"Kazuto's martial arts, especially the two-handed long sword sword technique, has quite a lot in common with Rigar's long sword sword technique in terms of starting hand position, holding method and basic structure." He was holding a sword in his hand that was similar to his own. Henry, who was as tall as a wooden stick, stood at the edge of the vacated field and said this to the two people standing in the center of the field.
Proper relaxation is indeed a good thing, but for combat professionals, if they stay in a comfortable state for too long, their muscles and combat intuition will be like rusty weapons and equipment, unable to function well.
Therefore, when they find an opportunity, they will fight and practice internally, learn from each other, and re-polishing their senses to a sharp edge in high-speed fighting.
It is better to sweat on the training ground than to bleed on the battlefield, but the competition of pure personal martial arts is the topic of today, but it is not the core of what they want to discuss.
"Huh——" A man and a woman in the center of the field, two or three meters away, exhaled at the same time under the watch of their companions, and then they all assumed the same posture.
——This is already an old pair.
The young master Yajiro and our Luoan girl have had some interactions in combat since they met. The most recent battle against a ghoul took place more than half a month ago.
Although it mainly comes from Yajiro, it is indeed not unexpected that there is such a subconscious competitive contrast between the two.
Mira and Yajiro are the same age, but the Luoan girl is at most a few months younger than him. Although Yajiro took a longer time to receive training - Kazuto's samurai began training at the age of 8 - the level of hard work, instructor level and actual combat experience were superior to Luoan girls.
Mira is slightly taller, but Yajiro is more physically capable as a male.
They are very close in age, skill level, and physical ability, so even if they don't say it, the two will more or less regard each other as a competitor.
And it is true that it is difficult for other people in the entire team to meet these conditions. They are either adults like Henry and Narumi, whose fighting ability is not on the same level as teenagers; or they are ordinary people like Galeva, Oiran and Miss Doctor, who are not good at fighting and lack training.
Lulu may be regarded as a subtle existence. Although she has not received any real systematic combat-related training, the hunter's intuition and cleverness developed by walking in the mountains for many years make her performance in actual combat not too weak. . But this was limited to actual combat, and she was so partial to science that she couldn't find anyone to compete with.
——In short, the sage would choose Mira and Yajiro as candidates for the drill because they have similar levels in many aspects.
"Start." Henry waved the wooden stick in his hand, and Mira and Yajiro, both holding wooden knives of the same length, pressed their weight forward at the same time, and then took a step forward almost at the same time - Luo An The girl adopted a simple vertical slash with the wooden sword raised high - this is an attack method that can take advantage of her arm length and height; while Yajiro correspondingly put his elbows together to adopt a more stable posture, using himself to be stronger The body adopts a defensive posture and a horizontal knife to block it.
"Bang!" The wooden knives with smooth surfaces collided with each other, causing slight dents. Once in contact, they completely slipped. Mira frowned and had to use more strength to control the weapon, but then she realized that she could not break through Yajiro's attack. After the defensive posture, he immediately retracted the knife and distanced himself again.
"call--"
The cautious and restrained first confrontation ended in a tie.
The ashigaru, missionaries and other characters who were watching, as well as the young samurai who were still inexperienced, forgot to close their eyes. But in the eyes of Narumi, Lao Qiao, Daishen and our Mr. Sage, who have more seniority, this result is not unexpected at all.
Both Mira and Yajiro moved again. This time the Luoan girl chose another attack method that could give full play to her own advantages. She decisively stepped forward and stabbed Yajiro's armpit with the wooden sword - - Both sides wore lightweight single-piece breastplates as protective gear - but the young master's previous defensive posture did not change. He quickly deflected the wooden knife to block Mira's thrust and at the same time pushed the wooden knife in her hand outwards. go.
"Boom——" "Click——" The Luoan girl released her left hand and slid forward to grab the back of the knife. She formed a more stable structure by spreading her hands wider apart instead of just holding the handle of the knife - this It's Rigar's technique called the Half Sword Style - with this grip, she can exert force more steadily, and the white-haired girl, whose arm strength is slightly inferior to Yajiro, has the upper hand against the outward blocking movement.
"Bah——!" After resisting Yajiro's action of pushing the wooden sword in his hand outward, Mira then used the intersection of the two wooden swords as a fulcrum to rotate the weapon so that the tip of the knife pointed inward and cooperated with her calf. He used force and stabbed Yajiro's torso again.
