Freddy was starring at the girl in front of him, he just couldn't help it like most other men, and women, on the training field. She just looked that beautiful. Her perfect, milky white skin was standing in direct contrast to her long, black hair, falling all the way to the small of her back even bunched up in a ponytail.

Looking at her body, he could only feel like the simple linen clothes she was wearing, like most other people here, were the greatest insult to her body man could ever conceive. And when looking at her delicate face, a pair of piercing emerald eyes would look back.

But that wasn't even all. She was tall as well, almost as tall as himself.

But even with just that, the reactions wouldn't have been this strong. She looked like the models one could only see in photos, after they were photoshopped, but in real life.

*Thunk*

Freddy had to almost take a step back from the huge force that was transferred into his arms, despite bracing himself for this.

He looked down at the two-centimeter thick wooden plank in his hands, and then the thin heel that was piercing through it, almost touching his stomach. Freddy gulped. He was pretty sure High-heels weren't supposed to do that...

After their sudden first meeting, the girl had introduced herself as Victoria, before bringing him to the quartermaster to register his arrival. While they walked, she had also explained to him roughly what was going on and then continued with what she wanted his help with.

When she asked him to be her training partner, he had quickly agreed. He did ask her how he could make it up to her after all, and if even half of what she said was right, he definitely couldn't pass out on that training.

When they had finally stood in front of each other, surrounded by other people training with wooden swords and spears, he noticed that she was still wearing her High-heels. Even he knew that the best she could get out of that would be a sprained ankle.

So, gentlemen that he is, he asked her to take them off. Which in turn prompted her to say that she wouldn't use them on him. At that, he had laughed.

Now, not much later, he was quite happy about that promise.

The heel was pulled back out, and he quickly turned the plank sideways. Not a moment later, a roundhouse kick tore a fist-sized piece out of the wood.

The shoes, of course, were still in pristine a condition as ever. He really wanted to know what those things were made out of. Considering the glow, they had to be some kind of magical artifact. But that begged the question: How did one get their hands on magical High-heels, especially in the right fit. Even he didn't find perfectly fitting shoes on the first try every time. Maybe some kind of resizing magic?

He was ripped out of his thoughts by the fist tearing through the wood, lengthwise.

Victoria took a deep breath and breathed out slowly to calm herself down. Using a lot of Aura had a similar effect as adrenalin, and after using up almost a fourth of it, she felt like she had just won a barfight against five men. It had happened, once, it was quite an embarrassing story.

It was a bit of a waste of Aura, but she needed to know what she would be capable of. From that last punch, for example, she was able to tell that it was the limit of what her beauty-enhancement could protect her skin from. It could protect her from getting scratched by hard surfaces, but she doubted that it would be able to do much about a decently sharp or pointy weapon.

Her tests with the wooden planks had also shown that just for moving around, strengthening muscles and tendons was enough. But once high-velocity impacts came into play, she also had to strengthen her bones and joints.

"Very well. That's enough of that.", Victoria finally said, happy with the results.

As Freddy threw away the now two pieces of wood with a happy expression on his face, Victoria continued: "Now, come at me."

"What?"

"Punch me, kick me, try whatever you want. No need to hold back. Don't worry, it won't hurt.", Victoria explained.

Despite being pretty sure that she would wipe the floor with him, Freddy had some apprehensions against hitting her. It just didn't feel right. What if she actually did get injured? It would be such a waste if she got a scar.

With a bit of hesitation in his movements, he stepped in and gave her his best straight punch.

Victoria pushed it aside with her flat hand, grabbed his arm, spun around, and a moment later Freddy was flying through the air and heavily impacting on the ground with his back.

"Urgh!", he groaned.

"Not a lot at least.", Victoria corrected her last statement.

Freddy wasn't surprised. When someone said that, it was never the truth. That's just common sense.

He laboriously flipped himself on his stomach, before standing back up.

"Again.", Victoria encourages him.

This time, he decided to go in slower. Step for step, he got closer to the girl, always watching out for any sudden movement

As soon as he threw the first punch, Victoria went down and close, hugging his lower body. Before he even recognized that there was a feeling he could appreciate, she had already pulled his legs out from under him, throwing him back on his back.

This scene, repeated itself quite a few times. Ferdinand got back up, tried to attack, and quickly got thrown back to the ground in more and more creative ways. The only reason he let this humiliation continue, was that he was a man who kept his word. And because he got a Skill out of it. According to the System, it would give him a safer stance so that he won't get thrown down so easily. It didn't do much. But they stopped soon after.

He was guessing that she had gotten whatever Skill she had wanted as well.

Seeing how Ferdinand was getting a bit tired, Victoria decided that it was time to give him a break. She could teach him how to use a spear a bit later. As much as she used him to get the Skills she wanted, she was also teaching him some important lessons.

