Unwillingly Summoned: Chapter 14 – Mindset

There was a rapid-fire ting, ting, ting, as James blocked the flurry of dagger strikes from Seiran with his short swords. The problem was that he didn’t know, not for sure, how or why he was suddenly able to do that when he couldn’t the day before. Not that everything was coming up James, either. As had happened countless times the previous day, a small foot crashed into his chest.

Thud.

And James was abruptly looking up at the sky again for at least the tenth time that morning. It’s cloudy today, thought James idly as he picked himself up off the ground. Seiran was giving him a look that suggested she was only mildly happy with his progress. At least there was some progress, he grumbled inside his head. He’d harbored doubts about this plan for him to join the adventuring party from the start. Getting repeatedly knocked onto his back was reinforcing that idea. Not that he’d expected to do well against all of them. His successful Punch of Wall Destruction, as he’d named it with no sarcasm at all, hadn’t been all luck but certainly hadn’t been all skill either. Chrosan had been drunk, after all, which meant he hadn’t been at his best. James also suspected the man hadn’t really been putting his all into it. No doubt, Chrosan expected James to just be some nobody. In short, circumstances had conspired in his favor that time.

He was assuming that his sudden ability to block dagger strikes meant that some skill had probably advanced, but that didn’t actually mean anything. Even if he saw a notification about it or some skill changed rank, it didn’t feel like he had learned anything. His body was just doing stuff because something or someone was pouring instructions into his nervous system. He was almost a passenger in the process. No, he thought, I’m a like surveillance system. The skill is using my senses to gather data. After that, I’m basically a flesh robot once it starts issuing orders. Those thoughts did not make him feel at all confident about depending on these skills to save his life when he was fighting some monster. That which could be given could also be taken away.

James set himself back into what he was thinking of as his ready stance, when Chrosan walked over to him and Seiran. The young man was frowning at James. It seemed that he was even less pleased with the progress he was seeing. James sort of hoped that Chrosan would call the whole thing off and spare him the burden of quitting. He’d planned on giving it a few days, but he’d take the win if Chrosan would just hand it to him.

“Let me talk to him for a minute,” said Chrosan.

“You saw it, too?” asked Seiran.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll let you handle it, then,” said Seiran and wandered away to get some water.

“Saw what? Handle what?” asked James.

“Do you know why you keep getting hit with that kick?” asked Chrosan.

“I suspect it might have something to do with her being faster than me,” said James. “It’s just a guess, though.”

Chrosan either didn’t hear or chose to ignore the sardonic edge to those words. He shook his head.

“Your guess would be wrong. She’s not faster than you. Not really. You keep getting hit for two reasons.”

“Alright,” said James as he tried to check his frustration. “What are those reasons?”

“Reason one. You don’t trust your skills.”

“Of course, I don’t trust them. Only a fool would.”

Chrosan seemed taken aback by that sentiment. He gave James a dubious look.

“Why?” asked the young man.

“You can never trust unearned knowledge. What’s to say that it won’t vanish on me when I need it most? I don’t want to be fighting some monster just to discover that I don’t remember how to use my swords anymore.”

The expression on Chrosan’s face kept shifting back and forth between amusement and bafflement.

“It’s never happened,” said Chrosan. “I mean, never, to anyone, ever.”

“That you know about,” objected James.

“That I know about,” admitted Chrosan, “but adventurers talk to each other. A lot. If someone abruptly lost their knowledge about how to use their weapons or cast magic, people would have talked about it.”

“You wouldn’t keep something like that secret?” asked James with all kinds of doubt.

“Sure, the person it happened to might want keep it secret, especially if they have enemies. Their party wouldn’t do it, though. Something that big is too dangerous not to tell other people. It’s a threat to us all.”

James still had his doubts, but he supposed he might be overthinking that one. Chrosan was right that something like that would be world shaking for every adventurer and probably everyone else.

“Hey, does everyone here get skills and stats?”

“In the city?

“In the world,” said James.

Chrosan frowned at James like he was asking something stupid before a startled look crossed his face.

“Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t know about that, would you? Well, yes and no.”

“I think I’ll need a bit more clarity on that,” said James.

“Well, picking up a basic skill is pretty easy. Most people have five or ten, but you have to work them pretty hard if you want growth. So, most people only have the basic version of skills and one or two that they’ve improved. Everyone has stats, but they tend to improve unevenly and relate to your skills.”

“What does that actually mean?” asked James.

“Well,” said Chrosan peering thoughtfully up at the clouds, “we can use me as an example. I have a skill for using a great sword. The thing is, they’re heavy. So, improving my great sword skill also improved my strength and endurance, but I’m not as fast as Seiran. I could get faster, but I’d have to really work at it now, and I’m bulky for that.”

That explanation cleared up some of James’s confusion.

“So,” said James, “if someone cooks a lot, they might have a knife skill. Knives are sharp and dangerous, so boosting that skill means they need better precision but not the kind of strength that someone like you needs. They’d probably have more… agility?” asked James.

