Master Of None

Chapter 477 - 477. Shattering Arrows

Su could hear the distant chaos coming from Remey and Scylla but remained calm while she looked over the smaller squad in front of her. These were the guard trainee enforcers and some held thin shields made for deflecting projectiles. "I am Su and I am a draconic guardian. My system allows me to be so and I prefer to wield two strong shields instead of one." 

Su was calm and slow about introducing herself. She aimed to make sure that a guard always needed a calm mind to properly make decisions on a battle field or in the market. "Explain the shields some of you hold and why you are effective as a guard. That goes for those without shields as well." She wanted to know as much as possible before she proceeded with any training at all. 

"My lady hero, we have these shields to deflect arrows of all kinds from any who fire them. Some of our skills even deflect magical attacks." The elf that answered had one of the flimsy looking shields and showed a few motions that could easily deflect an arrow. 

"I do not have a shield but I instead guard with my short swords. I can block in various ways and also counter attack." The elf showed two smaller swords that also looked flimsy to Su. 

"How do you defend from a melee attack then? Can you withstand a great sword or a heavy fist coming at you?" Su knew the answer just from looking at the elves but wanted to hear what they thought. 

"Yes lady hero. We have tested ourselves against the close combat squad and also the spell swords at times. We are often successful unless we go up against the strongest they have." The elf looked proud as he said this and Su felt bad for what she was going to do.

"Please ready yourself. I will be attacking you next." The elf thought that Su had spoken wrong. He knew that a shield user like himself couldn't attack so why would someone who only used a shield have attack skills. The only elves that thought this possible were those who used weapons to block attacks since they had many counter attack skills.

Su only raised one shield and came forward with much greater speed than the elf expected. Before the elf even had time to think about how he would deflect Su's shield she had used her shield bash skill to slam the elves ' shield and consequently the elf. The elf was thrown a few feet away and their shield flew from their hands.

"You call that deflecting? You couldn't even withstand a soft shield bash. It is clear that none of you actually have the power to block an attack." Su had an idea and looked around. She spotted Wade from a distance and waved to a nearby enforcer who was holding a mana potion. "Have Wade fire three arrows at me from his distance please." The enforcer did not question her and dashed away. 

"Watch how I can do what any of you can with this shield." Su held both at the ready and could see Wade's silhouette notch and fire three arrows in quick succession. The first was close to Su's head when she ducked and used her right shield to swat the arrow upwards and toward the ceiling., The second was slapped to the ground by the left shield and the third was left heading right for her. 

She knew that it was coming due to her eyes being able to easily follow the small shape in the air. Su slammed her shield together and pushed straight forwards causing the arrow to hit the combined shield and shatter in to pieces. "Thank you Wade!" Su gave a wave and turned around to face the guards, "Pick up my shield and tell me why I can do what all of you can and block melee attacks." 

The elves came one by one and found the shield stop be extremely heavy compared to the weapons and shields they used. "Lady hero, you must be very strong to use these. I did not expect you to have great strength." Su was shaking her head at the elf. 

"My strength is not what gives me the ability to wield these. I am able to because I have always trained with heavy shields. My agility is low but I can anticipate my opponents' movements. With this, I am moving sooner than my opponent so that their attacks are blocked. I am not actually moving faster, just sooner." She knew that this was only part of her advice but the elves felt she had much more wisdom to share. They had not realized they had been holding themselves back for so long but only trying to deflect and change the direction of an attack. Even against close combat, they tried this instead of other methods. 

"We will build you the rest of a proper guards strategy. Those of you with shields will need to learn to do more than deflect and those of you with weapons will need to learn to attack first and read your opponent's movements." Sui started to get them split in to groups and test their prediction. 

The progress was going to be slow since she was changing their styles but it would be worth it. She was already planning to send them to train against the other squads once they got a feel for it. This would put them right in to the heat of a battle where they could progress faster due to adrenalin tempting their minds and skills. However, she first needed to show them how to do it.

Su was occupied with strategies, Walker with creating flame dolls, Gil with prototype arrows, Remey with mental strength, and Scylla with horror. This left Onyx and Midnight to train with the two remaining mage trainee enforcers.

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