Giulio’s eyes locked onto mine and the boyish glee that took hold of him was that of someone who hadn’t seen a dear friend in years. So bright was his smile that the fact he was secretly a murderer masquerading as an officer of the law momentarily blinked out of existence.
But then he looked to Elara.
With her still leaning towards me, more eager to listen to our dirty bedtime secrets than the usual gossiping barmaids would, I had to admit, we looked closer than we were.
It didn’t help that Mana’s position on my lap made her the only barrier between me and the dangling mounds of barely-covered flesh and her ruby red smile. It was a grin that didn’t so much as budge when Giulio stepped into the room. Even Yua stiffened more than Elara had.
Giulio’s warm smile slowly began to lessen, but never full broke as he watched us. The wooden sword he carried slipped off his shoulder and fell to his side, though his grip on its handle was still strong.
The bard’s music continued lighting the room and the tavern’s other patrons, especially the women, all looked delighted to see him, but the air between us felt thick.
The loving images of Elara that danced through his mind during our trip through the forest resounded in my mind like a spray of machinegun fire striking a gong. This was dangerous.
A strange sense of guilt and defensiveness made my body move on its own. I spun around on my stool, letting him take in the full sight of Mana sitting on my lap.
His gaze fell to her and his eyes widened. They widened a little further when he then saw Elane and Yua beside us. He hadn’t noticed them – he only saw me and Elara.
Giulio’s shoulders fell along with the tension and he let out a small sigh. After giving the others a brief wave, he started straight towards us. With his wooden sword still in his hand as he quickened his pace, Yua slipped off her stool to intercept, but he walked on past her and moved between Elara and myself.
Scooping her chin up with his curled index finger, he laid into her with a kiss so passionate, even Mana looked baffled. Not even a second into their embrace and Elara’s thin white hands gripped his sleeve, refusing to let go. She positively melted in his arms.
“My sweet,” Giulio said finally. With his back to us as his arms moved about, it looked as though he were adjusting the front of Elara’s dress the same way Elane had. Only, unlike her, he made a show of tightening its bindings.
Elara sucked in a breath as her corset was tightened, but once he tied it off, she pulled him back in for another kiss. This earned her a few jealous looks from the women in the room, but she’d succeeded in lightening the mood once more.
“I hope this lusty mongrel wasn’t bothering you.”
Hey! Who’s the mongrel here? She’s the one trying to tempt answers out of me! I’m not naïve enough to not notice what she was getting at. Hell, Elane adopted the habit of removing her bra before asking for her rum for a reason!
“Not at all,” Elara said, her cheeks burning as she touched her lips. I was just following a lead on some tasty gossip, is all.”
She leaned back behind him and against the bar to look at me. Despite knowing her tricks, I couldn’t tell if the smile she wore was asking me not to tell him what she’d asked, or if she was simply reminding me that he wouldn’t mind that she had.
Supposedly, he was both aware and accepting of how she uses her more appealing assets to score better trade deals, but my doubts had just doubled.
Elara stood from her stool, letting her long skirt drop to cover the rest of her legs – she’d definitely hiked it up on purpose. She made a show of dusting herself off. A show that I dared not watch.
“Well, I suppose I should get back to work. The lunch hour is about to hit.” Elara looked past him and towards the group of new faces entering the tavern. “It looks like I’m needed. You want a drink, Gino?”
To the tune of her voice, Giulio once more thumped his sword on his shoulder and smiled.
“No thanks. Only a fool drinks before training.”
“Hmm? Oh, right,” Elara giggled, looking briefly at me before turning towards the barmaid fumbling with something behind the bar. “I forgot that’s why he was here. You two want to beat each other up with your wooden sticks, right. Well, go on then. I won’t keep you. Looks like I’m needed elsewhere.”
With a kiss for the air and for him, Elara rounded a corner behind the counter and disappeared into a backroom, only to reappear moments later at the other end of the bar, where she began taking orders.
We both watched her for a moment until the need to fill the silence bubbled up in me.
“Sorry about that.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, mio amico. Least, not to me. This one looks about ready to throw a few punches, though.”
He pointed the pommel of his sword at Yua, who continued to stand behind me. She was openly glaring our way, but for some reason, he seemed to think she was angry at me.
“No worries!” Giulio said with a friendly tone, slapping me on the back for emphasis. “I know how defenseless my Elara looks when she works. She’s far too interested in making coin and often lets her guard down when trying.”
Yea… That’s one way to put it.
“Anyways,” he continued. “Go ahead and finish your food. I’ll be waiting out back with a second training sword with your name on it. Oh, and don’t eat too much or you’ll regret it.”
