Let's save Dragon Witch

Youngwoo woke up late. It was already way past 11, it actually was nearly 12. With a long, light yawn he stretched as he usually did, and looked around the room. It was similar to what he had in the future. A small room that had a bed, table, kitchen and fridge. It was dormitory for F-ranks. He formed a tiny smirk, recalling what had happened over past days.

'Man... I really am here.' He suddenly let out a chuckle. 'It feels surreal. All this anger, gone. Me, here, in the past... ah, isn't life good?' He got up and changed into something that counted as wearable for a typical day. It was Saturday, and Sylvester Night. Nobody would probably even leave their rooms until night.

As he was about to leave, he felt his stomach gurgling angrily. With a frown, he backed from the door and went to the kitchen part to quickly eat something. 'That despicable S-rank skill. No wonder Dragon Witch lives with a timer in her pocket.' He thought as he started munching on some bread while walking down a corridor. After passing through the main door, he took in a deep breath of frosty air.

Safe Zone had four seasons in it, but all of them were somewhat lackluster to the real thing on Earth. During springs, there was little wind, during summer - the sun didn't scorch as much. In autumn there wasn't much more rain than in other seasons, and during winter there was rarely any snow.

Temperature was definitely in negative figures, but Youngwoo was perfectly fine walking around in a normal t-shirt and shorts. He noticed how multiple people gave him a weird look, but he only smirked at their reactions. This was the only reason he didn't remove his C-rank passive skill. He felt a bit of cold, but it was tiny. It wasn't like he was suddenly going in -5 degrees Celsius temperatures, but rather, just about +15. But, he had no time to ponder on this situation. He needed to find the place.

He took some time to reach the park. It was a fated place, where he'd need to help Dragon Witch escape the robbery and save the other 2 people, whomever they were. Were they her family? Or her lover and his (her) sibling? Hell if he knew. There was very little information on Dragon Witch to begin with. When he recalled what he found during his searches, she was a girl from Lithuanian countryside. She got a S-rank skill called Ice Dragon Tail Swipe, and at first she was called Dragon Girl (since she was just barely 17 when she first entered the Tower). After about 2 years she got A-rank Earth Dragon Ascension, and was since called Dragon Witch. Youngwoo only knew that she was now 21, and to be frank he only remembered that because him and her had birthdays very close to each other.

No, wait, he shouldn't think too deep. Recall what was known of her skill set. He remembered S-rank icicle rain (IDTS), knew about S-rank Calm Mind, A-rank EDA. She also had a passive B-rank skill that he didn't remember, a B-rank offensive skill called Hypercharged Mana Bolt, and another one called Ice Dragon's Breath (which used to be called simply ice wave), some minor E and F-rank skills, one of each, and that was all. There was no other information on her going around.

So, he knew only so much. He then started to recall the 5 thugs. 3 used baseball bats, and other 2 knifes. And honestly, that was everything he remembered from the traumatic memory. Hilda killed them off immediately after they went into her view, and the earliest he could recall she was restrained by at least one of them, making her unable to look properly.

'To hell with this. I'll just go in and try to scare them off. I'm not running wild with anger anymore. They don't need to die.' He thought, but deep inside, he knew the truth. Having experienced the Hilda's pain as his own, he really, really wanted those bastards dead. But, if he could help it, he'd rather avoid confrontation. After all, whether or not he was used to debuffs from his defense skill, it'd be still a handicap in a fight.

13:21

Youngwoo passed by a few trees in the park. He recalled the surroundings from the memory and tried to use the position of where the countdown clock will appear to his advantage. Still, it took him over half an hour to find the place. He walked around a little, ensuring that this was the spot. He didn't want to have to do this again.

Taking everything into account, he tried to find a place where he could just hide and wait. He didn't intend to do anything for the day anyway; might as well be as prepared as he could be. After all, he didn't know where all of them would come from. Finally setting for some thick bushes around, he decided to simply sit down and bid around his time. He had time. Knights Guild won't finish their raid until about 23:30. He couldn't remember the exact time, but that hardly mattered. He had an entire day for himself, after all.

He spent some time playing games on his phone. He didn't have many: just a Snake 3D, Saper (which was his favorite), and Solitaire. Swiping away his time, he soon also started going into internet some (but he muted his phone so as not to give away his location). And when that became boring, he simply sat in one spot and meditated to waste away time.

23:18

He was sitting, again playing a round of Saper. He was just a few tiles short and he might've broken his record. That is, until he heard panting sound.

Immediately looking around, he located the direction the sound was coming from. There was a woman running towards him, or rather, towards the tree he was sitting next to. He instantly recognized her to be the woman who was killed in Dragon Witch's memory. Just behind her, there was a man (who also met his end), goading her to keep going.

"Come on, run!" He yelled towards her, swiping away some blood from his hands.

