Return of the Woodcutter

The second day of training.

After his warm-up, Durability training, and body training, while Aito rested on the bench, Ogoro, the giant of a man he had previously interacted with two times already, came to him for chitchat.

With nothing better to do while recuperating, Aito welcomed the distraction—not that the giant of a man left him with any other choice. Moreover, Aito didn't want to be too rude to someone who had helped him before by giving him a precious memory bead.

By now, after exploring Ogoro's combat experience memories, Aito knew the man was some kind of killer in his previous life, and a damn good one at that. But it didn't matter to him. After all, how could he judge Ogoro after he himself had killed someone? Someone dear to him.

Turns out, Ogoro had often come on the training ground while he wasn't busy doing some errands or organizing duels before taking part in them early in the morning or late at night.

He explained now that his coveted prize, aka the memory bead, was no longer in his possession, challengers were less interested in dueling him. So it gave him more time to train, since he had fewer matters that kept him busy.

Also, he did not have the necessary amount of money to make another "prize." The empty red memory bead had cost him 30000 TPs, and the service to input his memories 5000 TPs.

He lacked the money to buy it by himself and asked his sister for a bit of help. Sheyla and Ogoro had both received 5000 TPs as rewards for the red trial and a bonus of 20000 TPs for surviving the unplanned horde of zombies. Of course, Filona had omitted the fact that her sister, Brutalina, was the cause of this mishap. 

However, he could have sold the whole content for more than 100000 TPs—at least that's what Ogoro thought.

A memory bead with actual content could be far more valuable than an empty one. Even more, if it contains accurate combat knowledge. 

But no merchants had been interested in buying it since they couldn't verify its source and make an accurate estimate of its value. Challengers were too poor and would offer a lower price than what he had invested in the first place. 

Even the Chosen sect would offer the ridiculous price of 20000 TPs despite Kai knowing about Ogoro's abilities. Probably because they didn't have the money to spare or simply because the ex-CEO was a cheap bastard. 

Kai did invest in his sect members, but 20000 TPs in one go for just one person, Ogoro assumed it would be too much for him since the sect leader had to tend to hundreds of people. Or maybe Kai didn't care. It was hard to guess what was happening inside that shrewd man's head.

So his sister had suggested organizing duels with the memory bead as its prize. It became surprisingly successful. No wonder since the challenger could get their hands on a valuable item for a minimum of 500 TPs worth of soul cores per fight. And since Ogoro could chain quite a few fights in a row, he made up for his losses in just one month. 

But then he had offered the bead to Aito, resulting in an earful from his sister. Still, he had felt satisfied with his deed. After all, if Aito hadn't intervened back then, Ogoro and Sheyla would be zombie food by now.

For the kind gesture, Aito felt grateful, but also apologetic. If it hadn't been for him, the giant would have kept earning from duels. 

But Ogoro shrugged it off, saying challengers would have gotten tired of losing after a few more weeks if that already weren't the case. 

Both men continued to chat for a while until Aito recovered from his wounds and then they went their separate way to train on their own. Ogoro did offer him to act as his training partner, but... he refused politely—as politely as Aito could.

However, slowly but surely, Aito started to appreciate his interaction with the man despite his trust issues.

In the afternoon, Aito practiced with the steel dullahan again under the same condition as yesterday. However, Gwen had reprogrammed the empty armor to aim for Aito's weak points.

For example, Aito had the nasty habit of opening his shield guard too wide while attacking with his one-handed ax, which defied the purpose of having a shield in the first place.

It was only partially his fault. Movies, animes, cartoons, mangas, and others filled people's heads with the bullshit idea that completely opening your shield guard before attacking was the right way to do it. 

So, instead of completely putting aside his shield while attacking like he usually did, Gwen used the dullahan's attacks to force him to only open a small gap in his guard, wide enough for his weapon to pass through but narrow enough to guarantee a modicum of protection while attacking.

But bad habits died hard. Fortunately, the dullahan would beat the good habits into him by exploiting the opening every time. Willingly or not, Aito would have to correct his bad habits. Unless he wanted bruises and broken bones, he had no choice.

His practice session with the dullahan over, he rested again with as many bruises as yesterday. But he did not complain. Not that Gwen would let him, anyway.

Following his recovery, he once again trained Whirlwind, tried to apply what he had learned last night to no avail. He had yet to train properly with what he came to call the "italian chain attacks," a temporary name until he found a better one, or not.

Aito came to a stop after thirty minutes. And like last time, exhausted, he lost consciousness amidst the earth walls with grass as his bed.

Night came, Gwen went on with her training session, and so did Aito. After two or three hours practicing his ax techniques and Weight Control, he once again tried his hand at visualization, with little success.

The fourth day of training.

Gwen started to see overall improvements in Aito's techniques and skills. Mostly on the ax-wielding part. It could even be said his technique had improved a lot from just a few days of training.

Which, in a sense, was weird. Because it either meant he was a genius, or something else was pushing him to improve faster. Unable to figure out the reason, she simply brushed the matter off her head and focused on something else. Aito's hygiene.

The little man couldn't bathe since he never went back to his room. Not that she minded his company 24/7. 

But Aito's unpleasant scent started to become noticeable. Of course, she was used to that kind of body odor, since she sometimes had to go for weeks without bathing. Every soldier had.

However, whenever possible, even on the frontline, soldiers would take a bath. Moreover, the little man would relieve himself on the grass every night or when nobody was looking. Which pissed her off because she had to deal with his bodily fluids. Even if it took her a mere thought, it was still unpleasant.

To remedy that, she summoned public bathrooms and even a public bath challengers could use every day. Surprisingly, it was welcomed by most people.

Normally, she would keep that kind of facility to herself. It wasn't her job to play share house manager.

But if it could prevent her from turning into a garbage collector, the moderator would gladly do it.

The sixth day of training.

Aito's improvements in ax-wielding techniques were fearsomely quick, taking into account he had been at it for just a few days.

First and foremost, after two days, Aito realized the real purpose behind training against a steel dullahan wasn't to destroy it, but to correct his bad habits. So he no longer tried to "dismantle" the steel armor and focused on improving his technique.

The dullahan had fewer opportunities to land a hit. It was attacking with the same patterns, so Aito got used to them quickly.

That aside, it helped him correct a few mistakes and unnecessary moves like imbalance caused by poor footwork. Or hit a target with too much strength when only a small amount was needed. Moreover, against a steel dullahan and with a wooden ax, there was no point hitting the empty armor with mindless brute strength.

Also, Aito learned to use his shield less frequently. Instead, he would dodge and try to maximize the efficiency of his parries.

Only blocking strikes when necessary. At least that was the theory he struggled to apply. Although he wasn't proficient with it yet, he was making good progress.

Those overall improvements were enough to be seen and acknowledged by Gwen. But to avoid inflating Aito's ego and turn him into a conceited person—which he wasn't—the moderator kept it to herself.

However, if he kept  improving at this rate, she did plan on rewarding him with something. All hard work deserved rewards after all—though she didn't know what to give him, yet.