However much he complained at the beginning of his station, Valen soon found himself in a rhythm. Once he was reunited with Nikki, he was able to meet her frequently, so he was able to spend a couple of hours training against her. And that was also when he realized the huge difference with his new armor. The armor seemed to make him faster and tougher.
The second time he went to meet her, their reunion being mostly about discussing how they would proceed forward, Valen was worried about the sentries looking out at the village’s treetop spotting her but she assured him that she had ways to make herself less inconspicuous, and she could use the same tree cover to hide herself.
He wasn’t completely reassured but decided to trust her judgment on that.
However, their first training session since Valen got his new gear was a surprise for both. Whereas Valen was able to be tagged sometimes by her attacks, now he seemed to dodge them easily, and even when Nikki did a glancing blow to a reflex hit, the claws only barely pierced the armor while they would have been able to tear through with ease. Nikki stopped their spar right there and they spent the rest of their meeting testing Valen’s new limits, and he could confirm he was a bit faster, but only just. Nikki going full out would still catch him if she wanted to.
Valen wasn’t at the end of his surprises, however, at the very next training session, she did something that startled him, touching his chest with her nose for several long seconds. Nikki didn’t shy away from contact, as did Valen, but he could feel that what she just did was different. Something changed with his armor, he could feel it, but he didn’t know what. Then immediately after, and being too fast for him to react, she snagged his weapon out of his back with surprising speed and dexterity, then closed her eyes in concentration once again.
Caught off-guard, Valen took a bit to recover but then she seemed to have finished what she was looking to do and allowed him to pick it back up.
Upon reaching his handle, he frowned. His Switch Axe felt different, off. Did she do the same kind of thing that she did on his armor he wondered. Valen didn’t know what to think, it was novel ground for him.
He was broken out of his wondering when Nikki caught his attention and immediately asked for him to spar. Valen was about to protest but she had already placed herself at the other side of the field and was only waiting for his signal. The hunter finally relented and decided he would reserve his questions after this training bout.
They stared at each other for several long seconds before some unknown signal passed between them and Valen sprang into action, intending to close the distance between the two of them quickly.
He was looking at Nikki intently, looking for any twitch that would betray with what limb she would strike at him. Then he noticed she crouched slightly and focused, she was about to leap backward. And when he had crossed half of the distance between them, Nikki did indeed leap back, however, she also reared back her left wing in the same motion and Valen’s eyes widened, she meant to thrust her wing at him, but the motion was too fast, too smooth, he immediately pushed sideways with his next step, trying to dodge the spearing thrust, but he was too slow.
The tip of Nikki’s wing smashed at him with the force of a crashing Rathian, and Valen tumbled around and rolled for a while. He managed to spring back up on his legs and shook his head to clear the dizziness that started to come to him, and then the realization of what just happened crashed into him. Nikki struck him at full power. And he immediately felt around him, fearing the worst, a puncture wound or something… But nothing. The only sign of him having been struck was the dirt that had accumulated on his armor and a slight dent on his breastplate.
A slight motion startled him and he looked up to face Nikki who had approached, her posture a bit worried, slightly guilty but yet… Happy? His hand twitched because of the monumental hit he had just taken… But they couldn’t deny the truth. He should have died. And yet… Nikki did something that caused the armor to absorb the entire hit and keep him alive. Battered, bruised, but alive.
Adrenaline still running high, he was wary to let the elder approach… But… he had to get answers. As risky as what Nikki did, he couldn’t deny that what she did was life-saving… And could change so many things for him. So he just signed. “How?”
To which she answered with a single word, that same word that troubled him: “Element.”
Later, Valen would realize that it was when things truly started to change for him when things started to become obvious. But that wasn’t something he realized at the moment. At the moment he simply had the revelation that he had stumbled on what seemed to be a secret of the world. Something that Elders knew about… Something that may just be the source of their powers.
It was only when Valen left the clearing that he noticed they hadn’t done any training besides him getting walloped by her wing. The rest of the time was spent asking questions to Nikki and receiving answers that confused him even more. Nikki said that what she did was imbue his armor with a bit of her element, which baffled him because he didn’t think that was something she was able to do. She hadn’t done it before because his previous gear couldn’t hold it. She also apologized for being overeager and being more forceful than she intended to.
Still, he realized that Element wasn’t the correct word for what she intended to convey… He tentatively reassigned it to ‘energy’, but he also suspected that there wasn’t any word in his language that perfectly described what Nikki tried to explain. Valen wasn’t sure if that was a property unique to Elders, though she implied they at least were able to manipulate it.
It explained some things to Valen, as it was probably what truly separated Elders from regular monsters…
Her explanations became even more confusing after this, though he noted the conversation in his notebook hoping to make sense of it later…
Thus it was with a distracted mind that he came back to the Village, still trying to make sense of what he discovered today. He had barely noticed he had no idea what he did the whole evening before he realized he was in his bed, but sleep was hard to come, his mind whirling with ideas.
