“…Just beating him in a drinking contest, and helping him clean up made him like this? Seriously?” Rae asked perplexed, and Foster simply shrugged, “Listen, I said it before, but I’ve got no idea what it was exactly that made him open up. But either way, if it’s like this now, then why worry about it?” He pointed out, picking up some thick, heavy boots. Compared to the light, thin shoes that he was wearing until now, these would be much better in a fight. Luckily, they seemed to be about his size too.

Foster squatted down, quickly trying the boots on. It felt sort of weird to wear them compared to before, simply because he wasn’t used to them, but they would probably work fine. Trying to move his feet around, it did feel like his kicks would be a lot more powerful compared to before. He would just need to try it out later. Foster still didn’t know exactly if these boots were going to help him somehow go from that low basic stance into a kick, or if they were just going to make it harder for him. He just had to try it out.

.

“Shouldn’t you try and get a weapon or something? Barely any dungeon divers do martial arts, because a lot of the monsters are, well, beast-types.” Rae advised Foster, and he slowly turned his head, looking up at her, “I’m not ready to start training with weapons yet.”

“…What?”

“I said what I said. I’m training my general mastery of my style right now. Weapons are something more advanced than that. Lynol said at the rate I’m going I should be able to start the staff-based training in a few more weeks.” Foster explained. The main reason why he didn’t start practicing the few techniques he knew about that were based around actual martial weapons was that the Legacy Training Mode didn’t help him with those yet. Lynol had told him that there was most likely a reason behind that, so Foster followed along with it for now.

Rae let out a deep sigh, looking at Foster surprised, “You didn’t seem like the kinda guy who would care about something like that.”

“Meh. I like fighting, and training’s been sorta fun until now. So I figure, why not take it seriously? Although… there are some things that I should probably buy. Some throwing knives.” He pointed out, thinking about it now. Rae raised her brow, “Throwing knives?”

“Yeah, I’ve got pretty decent aim, and in the dungeon I used them a couple times. They’re pretty useful.”

“Are there throwing techniques in your style?” Rae asked, and Foster thought about it for a moment. He turned toward Lynol, who was stretching his body while wearing the armor to see how it felt when he was wearing it and moving around, “Yo. Does it make sense if there were throwing techniques in my style?”

“Do you mean throwing your opponent, or throwing objects?”

“Objects. Like my knives.”

“If it’s a nothern style, then that would be limited to larger objects like spears or axes. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There are some knife-throwing techniques that work together with northern styles  quite well.” Lynol explained, “We still need to find more tomes on your style.”

Rae listened to the short exchange, and seemed sort of confused, “What sort of style do you have? Can’t you just find your teacher and ask him or something?”

“I’m learning the techniques through books that the creator of the style made.” Foster explained immediately, “And he’s dead now, and I don’t think anyone else ever learned it beside me now.”

Rae suddenly seemed sort of annoyed, looking at Foster with a frown, “What? Why’d you learn a useless, small style like that? Just pick a large, popular one or something. Those are good, right?”

Foster answered basically immediately, “It’s not about them being popular. I chose this one.” He said immediately, “Although, the fact that I can’t find more tomes about it seriously is a hell of a pain…”

“Fine. What’s the name of the style? I’ll see if I can find something.” Rae sighed, deeply annoyed, “Making sure that you can properly grow is part of my tasks as well.” She pointed out. But Foster wasn’t sure what he should say. After all, his style was that of a calamity, and that wasn’t something that he could just explain away upon revealing it.

“You won’t.” Lynol said immediately, “Trust me. As we said, it’s a small style. We wanted to head to the martial alliance to see if we can figure something out later. Right, Foster?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Right. We’re gonna do that.” Foster replied, looking at Rae, “But thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it.”

Rae let out a slight sigh and shrugged, “Fine, alright. But do tell me if there’s something I can help with. Anyway, if that’s so, I’ll just prepare whatever you need for the first dungeon dive.” She said, slowly turning around to have a look around the shop as well.

Lynol walked up to Foster immdiately, and whispered to him, “You may be able to openly reveal your necromancy, but your legacy and who that legacy came from? You should keep that to yourself for as long as possible.”

“…Do you think there’s gonna be a time where I can’t keep it a secret anymore?”

“Knowing you, all of Arcadum will know by next week.” Lynol pointed out, “So let’s make sure that you’re as trustworthy as possible before then. If you become someone that everyone knows, and a notable, powerful adventurer, then when it does come out, we should be able to minimize the damage if the information gets out.”

Foster sighed and slowly started to smile, “It’s really great to have you around, man. I’d be totally fucked in this town without you guys.”

“Yes, you would be.” Lynol said bluntly, “Now hurry it up and grab some throwing knives. If we actually want to get to the martial alliance, we should do it soon.” 

— 

“Here I am, back in my Gi after just a few hours…” Foster muttered slightly, as the party of four were on their way to figure out how to get their hands on the tome of the Argomna Style that they had at the martial alliance.

“Who cares, you’ve been wearing it for a month.” Lynol replied immediately, and Foster couldn’t help himself but slightly glare at him. But before he could say anything, Kyla stepped inbetween the two of them, “More importantly, what’s your guys’ plan? You can’t think they’ll just let you read it, right?”

“…” Foster and Lynol looked down at her silently for a few moments, making her let out a deep groan, “Really? You didn’t think this through at all, did you?”

“Of course they did.” Octer said with a slightly awkward laugh, “They just have plans based more on… intuition, I guess.” He pointed out.

“Right… But, like… I don’t think this is something you can do by feeling.” Kyla said, but Foster quickly placed his hand on her shoulder reassuredly, “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll definitely figure something out. And it’s not like we’re planning on taking it back with us today. We just gotta see exactly what we could do to get it.” He explained, and the cleric sighed in relief that they did seem to have thought it through a little.

“Like… gaps in their security, how it’s guarded, where it’s even kept. That sorta thing.” Foster said, and the group suddenly stopped. Lynol looked at his friend immediately, “Did you… think we were going to steal it?” He asked, and Foster looked back somewhat nervously.

“Wait… we’re not?”