With a laugh, Giulio turned and left us. He stopped only once to chat briefly with a table of women who’d called out to him, but whatever it was they said had his brows turning up in sympathy as he shook his head and pointed to his sword.
Curious, and now that I had a chance, I read his mind. Thinking I’d catch him slipping into some sort of dark thoughts about me and Elar, that his smile was all for show, instead all I found were apologetic thoughts directed at the women. Seems the girls were asking him to join them for lunch and he’d said no in favor of training with me.
Yua confirmed all this once Giulio left the girls, and us, behind and exited the tavern as quickly as he’d come.
“I don’t get that guy,” I whispered, spinning back toward the counter. “At all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just… his thoughts don’t line up with what I was expecting.”
First, he helps out a group of adventurers who by all rights should have killed him if they knew what he really was. Then he saves one of their lives. And now he’s seen his woman flirting with me, and his thoughts were on training? With me?
It makes no sense.
“Yua, what did you hear?”
Assuming the reason why she didn’t lay him out right when he walked up to us was because she’d heard something in his heart that stopped her. And it seems I was right.
“His pulse quickened when he saw you so close to Elara,” Yua whispered, returning to her seat. “But he calmed down completely when he noticed us.”
“Yea. That’s pretty obvious. He almost looked like he wanted to take a swing at me.”
Although, that waning smile of his seemed much more dangerous.
“Speaking of,” Elane said, elbowing my arm. “Maybe you should hurry up. Can’t have him thinking you’re taking it slow to gawk.”
Elane tossed a thumb over her shoulder before taking a swig of her drink. Elara was still behind the bar, already fully immersed in another conversation. Her complete indifference toward both being seen and being caught was almost staggering.
I wouldn’t expect something like that from anyone but the cat-kin.
That thought led to another and, when it came to mental images of girls that were all too okay with showing off their bodies, I looked down to Mana on my lap.
Still munching away on the last of her stew, I belatedly realized that her positioning on my thigh, combined with her skirt, put her in a prime position to wind up showing off the goods should a strong breeze burst through the door.
With a sigh, I discretely fixed it for her – she hadn’t even noticed – and picked up my fork.
I skewered a piece of boiled potato and popped it into my mouth.
Surely, through an act of ill fate set upon me by the Goddess herself, my bowl was suspiciously emptied of the meat chunks I knew were there minutes ago. There was nothing left but stewed veggies and steaming broth.
And purely, positively by coincidence, Mana leaned back into my chest and heaved a deep, satisfied sigh as she rubbed her stomach. How odd…
After making short work of what was left of our meal, we left the Last Drop. It was barely past noon, but the sun was already cresting its peak and forcing a light sweat to appear on my brow. Behind the tavern was a wooden fence that offered little in the way of shade despite being eight feet tall and long enough to encircle a second, smaller building.
A large rock was wedged under the fence’s gate, keeping it propped open. The lock that was supposed to be sealing it shut was left undone and left hanging from the handle with the key still in it. An open invitation if I’d ever seen one.
Still, weary of that emotionless smile Giulio wore minutes ago, and that we might be walking into some sort of ambush, I had Yua take a listen to see if he was alone back there and, strangely enough, he was.
He saw me at the church last night. The bandit’s leader saw me and caused the fire he’d responded to. And yet, no connection had been drawn. Unless there was a tripwire waiting to be stepped on on the other side of the gate, there was no trap waiting for us. This was just another day for him.
The thought that he alone meant to be the trap himself, that his wooden sword was merely a feint, did cross my mind, but I got rid of those thoughts as soon as they came. I was here to give reason to our prolonged stay and Giulio was happy enough to agree. For better or worse his intentions at least seemed pure.
I passed through the gate first, ever cautious and with my palm already resting on the pommel of my sword, only to find a surprisingly expansive yard waiting for us. The grass sweeping the area was lush, just tall enough to wet the tops of my boots with the lingering morning dew clinging to it, but it was not unkempt. It even had a good few patches of dirt sprinkled about for color.
Ornamenting these were several barrels, which were likely full of alcohol, that were stacked and lined up neatly against the tavern’s back wall. In front of them, almost hiding them, was a line of wet, drying barmaids’ dresses that’d been strung up by a twin pair of poles. At the base of these and looking freshly used, was a wide basin filled with lightly steaming water – likely where one of the staff had just been doing a bit of laundry.
Along with all these strange amenities, our training ground sported a single crate, which was curiously placed beneath a high window whose frame looked well-worn from use.
Was it a necessary addition to an aspiring swordsman’s training facility? No, but it did make for the perfect solution to a wayward bandit’s want to steal himself into the building, unseen during work hours to surprise his lover.