Outside of this monumental world shift, upon which he skipped visiting Nikki for a few days, trying to make sense of the whole thing, and because his wariness of her came back strong for a time, he eventually gave up on it, and at their next meeting, they came back to training… Only this time Nikki was more forceful… but Valen was still shocked by what it meant.
What Nikki was doing to his armor allowed him to survive at least one hit of Nikki at full power. It didn’t seem much but it was a world of difference. No more they had to be extremely careful with their training sessions… Now Nikki was able to use more of her true speed and strength, which also meant that while Valen was occasionally winning bouts before, he was now on a huge losing streak.
It would have demoralized others, but not him, as he also knew there was a huge difference and huge progress compared to his previous armor… He was able to take riskier maneuvers. The first few times he was punished by an instant defeat as they still worked on the rules that the first hit on him was a loss.
Valen also came to deduct that while she improved her armor, she seemed to have made his weapon worse than it should have been, the strikes having the same effect on her as the basic steel gear. It also meant that he could put his full strength while striking her without risking wounding the dragon. He had to spend every evening sharpening and cleaning his weapon though.
Nikki was relentless in their sessions, but Valen knew she was also fair, no other monster would hold their might back so as not to kill him. It was also the greatest benefit he gained from her: the ability to constantly train like real hunts without the constant risk of death.
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It was only a few months later that Nikki granted the first victory to Valen, him having landed a few strikes on vital areas. And it was then that Valen truly knew he was improving. He went right back into a losing streak but the sole win renewed his determination.
Not all this time was spent sparring however, there were also times when the two of them forewent the training and simply enjoyed each other’s time, usually napping or chatting…
It was also during one of these times that what Valen feared the most, happened: Somebody discovered them.
Valen had currently his weapon disassembled and in the process of cleaning it and maintaining it. He had once spent a hunt with it being jammed before he met Nikki and knew how dangerous it was, so he made sure it was something that wouldn’t happen once again.
However, the tinkering noises he caused thus prevented the both of them from hearing the faint rustling of leaves around… They could not detect the intruder until they heard a soft gasp coming out from the entrance of the clearing, which now had a woman paused mid-stride, a large basket in her arm.
There was a very long and tense moment, where Valen was in the middle of a sharpening pass on the edge, Nikki had very clearly tensed up and was obviously about to pounce on the intruder if needed to, and the stranger was staring at them both of them, very clearly have realized that she was in a very tricky situation.
The one to break the tension was surprisingly the woman, as she visibly forced herself to react and simply said. “It seems I’ve intruded on a private moment, I’ll leave the both of you to it then.” And she started walking away.
It took a split second for Valen to digest what she just said, but immediately seeing Nikki being thrown off by her reaction, he signed to her. “I manage that.” And left his disassembled weapon on the ground while he ran to catch up to her.
Strangely the woman wasn’t running away and seemed unconcerned by what just happened. Once Valen caught up to her, she just looked at him and smiled. “Do not worry, I do not intend to speak about what happened to anybody else.”
This threw Valen out for a loop and he paused for a slight moment in confusion before asking. “I… I thought you would warn the guild of that.”
“It’s simple, it’s not the most scandalous or outlandish thing I’ve witnessed. Heck, it doesn’t even enter the top five. Besides I take the confidentiality of my clients seriously, and I already knew not all Elders were bloodthirsty beasts, so it just is a logical possibility for me.”
“Clients? Who are you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t the villagers tell you about an itinerant smith and merchant? That’s me, I’m Aki. I usually come here to restock in mushrooms and herbs, but I also did repairs for the occasional hunter who got punished there. I arrived yesterday, and I didn’t expect to be greeted by such a surprise! A peaceful Elder, that is a first for me still!”
“Yeah we have gotten close recently though I was worried about her reaction, it IS the first time somebody discovered us…” He frowned. “Don’t you dare betray the little trust I gave you, you won’t like Nikki’s reaction if you do.”
She nodded seriously. “I won’t, as I said, I’ve seen worse, and even then never revealed it. You have noooo idea what hunters born from well-off families can do!” She giggled. “Eh. Please bring back your weapon with you, I’d like to do a check so I can confirm you’re taking care of it. Switch Axe right?”
Valen nodded. “That’s right, hunted a Plesioth for the full set.”
“Not bad, it would be strong enough to pierce the scales of an Elder if need to be.” She looked above. “I’ll go back to the village, be here the next few weeks, then I need to continue my rotation. Don’t you dare get mauled by that Valstrax!”