At that moment, a familiar figure came towards them.

"Miss Victoria, I haven't seen you here before. I didn't know you were such a fighter. A shame you don't have a combat Class!"

"Oh! Garry, right? I don't think I could have gotten any Combat Skill past level two even if I come every day, so I'm only getting them all today. Instead, I concentrated on training potentially useful non-combat Skills. Care for a spar? I still need to get the Weapon Skills.", Victoria answered.

To be precise, she was trying to get a a set of weapon and martial arts Skills that weren't restricted to a specific style or weapon. She could use a lot of different styles and weapons, but she didn't want to get five different Skills for each of those after all. It would be a lot of wasted time if she had to train them all seperately even though she used them in conjunction with each other.

As for weapons, at their core, they were all used in almost the same way. You can slash with a longsword the same way you do with a katana, and you can stab with a Zweihänder the same way you do with a spear. If she could convince the system that she needs only one slash and one stab Skill no matter what weapon she used, that would be a great advantage.

"Now that you are done humiliating the newby, I'm next? Or what?"

"No need to phrase it like that. I was teaching him an important lesson!", Victoria says indignantly.

"What lesson exactly? Don't make careless promises?", Freddy complains from the sideline.

"No. Don't hesitate. During the Wave, our opponents sure as hell won't do that."

"And why didn't you just tell me?", he continued complaining.

"Some, lessons have to be learned with your body. Also, you got faster at standing back up."

"Pah! And how does it matter that I'm standing up faster?"

"Miss here is right on that one. The best thing is to not get thrown to the ground in the first place, but that's not something you can achieve in a few days. When fighting monsters and you get thrown to the ground, pray that there is someone nearby to keep them away long enough to stand back up. You can probably imagine the consequences.", Garry answered this time.

"Anyway, spar?", Victoria asks Garry again.

"Hmm, fine. What are you using?"

"I was thinking I could start with a spear, and work my way through the swords and others afterward."

"I was asking whether you are using a long or a short spear. We don't have anything else. I would recommend a long one since there aren't any shields."

Looking around, she realized that Garry was right. How could she have so stupidly missed that every single person was training with a spear? But everything wasn't lost just yet: "Well, the short spears are around as long as a Zweihänder, and as far as I can see, there are still quite a few spares, they won't mind if I make one a bit shorter, right?"

Once Victoria returned with two long and one short training-spear, she decided to ask: "How come we only have spears? And why did you say there aren't any shields?"

"Well, for one, spears are easy to use for beginners, but you know that right?" Victoria nods and Garry continues: "The thing is, this is the thirteenth Wave, you know? We've only been in this place for barely a year, there simply isn't enough metal. We have precious few mining cities, and let me be honest, I think it's astounding that we even have that. And steel especially is something everyone wants to have.

The reason we use mainly spears is simply that they need only small amounts of metal. And if we weren't going up against monsters, we wouldn't even have steel spears. The ones we do have are on loan.

Actually, about your second question, the reason we aren't using shields and why we had to loan steel spears are one and the same.

How much do you know about the different demon types?"

"Hmm. Nothing, really.", Victoria answers, and even Freddy leans forward to hear better.

"You know that humans have the potential for Aura, Psy, and Mana? Demons, or demonic bests, are put into six sub-types depending on which energies they can use, though none of them can use all three.

Monsters are the ones who can only use Aura, and are mostly the same animals you know, just a lot nastier, more aggressive, and stupidly powerful. In this area especially, that means they are a lot larger than originally.

We need steel weapons simply because anything else won't be strong enough to even get through a Monster's thick hide. And why shields don't work?", at the last part he simply throws a glance at the pile of broken planks.

Victoria quickly understood.

"The story would be a bit different if they could use Aura though.", Garry comments.

"What do you mean? The others can't use Aura?", Victora is puzzled.

"You're friends with the Hero, right? He probably explained to you how to unlock your Energies. But you only managed to unlock your Aura, right?"

"Ehm, no? I unlocked all three right on the first night.", Victoria is getting a bit more confused. Maybe, she thought, only considering the explanations of a supposedly-god and a Hero had left her with some holes in her knowledge.

"In that case, you are extremely lucky. You need to have a well-trained body and mind to fully unlock your Aura and Psy. Doesn't matter whether you trained them in the old or the new World. And magic? Few people actually have it, wouldn't be surprised if you were the only one."

"Eh? Everyone should have Magic, else it wouldn't even show up in your stats, right?"

"Who knows? We probably just don't know enough about it just yet. Well, doesn't matter now. You wanted to spar.", Garry shrugged his shoulders, and took one of the long training spears.

Victoria took the other one and took a stance.