Once he has received the coins, the general turns back to me. "Slave… Anetor, you have been sold to Lector. He is to be your master now; that said, you are still a soldier enlisted in this army, you must follow your superiors in the same way as before. Understood?"
"Yes, yo- er, Honorable General." [Oops. Almost referred to him as 'your honor' there, if Lector is suspicious of me and knows much of my world, that could have been bad. Otherwise, it would still have been awkward.]
"Good. Time is limited, I will have Belfrost enact the punishment now. I implore you to make better choices in the future, choices that place your duty to the military first. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Honorable General." [I fail to see how allowing that noble to live could have benefitted the military in any conceivable way, but oh well. I guess I should just feel glad that my punishment was not worsened due to my attempts at misleading them.]
The general calls Belfrost and the guards back in. "The punishment has been decided: this soldier, Anetor, is to receive fifty lashes for his murder of a fellow soldier with mitigating circumstances. Belfrost is to carry this out. Furthermore, I would announce that this slave has been sold to Commander Lector, for the benefit of the military. That is all. Soldiers summoned for tonight's activities, go get some rest. Courthouse guards, remain here. Belfrost, carry out your duty. As overseer of these proceedings I call them to a close."
Lector doesn't even look at me as he leaves, leaving me to believe that perhaps having this noble's family against him is a cause of greater concern than I have thought. Well, whatever the case, it is clear that he is mad at me for some reason.
Belfrost seems rather unhappy with the sentence, but he raises no verbal opposition against it, only ordering me to follow him. I do as he commands as he leads me from the courthouse to a whipping post near it.
"Normally, a large crowd would gather to watch," he explains as he closes the attached manacles around my wrists, binding me to the post. "However, considering the time of day, it seems you will be spared the humiliation."
[Yes, I am well aware of that, you idiot. Just because I never had the desire to watch the punishments doesn't mean that I couldn't hear them or that I was unaware of what was occurring. Now, of much greater concern than even your idiocy, it would appear that these manacles binding me to the post restrict skills, which is quite a shame; I would find a great deal of amusement in using pain resistance to essentially nullify this punishment's only aspect, temporary pain, but it seems as though I will have to endure. Oh well.]
I can't really see what Belfrost is up to as he is standing directly behind me and I can't turn to face him, but I assume that he is preparing a whip.
Once he is ready, he says "Just a warning in advance, this whip has been enchanted to bring about extra pain to its targets, so you might want to clench your teeth if you don't want soldiers to come running to enjoy the spectacle. Now, think and repent on your crimes!"
With that, he brings down the whip with an ear piercing crack. Immediately, I feel as though the whole of my body has been overwhelmed with pain. Try as I might, I cannot resist screaming into my clenched teeth as involuntary tears come to my eyes. [This pain… of course it cannot be natural! I feel as though I have been severed into two by that one blow, that I am still alive shows that there is something special to it. Still, he said that it brings extra pain, but that warning could not prepare me for this! I felt that fifty lashes was perhaps even slightly lenient, such is clearly not the case! And Jorgenson was killed by this very whip! I thought that such an execution was cruel, now feeling this whip for myself, where one blow feels as though it should kill me, remembering that he suffered several hundred blows all over his body before dying… truly, this cruelty is indescribable.]
"One," Belfrost counts out, beginning a nightmare of agony such that I have not felt since my rebirth, not even at the hands of the slavers who captured me. Belfrost is sure to count out after every blow, words to which I cling to as an anchor in this sea of suffering.
After the first few blows, I no longer make any sound, having gotten control over myself. However, the pain only seems to increase, if anything, as the process continues. The blows are concentrated on my back, though some stray to my shoulders and neck and some to my thighs. Soon, my entire body is fully consumed in the agony, pain worse than the burns I received from that angry slaver. To describe the pain, only one word comes to mind: rending. Every blow feels as though my entire body is being torn apart, and they come one after another, dealing upon each other's blows. Every blow feels fatal, every wound mortal, as I seem to suffer dozens of deaths without death.
"Fifty," he calls out, the most recent crack of the whip ringing in the air. I am in too much pain to respond, unable to do anything even as he unlocks the manacles. As soon as he does, I activate my pain resistance skill, and feel relief throughout my body as feeling itself is stripped away.
As soon as feeling has left me, I bow before him, saying "Thank you for carrying out your duty commander. Am I free to go?"
"I have been instructed by the general to heal you first, if you would allow me to do so…"
I nod as way of giving permission, and he casts a spell. As I possess nearly no feeling in my body, I cannot feel if it is successful. Heaving a mental sigh, I disable my pain resistance skill. Though the wave of pain that hits me afterwards is still somewhat strong, it is evident that I have been mostly healed, the remaining pain is more comparable to an ache than to the flesh rending agony I had recently suffered.
