I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The branch snapped again.

Closer this time.

Nate tightened his grip around Milo’s waist and kept moving.

The forest floor sloped away from the tracks, covered in grey grass, roots and patches of dark soil. Thin trees crowded together ahead, their trunks bending toward the same direction as if something had pushed against them for years.

Milo’s injured foot dragged behind him.

"Stop," Iris said.

Nate continued for another few steps.

"We can’t."

"He can’t keep doing this."

"I can," Milo said.

His face had lost most of its colour.

Iris ignored him.

"If the bone hasn’t broken, dragging it like that will finish the job."

A faint metallic sound came from behind them.

Equipment brushing against bark.

The mercenary was no longer trying to hide his approach.

Nate looked back through the trees. He could not see the man, but their trail was obvious. Milo’s damaged leg had cut a line through the grass, while drops of blood marked the roots where Nate’s cheek had opened again.

They would not outrun him.

Nate lowered Milo beside a fallen trunk.

Iris immediately knelt near the injured ankle.

"What are you doing?" Milo asked.

"Checking whether you’ll ever walk normally again."

"Can you do it faster?"

"No."

Nate moved several meters back along their path.

The forest shifted around him as he listened. Wind moved through the upper branches, but the sound behind them came lower and at regular intervals.

The pursuer was walking.

He knew they were injured.

He knew they had nowhere to go.

Nate searched the ground ahead.

The regional survival instructors had taught them to look for shelter, water and signs of territorial beasts. Rovan’s lesson had changed what Nate noticed first.

Space between roots.

The direction a body could turn.

Where weight would land.

A narrow maintenance trench crossed the slope several meters away. Time and rain had eaten through its concrete sides, leaving a dark gap beneath a layer of dead grass. Part of the old metal cover had collapsed into the channel.

Someone running straight down the path would cross the remaining concrete safely.

Nate crouched beside it.

The grass near the edge bent beneath his fingers. The ground looked solid until he pressed hard enough to feel the hollow space underneath.

Iris glanced toward him.

"What did you find?"

"A place to stop him."

Milo looked past her.

"We should hide."

"He’s following our trail. He’ll find us."

"So we keep moving."

"You can barely stand."

Milo opened his mouth, then stopped.

Another branch broke behind them.

Nate removed the medical tape still wrapped around his knee. The adhesive had weakened from sweat, but enough remained to hold it between two thin trees.

Iris watched him tie it across the center of the path.

"That won’t hold anyone."

"It isn’t supposed to."

The white strip was too visible. A child would notice it.

Nate crushed the grass leading toward it and pressed one bloody finger against the bark beside the trench.

He wanted the mercenary to understand immediately.

Three frightened cadets had tried to build a trap in a hurry.

The safe path crossed the middle.

The ground beside it looked like the clever way around.

Nate took the emergency hammer from his belt.

The metal head felt too small.

"What do we do?" Iris asked.

"Take Milo farther down the slope. There’s a hollow beneath those roots."

"And you?"

"I’ll lead him here."

"You aren’t fighting him alone."

"I’m not planning to fight."

Iris looked at the hammer.

"That appears to disagree."

Nate could hear the mercenary now.

Slow footsteps. No attempt to hurry.

He looked at Iris.

"If he reaches Milo, he takes both of you. Move."

She remained still for another second, then helped Milo stand.

Milo caught Nate’s sleeve.

"You don’t have to do this."

Nate pulled his arm free.

"I don’t do it for u. Just go."

Iris guided Milo toward the roots. Nate waited until the grey grass hid them before returning to the path.

He stepped through the strip of tape, making sure not to touch it, and continued several meters beyond the trench. Then he doubled back across a patch of exposed stone where his shoes left no clear marks.

The footsteps behind him stopped.

Nate lowered himself behind a tree near the broken edge of the channel.

His breathing had become too fast.

He tried to force it slower, but his chest resisted.

The man appeared between the trees.

He wore the same mismatched armour as the others at the train. A short rifle rested against his shoulder, though one of the plates on his left side had cracked during the derailment.

Blood had dried beneath it.

He was injured.

He was still moving more quietly than Nate ever had.

The mercenary crouched beside one of Milo’s tracks and touched the disturbed soil. His covered face turned toward the path.

Nate held the hammer against his chest.

The man advanced.

He saw the strip of medical tape before reaching it.

