The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 197

Chapter 197 – Combat Training

Today was the day my apprentices began their combat training. Since we were just beginning, I wasn’t going to teach them weapons, just yet. Eventually, as I’d promised, they would at least obtain proficiency in several weapon types, but they needed a basis to start from. There was no point in jumping to man-made weapons when they hadn’t learned to use the weapons they were born with, yet.

All of them were dressed in the same uniforms as normal. One might have thought that there’d be a workout or exercise uniform, but that went against one of the core precepts that had been taught to me by my teacher, and I was going to pass it on to my disciples. Enemies would not wait for you to switch outfits or adjust your robes, so you needed to be ready to fight, no matter you were wearing.

Looking at the six, I smiled. “Well, my apprentices. Today we begin the part of your training that is, perhaps, the most important part of ensuring that you live long enough to reach the full heights of your goals. For, even if none of you seek out battlefields, each of you has a goal that extends beyond Mastery of your style. These goals will take you into areas fraught with danger, and if you are not prepared, then you will perish.”

A pause, to let that sink in. “In the Athelian Army, all Warriors are taught the basic Body Enhancement spells, as well as spells fitting their Element and Style like a Flame Blade’s Flaming Slash or an Earthsoul’s Stoneskin. However, they are also taught basic cantrips of different elements, as well. A Matchlight cantrip can light a lantern, or a fuse, and doesn’t require a great Fire affinity to pull off easily, for instance. The Cutting Edge spell is a Light element spell that adds a razor thin wedge of light in front of your weapon’s blade, allowing you to cut much easier with it. Very useful for any Warrior.”

Looking each of them in the eye, in turn, I continued. “A Warrior does not have a mana pool sufficient to use such techniques endlessly, of course. Just like a Mage does not have the base physicality needed to sustain melee combat for extended periods. The Warrior puts most of their mana into building their foundation, making them more limited in what kinds of magic they can do, but giving them a much higher physical baseline than what a Mage will have. However, the Warrior can still use magic, and the Mage can still fight. Indeed, they have to, because there are enemies that cannot be harmed with steel, and those that are immune to magic.

“If you are very lucky, all of your fights will be on battlefields, where everyone is prepared and you are fighting with allies close at hand. Or, at the very least, you will be out in the wild, on a quest where you were expecting combat, and prepared accordingly. Most likely, though, all of you will come upon situations where you are forced to fight suddenly, without time to prepare or get into the proper clothing. So, you will learn to fight as you are, no matter what you are wearing.

“The robes you are wearing are designed not to restrict your movement too much, but they will still hamper you some, especially those of you who are more used to pants than dresses. And the restriction is not just physical. If you get too acrobatic, then there is a good chance you will offer your fellow students a bit of a show.”

The apprentices looked uncomfortable at that idea, naturally, and I smiled. “Shame and embarrassment are luxuries in a fight. They are distractions that can be fully embraced and dealt with once the battle is done, and the area secure. In a fight, however, the important part is ensuring that you are still able to function at the end of it. Alive or undead, what matters is that you are still standing. Even if that means you have to turn tail and run.

“And, yes, retreat is a perfectly viable option. Sometimes, you will find a foe that is too strong for you. Or they are weaker, but have a trick or trap that is a hard counter to your strengths. Or they are strong enough that fighting them would drag on too long, allowing their allies to swarm you, or cause you to fail some other part of your mission. Knowing when to fight and when to run is just as important as knowing how to use your magic, weapons, and bodies effectively.”

I took a breath, more to let that sink in than anything, and said, “We will begin your training with the style of martial arts my Master taught me, when I was an apprentice, Kainaw. It is a style that suits both unarmed combat, and weapons, and is designed to combine magic with physical skills. Those of you who have studied different types of martial arts in this world will find similarities, since there are only so many ways a human-shaped body can move without doing serious damage to themselves. Now, follow me as we go through the first forms.”

The entire morning’s training was spent in training the basic stances. We did not even get to punches or kicks before lunch. I was building these apprentices of mine up from the foundation, and the foundation of every style of martial art I had seen, in this world or the other, was footwork. Well, aside from the styles practiced by aquatic or flying creatures, which focused more upon the core, since they rarely set foot on anything, if they had feet at all. But for humans, trolls, goblins, and even centaurs? Footwork was the basis of martial training.