"Pa—!" The Luoan girl's abundant practical experience made her responsive, but the young master is not a weak hand either. Because Mira adopts a half-sword grip, she is close to the fighting distance of short soldiers, and this distance is also The joint skills that are indispensable for hand-to-hand combat can be used at the best distance, so Yajiro took advantage of his stronger body and directly let go of his left hand. He ducked sideways to avoid Mira's thrust and then reached his hand towards her. She raised her hand due to the thrust. He raised his bare armpit and directly touched the end of Mira's right arm with his elbow.
"Tsk!" Yajiro jammed the Luoan girl's holding hand with his own arm, making it impossible for her to swing the knife downwards, and then tried to push up to make the Luoan girl's center of gravity shift back and lose her balance, but Mira paid attention in time. Got to this point.
"Ha——!" As if Yajiro did not bother with attacking with the wooden sword but used joint techniques, Mira immediately chose to let go of her right hand and then held the back of the knife with her left hand and directly stabbed Yajiro with the end of the wooden sword's handle.
"Kata——!" The young master blocked the blow, but was unable to break the Luoan girl's center of gravity.
"Ha-hu-hu-, ha-hu--"
It was another round of evenly matched confrontation. Although it was short-lived, due to the high intensity, both of them showed some signs of fatigue and embarrassment. They almost succeeded several times, but were blocked and counterattacked by their opponents several times.
"Brilliant!" Some of the young senior warriors couldn't help but shout out, but Narumi looked at the sage - because he knew that this was obviously not everything Henry wanted to show.
Although this competition involves moving the muscles and bones, the main reason is that the warriors discussed with the sages and wanted to know about the martial arts they have learned, the lack of struggle in society for more than four thousand years, and the relationship between the warriors and " The only thing that can be mentioned above the word "actual combat" is martial arts competition. What are the shortcomings of it?
Their questions were not unfounded, including the difficulty Yajiro felt when he experienced a battle with a gangster and saw blood for the first time. Even if all Kazuto samurai appear to be arrogant on the surface, unless they are completely brainless and arrogant, they still have some inner self-confidence about these things.
Henry's answer was that actions were more intuitive than words. In addition, they really needed to move their muscles to avoid laziness and slackness, so this competition came about.
So what does he want to show?
People with less qualifications watched it with gusto, feeling that it was as exciting and exciting as the finals of the strong men in a nationwide martial arts competition. However, many people with more seniority were silent. Most of them held their chins and rubbed their chins. Stubble, if you have something to think about, if you have something to realize.
"The fight was really exciting, because there was back and forth. It seemed like we were on the verge of crisis every moment. It seemed like either side could win, didn't it?" After the brief confrontation, the sage spoke to the people around him.
"Do you know the reason?" He looked at Yajiro and Mira, both of whom lowered their wooden swords because Henry stretched out the wooden stick, which was a sign of intermission.
"Because/we are equal." Answered in unison, the sage nodded with satisfaction.
"Equal, yes."
"Physical fitness." He raised a finger. Henry has this habit every time he talks about the key points: "This is the basis, something everyone has, height, weight, endurance and explosive power can all be summarized in it. It’s innate.”
"Technology, this item sums up the accumulation of daily training, actual combat or confrontation experience, etc. It is something that can be learned the day after tomorrow."
"Equipment, although many people prefer to brag about their skills, good equipment can really help you win."
"These are the three advantages you can gain before the battle begins." Henry put away his raised fingers, and then looked at the great god, Lao Qiao, Narumi and others who were holding their arms.
"So the fair rules of confrontation are themselves unreasonable?" Narumi's expression was a bit complicated. To a certain extent, he was very dissatisfied with Henry's statement that he despised the entire martial arts culture of Kazuto samurai society, but on the other hand On the one hand, the words of the sage are indeed so reasonable that they cannot be refuted.
"The competition in the Kingdom of the Moon is divided into weight classes, right?" The sage shrugged.
"Use equipment of the same size and weight." He pointed to the wooden swords in Mira and Yajiro's hands: "The physical fitness of the contestants is also strictly limited, and players of similar age, height and weight are selected to pair up." Then he raised his fingers and pointed at them respectively. Pointing at Yajiro and Mira - the latter rolled his eyes at his teacher.
"In this way, after ruling out other unstable factors -" he trailed off.
