"I should have brought that skinny guy along."
Blink was thinking of the lunch they had just refused as he did not want to wait for two hours just to eat. What he wanted was to immediately go after the bandits who ran off during the one-sided battle.
"What good exactly does bringing that voracious glutton achieve?" Jogr disdainfully remarked. It was not Blink's comment that irritated him. It was having to keep up with his brother-in-law's walking pace.
In consideration of his brother-in-law, Blink was actually walking at what could be considered a leisurely pace for him. But if anybody were to tell Jogr that Blink was walking at a leisurely pace, the commenter would receive a nasty reply telling him off that nothing could be further from the truth.
"Don't you think it's such a pity that somebody from our village could have eaten all the food that Elder Keln had prepared in gratitude to us?"
Jogr gave his brother-in-law a disbelieving look. He shook his head in dismay.
"It's such a pity that I once dreamt of dreaming of entering the Ragha Martial Arts Academy," Jogr remarked. "Looking at you right now, I could not help but think that life inside the academy must have been so boring."
"What has the academy got to do with what I just said?"
"Obviously you had a lot of idle time in there you managed to turn into someone with wicked thoughts."
"No, we didn't. And even if we did, how does being idle lead to having wicked thoughts?"
"An idle mind drifts into wickedness."
"I am not possessed of wicked thoughts! Whoa, Namgun that's so profound I bet you stumbled upon it and saved it for this very moment."
Jogr ignored Blink's attempts at sarcasm.
"Didn't you just wish for a calamity called Gupm to descend upon Nagwa just now?" Jogr pointed out.
"But they deserve it."
"How so?"
"Didn't they send the same calamity at breakfast time our way?"
Jogr was stunned. "Shite, you're right!"
Right there and then Jogr decided that when there would be a chance to visit Nagwa on his official capacity as village chief, he would make sure to bring along the skinny monster eater of Kasgar.
"When you think about it, there's one way you can exploit the man's talent to make a reputation for Kasgar," Blink suddenly blurted out.
"I wouldn't consider his voraciousness as a talent at all," Jogr rebutted.
"And how many people can you find who can eat as much and as fast as he does, Namgun?"
"Eh?"
"That's right! None! That makes him the most talented eater you'd find under the light of Lantiok's fire1."
Although Jogr didn't really want to agree with Blink's conclusion, he had to admit that Gupm's voraciousness is at a whole new level.
"As I was saying earlier," Blink said, "you can actually make use of Gupm's very irritating yet highly unusual talent to make a name for Kasgar."
"And what kind of a name would that be?" Jogr had a feeling his brother-in-law was up to no good.
"The Home of the Eating Champion of Kasgar! Won't that be a grand name for a village that is renowned for not knowing how to spell their names correctly?"
"No! There's no way I'd let our beautiful village be tainted by such a recognition! As for spelling our names, I'm quite sure the history of the Grand Kingdom of Ragha will bear witness that we are in the right!"
Because Jogr was expressing himself with all his emotions heightened while having to push himself hard to keep pace with his brother-in-law's "leisurely" walk, he found himself huffing and puffing at the end of his last sentence.
"That's such a waste of a really good seed," Blink countered merrily. "If it were up to me, I'd challenge Nagwa to an eating contest: their best glutton—or worst glutton if you'd rather—against ours Gupm.
"The winning glutton has to be fed to his heart's content by the village of the loser.
"We can stipulate that they can get out of the deal by paying a monthly tribute to our village.
"Imagine the revenues you get to collect from all the villages that Gupm will conquer!"
Because he was already huffing and puffing to the point of coughing, Jogr didn't respond to Blink's imaginative tale of conquest by chomping and gorging.
"So, what do you think, Namgun? I'm a genius, right?"
Jogr shook his head resolutely but still said nothing.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. That's too bad. But, you know, you shouldn't just casually dismiss good ideas like that, Namgun. Imagine all the villages of Ragha bowing down to you before the tummy of your champion, Gupm! The best part about it is that they'd foolishly underestimate Gupm in all his skinny glory, and they might even raise the stakes."
By this time Jogr was running short of breath and had to beg Blink for a respite. They could both see the town walls and its northern gate, which was less than five hundred meters from where they stood.
As soon as Jogr was able to stabilize his breathing, Blink took the opportunity to take a swipe at his brother-in-law.
"This is all your stamina can amount to? And yet you dare refuse my offer to teach you martial arts? Pathetic!"
"Say what you will; I'm never calling you Teacher!"
"Once again you manage to reject a very good proposal when you're presented with one. Tsk, tsk, tsk. It looks to me like marrying my sister is the only right call you had ever made in your entire life."
"Yes, I married your sister so you'd call me Namgun and I'd get to whack your fanny every time you annoy me, like right now!"
"As if you'd actually ever get the chance. You can't even keep up with me when I'm already walking like a turtle."
"Why, you little twerp!"
