I waited for a moment, let it strike forward, then stepped aside and barely dodged. I threw myself on top of it.

  The creature reacted instantly and tried to whip me from behind. Its reach was not quite long enough to hit me cleanly, but it still lashed across my back. Pain exploded as whatever coated those tentacles started burning into me. I did not let go. I started wailing on the back of its head with my fists.

  I drove myself into it and smashed down again and again. It kept lashing my back, the pain ramping fast toward something overwhelming, but I could feel that I was doing damage. It clearly did not enjoy being hit in the back of the head, even if the blows were not as effective as I wanted. I was not really breaking anything. I was stunning it, knocking it around more than actually hurting it. Still, it reacted. That mattered.

  I smashed and smashed while it smashed me.

  Then I heard him speak. “Good. But why are you only using your fists? You have the rest of your body. Use it. Throw elbows. Headbutt it. You can do more than this.”

  I shouted back, breathless and furious. “Isn’t that the point? Doesn’t pugilist mean I fight with my fists?”

  “No,” the master said immediately. “That’s a mistake. Sorry. You’ve got it wrong.” He paused for half a breath. “This class isn’t just pugilism. That’s just the closest label they had for what I actually teach. I’m a brawler. Use every part of you. You are the weapon, not just your fists.”

  I took that in instantly and changed what I was doing. I drove my elbows down into its head, putting my weight behind every strike and keeping it pinned while it continued lashing at me. The burning across my back intensified, and I could feel myself starting to lose ground.

  “This isn’t working,” I yelled. “I need something else.”

  “Then do something else,” he shouted back.

  My vision started to dim. The damage it was doing to me was outpacing what I was doing to it, even with my weight on top of it. Then it shifted tactics. Instead of lashing blindly, it lifted itself using the tentacles, pushing upward and trying to throw me off.

  Pain spiked hard enough to blur my vision completely. I headbutted forward and saw stars as my skull collided with its own. Its skull won.

  This still isn’t working, I thought. I need a weakness.

  I looked for anything soft, anything vulnerable, and realized its eyes were probably my only real option.

  “I cast Blind,” I shouted, the words tearing out of me without thought as I jammed my fingers into one of its eyes. It shrieked and thrashed, furious now, but it worked. I pushed harder, forcing my fingers deep into the socket, reaching blindly for anything vital.

  One of its eyes burst under the pressure.

  Hot fluid poured out around my fingers, slick and thick, mixed with blood and something stringy that clung as I moved. The texture was wrong, half gel, half pulp, and it ran down my wrist as I kept forcing my hand deeper.

  It hissed and screeched, the sound awful and piercing, but I was finally doing real damage. Then I heard him again.

  “That’s good. Now kill it.”

  I did not hesitate.

  I drew my fist back.

  “I cast Rupture!” I screamed, and drove my fist straight into the ruined eye socket. The creature started spinning, trying to dislodge me. I locked myself in place, wrapping my other arm around its neck and holding on while I kept punching into the socket again and again.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  On one strike, my hand went in far deeper than before. The socket collapsed inward with a wet, yielding pop. White goop burst out around my arm as something inside fully gave way, splashing hot and slick across my chest. Something gave way. I felt past a membrane and into its skull. I stopped punching and started tearing.

  My hand came out slick with blood, white slurry, and torn meat as I ripped whatever I could free and dragged it outward. The creature shuddered once, went slack, and collapsed, dead.

  I stood there for a second, shaking, covered in blood that was mostly my own. In my hand was a long, tube-like, meaty thing that I assumed had been important enough to kill it.

  Then my legs gave out.

  The body collapsed on top of me as I hit the ground.

  Chunk walked over, picked the corpse up, tossed it aside, grabbed me by the arm, and hauled me upright. He poured a very large healing potion over me.

  The pain was immediate and vicious. Healing potions were never pleasant, especially when they worked this fast. This was months of healing forced into my body in seconds. My nerves screamed as everything rewrote itself at once.

  I screamed. I threw up. I dropped to my knees, gasping.

  When I finally managed to stand, I looked at the insane man who had just thrown a tin-rank into a fight with an iron-rank monster and expected him to win.

  The worst part was that he had been right.

  I could not do it cleanly, but I had done it.

  He smiled at me. “Good job, Azolo. That’s what we’re teaching you. Not how to fight with your fists, but how to fight with every inch of yourself. Every part of you is a weapon. Sometimes taking damage is unavoidable. If you’d let it bite you, you’d be dead. Getting on its back and eating those lashes was the better option. You did good.”

  He clapped his hands once. “Now let’s go kill some other shit.”

  He paused, looking at me sideways. “Quick question first. Why were you shouting like you were casting spells?”

  I stared at him, exhausted and horrified. “I don’t know,” I said. “It just feels right. Whenever I do something that feels powerful, like a real attack or a maneuver, it comes out that way.” “Isn’t that enough? I barely survived that. If I do it again, I’m going to die.”

  “Good,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t change that. It works. It’s also really funny.” He shrugged. “Putting that kind of force behind a strike, letting it out, that’s good fighting. Anyone smart enough to understand what you’re doing is going to hesitate when you scream that kind of nonsense. They’ll expect something else. Confusion is an advantage. Being on the brink of death is a great way to learn how to fight with everything you have.” He nodded thoughtfully.

  His eyes dropped to my waist. “Also, Most creatures have eyes. They’re soft, and they usually lead somewhere important. Even if they aren’t vital on their own, you can usually reach something that is.”

  He looked at me again. “But why didn’t you stomp its head once you were on top of it? You could have kicked it, stunned it longer, and taken less damage.”

  I swallowed. “I signed up to be a pugilist. I thought that meant fists.”

  “Yeah,” He said. “Veronese should’ve changed the name of my class years ago.” He waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You’re going to do well. We’ll teach you proper striking later. For now, I just want to see the beast in you come out instead of being caged.”

  I thought about Devon, about the raw clarity and rage I had felt then. In this fight, when I drove my hand into that eye, everything had felt right in a way I had not expected. I had known where to strike without really thinking about it.

  I did not need perfect knowledge of every weakness. I just needed to understand that weaknesses existed.

  I did not enjoy how vicious I had to be to kill it, but I understood why this path fit me. If I ever fought the God of Magic, I would not be able to rely on weapons or enchanted objects other than my new loincloth. My body would be the only weapon I could truly rely on in that final battle. So, I had to learn to fight with it as such.

  He did not know my reasons for wanting this training, but he was still right.

  He squinted at me. “Also… why are you only wearing a loincloth?”

  I hesitated, then pulled the item card from the small pouch attached to the loincloth and handed it to him. “This,” I said.

  He glanced it over, then snorted. “This is a really good item. I get why your would wear it. But have you thought about wearing armor?”

  I frowned at him. “It says I can’t wear clothing if I want to have its effects active.”

  He stared at me for a beat, then sighed. “Armor isn’t clothing, kid. It’s what you wear over your clothing. It generally keeps you alive.”

  I blinked. Then nodded slowly. “Huh… That makes a strange kind of sense.”

  He handed the card back. “Dungeon loot’s weird,” he said. “Very different from when my generation started fighting. And I guess different from yours too, since you are a reincarnator and all.”

  He watched me put the card away and nodded.

  “Okay next,” he said. “We’re going to have you fight one of those things without it being crippled. There’s a nest close by, so there should be plenty of them for you to practice on.”

  I clenched my jaw as my stomach dropped. The thought of fighting a non-crippled version of that thing made it feel like I was about to die all over again.

  I breathed out slowly. “All right. Let’s go.”

  There was no point hesitating. He would make me do it one way or another, and I might as well do my best and learn what he had to teach.