"Isn't it entirely the contestant's own swordsmanship that determines victory or defeat? I see." Narumi nodded.
"Restrict the physical fitness of the contestants to the same level and use public equipment. Both sides of the competition are equal in these things, so the victory or defeat reflects the pure technical level of the contestants themselves." Henry raised a finger again head, and shook his head.
"So it's no wonder that the dojo represented by the winner every year will become famous all over the world. We couldn't see this, but the lights were dark." The great god also nodded.
"Then, if you are at the same level as the little girl and the young master, they will be on equal footing. I see, that's how it is." Old Qiao also understood.
“Everything is the product of its pursuit of goals and its tendencies.”
"In pursuit of defeating the enemy while protecting oneself, the weapons began to lengthen." Henry shook the nearly two-meter wooden stick in his hand.
"Even developed into long-range weapons."
"In pursuit of resisting specific attacks or being used in specific environments, different armors were born."
"The pursuit of enlightenment, the pursuit of proving the strength of the pure skills one has learned, ultimately resulted in the Kazuto Samurai Martial Arts Tournament, which tried its best to eliminate other factors and only judge success or failure based on martial arts." He raised the wooden stick in his hand and waved it easily. After a few times, he changed his hand several times with dazzling speed and technique. When he finally landed on the ground again, it seemed that there was no change, but those with sharp eyes could see that it had changed from an overhand grip to an underhand grip—— If sticks also have pros and cons.
"That's where you fall short."
"What Kazuto's martial arts tournament wants to prove is just technique among the major factors for victory."
"What the competition pursues is fairness, and the battlefield is."
"It's to pursue unfairness as much as possible." Henry shook his hand and slid it to the end of the wooden stick. He then raised the two-meter-long wooden stick with one hand and stood between Yajiro and Mira with a "Whoosh--" Mido swung at them from afar.
The two young men reacted instinctively, but before they raised their wooden swords, the sage lightly knocked on their heads respectively, like a dragonfly.
"The advantages of equipment." He pointed to the wooden knives in their hands that were just over one meter tall, and then pointed to the wooden stick that was nearly two meters tall in his own hand.
"Physical advantage." Then he pointed at Mira, Yajiro and himself.
"Tch." The Luoan girl looked down upon her again.
"..." Narumi and the others fell into silence, while the sage inserted the weapon back into the ground.
"But this, this is disgraceful." The young warrior who was applauding before was obviously very troubled by Henry's words. With the intuition of a combat professional, he could understand that these words made sense. However, the culture he has grown up in and the people he has admired have taught him that he must try his best to act honorably, win openly, and win in a dignified way.
Everyone hopes that when future generations tell of their deeds, they will mention that they used "painstakingly honed skills and calm hearts" to finally achieve victory. Not because he is taller, stronger and has a better weapon.
Even ordinary people would think that the latter is obtained with the help of external force or talent, which is a bit cheating, not to mention the samurai class who are talking about this aspect in culture and education.
Kazuto society is a mature society, but there are rules and details everywhere.
To a certain extent, they are powerful, but this power is extremely restricted.
The starting point of the samurai class is the warrior warrior, the elite military force of this society. The doctrine they believed in made them loyal to their monarch, hone their skills, and refrain from killing innocent people indiscriminately. The spirit of the warriors makes them a trustworthy and safe class in this society. The pursuit of honor and aboveboardness prevents them from starting a war and causing rivers of blood.
But it was this order that limited Kazuto's samurai to the "waiter" class.
As the Lamanites said, their pattern was limited.
This kind of limitation is indeed worthy of respect. At least compared to the knights who are full of honor and hold swords on horseback to chase and kill the fleeing peasants and fight for the spoils. Most samurai are indeed consistent with their appearance.
But they represent the military power of Kazuto society.
They are not a gentle town, and it should be the duty of witches, nobles, and doctors to appease the people.
Samurai are the swords of the Moon Country.
If this knife only has the meaning of ornamental display and cannot make people feel its danger.
So what is the difference between it and decoration?
Narumi wanted to know what his shortcomings were.
But when Henry used his usual sharp way to point out the pursuit tendency in the rules of competition, and then directly and indirectly denied the rules that their entire class had believed in for thousands of years.
He felt a little regretful that he shouldn't have asked.
There are some things that happiness is better not knowing.
In any case, after arousing many people's thoughts or dissatisfaction, the sage shrugged and walked towards the fire.
He continued to drink his tea.
