A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1112 The Hammer and the Chain - Part 6
1112: The Hammer and the Chain – Part 6
1112: The Hammer and the Chain – Part 6
“Naw, they’re still men, just like us.
They can’t give every achievement that they have to their Lord, can they?
A man still dreams of making a name for himself.”
“Guess that Captain over there dreams of making a name for himself a bit too much.
Look what he’s gone and done, he’s shattered his sword hand.
Most men retire off an injury like that.
He’ll never be the same.
Should have just contented himself with going a bit slower.”
“I reckon even you could take him now.”
“You think?”
“Why not?
He’s just a man with one hand now.”
“Aye, but did you not see what he did to that Rogue Commandant Amion? free𝑤ebnovel.com
He butchered him, just with his left hand.”
“…That’s true enough.
What about Uron?
You think he could take him?”
“I’ll ask… He’ll probably agree.”
Their conversation filled Oliver’s ears until they finally walked away, with the heels of their boots clicking against the hard stone of the mountain.
He shook his head, finally allowing himself the chance to breathe.
As they watched, he couldn’t allow himself to show the slightest shred of weakness.
He’d swung and he’d swung until his slashes had easily wound up with hundreds of repetitions.
“I must be weakening, if even men like that are eyeing me,” Oliver said.
He knew it to be true.
What was a broken arm if not a weakness?
Not every man was liable to admit to such a weakness, but then, Oliver was not every man.
He valued strength even more than most men reasonably should, and when he wasn’t where he ought to have been, he felt a level of disgust that would have shocked others.
“Weak indeed,” Ingolsol taunted.
“I would not be in that position, mortal, if I were in control.
So many foolish choices.
Does weakness delight you?”
“It seems to delight you,” Oliver replied.
“It amuses me,” Ingolsol corrected.
“I see it, and I cannot help but laugh.
Still – you’re looking for a laugh too, aren’t you, boy?
You heard them crowing.
They eye your throne.
I think it’s about time you handed out some lessons.”
“That is unnecessary,” Claudia said.
“It might be that you’ll feel something, when you remind yourself of the difference between you and normal men,” Ingolsol prodded.
At times, his words could be laced with the sweetest amount of temptation.
It wasn’t something that was particularly difficult to talk Oliver into.
As always, when he trained, and when he reached for something, only to be met with nothing in return, there was the building of frustration.
It was the carving away of the rock of progress, using the relentlessness of the sea’s tides, but if that rock did not chip, and the weathering did not begin to show, unlike the sea, man was likely to begin to lose hope.
Even knowing progress, it was so.
Oliver knew not to doubt himself too strongly, but that did not help the frustration that built regardless.
It was not frustration of the fact that he hadn’t progressed at all, but more to the fact that he hadn’t progressed quickly.
Speed was what he craved now with his greed.
The next time he met Khan on a battlefield, he wanted his sword to reach him.
“Then you ought to look towards Command, Oliver,” Claudia said calmly.
“You of all people know that progress is something best attacked from multiple angles.”
Yet even that suggestion didn’t feel particularly right to Oliver.
His mind and his emotions drew him towards the sword.
Perhaps it was merely the loss of the right and that put him in that position, but he felt as if he didn’t want to be without it.
He wanted to swing his sword for as long as he possibly could.
He wanted to train his body until it burned.
With his left hand tiring, he began to move his legs.
He stretched them out, and he jumped up and down to loosen them up even more, and then he eyed the mountains around them, wondering where he might run.
Before he knew it, he was constructing a training program in his head much like the ones that Dominus used to assign him.
A program that would gradually day by day wear away at the problem of progress, and yield – hopefully – results from it.
He jogged down to the bottom of the slope that he stood on, and then he sprinted back up.
He jogged down, and then he sprinted back up.
He did not chase repetitions, or even rest, he simply chased the burning in his lungs.
Only when they began to burn did he feel as if he was in a zone for progress.
To cross through a Boundary meant to reach beyond what a man was.
Without some sort of discomfort, Oliver couldn’t imagine any sort of Boundary Break.
Ten minutes passed, and once more, Oliver was aware of the lookouts’ attentions and the glances that were being sent his way.
No doubt they were unaccustomed to seeing a Captain training like this away from his men, but Oliver knew that he was unnecessary now at the Patrick encampment.
He knew whilst they practised their battling, he would only be in their way if they saw him training by himself.
Most of the soldiers on duty knew to keep themselves to themselves.
They had Sergeants to watch over them, after all, and above the Sergeants there were even some Commanders to keep an eye on things.
It was the soldiers passing by, who were off duty, that allowed themselves to stop and stare, for there was no one that could tell them otherwise.
Many dropped surprised comments, a few sniggered, and others still dropped jokes that he thought he could not hear.
But none were as foolish as the earlier lot who eyed him and thought that even with a wounded hand they might have been able to take him in a fight.
The fact of that kept Oliver focused on his training.
That was, until, even louder voices made their return.
“There he is, Uron,” a man said.
“He’s training himself like a dog.
What a pissin’ sight, eh?
With a hand like his, he ought to be sat up in bed like a maiden, but he’s out here doing… Gods know what.
I think that’s obvious then that he’s weaker than he was.”
“Well, maybe… But y’know, there’s a range to it, isn’t there?
If someone’s injured, they’re always weaker… but by how much?”
