When he received no answer, Charle shook his head, exasperated. “Not even a bit of intelligence in any of ye.”

“Alright,” he cleared his throat, “I’ll tell ye if ye all work hard learning how to use the pike.”

There was nothing else that needed to be said. One by one, each mercenary strode forward to pick a pike out from the pile. 

The pike felt differently in Elric’s hand than the one he used before. The wood used to make its shaft was of a supple, but firm, nature and was quite flexible compared to the other. Even its point was different with how it was more narrow in nature and had a pikehead of a little over a foot.

No wonder it easily stabbed into a tree then. 

The pikehead was made of high-grade metal and manufactured with care, though it probably wasn’t as durable as the other weapons whose metal were folded over one another a thousand times. Still, it was without a doubt a pike made specifically for war.

Elric spent the following few weeks training with the other mercenaries under Charle’s tutelage to learn the art of the pike.

They were taught a variety of techniques to serve as a foundation. Thrusting, upswing and downswing, sweeping left and right, and everything else the mercenaries wanted to learn. Charle started first with everyone practicing these basic stances and moves by themselves before moving onto duels and then ultimately formations. Each motion was deconstructed and analyzed before Charle could teach about the sequence of action one could take.

Without the excellent demonstration and persuasive talk earlier, there was no way Charle would’ve been able to hold any of the mercenaries’ attention long enough to teach them.

It was a beneficial experience. Without Charle’s teachings, Elric would never have thought twice about how to use a pike. He would’ve continued living his life thinking that even thrusting a pike was a simple matter without any thinking put behind it. 

Thrusting a pike wasn’t exactly as simple as he thought. Within the action held all sorts of variables that had to be thought about beforehand, such as at what angle to thrust and at what position. Even the amount of force and wristwork had to be considered with each thrust. 

These lessons were engrained into Elric with each spar he had with Charle. Oftentimes, Charle would have the mercenaries attack him at the same time in formation before he easily disarmed them all. No matter how brilliant their pikework, Charle would find some way to weave in between their pikes and force the pike out from their hands with his own. 

This was the same when Elric fought against the other mercenaries. Every preceding spar taught him a lot on how to use a pike, but he’d always find himself being disarmed within a few moves.

The past few weeks had hardened Elric into a capable pikeman. It wasn’t his first foray into weapon training, as Kite once taught him how to use a sword. At the time, Kite mentioned that Elric was talented with the sword and that he’d offer to introduce him to his father if he wanted to make the switch. It was a tempting offer, but Elric loved the path of magic and declined.

It was in this regard Charle thought the same about Elric. Once Charle saw how quick Elric was in learning the pike, the man began to give him more and more pointers. His teaching method differed quite a bit from Kite, however. Kite began his lessons by teaching the theory of offense and defense. He wouldn’t move on with the lesson until Elric had a decent amount of practice and would even take note of how Elric fought to teach him as attentively as possible. Their spars would always be informational and would never end with Kite disarming Elric. 

Was that examination between Kite and Pastim how knights trained? It seemed like it.

Charle taught differently. He was the type of instructor to beat knowledge into a person through near-death experiences. He didn’t usually attempt to strike at them with the point of the pike (not true all the time, that’s how Elric found himself injured on his behind), but most of the time he’d strike at their ribs or head with the shaft. It was rough treatment, but not an uncommon one. Many mercenaries found his treatment no easier than actual combat, but not Charle. When told about such an opinion, the man laughed, saying he was only playing around. One of his greatest pleasures, he said, was to beat the mercenaries half to death or run them ragged. 

Many a time, Elric thought Charle was very similar in character to Crazy.

One early morning, when everyone had eaten their fill and rested their legs, the mercenaries could begin their daily training. Training normally took place on the topside of the hill, so everyone began to make their way over, only to see that Charle was already there with multiple longbows and even more bundles of arrows. Propped against multiple trees farther away from him were several straw targets.

Ordering each mercenary to drop their pike, Charle had them come to him one by one, empty-handed.

The pike had practically been inseparable from Elric the past few years, so to have it gone from his hand now felt extremely strange.

Everyone took a seat around Charle so he could begin.

The first thing Charle did was pick up a longbow from the ground. Bringing back the bowstring and testing its strength, he retrieved three arrows from the pile and notched one onto the bow. The other two were stabbed onto the ground for easier pickup later. He turned around. 

Gingerly, he closed an eye and drew the bowstring back. Once satisfied, Charle let go of the bowstring. The arrow flew forward, accelerated by the string it was on and pierced into the center of the target with a satisfying ‘thwock’. 

The second arrow was notched immediately after the first was fired. Drawn back and fired, the arrow was embedded onto the target as well. Though not a bulls-eye like the first, it was still at the very least a very nice shot.

Charle didn’t speak to the mercenaries until the third arrow was fired. 

“Except from magic, bows and arrows are the only weapons capable of killing from a range. All but one of ye here don’t know magic, meaning ye’ll have to learn the bow and arrow.”

Everyone turned their attention to Elric. They all knew that he was their sole comrade capable of magic. It was a little laughable to say he was their sole magus given how bad he was at it, but he had to stay silent. Who’d believe otherwise?

“So it’s archery time. This sort of thing is better taught through practice, but we’ll be drilling into ye how to properly aim and other aspects. The rest will be on the rest of ye to practice.”

His words implied that archery wasn’t much of a theoretical study, but somehow he still managed to speak a lot on the subject.

It took multiple days for Elric to properly digest this new information before he was able to call himself an adequate bowman.

Multiple types of bow existed, depending on their usage, such as the hunting bow, the longbow, and the war bow. Bows were then split into another classification between light and heavy bows.

There were all types of bows, each one with their special characteristics and usage. Not even the maintenance of the bows were the same.

Charle’s expertise on archery was practically encyclopedic. Through him, Elric was happy to enrich himself on many of the aspects in archery, such as how to craft a bow and arrows. While Charle didn’t require his mercenaries to learn how to make a bow, he was more than happy to teach it to the inquiring minds that were interested. 

It was unfortunate that because of the emphasis on knighthood and magic within the kingdom, archery was a very undervalued field. Archers were far and few, and not even the army of the kingdom or common mercenaries bothered to learn the art. 

So not many people were interested to listen to Charle for long.