I bow to him again, saying "Thank you. And please extend my thanks towards our illustrious general."
"Hmph. Though it pains me to do anything for you, in this one request I will do as you say. Now, begone; your punishment has been completed, I believe that you are to depart shortly."
From there, I make my way to Lector's residence. [Well, that night certainly took an unexpected turn, didn't it? I hope Lector isn't too mad with me. Considering his wealth, four gold coins is nothing much. However, if my actions have put him in a tricky situation, as the general suggested may be the case, he may be quite unhappy with me. Especially since he knows me well enough to know that I hardly have so strong a sense of justice as to take out revenge for a random soldier I had never met.]
Suddenly, I feel rather bad for Lector. [He has done so much for me, yet I only bring him trouble. Truly, it would not be an exaggeration to refer to him as my savior, and yet I make only difficulty for him through my actions. I should attempt to make this up to him in some way, though I'm not really sure how I would go about such a thing.]
I enter his house to find him making potions, as is his standard at this time of day. Deciding to immediately address the proverbial elephant in the room, I move to apologize for bringing him trouble.
"Master," I say to him, "I apologize for bringing trouble to you, and I thank you for extricating me from a situation of such a precarious nature."
"Mm?" he says, turning towards me. "Oh, it is really no problem. This was a conflict of a political nature, anyway. So long as you are more careful in the future regarding the consequences of your actions, all is forgiven. Besides, the punishment you received from Belfrost was surely severe enough for your crime, eh?"
"Heh. Yes, master, that whip was quite a special experience. I can't imagine who would be sadistic enough to make such an item, as though a normal whip wasn't painful enough."
"I take it that you don't know its creator, eh?"
Demonstrating my ability to interpret words, I ask him "Wait… did you enchant that whip?"
"I did. Though, believe it or not, it was done to reduce the casualties among its victims. Alongside the drastically increased pain, the standard number of lashes criminals are sentenced to has been decreased. This decrease in lashes has reduced unintentional deaths from the punishment, I feel as though it was a good development."
"Yes, I suppose… wait, you can enchant things, too? First I learn that you are a sorcerer, and now a master of enchantry… combined with straight magic, elementalism, and alchemy, does that not leave you a master of five magics?" [A true Megadeth fan we have here!]
"Now now, I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a master of enchantry, it is merely something that I have picked up in my spare time. On the other hand, I am certainly worthy of being called a master of sorcery."
"How could I have gone until today not knowing this about you?"
"Well, why would you? As you know, sorcery is a heavily frowned upon branch of magic, widely associated with evil and unnatural acts, why would I openly display my attainment in it? Furthermore, I have had no real reason to; as it is a sub-branch of straight magic, you are incapable of it, and my other students are not nearly at a high enough level in the basics for focus on a rather niche subgenre, not to mention that it would be unseemly for a commander in an institution as honorable as the military to be teaching such arts to cadets. And lastly, it is rather niche in nature; I have rarely had an opportunity in which its usage was even an option. Other than naming you, which was a base-level sorcery technique the likes of which any wizard could perform regardless of background, there has been rarely an opportunity to use sorcery."
"I see, master."
"Now, before this whole fiasco, weren't you working on that intriguing method of increasing one's mental processing speed? I know it has only been one night, but have you made any progress?"
"Oh…" I have to think for a moment, trying to remember what I was doing before this, before answering "actually, it was very successful. I managed to increase my mental processing speed by five times over, in fact. It made the integration of magic into my style of swordsmanship almost effortless, and I was still practicing my movement enhancement methods when Belfrost came to me. Actually, I was just about to move onto incorporating magic into my swordsmanship in a more offensive manner."
"Really? Five times over, you say? I would actually quite like to see that. Let's head outside, you can give me a demonstration."
He leads the way out of his house, to the open area past its door. Once I am in position and his attention is turned to me, I activate DNTI (definitely- not- thunderclap- impulse) and proceed to demonstrate what I had been practicing earlier. As I warm up, my movement becomes faster and more refined, subtly aided by air currents and modification of the earth at my feet, until I blur through my regularly practiced motions, built up both from my training on Earth and in this world. Realizing that Lector is unlikely to do much more than stand there watching, I move onto my next task, the task of incorporating offensive methods into my style.
Though I have already begun this effort, continuously deforming the ground wherever I am not stepping, so as to trip up any theoretical opponent who would fight me at a close range, it is far from the extent of integration that I want when it comes to combining magic with my sword for the purpose of attack.
I imagine a warrior, wreathed in flame, water, wind, earth, metal, ice, lightning, and any other elements that can be used in battle, seamlessly unleashing them with every swing of the sword and every thought of his mind, a never ending whirlwind of elemental battery. While I know that this goal may be somewhat far-fetched when looking at my current self, I am confident that such a thing will be possible given enough time and training.