“Exactly!” said Chrosan returning to the puppy dog excitement that seemed to be his default.

“But wouldn’t it make more sense to raise them all as evenly as possible?” asked James.

Chrosan shrugged and said, “Some people try it.”

“And?” asked James.

“You get tired people,” said Chrosan. “It’s easy enough in the early stages, but it’s incredibly hard to maintain as you grow. Most people who try it, abandon it and start focusing. Either that, or get you people who stop advancing. They tend to be decent at a bunch of things, but not necessarily great at any one thing. That’s fine as an F rank or even an E rank. In fact, it’s really helpful to have someone like that on the team then. Once you start getting into D rank and C rank, you need people who specialize in something.”

James realized that he had a lot more questions about that. He was, ever so briefly, even tempted to open up that status box. Two things kept him from it. First, he still harbored the belief that opening that damn thing would be tantamount to abandoning his old life. Second, they had drifted way off topic.

“Okay, well, we’ll come back to that later. You said that were two reasons I kept getting kicked. What was the second reason?”

“You aren’t taking this seriously.”

“What?”

“I mean, it’s obvious that you aren’t taking this seriously. Don’t get me wrong. You are trying, but you’re not trying the way you should be.”

“How should I be trying?” asked James.

“Like your life depends on it, because it does.”

The brought James up short. He thought he’d been putting in a genuine effort. When measured on a life-and-death scale, though, he had definitely been half-assing it. While most of the surrealness of his situation had faded as he kept waking up in this other world, some of it still lingered around the edges. A kind of dreamy wrongness that let him cling to the hope that all of this might just go away if he held on a little longer. If he really was going to go be an adventurer, though, he had to let go of that. His life would be in legitimate danger. Actual monsters would attack him with their actual teeth and claws and, for all he knew, tentacles imbued with the powers of evil. The people around him would be in peril and expecting him to do everything he could to make sure they all made it out alive and intact. Had he been putting in an effort that met that standard? No. He had not. James had been so caught up in those thoughts that he barely registered Chosan speaking.

“I’ll help you find the right mindset.”

Then, the young man let out a roar, lifted his great sword high into the air, and brought it down in a vicious arc that would cut James in two. Right down the middle. James was so startled by the act that he froze for a split second. Reflexes that he hadn’t earned kicked into action. He sidestepped the life-ending blow at the last second. Chrosan’s sword hit the earth below and sent up an explosion of dirt. James stumbled back, tripped over something, and landed on his ass. He stared up at Chrosan in shock as his heart beat wildly inside his chest. The young man lifted the blade, checked the edge, and then hung it on his back again. He looked at James.

“That fear you’re feeling right now is how fighting monsters feels. If you’re going to train, train with that feeling in mind.”

Without another word, Chrosan turned and walked away. He strode past Seiran and tossed a comment over his shoulder to her.

“I think I’ve gotten him sorted out.”

“We’ll see,” said the blonde before giving James a stern look. “Ready to give it a real try now?”

Realizing that he was still sitting on the ground, James scrambled to his feet. His heart was still beating faster than he’d like, but he supposed that was part of the point that Chrosan had been trying to make. Fighting monsters would be frightening. His heart would be beating faster. Fear would be messing with him and making him jittery. He couldn’t expect to be calm and collected for those kinds of fights. Certainly not before he’d racked up a hell of a lot of experience. Still, being jittery and distracted wasn’t going to help. He needed to use that feeling of being amped up and focus. He took one breath to try to center himself just a little, and then took his ready stance.

“Let’s find out,” he said.

As Seiran closed the distance, James tried to just trust that the skill wasn’t going to abandon him. It wasn’t until he pushed that thought to the back of his head that he realized just how much it had been distracting him. Without that idea eating up his attention, he found it far easier to parry the attacks that Seiran was sending his way. There was that satisfying ting, ting, ting sound ringing across the practice field. Except, this time, it went on for much longer. With his attention more focused on what was happening, James saw it when Seiran went to launch her kick. Even that recognition almost wasn’t enough. He twisted his torso to the right. That took him mostly out of the way, but he still felt her foot scrape across his chest.

Seiran clearly hadn’t been expecting a near complete lack of impact. She was off balance. Reactions that weren’t entirely his own took hold, and he rolled with them. He dropped the sword in his right hand, seized the back of her leg, and pushed up. Her back hit the ground with a dull thud, and James automatically put the sword in his left hand to her neck. There was a long pause where they just looked at each other.

“Not that I mind,” said Seiran, “but if you’re going to grab me like that, you could at least take me somewhere private.”

James had no idea what the woman was talking about at first. The words had sounded flippant, but there was a decided pink tinge to the woman’s cheeks. Then, James realized exactly where his right hand was. He hadn’t been paying attention when he grabbed her, but his grip was way higher up her leg than was decent. He jerked his hand away like he’d latched onto a hot coal. It seemed that was also the wrong reaction. She shot him a dirty look.

“Way to make a girl feel special,” she snapped before angrily getting up and stalking away.

She was gone before James regained his wits enough to say, “I have no idea what just happened.”