After breakfast and a quick rest we went to the building with the training room. Carl also brought two wooden swords.
After getting there Taylor explained "If you are gonna spar, we should have a few rules setup."
"Firstly, the spar will end if, one of you hit the other's hands, neck or head with your sword. It'll be assumed a hit will cut through the part, and those parts getting cut would decapacitate in normal circumstance."
"Secondly, try to not use excessive force, even with wooden sword you can get seriously hurt."
"You'll start, when I say to start. It is hard to know if and or when someone's hit another's vital part sometimes, so, please be honest about getting hit."
He takes a moment before continueing, "Now, then, are you both ready?"
I nod, readying myself. I'll have to hold back, so as to not hurt him. I'm not the best at holding back, but I should be able to manage. Carl also says, "Ready." Angle looks at the two of us with anticipation. I wonder if she is hoping for me to win.
I hold the sword with one hand, although I prefer using long swords and am more used to using swords with two hands, this should make it easier to use less force. Sword's tip pointed at my oponent, Carl, my left hand kept close to my body, hand can potentially be used to parry a sword, if you quickly slap it away. You'll have to be careful, do it improperly and you'll loose fingers.
Carl, uses both his hand, standing in a similar stance to that of kendo.
Both of us are focused on the centre of mass of the other. Using the full range of our vision to know what our opponent might be doing.
Talor nods, then, after another moment, he shouts, "Start!"
Carl is the first to move, stepping forward with a forward cut. With a swift slash to the right the hit is parried towards the right. Then using my leverage I try twisting my blade to hit his palm, to which he quickly steps back a step, barely getting out of my sword's reach, he does a side step to the left, slashing toward right. There was no need to parry this, he is still out of range to hit.
As his sword slashes past me not getting the resistance he expected, I step forward, thrusting toward his torso, the biggest part of his body I can try to hit. He reacts quickly, stepping to right, and redirecting his swing back left wards trying to deflect my thrust away, and doing a counter attack after. This position is weak for me, thus, he successfully redirects my sword rightward, changing his sword's trajectory back towards my body. With my left hand I quickly slap his strike away, slapping at the blunt side of his blade.
I take a step back as he steps forward slashing down right wards. I slash left down wards, parrying his attack leftward, before repositioning my blade to thrust toward him. He steps to the right to dodge the attack before attacking toward my right hand. I pull the sword back, letting his sword hit mine near the hilt.
This is a strong position for me, and weak for him. I leverage this advantage, pulling my sword to my right up wards. He was able to pull his sword back, as these swords aren't metal or sharp, they don't bind like they would in real fight, this allowed him to pull his sword back, in a real sword fight that'd nigh impossible.
He prepared to thrust, but by the time he repositioned himself for that, I was already mid swing down left wards, toward his left shoulder. Knowing my slash would connect before his thrust, he quickly repositions to defend against my slash. However this type of positioning is not very good for leverage, if he had the time to reposition himself by stepping to his right, he might have had a better chance, but by trying to thrust he no longer had that option. Even with this, a military man, could stope the strike, it wouldn't be easy, but it would be possible. However for him, my sword hits his, and his sword is pushed on his shoulder, his grip loosening, and the sword hitting his shoulder before knocking backwards, falling behind him, my sword stops right before hitting his shoulder. I couldn't really stop the swing much earlier...
"Hopefully this won't leave a mark" I think to myself.
I step back, "That's a hit" I say as I do.
"That it is" says Carl holding his shoulder, clearly a little hurt.
"He didn't meant to hurt me there, but by trying to parry from such a bad position with such little time, I made it too hard for him to pull the force back, so he didn't use excessive force, I would say." says Carl still holding his shoulder.
"Well then, the winner is Jakub!" exclaims Talor.
Angle comes up to me, "You are not... hurt, right?"
I smile, "Were you worried about me? Well," I look around my body, "I'm not really hurt anywhere, although" I point at Carl, "He might be hurt, you should maybe, go ask him how he feels."
To my surprise, she actually goes toward Carl, she stands a few feet away from him, holding her right elbow with her left hand, looking to the ground for a moment before looking at Carl, "Umm... A-are yo-you okay?"
Carl's face immediately lights up, and a big smile appears on his face. This might be first time she talked to anyone but me after I met her. "This isn't much, I have had much worse during sparing before, it's really nothing." He says with a smile, seeing him now, it might not be easy to tell he is still in some amount pain.
Angle takes a sigh of relieve. Before she comes back to me and says, with a barely excited voice, "You were amazing with that sword. I couldn't even follow most of it!"
I smile, "Well, I was trained for this."
Then Carl asks, "Be honest, what did you think? Do you think I could have became a part of the military, if they allowed me."
I now look at Carl. His skills are decent, and his reflexes are also good. The main thing he is lacking are strength and the rigorous training of military really. And he is pretty old too, he is probably 7 or more years older than me, so he is past his prime time, which means he was probably much stronger in the past. It might had been possible for him to survive the training, though, I can't be entirely sure, with his current strength it'd be almost impossible, and even at his prime, would he be strong enough? I just can't be sure.
I look him right in the eyes, "I can't say for certain, that you could. You are skill full, and for a normal person, you are definitely strong, and at your prime you were likely stronger, but I can't exactly no how much stronger you were, and strength is large factor in the military training specially if you start later than 9 years, it'd take a lot of strength to get through and survive the training. But if you could at least survive the training, I can see you being a decent or even above average soldier. You already have some decent skills even without military training"
Carl replies, "I see" he thinks for moment, before smiling, "Well even having you acknowledge my strength is enough for me. Even though I'm so old, I actually got a complement from you!"
"We should go back to the main building for now." Talor chimes in.
I and Carl both nod, I hold Angle's hand as we all head back. It was nice to see her talking to others for once. I wonder if she'd open up to the other to some more as time continues. I ponder on the thought, having a slight smile on my face as we headed back to the main building.