Chapter 3: The Way of the Hand and Foot

I placed my hands on my knees gasping for breath once we reached the local inn at Ruben, who knew a kid could weigh that much. Your typical starting town. I thought, gazing around Ruben.

The village was home to about 10 houses at most and only three people were out and about. Going about a week back since I played Elsword, I can only remember the brown-haired, moustache, and beard Santa wannabe Hagus, the chief of the village. There was a determined looking man around his mid-20s wearing the same uniform as Elsword commanding other people wearing the red-clad uniform to continue whacking wooden dummies with their swords. He's probably the one in charge of the Ruben search party, Elsword's superior perhaps? Upon seeing us enter the inn from the corner of his right eye, he shouted for the other search party members to continue whacking the dummies and ran straight to Hagus's house, the placeholder for the inn.

"Private Elsword wake up!" The man shouted at his face, much to Aisha's anger, and violently shook him repeatedly.

"Now, now, knock it off Lowe." Hagus nervously butted in. "Yelling at him won't make him feel better."

"All the other recruits at the camp finished their first assignments with minor injuries!" Lowe angrily shouted. "We give this runt," He points at Elsword, "a clean-up job to protect the El from two puny bandits and comes here looking like that!" He glared at Elsword's injuries: several cuts running all through his body from Berthe's howl and several long white bandages across his torso and back from the impact against that huge tree from earlier, which Rena concluded as the (near empty) Tree of El. Lowe gave up arguing and sat on the wooden floor defeated. I could tell from Aisha's facial expression the many ways she could think of to electrify and burn the commander as she sat beside Elsword, clenching her staff horizontally.

That's weird. Doesn't Aisha normally hate Elsword? I thought, confused. Maybe Elsword being unconscious and myself being here made things different for this timeline. I mean she arrived after Elsword was knocked out and was concerned for a kid, not a bratty half-pint that is the hero. I mildly racked my brain at this, glancing my eyes between Aisha and Elsword. I noticed Rena was helping the temporarily innkeeper, a pink haired woman in her early 20s and caring blue eyes, soaking the towels the latter brought on some hot water. While she soaked the towels, the innkeeper prepared more bandages for Elsword's cuts.

"If Elsa didn't disappear, we wouldn't need this rotten runt!" Lowe angrily exclaimed suddenly. The saddened expressions on Hagus and the innkeeper's face as the latter dropped the bandages felt like a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the room. As expected, Rena, Aisha, and I were confused at this.

"Who's…El…sa?" I asked Lowe, still panting from the events that happened to me thus far.

Lowe answered in a melancholic tone: "She was the greatest captain the Red Knights ever had." Hagus and the innkeeper slowly nodded in agreement. The Red Knights? I thought. Must be the group Lowe and Elsword are in. "She had long braided flame-red hair and a burning passionate heart. Elsa was a kind yet strict leader, expecting the best from her fellow members. The best in what she does, Elsa accepted a SSS ranked mission a year ago and still hasn't returned." He took something out of his back pocket, a white envelope, and raised it for everyone to see. "She left us this letter about a month ago, around the time Elsword joined us." Looking at Hagus for permission, who nodded, Lowe opened the already unsealed envelope and read the bland white paper aloud.

To Lowe,

I write this letter in hopes that you won't forget me. The mission was harder than I originally thought, therefore my return may be delayed to an unknown date. You were always playing second banana to me Lowe, I want you to head the Red Knights until my return. In addition, consider this my last request, there will be a young boy with flame-red hair such as myself demanding to join in order to get stronger. I want you to let him join in hopes that his dream of surpassing me becomes a reality. His name is Elsword, my younger brother. Good luck Lowe, and wish that kid some luck as well.

Elsa

I sat astonished, Rena and Aisha doing the same. The greatest captain of this so-called Red Knights and a determined and over confident kid are siblings!? Man I need to read the backstory of this game more once I get home.

"So that's how that kid joined up with us." Lowe's lengthy explanation and letter answering my question. After the breath of that last word left Lowe's mouth, Elsword finally stirred up.

"W…Where?" He whispered weakly, holding his head in pain.

"You're in the inn silly." The innkeeper sweetly smiled.

"Oh…Anne…" Elsword muttered. "What…you…talking…about?"