Jogr lunged at Blink. He wasn't really intending to beat up his brother-in-law. He wanted to merely rub Blink's forehead with his palm.
However, Blink did a graceful pirouette and Jogr ended up nearly kissing the ground.
"I have no time to play with your pathetic grounding skill, so I'll just rush ahead to Calandra. You should be able to see me beating up bandits from here. Don't follow me until I'm done beating them up. Your pitiful fighting skills wouldn't even match up against a mere bandit."
Having said that, Blink ran the less than five hundred meter distance towards the northern gate of the town of Calandra.
Almost as soon as Blink entered the northern gate of the town, he encountered the bandits who escaped from Nagwa.
A fight immediately broke out although from Jogr's vantage, it didn't really count as a fight at all. It was merely Blink cornering a dozen totally scared wimps who knew better than to think they any advantage despite heavily outnumbering the enemy. Because they were all trying to look for a gap through which to escape, dealing with them became very troublesome for Blink.
Jogr quickly ran down the hill to see if there was any way he could help his brother-in-law. By the time he arrived at the scene, Blink was able to knock out or disable eight of the bandits.
As soon as he reached near Blink, Jogr assured him, "Don't worry about anybody escaping, Nimgun, I'll be right here to stop them."
Blink flashed Jogr a mysteriously playful smile. Then, as he rushed the four remaining bandits, the one at leftmost side was able to find a gap and immediately broke out of Blink's coverage. He rushed straight towards Jogr who took the time to fold the arm of his robe as he got ready to tackle the rushing bandit.
Jogr timed his tackle very well. However, to Jogr's surprise, the bandit was able to hold his upper arm in check while his legs firmly resisted the force of Jogr's forward motion. As soon as the bandit had successfully expelled Jogr's grounding assault, he threw several punches to Jogr's face. One punch managed to hit the left eye of Jogr, but that one punch was enough to daze him take him down.
With his back on the ground, Jogr somehow managed to resist the bandit's attempt at pounding him with his fists. He caught the bandit's hands with his hands and held on tightly to them hoping Blink would finish the other three quickly and come rescue him.
Unfortunately, Blink had a different idea when it came to helping his brother-in-law. Moving as close as he could to the two men, Blink shouted out instructions to Jogr.
"Push his left hand towards your armpit!"
"What bullshit is this, Nimgun? Aren't you supposed to just beat him up already?"
"If I do that how will you ever learn to handle a similar situation? It's not like I'll always be there to dig you out of a hole."
"Could you please stop talking nonsense and just whack his head?"
"Of course I can do that! But how does that benefit you at all? This, right here, is a very good opportunity for you to learn how to survive."
"What the heck, Nimgun! This is not a good time to study lessons!"
"Wrong, this is precisely the perfect moment to study this important lesson."
"Can't you see that he gave me black eye?"
"Namgun, don't change the subject. Now, listen to me. Press his left hand down towards your armpits."
"Good! Good!"
"Now, squeeze his wrist inside your armpit to free up your right fist."
"Punch him to the face! Now!"
"Ouch!"
Before Jogr was able to punch the guy on top of him, the latter was able to free his hand from Jogr's armpit and struck him with a light but stunning punch to his right eye. Jogr was just quick enough to hold the guy's left hand before it could do further damage to his face.
"You're an awful teacher!" Jogr shouted at Blink.
"No, you clearly made a mistake. You opened up your armpit when you were about to punch him. Now, let's do that again!"
"Again? Couldn't you come up with something else?"
"Stop fussing! Now, press his left arm again close to your armpit.
"Good. Good. Now press that arm in there. Well done! Look at me and listen carefully to every word I say.
"When I say now, you punch him to the head. Clear?"
Jogr nodded. But at the same time he saw Blink gesture with his fist to his ribcage right under the armpit. Jogr nodded once more.
"Punch him to the head. Now!"
The bandit tried to free his left hand to do a repeat of the previous sequence. However, as he was about to launch a quick strike at Jogr, he felt a sharp pain right under his armpit, and his arm instinctively retracted to defend the part of his body that just got struck.
"Box him behind the ear!" Blink shouted.
Thud!
Jogr was able to score a second significant blow to the enemy. However, he wasn't able to deal with the fierce blows from the enraged bandit and he ended up pulling his arms to his head, creating turtle shell defense.
Feeling frustrated, Blink slapped the bandit's left ear, sending the man rolling away. He tried to stand up, but he clearly couldn't balance himself. The way he covered his ear also indicated that it must be ringing as a result of Blink's slap.
Blink finished off the poor bloke with a side kick to the abdomen that sent the latter staggering for a good five meters before he went down rolling on the ground.
After ascertaining that the last bandit could no longer get up, Blink looked at his brother-in-law's matching pair of blue patches around the eyes and chuckled in amusement.
"How can you even find my condition funny?" Jogr gave Blink a hurt and accusing look.
"Well, Namgun, you really ought to let me teach you martial arts."