And with a last wave, so quickly Valen barely realized it, she vanished through the overgrowth. He looked around but there was no rustling betraying her presence, he shrugged and returned to Nikki, confirming to her that Aki wouldn’t be an issue, at least he thought. He hastened to maintain his weapon, put back his armor, and returned towards the village as soon as he could though, cutting short the time he had with the Valstrax for once.
However, he was relieved to see that when he came back, no horde of villagers nor the village chief were waiting for him, ready for blood. He dropped his supplies pack at his abode and then headed towards the forge, hearing the sound of the hammer against metal, which told him that Aki was at work.
The forge being open to the air, she immediately noticed his approach, and she did a couple more swings before putting the blade she was forging back in the fire, pulling the bellows a couple of times. Without the long sleeves that she had in the forest, Valen could see that Aki had toned muscles on her arms, developed after years in the forge he supposed.
Though it was only in there that he immediately noticed something off about her: two of her fingers on her right arm weren’t made of flesh, but of metal, a sort of gauntlet covering the back of her hand with an embedded gem that seemed familiar to Valen, but he couldn’t recall where from.
Aki noticed his stare and she smiled. “Lost these fingers to an accident a while ago, but I managed to craft this prosthesis to recover their function. Almost feels like the original even!”
“That is impressive indeed, it’s all your work you said?”
“Yep! It took me a while to figure out how I would do it but I’m satisfied with the result! Though I’m not sure I could recreate what I’ve done for others since it’s so finely tuned to myself.”
Valen nodded. “I understand.” He then unsheathed his weapon from his back. “I understood you wanted to check out my gear right?”
He barely finished his question before she snatched his weapon out of his grasp with surprising strength and dexterity, there she simply turned the weapon in all angles, testing the morphing functionality and the phials. She then placed it on her work table and dismantled it partially, to check on the internals, then suddenly asked. “Did you help forge it?”
That question took aback Valen, and he took a split second to answer. “No? Was I supposed to?”
The facepalm that followed than answer along with the accompanying groan told the answer to Valen. “Ugh, those guild rules I swear… Yeah, past a point in the food chain, you should assist the Smith on some critical parts of the forging or upgrading process, it’s to tune the weapon and armor with yourself more. I had my suspicions because despite your armor being good quality, something felt off, I guess I have my answer.”
“But… I remember asking that question to the smith since I remember something like that in my training and he simply said it was only for lower-skilled smiths.”
“HE SAID WHAT?” The unexpected outburst from Aki startled Valen. “THIS ARROGANT, PUMPED UP FOOL! I SWEAR ON GOG, I’LL HAVE HIS HIDE! ‘LOWER SKILLED SMITHS’, THAT’S JUST HIMSELF!”
Then she visibly calmed down and sighed. “Sorry for the outburst. But as an itinerant smith, I pride myself on making sure my clients have the best quality of gear they can get, and doing something like he did is simply negligent, what if one of my clients died in a hunt because they didn’t get that small edge they needed? I make sure that I do everything I am able, and that means making sure the armor and weapons simply are the best they can be with their clients.”
Valen took a moment to digest what she just said, then a detail puzzled him. “But how does that work then? Why is it so important armors can bond with their owners?”
Aki frowned then shook her head. “I’m sorry Valen but I can’t tell, it’s a guild secret, I would tell you if I could but I was honor bound to not divulge it unless the hunter is G-Rank.”
This made Valen immediately suspicious, as G-Rank is the highest attainable rank a hunter may achieve. It’s most notably automatically discerned if a hunter can slay a rampaging Elder Dragon solo, a feat that has been rarely achieved.
“… I guess it has some link with the energy Nikki can manipulate.”
Aki, who was in the process of reassembling Valen’s weapon, snapped her head back up. “Nikki? Oh, I see. And she can manipulate it? That explains so much about Elders…” Then she grinned. “It’s a shame I can’t report that to the guild due to it coming from an unverified source.”
Valen sighed in relief, he realized after he shouldn’t have talked about it. “I guess I should be more careful about what I say in the future.”
The smith finished reassembling the weapon and handed it back to Valen, then she walked several circles around him then nodded. “Alright craftsmanship for this armor, though it’s shoddy to me just for what he did, not making you participate. I’ve nothing to say about the state of it though, you’re maintaining it well already.”
“Thank you for that… How long will you stay here, since you are an itinerary smith.”
“Normally? Not more than one week. But you’re too interesting to me, so I’ll stay the full month.” She grinned. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily!”
Valen shook his head. “I’ll head myself out then. See you tomorrow!”
“Bye Valen, don’t trip on a tail while you’re gone!”
Surprised by the wording of this sentence, he looked back to see if she would explain, but she simply grinned and went to remove the kitchen knife she was working on from the fire.
Shaking his head, he came to realize that Aki had an… Unusual but cheerful personality and she was bound to have her quirks. But still, he went to spend the evening in his accommodations, and hopefully, nothing would happen during his stay here.
