goal right now — and it didn’t matter if she hit him.

Right now, the only thing he cared about was his song.

Noah pulled the bow across the violin. A note rang out.

Garina’s knee shot up for his side. He dodged back, but not nearly fast enough. The wind was driven from his lungs for the umpteenth time. Noah wheezed and staggered to the side, but he didn’t dismiss the violin.

Not this time.

He played another note. Power welled within his body. Unstable Pandemonium fought back, not wanting to make itself known before Garina, but Noah gave no regard to its requests. He skipped back to dodge another kick, then spun to avoid Garina caving his skull in with a punch.

Another note rang out through the air. Power swelled and coursed through him as Unstable Pandemonium flooded into the strings of the violin—

Garina’s other hand slammed into Noah’s forehead.

His head exploded into a murky mist of blood, bone, and viscera.

The violin vanished from his grip with a pop. Noah’s soul exploded out of the back of his corpse. Clarity of thought returned with it as his body crumpled to the ground at Garina’s feet.

“Damn it!” Noah exclaimed, the pull of his gourd already beginning to call to him. “I was almost there!”

Garina lowered her hand. Blood dripped from her knuckles as she looked down at Noah’s body, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

“That wasn’t bad,” Garina said, a note of approval in her voice. “Not bad at all.”

Then the gourd grabbed Noah. His soul was sucked into its new home, and he was jerking upright on the cold grass without so much as a gasp. He grabbed a spare set of clothes from his bag and yanked them on before turning back to Garina in record time. A headache pounded in his skull, but he barely even cared.

“Ready?” Garina asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I was about to get my magic working! Couldn’t you have waited a bit longer?”

“Take it as a lesson. Your enemies won’t give you time to get shit working. Get it right faster next time. And don’t worry your breakable little head.” Garina’s lips split apart into a dangerous grin. “We’ve got more than enough other things that you can focus on training for tonight.”