Struck again by thoughts of the potential health code violations that happened inside their kitchen, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to let the girls eat here ever again.
Drawn by the rhythmic whoosh of something repeatedly striking empty air, I found Giulio on the other side of the yard, alone, his boots crushing the grass he stood on. His legs were shoulder-width apart, strong and sturdy, a perfect companion to the steely glare he directed at some unseen enemy.
He cut the air again and again, at every angle and arc that was humanly possible, as if his mind’s enemy came at him with a sword in each hand, each with a mind of their own. And yet, his movements were so sharp, so focused, it looked like each swing could have split an atom, were one unfortunate enough to get in his way.
His every movement was economical – not a single inch of his body moved without explicit intent. It was just a steady flow of cuts that struck nothing, but that were clearly aimed at something.
I thought the people boasting about his sword skills were just exaggerating, but somehow, this proved me wrong even more than the fight with the Skullraven had.
This was a true swordsman. One of the most quintessential fantasy tropes that were based on reality, but emboldened to a whole new realm of impossible heights that seemed almost commonplace in this world. Somehow, I was sure what I was seeing couldn’t have been replicated back on Earth, and it was right in front of me.
“Looks like he got started without you,” Elane quipped.
When she closed the door and its latch clanked into place, Giulio stopped mid-swing and finally noticed us. And I realized I was the one smiling, though I quickly wiped the look off my face when Mana tilted her head at me.
I was gifted a sword when I first reincarnated into this world and, while the sword I carry now isn’t the same, after seeing the way this man moved his blade, I fully understood my lack of skill. The innate knowledge granted to me by the Swordsman class was nothing more than the bare-bones basics. Reality had driven home the fact that I’d only managed to stop Lucielle’s attack because it was, in hindsight, so very slow – it was not a difference in skill.
And now, I actually had a chance to learn true swordsmanship.
More importantly, if I actually manage to get good at this, I won’t have to suffer the humiliating blows my pride takes every time Elane knocks me on my ass during our sparring matches.
“Ah, good, you’re here,” he said. “I was starting to think you changed your mind, mio amico.”
“Sorry we’re late. I wanted to enjoy the food we paid for, you know?”
Not to mention forcing down a second breakfast wasn’t easy. Especially since said second was a hearty stew of all things. Mana stealing half of it saved me from an upset stomach.
Giulio nodded to this with a smirk and tapped his sword against his palm before crossing the yard. There, leaning against the crates, was a second wooden sword. He tossed it to me and I snatched it out of the air.
Surprised yet again, this time by its weight – it was surprisingly light – I scanned its info box only to find it labeled simply as “Wooden Sword.” Despite its intended usage, it felt like he’d snapped a branch off an old dead tree and called it a sword. I was expecting it to at least have some sort of lead or metal core, but the thing was nearly weightless.
“Let’s have ourselves a match,” he said. “I want to see what you know before we begin any lessons.”
“Jumping right into it, then? Fair enough,” I said, handing my real sword to Elane for safe keeping. “Should I take my armor off?”
“Up to you. If it gets in your way, well, then I don’t see why you bought it. But for now, just fight however is most comfortable for you.”
And here I thought I might be asked to leave myself defenseless for an easy beat down. Jokes on him, though. I modified my gear with Material Creation to make sure I could move however I needed to without restriction. The only disadvantage were the steel plates I embedded in the leather, but they didn’t weigh enough to slow me down.
I took a moment to test the sword’s weight and length with a few swings when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Yua watching me. She did well to keep her worry out of her expression, but she was diligent enough to have noticed I was a little excited at the prospects of properly learning the sword.
I gave her a thumbs up and she responded by pulling her lips into a fine line. The sharpened glare she aimed at us once more extolled the fact that she still fully planned on jumping in if Giulio took things too far. Regardless, she and the other two moved out of the way.
Elane took a seat on an empty barrel, using my sword as an armrest, and Mana quickly plopped down beside her. Yua, though, remained standing, aiming her glare at the both of us.
Don’t worry Yua, I won’t forget why we’re here… Haha, why do I feel like I have a helicopter mom breathing down my neck?
Rolling my shoulders, I took a few more test swings as I placed myself in front of Giulio. There were only a good ten paces worth of grass between us.
He held his sword straight up in front of his nose and closed his eyes. After drawing a slow breath, he exhaled, expelling the jovial man that came to greet me. When his eyes opened again, they were sharpened like knives.
With a quick, flashing flourish, he flicked his blade through the air before pointing it my way, looking almost like he was designating me his opponent.
I waited a moment, half expecting him to bow before training like the cat-kin do, but when he didn’t, I gripped my sword with both hands and took aim at him.
