A smile returned to Gaston's face, "A very beautiful name. Erni, you can call me Mr. Horn.
"Now, Ms. Erni, you're going to have to make a choice. Very soon, the reinforcements of these magic creatures will arrive, and if we stay here, we will die.
"You need to decide now Ms. Erni. Are you strong enough to return to the village with your mother, or are you going to stay here."
In truth, Gaston planned to knock her out and carry her back if he had to, but that would be quite troublesome.
It would be much simpler to get accepted into the village if he had the little one explain what had happened to her and the others.
"I will leave after five seconds pass, Ms. Erni. Please inform me of your decision."
After he finished transmitting the final thought, he put his magic knife on the inside of his coat, in place of his missing punch dagger.
It was a big bigger than his punch dagger, but it still managed to fit.
Afterwards, he turned around and went to pick up the wooden spear of the Blue Ape he had just killed.
It was quite different from his halberd, as it was both heavier and far less sharp, making it an awful replacement, as it would make his attacks slower, more exhausting and in spite of this, still less dangerous.
When the alternative was having nothing however, it would simply have to do, at least temporarily.
Gaston tried to comfort himself by being grateful for the fact that it was at least a weapon he knew how to use.
More than just knew how to use actually, since despite using a halberd, he never actually trained in using it as it was probably intended to be used by those that created it back on Earth.
On the Poisoned Continent, he couldn't remember anyone ever using such a weapon.
In order to get a hold of one himself, he had to personally show the design to a blacksmith and have it custom made for him.
He actually couldn't remember why he had decided for the halberd to be his weapon, he just knew how he used it, in large part thanks to the return of his combat instinct.
Rather than view the halberd as a new weapon, Gaston saw and used it as either an unusually large one-handed axe, or a slightly shorter than usual one handed spear.
He flexibly changed between the two styles, depending on which one was the better fit against his given opponent.
Regardless of the style however, the only thing that he never changed, was his shield.
After all, one's life is one's most precious asset. Which was why he was particularly sad about the fact that he had lost his shield.
With it, his confidence should he encounter another Blue Ape paring by himself would be very high, even without a proper weapon. After all, his way of fighting was highly effective, and it was one of the main reasons for his ferocious combat prowess.
While he was on the Poisoned Continent, he had climbed the ranks in the military at an almost unheard of speed. To accomplish such a feat, he definitely hadn't relied on his connections.
Not because he was against it morally, no. If he was presented with such an opportunity, he would be a fool to refuse.
It was for the simple fact that he was, technically, an alien entering this planet, and therefore he naturally had no connections to speak of.
And yet, he had still accomplished what he had accomplished in just a manner of 30 years. Less actually, considering that his last few years were spent away from the military.
Maybe not completely, but at least for the most part, as far as he could remember.
Without the use of connections to get all these promotions, that naturally only left one possibility, and it was the simplest but most difficult to believe one.
He had earned them, fair and square.
In a place like the Empire, which was rife with corruption, the amount of ability and political maneuvering required to accomplish something like this was extremely high. Even then however, in a place like the military, especially in this magical new world he found himself in, this was only made possible on the basis of a an extremely powerful combat ability.
And since Gaston actually did it in a very relatively short timeframe as well, his combat prowess almost spoke for itself, at least to those who were aware of the situation within the Empire.
There was always downsides to everything in life however, and his fighting style was no different. In fact, the flaws were quite straightforward and obvious, even to him.
It was precisely because of the clear nature of his flaws however, that he found them almost impossible to solve.
Having to split his focus between training both the axe and the spear was a very difficult, and frankly draining task. No matter how much time he spent deliberating over it however, he simply couldn't find a way to make it any easier on himself.
Not if he didn't simply abandon his fighting style altogether that was.
Which was something he would never do, regardless of how challenging a task it was to train with two weapons. A task which, had to be said, he could only accomplish because of his anti-social personality.
No matter how difficult of a task, Gaston often found himself turning down offers to socialize under the pretense of training. This only increased his workload, but avoiding the hassle was motivation enough for him to do it with a smile on his face.
An excuse that was always available to him given his reputation for being a hard worker, and one which pushed him to obtaining mastery over both weapons and ways of fighting.
It was through this mastery of fighting with both a spear and a shield, as well as an axe and a shield, that he developed his own style by fusing the two, and using his custom made halberd and shield as a way to get the best of both worlds.