So, what methods first? Deciding to go with my strongest element, I wreath my blade in wind elemental particles. A green aura forming around it designates my success, though such is hardly a feat worth being proud of; after all, I managed something similar on my second day here.
I compact the wind along my sword, making a whirlwind of air that would tear apart anything it touches with the viciousness of a chainsaw, ripping and shredding through any solid matter it contacts. I then hyper compress additional wind at the tip of the blade and at several spaced out points along it, prepared to shoot out when contacting anything I desire to destroy.
Still, these developments are all things that I could do after only a few days of training. Enhancing my movement, compressing an element along my blade, making elemental projectiles that are prepared to fire at a moment's notice; such is child's play compared to my current level of power.
So, I move a step further. I summon a whirlwind of air elemental particles around me, carefully managing them so that they do not contact me. From this whirlwind, I continuously shoot out moderately compressed blades of wind, all into the air, of course, as I wouldn't want to damage the surrounding buildings.
Still, with my level of power, this is only slightly taxing. I form several large boulders of earth and stone, and send them into the whirlwind. Water and fire soon join them, and my mental burden rapidly approaches an unbearable level as I fight to keep the elements from crashing into each other and counteracting one another.
Though I am soon forced to allow the mana to dissipate, allowing even the boulders to break apart into particles smaller than dust, I cannot help but be happy that I managed to form a tornado of the four basic elements, centered around myself, alongside properly enhancing my movement speed and coordination.
Though I could have certainly enhanced my sword and formed the single element vortex before figuring out DNTI, to be able to seamlessly form four different elements at once without them conflicting would definitely not have been possible. Through DNTI, I was able to be able to focus on many more things in a short period of time; however, it must be remembered that being able to mentally do more things, and thus initiate and control more spells in a given period of time, does not mean that my resistance to magical exhaustion has increased.
Thus, after my little demonstration, I am quite exhausted. Seeing my state, Lector tosses me an energy potion. After gulping it down in one swallow, I say to him "Why does it seem as though my Greater Magical Exhaustion Resistance Level Nine does not prevent me from getting magical exhaustion any more than I resisted it before I had the skill at all?"
"Well, first of all, the majority of that skill goes towards lessening the negative effects of magical exhaustion, preventing you from, say, instantly dying as soon as you begin to feel magical exhaustion. As for the rest of it, which goes towards increasing the amount of magical exertion one can undergo before reaching a state of exhaustion, perhaps it is simply the case that you push yourself as hard as you possibly can when you acquire a greater degree of elemental manipulation, thus any increase to the amount of magical exertion which you may undergo is immediately worn away by the increase in exertion of the spells you choose to undertake?"
After I wallow my way through his Jefferson-esque run-on sentence, I clarify "So you're saying that any increase to the amount of magical exertion I can undertake by virtue of my magical exhaustion resistance skill being a higher level is waylaid by the fact that I am regularly increasing the difficulty of my spells, thus acquiring more exertion?" [Not much more understandable of a sentence than his own, eh?]
"Yes, yes, if you understand, why clarify? Now, on to what's of greater interest here: that ability of yours. Wait, what did you call it again?"
"Definitely- not- thunderclap- impulse, or DNTI for short."
"Eh? What a strange name for a spell, though considering its strange functionality, perhaps such a name is fitting. Infuse electrical elemental particles into the brain and spinal cord to increase the rate of information flow, while also being careful to not destroy the body? Truly an absurd proposition, yet the obvious increase to your fighting skill after only practicing with it for a few hours is a testament to its power. Perhaps I may even try this… a development of a genius, or perhaps a madman, such is how this method ought to be described."
"Use it if you desire, though if I have one piece of advice it would be to work on the individual particle level; less is more, in this regard."
"I see, I see. Well, don't allow me to interrupt you, train as you will. Though I wish I could begin on this method, I must finish stocking up on potions for our impending departure. We have about half an hour before we should gather in the dining hall, so make sure that you are fully packed up and ready to leave then."
With that, he returns inside, leaving me with about five minutes of practice time before I must also begin my preparations for departure. [Train as I will, huh? You may as well have just ordered me to pack up now.]
Still, when five minutes passes as twenty, it feels moderately more substantial. I use the time to practice unleashing elemental blows independently of my sword swings, filling the gaps between attacks with an endless pressure of spells.
[I wish that I had an opponent to practice with, to see what it would be like to go up against a talented spellsword. The only capable spellsword I have yet seen in action is Belfrost, and due to his opponent being Reinhart he was unable to really utilize magic much at all, except for his weapons which he must have solidified to remove their recognition as formations of magic. If I had another opponent, then I could practice with my ideas regarding how to counter their spells in battle, as well as things like how to continue on after being hit with a dispel magic spell. Actually, I better practice my transitions between pure swordsmanship and this mixed style, just in case my ability to cast spells is stripped away mid-battle.]