"Forget it Private." Lowe went back to his usual scornful behavior.

Elsword sat up straight away, much to the chagrin of his injuries. "Yes si- WHAT THE!?" He looked around frantically at Rena, then Aisha, then finally me. I think he finally figured out we were here. "WHAT ARE THESE BANDITS DOING HERE!?"

Just as I expected, Aisha's relieved expression changed to one of childish anger. "IS THAT HOW YOU TREAT THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU UP TO HEALTH!?" She exploded.

"I DIDN'T NEED YOUR HELP KID! GET LOST!"

"THAT'S IT HOW OLD ARE YOU ELSW-" I covered Aisha's mouth with one hand, using the other to gesture a 'please don't argue' sign.

Unfortunately that made Elsword madder than I've seen even in the game. He slowly lifted himself out of bed just like the rise of Darth Vader, probably an unintentional pop culture reference in the programmer's part, and had flaring eyes hot enough to make even a grown man (Hagus) flinch. After the worried Anne gave Elsword his sword back as he was getting up, he promptly used it to support his weight and stand straight next to Aisha.

"I'm…short…" Aisha nervously found out, tilting her head back a little to face Elsword. "B-BUT I'M SURE I'M OLDER!"

What is this chick!? That's probably running through Elsword's dim-witted mind right now and sure enough, his confused expression concluded my assumptions. "I'm 13." He bluntly answered, as Aisha's eyes beamed.

"AHA! I'M TWO YEARS OLDER THAN YOU, YOU LITTLE TWERP!" Aisha proudly exclaimed, making a gesture similar to a generic rich girl laugh. "Maybe you should respect those older than you!"

"WHY SHOULD I RESPECT SOMEONE WHO'S ACTING LIKE SOME CHILD?"

"W-WHY YOU!"

"Hey c'mon guys can't we just talk this out?" I tried to calm these two down, already knowing they would just continue.

"STAY OUT OF THIS!" Both of them yelled at me. The expressions on their faces looked bad enough to pass for a devil, but nothing compared to Rena's anger.

I sighed and left the inn, content that at least Elsword was awake and the others are there to stop them if something goes wrong. I shouldn't try to butt into these guys affairs. I mean it could mess up the whole game. Maybe…having these events happen to me could make me the main character of some alternate universe where another God set the rules. These thoughts filled my head as I paced back and forth between the Inn and the Red Knights Camp in Ruben.

"Hey, you over there." I turned around. Lowe exited the inn and advanced towards me. "I heard about your situation from the elf woman, Rena. It's something about getting you a weapon right?"

Damn it Rena! I cursed silently. Do your elven friends spread a person's personal history to everyone around them!? "Yeah actually. Honestly I never handled a weapon." I truthfully answered, scratching the back of my head. The surprised look on Lowe's face told me he never heard of anyone without combat experience, though meeting Hagus and Anne didn't seem to bother him.

"I-I see." It took him a while to get used to the fact. He cleared his throat and continued. "Come with me into the camp, you need a weapon to fend for yourself. Especially now, when the El got stolen by this big thief." Lowe walked towards the camp, motioning me to follow him.

Oh well. I thought. Maybe I really can find a weapon to use.

The camp itself was built like a castle (a wooden one) with a unique emblem: a sword with the blade facing down and a staff and an arrow crossing it, similar to a skull and crossbones. What the hell? I bet I'm gonna learn some pirate techniques here. I walked inside the camp, finding it nothing like I had imagined.

For starters the people I saw whacking the wooden dummies with their swords? Nearly 90% of them all were men in their late teens, around the 18-20 range, and the scarce amount of women I managed to make out were in their mid-teens, around the 15-17 range. After Lowe reminded the men for what seemed the millionth time to stop flirting with the women, he led me to the training room.

I felt like being in a Dojang, or a Korean dojo. It had the same look as a dojo, though I could only tell by the countless Shonen anime I watched, except the emblem displayed out in front of the camp replaced the Korean flag. There were even more people in this training hall, having an even percentage of males and females at the aforementioned age groups I placed them in all wearing the red uniform sparring in martial arts. I was amazed at how downplayed background characters were compared to the Elgang, who all used weapons. At least half of the guys and a few of the girls could probably hold their own against Elsword judging on their Taekwondo skills.