After lunch, the apprentices got a brief break, as two of my ghoul soldiers (one male, one female) gave them a demonstration of basic hand-to-hand combat in the Kainaw style. Sergeant Elyes, the man, focused on punching, while Sergeant Esabell, the woman, focused on kicks. They started slowly, keeping things at ‘normal human’ speed. Then they doubled the speed. And doubled it again. And again. Eventually, they moved so fast that their strikes caused shockwaves in the air.

And then it was done. The two soldiers stepped back, bowed to each other, and then turned to the apprentices, standing in an at ease position. I stepped forward, naturally drawing the students’ eyes to me. “For your information, Sergents Elyes and Esabell here were not moving at full speed, even at the end. They are Warriors, not Mages, but even a Mage can move and fight at the level they just displayed with training. Remember, magic is a tool. The more tools you have in your toolkit, the better off you will be. Yes, any doctor will say that a scalpel is the most important tool in their kit, but, should they find themselves needing to change a tire, then they really ought to consider using a different tool, no?”

That got a couple chuckles, as I hoped. But my tone was serious when I spoke again. “Split up in groups. Sergeant Elyes will take the boys, and Sergeant Esabell will take the girls. And, before anyone starts asking questions, the reason for splitting that way is simple. When you get to higher levels, the difference between the sexes all but disappears, as magic and conditioning bring the two closer to an even keel. However, at the lowest levels, where you are now, men tend to be physically stronger while women tend to be more limber, and have a better range of motion. As such, your training, in these early sessions, will try to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. By the time you begin training with weapons, the gap between your states will depend more upon your training and drive than mundane biology. By the time you leave my service, there will be no practical difference between the men and women in the group.”

The six students accepted this, and made their way to their teachers. I wasn’t lying when I said that this was a planned separation. Punching relied on upper body strength for its effectiveness than anything. Sure, you needed proper rotation and form, but that was just the mechanics of delivering force efficiently. The technique was there so that, when you hit someone, you did more damage to the person than to your hand.

Kicks, however, were less about brute strength, and more about speed, and leverage. Yes, you needed muscle for kicking, but the different bones in the foot were stronger than the hand, because they were designed to literally take the entire body’s weight. That meant the different parts of the foot could hit harder than a person’s hand, especially since people’s legs were almost always longer than their arms, making it a longer lever to hit things with.

Kicking also had the advantage of being able to threaten a wider array of targets on the body. A person standing on their feet wasn’t going to be punching someone in the knee, usually. The way the arms worked, you got the best results going for the torso and head with a punch, not below the belt. A kick to the knee, however, could easily cause damage to someone, hampering their footwork and putting them off-balance, opening them up for further attacks. But a kick could also reach the face with a side kick, or come down as an axe kick to the collar bone.

However, relying on just kicks was as stupid as relying on just punches. Oh, that was fine for sporting matches like boxing, but when you were fighting for your life, you had to be able to use everything. It was no different from the game I’d had the Sorcerers learn. If you used the same trick all the time, someone would discover a way to counter you, and you needed to be ready for that.

So, the men would begin with punches, and the women would begin with kicks. Playing to the strengths of their builds. And then, once they learned to use what they had, I would have them learn to shift, and work on the parts they were less certain on, to cover their weaknesses. Just as I planned to do with their magic, and when teaching them weapons and armor.

The philosophy was the same, regardless of what was being taught. Acknowledge the differences in where people started, their different strengths and weaknesses. Denying that only meant you were denying reality. Then, you worked, teaching them to build on the strengths, and overcome the weaknesses. And that included beating the idea of a ‘weaker sex’ out of their heads. Sure, the average, mundane, unmodified human female was, statistically, weaker than the average, mundane, unmodified human male. But when you started training with physical fitness and combat skills? You were no longer average. And when you added magic? Then mundane and unmodified quickly left town, as well.

But there was an advantage to exposing my students to that idea, before I ensured they never fell for it again. The men needed to learn, deep in their bones, that even the most delicate-looking rose had thorns, and the women needed to learn to wield that foolishness like a weapon. Even now, after everything I had done, there were still idiots who looked upon my human guise and only saw the girl I was before getting summoned to the other world, not the Lich Queen I was. As annoying as it was to be underestimated, I wasn’t going to remove an arrow from my quiver just because the color on the fletching annoyed me.

Besides, there were few things better than watching an enemy die in disgrace because they had foolishly assumed they were better, or using their own pride as a tool against them. It was the equivalent of striking down one of the big idiots who thought being male made them more powerful with an arrow painted entirely in neon pink, or killing a racist while wearing the face of someone they hated. It made the win even more delicious.