His rifle followed the line from one tree to the other.

For several seconds, he did nothing.

Then he looked toward the surrounding ground.

Nate felt sweat move down his back.

The mercenary stepped away from the center of the path.

His boot landed near the hidden edge.

The grass sank, but the soil held.

The man stopped.

Nate’s fingers tightened around the hammer.

One more step.

The mercenary shifted his weight.

The ground collapsed.

His right leg dropped through the grass and struck the bottom of the maintenance channel. He twisted as he fell, preventing the rest of his body from following.

The rifle fired.

The shot tore through the trees above Nate.

He moved before the man could pull himself free.

The first swing struck the mercenary’s shoulder instead of his head.

Armour absorbed most of the impact.

The man released the rifle and caught Nate by the wrist.

Nate’s body stopped.

The mercenary pulled him forward with one arm.

Nate struck the broken edge of the trench and lost the hammer. A hand closed around his throat.

"You should have kept running."

The mercenary drove him against the ground.

Nate clawed at the man’s wrist. He could not break the grip. Even with one leg trapped and blood soaking through his armour, the mercenary was stronger.

Nate tried to force energy into his arms.

It gathered uselessly near his shoulders.

Pressure built behind his eyes.

The man reached toward a knife fixed across his chest.

Nate stopped pulling directly against him.

Rovan had never fought the force of his own movement. He had allowed one part of the body to carry the next.

Nate planted one foot beside the trench. He turned his hip and dragged his shoulder with it, changing the angle of his trapped wrist.

The mercenary’s grip shifted.

Nate tore free before the man corrected.

The knife cleared its sheath.

Nate caught the mercenary’s forearm with both hands.

The blade stopped a few centimetres from his stomach.

The man pushed.

Nate’s arms began to fold.

There was no technique waiting inside Posthumous Disciple. Rovan had shown him how to move, not how to kill someone.

Nate twisted toward the trapped leg.

The mercenary’s knee struck the broken concrete.

His face tightened beneath the mask.

The blade moved away from Nate’s stomach.

Nate drove his forehead into the man’s nose.

Pain burst across his skull.

The mercenary released one hand.

Nate seized the knife wrist and threw his weight sideways.

Both of them fell against the trench.

The blade entered beneath the cracked plate on the mercenary’s left side.

The man froze.

Nate felt the resistance of armour, cloth and then something softer.

The mercenary struck him across the face.

Nate nearly lost the knife.

He pushed harder.

Warm blood covered his fingers.

The man’s free hand found Nate’s throat again, but the strength behind it faded. His arm trembled, tightened once and then dropped.

Nate remained over him.

He kept both hands around the knife long after the mercenary stopped moving.

A sound came from the roots behind him.

Nate turned so quickly that pain pulled through his injured knee.

Iris stood several meters away. Milo leaned against the tree beside her, unable to put weight on his left foot.

Neither spoke.

Nate looked down.

The mercenary’s mask had shifted during the struggle. Part of his face was visible.

He was older than Nate had expected. Thirty, perhaps. A scar crossed one cheek. Blood had collected at the corner of his mouth.

He looked like someone who could have stood beside them on a station platform without drawing attention.

Nate released the knife.

His hands began to shake.

He moved away from the trench and vomited into the grass.

Iris approached slowly.

"Are you hit?"

Nate wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

"I don’t know."

She checked his neck, then the cut across his cheek and the swelling above his eyebrow.

"Most of this blood isn’t yours."

Nate looked at his hands.

During the trap, they had been steady.

That frightened him more than the shaking.

Milo limped closer and stared into the trench.

"You killed him."

Nate picked up the emergency hammer.

Milo’s voice held no accusation. That did not make the words easier to hear.

A quiet burst of static came from the mercenary’s body.

The communicator attached to his shoulder activated.

"Rook, report."

Nate, Iris and Milo looked at one another.

"Rook, confirm the fugitives’ direction."

Nate crouched and removed the communicator. A small screen beside it showed several moving signals spreading through the forest from the wreck.

The dead mercenary had not been the only one searching.

One signal was already moving toward them.

Nate took the man’s rifle, knife and spare ammunition.

"We need to go."

Iris looked toward Milo’s ankle.

"He can’t run."

Nate studied the slope, the trees and the dark spaces between their roots.

"Then we make sure the next one searches in the wrong direction."

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