"Well with someone of your…size, there's no way you can swing around a weapon and being an 'ordinary' human restricts you in magic." Lowe reasoned as we entered the Dojang. He was right actually as I found a mirror and took a look at myself.

I was standing about 6'0 judging from a student's comment about our height similarities and had straight black running and stopping at my shoulders and covered about half of my ears. My bangs are long enough to cover my forehead and barely floats above my right eye. I also remembered my thin structure with arms and legs both look unfitting to use a weapon for a lengthy period of time, but past experiences in PE at school taught me that they have more power than they appear. I wore a black long sleeved shirt, blue pants, and black shoes with matching socks on.

After looking at my perfectly proportioned body, I nodded in agreement to Lowe's statement. "So what you're saying is, you want me to train to be a Martial Artist?"

"Well normally I would've led you to the Dojang next door to train Kendo, the Way of the Sword." He said, knowing a lot of Korean terminology in a game set way before our modern time. The original Korean programmers of this game must study these types of things to include in the game, even if a voice clip didn't make it. "However thanks to Elsa leaving, there's been no one around to teach it to the students."

"So what about you? You seem to have a lot of influence on them based on what I saw when I first came here."

"No they only behave like that because they heard you coming. Those kids are always like that, wanting to show the pride of the Red Knights when foreign visitors come and switch back to being disrespectful, disobedient, and overall…NOT!" His tone got angrier and punched the mirror at that last word, cracking it. "Caring." He calmed down thankfully.

It was hilarious seeing the scared faces of the students, who all had comedic blank white eyes and anime-like blue lines on their foreheads as they stared with their lips quivering on the cracking of the mirror.

"So how about it? You do need some training after all." Lowe whispered in my ear while we slowly backed away from the students into a corner.

"I'll do it, but there might not be much time if I'm in this world for too long." I nervously complied. "What if I can't go back if I dwindle for more than I could afford?"

"Alright then, how about a week of training. If that doesn't work then train by yourself. You need some self-defense before going out there. Those bandits and demons are tough."

"Yeah I know. I accept." I agreed to go with his plan.

Lowe acknowledged and turned to face the students. There were about 50 of them, including myself. All had identical body traits such as myself, which could be the reason why they're here practicing taekwondo instead of kendo. Lowe had a smirk on his face and his eyes gleamed, a rarity from his personality in the game.

"Listen up fellow Knights. Mario here's gonna train for a week before leaving. During that time, you all better take care of him because if not…" He pointed to the shattered mirror, cue everyone shuddering in sync.

"Hi there nice to meet ya." One of the boys greeted me first.

"Hope you have a good time here!" This time it was a girl.

"If you need any advice I can help!"

They all swarmed on me like a bunch of bees wrestling for the smallest bit of honey. After the 10 minute disastrous introduction, Lowe pushed them aside and gave me a Red Knights uniform to wear. I thanked him for getting them away and proceeded to go to the nearest changing room, which happened to be across from the Dojang.

So now I'm training to be a Martial Artist huh? I thought to myself, starting to strip off my shirt. Elsword's sword, Aisha's magic, and Rena's bow could work in tandem with my taekwondo skills, assuming I actually master it in a week. I start to unbutton and remove my pants and shoes. Who knows, maybe this could turn out well for the future. Sure fighting that demon Berthe would be difficult with my BARE HANDS, but I could learn some techniques along the way. That's how the Elgang do their job changes. At this point I started to put on my uniform. Red and gray pants with buttons, shoes with buttons, a red shirt with buttons, and an optional belt to wear with buttons as well. I almost forgot how amusing it is for the Red Knights to be so frantic with having buttoned clothes. Did they think someone would strip them in the middle of a fight?

I imagined scenarios with a female fighter facing a bandit or a demon in the middle of a forest. Never mind, maybe having buttons is good after all. I shuddered at the thought, because of the female's embarrassed reaction and the enemy's creepy smile. I finally fitted myself into the uniform and took a look at the unbroken mirror in the room. If I dyed my hair red and changed my 'do, I could resemble Elsword's nonexistent older brother. But never mind the thought, I better train now to at least make it to the next town over.

Elsword, Aisha, Rena. If luck's on my side maybe I could travel with you guys. Well, here goes nothing. I opened the sliding door into the entrance to the Dojang.