Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 371

This is the second interlude chapter. It is planned to end in three chapters.

Two years had passed. Swiberry was still small, but the boy who tirelessly practiced thrusting at tree branches had improved so much that he could no longer join the village children’s playful stick fights.

Once, he casually aimed a thrust at an older boy, and the force shattered the branch in the boy’s hand before nearly piercing his throat. Fortunately, Swiberry corrected his aim at the last moment, and the impact, slightly deviating from the center after breaking the branch, prevented an injury. Even so, the older boy collapsed in fear.

Since then, Swiberry had been excluded from the village boys’ stick-fighting games.

But that didn’t bother him at all.

Faster, farther, straighter.

As always, Swiberry relentlessly thrust his sword-shaped wooden stick at a mark on a tree.

He thrust with both hands. With his right hand. With his left. From center stance. From a low stance. With his right side forward. With his left side forward.

He lunged from a distance and struck. He retracted his sword while striking at close range.

Swiberry loved the sensation of power flowing through his thrusts.

Pressing his feet into the ground, the force traveled from his bent knees through his hips, up his back, and whipped through his arm. That energy gave life to his sword, concentrating into a single point at the tip.

This unique swordsmanship, which gathered his entire body’s strength into a single thrust, was nothing like a knight’s technique—nor was it the brute-force style of mercenaries. It was something entirely different. But Swiberry trusted only his own instincts and continued training.

In the small yard of a small house in a small village, a boy, receiving instruction from no one, was steadily developing terrifying skills.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Father, I need a new stick.”

At some point, Swiberry had started growing rapidly.

He was only fourteen by count, but he was already taller than his father, who had once worked as a caravan guard.

Though still lean, his arms and legs were now packed with whip-like muscle, making his build unrecognizable as that of a mere farmer.

“Here, take it.”

Swiberry used a dark, hard wooden stick his father had casually whittled.

With his height increasing, the length and weight of his practice stick had grown dramatically.

He continued his distinctive thrusting practice as always.

Now, from ten steps away, he could unleash sharp, terrifying thrusts at the wooden mark.

As his limbs lengthened, his striking range expanded even further.

His family never tried to stop him from training, even between bouts of farm work.

It wasn’t just because they were preoccupied with his newborn younger sibling. More importantly, Swiberry had already proven that he was no ordinary farmer—he had single-handedly fended off a goblin raid with nothing but a wooden sword.

That day, five goblins had attacked the village.

Fortunately, they were spotted early. The village youths, gripping their farming tools nervously, stood their ground in a tense standoff when Swiberry arrived, armed only with his wooden sword.

“H-Hey, what are you…?”

Ignoring the villagers’ confusion, he stepped forward without hesitation.

A deep thud echoed—it was the sound of his foot driving into the ground.

What the villagers saw was a single, swift step forward, his body turning slightly as he extended his wooden sword with just his left hand. In a straight line, he thrust through a goblin’s throat.

The once-noisy monster crumpled to the ground, silent.

Swiberry repeated this four more times.

With his left hand, his right, both hands, and from below—as if going through a practiced drill, his thrusts landed perfectly, and the goblins collapsed as if they had rehearsed their deaths.

“I’d rather fight something bigger.”

Flicking the blood from his wooden sword in dissatisfaction, the boy left the villagers speechless.

After that, they kept their distance from Swiberry, watching him with wary eyes.

But he didn’t care.

Rather than their stares, he was far more absorbed in refining his technique—striking from farther away, sharper and straighter, focusing all his strength into the tip of his sword.

Lately, he had started training outside the village fence.

His strikes had become so powerful that they damaged the village trees, and the villagers had grown uneasy watching him wield his stick.

Outside, however, no one complained if he scarred the trees.

As he repeated his thrusts with unwavering focus, he sensed something watching him from the bushes behind.

“They’ve come.”

Was it a decoy?

From the side, a black beast lunged at him, its white fangs gleaming.

“Jumping at me was a mistake.” He had time to murmur those words.

A straight thrust met the airborne creature.

His wooden sword pierced through the monster’s fangs, split them apart, drove into its mouth, shattered its skull, and scattered its brains.

“And too slow.”

Retracting his sword in an instant, he thrust straight down at another beast charging low from behind.

The strike pierced through the base of its skull, pinning its massive body to the ground.

Training outside the village meant monsters would attack.

Balancing his thrusting practice with sensing the presence of enemies only honed Swiberry’s swordsmanship further.

“I’m skipping farm work, so I’d at least like to make some money off this.”

Bothering with dismantling was a hassle.

He simply left the monster corpses where they fell, then dragged them back to the village after training.

His father would skin and butcher them. The meat was burned, but their hides and fangs were repurposed for goods sold at the general store. The pelts became clothing or floor mats, while the fangs were crafted into arrowheads, fishing hooks, and buttons.

“If the forest were easier to walk through, I’d track down a goblin nest.”

The woods beyond the village were untamed, resisting human intrusion.

Little sunlight reached the forest floor, which was thick with undergrowth.

Only around his training area was the ground clear—Swiberry had cut down the brush with his wooden sword while practicing. However, finding a goblin nest alone would be a challenge.

When he finished training, he tied the dead beasts to a branch with vines and dragged them back to the village.

Normally, one would erase their tracks and mask the scent of blood to avoid attracting monsters.

But Swiberry didn’t care.

If something followed the scent, so be it.

More training partners were always welcome.

He now had the skill—and the confidence—to handle whatever came.