"I... haah... can't..." She replied weakly, and before long she was kneeling by the tree, just a few metres from Youngwoo. With her head tilting a little, she took off her jacket entirely, and he could swear that he saw some actual steam come up from her wet shirt.

The man ran up to the woman and tried to lift her up, but he suddenly grunted and knelled with her, seemingly from a leg injury that was not visible to the eye.

3 men were running behind them, 2 of them holding baseball bats. None of them wore any winter clothing, which clearly meant that the chase was going on for some time. With wicked smile, they started approaching the two, who started crawling away. Suddenly, one of the thugs swung his bat and hit the runaway man in the back, sending him onto the woman. No, actually, the hit was aimed at the woman, and he protected her with his body.

Youngwoo gritted his teeth. He felt some serious anger boil inside of him, but Calm Mind prevented him from simply going out. He needed all 5 of them here. He didn't want the other 2 to suddenly take away Dragon Witch on sight of the 3 having trouble.

3 men started circling the two on the ground. Tossing the man away, one of them got hold of the woman, and with little effort he ripped her shirt off, leaving her B-cups in a plain, beige bra.

'I didn't even notice she was topless in the memory...' A weird thought appeared in Youngwoo's mind. 'Please, Dragon Witch, come around quickly.'

Thankfully for him, before the thug managed to grip the bra properly, they all heard an enraged voice:

"LET HER GO YOU FUCKER!!!" Dragon Witch was screaming on top of her lungs in fury while doing her best to fight two men restraining her. It actually looked like she was about to break her arm just to free herself.

"Or else?" Asked the man with a smile and pulled, destroying the bra and letting woman's breasts come into contact with chilly air. She herself had no strength to fight him, and actually seemed to be just barely conscious.

It looked like Hilda was foaming. No, actually, take that back. She WAS foaming. This was a fury that made her flail around like a mad dog. Her eyes were a bloodshot as she kicked the two holding her, but to no avail.

Youngwoo decided he's had enough. Making a silent retreat from the bushes, he went onto a road where nobody would see him and started approaching. And suddenly, he made his entrance with a voice:

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked, his tone so calm that it almost seemed unnatural.

6 heads turned to him, safe for the topless girl and laying man. A long moment of consternation was passing as Youngwoo scanned the state of everyone. It's not like he didn't do that already in memories or bushes, but he wanted to give himself a look of a calculating person. He unsheathed his sword and held it in front of himself.

"What are you doing to those people?" He asked, frowning a little in an upset act. It was actually quite tricky to emulate feelings; Calm Mind truly had some handicaps.

"None of your business." Said one of the thugs, holding his knife tightly as well. "Get out of here if you don't want to join them."

"Release them. Or else." He spun his blade around with a flourish, but there was some style to it as well. This was his 8 years of experience in using longsword. He took a stance about 10 metres from the group.

The man who spoke before looked at his teammates. Every one of them smiled; it was just one man. He was as good as dead.

Without a word, he took a step forward, and then suddenly started charging at Youngwoo. There was a bit of a technique, but Youngwoo immediately noticed; it was not his innate talent. Rather, it was some kind of weapon mastery. Whether it was dagger or sword, he didn't know nor care. He took a stance and began his stride.

"Pagma's Sword Dance..." He started saying, connecting his steps in a fluid motion. "Pinnacle." He slashed with the sword, creating a crescent moon, and suddenly he dashed a little forward, causing the tip of the sword to pierce straight through man's clothes and flesh.

Youngwoo was obsessed with reading in his early years. He got his hands on a thick book called 'Overgeared' where was a swordsmanship described as a dance with blade. The main character learned this technique, learning new skills over time and connecting them, and eventually even creating his own versions of them. And each and every one of those skills was described in a very rich fashion when used on several occasions. After coming to the Tower, Youngwoo decided to go with the sword exactly because of what he read. While he was hunting, he was reading the book again and attempted to recreate the technique known as 'sword dance'. And, with pride he could say that he got quite a few of techniques down enough for himself to call them decent.

He learned what he could specifically of Pagma's Sword Dance, because it required the most steps to complete. Of course, none of sword dances he knew and recreated were any skills he possessed. However, he liked to think of them as such. And because of that, he often said them out loud. His technique wasn't perfect, and he had to make his own improvements, because unlike in the game in book, in here these skills didn't have any extra effects or auto-aiming.

Whilst attacking, Youngwoo avoided man's knife easily. The aftermath? His opponent held his stomach and fell to the ground, moaning in pain. And he just looked at the rest of them.

"Come." He said with a smirk. Inside him, he could feel a very satisfying feeling. Delight. He felt delight.

Why was that? It wasn't just because he could fight the men who were responsible for (now averted) **** of two people. It was delight because he could test his sword dances in an actual fight.

As another man started charging at him, he calculated calmly. Using footwork of Link, he avoided the bashing attack easily and spaced himself from the man. He then spun his sword in a spiral motion.

"Flower." His sword couldn't recreate either shape of a flower or flower's petals to attack, but he incorporated slashing in a spiral pattern to cause wounds all over the target. And, as he liked to finish the spiral upwards, where he started, he often connected another sword technique. "Drop." He hit the man with the hilt in the head, causing him to stumble back with wounds on his hands and legs.

Two of remaining men started circling him. Timing their attack with a silent signal, they suddenly swung in near-unison. Youngwoo strode a little from them, ducking to not get hit, and fixed his grip on the sword with both hands.

"Sky." Sky was supposed to fire every sword dance he had in a single strike. Of course, it was impossible to do, so Youngwoo decided to do something of his own. But he knew how to execute it. The widest swing he could muster. A sword dance that could encompass the entire sky with a single strike.

His sword went cleanly through both men, injuring them on their chests. So far, Youngwoo's strikes didn't carry any intent to kill, just harm, but Sky was difficult to control. After all, he pushed himself to the limits to execute the biggest crescent moon he could. But, with relief he saw that he didn't slash too deep, just enough to leave a mark. But, that wasn't enough for those two, so he immediately linked up another strike.

"Restraint." He cut at their calves, this time a bit deeper, enough to incapacitate them. 'Restraint' was supposed to create a field of magic that wouldn't allow any living being to approach him. However, simply cutting calves (or other important motor parts of the lower body) with quick slashes did the job nicely.

Youngwoo looked at the final man, who was holding a knife.

"You wanna go?" He asked, expelling some hot air from his lungs. He completely ignored Hilda and the two laying on the ground, instead focusing on the fight. He took a mental note to deal another strike to the man he struck at second, as he was the only one who he had worries that he could get up, getting over his head spinning from Drop.

The final thug fixed knife in his hand, and started walking forward. Youngwoo took a few steps to the side, so as not to trip over men he incapacitated before.

They begun circling one spot. Youngwoo's complexion was completely relaxed as he breathed in and out fluidly, recovering his stamina. On the other hand, his opponent was breathing in a little ragged manner, as he had been running here before. He was visibly cold, but didn't back down. He must've thought that there were no more 'skills' Youngwoo could use, because he went on with his own.

"100 blows!" He charged forward, slashing quickly in random fashion. But that didn't intimidate Youngwoo.

"Revolve." 'Like the eye of the storm, it was calm and powerful' - the description stated so. The technique that could be used to reflect damage back to attacker, another thing Youngwoo couldn't replicate in effect. However, he could and did reproduce the footwork. Striding to his right, he rose the sword, bringing it in line of dagger's movement. He didn't need to reflect the blow. Just stopping it was enough.

The blades collided momentarily, and with surprise Youngwoo found the dagger flashing just in front of his nose. But, he managed to cut the man's hand a little. He smiled inwardly, knowing what to strike with next. He used footwork of Revolve again, striding further right. And then, he turned around and struck from up above.

"Chop." A simple strike that kind of reproduced battleaxe's strike, this technique was meant to split an enemy in two. But Youngwoo was satisfied with only harming the man. He no longer was driven by **** frenzy. He didn't need them dead.

The man tried to slash at him again, but instead had his hand and side slightly scratched. Taking a step away from Youngwoo, he noticed how the first man, struck down with a Pinnacle, was getting up. Urging him to stand upright, he fixed his weapon. And then, they both attacked. Or rather, they tried to.

"Linked Wave." Link was a technique that was supposed to attack many times a second, and Wave was supposed to hit every enemy in certain radius. Their fusion had slightly decreased statistics, but was overall similar to connecting them. Youngwoo pushed himself to his limit for a brief moment, and managed to squeeze 3 quick slashes that almost struck both men who halted their charge just before they'd had their heads split open by the technique.

Youngwoo then lowered his sword a little.

"I still got more. You wanna continue?" He asked in a nonchalant, but calm tone. "Get the fuck out of here."

The two thugs looked at each other. Seemingly understanding their situation, they dropped their weapons and helped their companions up. In less than a minute, they were hurrying away, not even daring to look behind.

Youngwoo sighed with relief and sheathed his sword. After that, he turned to Dragon Witch, who was looking at him with wariness while tending to the two who were laying on the ground.

He won a fight that would be normally very difficult. Thanks to the environment and years of training his adapted techniques, he managed to save Dragon Witch and her companions without any of the 3 suffering as much as a scratch. Well, almost. But, he could see they both were alive, and that was what he cared about.

In the meantime, he received a notification.

[A/N: I enjoyed this fight scene WAY too much. Expect more Pagma's Sword Dance in the future.]