He was still, just standing there watching me. It almost felt like he had no intention of moving from that spot whatsoever. He’d wait there for as long as it took without complaint, without speaking, without even blinking.
Realizing that part of his little test was meant for me to make the first move, I strengthened my grip.
Giulio wasn’t a wall of muscle like a certain feline-father-in-law of mine, but the strong stance he took was as rigid and as all-encompassing as a mountain range. No matter how I imagined taking my first swing, I knew it’d be fruitless. From the left, the right, from above or below, or from any angle a sword could possibly fly, it didn’t matter. The Giulio in my head blocked them all.
So, if there were no openings to exploit, I’d just have to make one.
I pulled back my sword and lunged.
My swing came from on high, not an axe, but a guillotine. He caught it and, just before his elbows could buckle beneath its weight, his eyes sharpened. With a heavy grunt that showed his teeth, he dipped the tip of his sword towards the ground. Wood scraped against wood as my sword slipped off of his.
He countered with a side-long slash that cut through the air with a speed that made his sword seem both weightless and unquestionably powerful.
I braced myself, throwing up my sword to block his strike. The dull clack of wood on wood rang in my ear, but the blow itself came with less than half the force I anticipated. It didn’t hurt at all.
Was he the type of swordsman that focused on speed, rather than strength? He does seem to favor a slim saber, instead of a heavier sword.
Seeing a path to victory, I pushed back, knocking his sword away from me and immediately stepped into another swing.
My sword flew, but he shifted, gliding, almost dancing into my swing to avoid the blunted edge of my blade.
He was closer now, his presence alone forcing me to retreat back a step. It was a mistake he quickly exploited.
His sword cut low, aiming for my right ankle as I was mid-step. Heart pounding in my ears, I pulled my foot back harder, narrowly avoided a hit that surely would have needed healing and pivoted from my awkward landing into another horizontal slash.
He blocked, easier this time. Our swords scraped against each other again, but I was the one being pushed back.
I was unbalanced. I couldn’t muster enough strength to exploit his fighting style. My wrist was forced to buckle inwards under the weight.
Giulio slid his sword up along my own, caught the edge of it on his cross guard and knocked my blade skyward. Before I could react, he was on me again. With a fast-flowing flourish that mirrored his earlier movements, his sword swam through the air like a snake and crashed into the side of mine, ripping it from my hand.
There was another sharp clatter and my training sword flew through the air until it bounced harmlessly off one of the crates and dropped into the grass.
But Giulio wasn’t done. Still mid-swing, he lunged forward. He was close enough to see the victory he expected in his eyes, but from this short distance, all that could hit me was the pommel.
He brought it down like a hammer and, use to pain, I braced myself. Only, he stopped his hand before he connected – before Yua could rush him.
His serious expression skipped the fade and flipped straight back into his usual happy grin. The fight was over faster than expected.
“Looks like it’s my win.”
“I gu…!”
Before I could get two words out, his pommel crashed into my forehead. The pain I was no longer bracing for lit up like fireworks.
“Hey!” I complained, rubbing my forehead. “Was that really necessary?”
“As my instructors taught me, remember the pain and you’ll remember the lesson.”
Thumping his sword on his shoulder, he tutted as he crossed the yard to where my sword landed.
“So, you’re just going to…”
… hit me every time I mess up, is what I wanted to say, but I’ve had my nose broken multiple times just training with my wife. A little thump on the head was nothing in comparison, so I bit back my complaints.
Still, knowing more was to come almost makes a man wish Giulio knew about my Memorization trait.
Though the pain was still there, I stopped rubbing my forehead and waved to Yua to stand down. She’d done no more than ball her fists and grit her teeth, but I didn’t want Giulio to think she was about to turn this into a two vs one.
I didn’t want to say I trusted him, but he had his chance to do a hell of a lot more than tap my forehead and he didn’t take it. Matter of fact, a quick look into his mind before he turned back to us told me he was already and only thinking of how to proceed with lessons when he tossed me my training sword again.
I cut my spell and gripped the weapon with both hands, but…
“Okay,” he said, setting his sword down. “That should do it.”
“What? Aren’t you supposed to be testing my skills or something? Why don’t we go again?”
I may have lost, but I learned enough to say I still had a fighting chance. At least, round two should last a bit longer.
He favored speed and precision so much that his strength seems to have suffered – a consequence of this world’s people not getting to have a direct say in how their stats leveled like I did.
Not that this seemed to be all that much of a problem for him, though. I needed to learn and match his moves so I can add his skills to my strengths. And I needed to fight to do that.
More importantly, I wanted to learn more about how he moved in battle. Elane’s attacks weren’t any faster, but her giant axe was so much easier to see coming than a wooden sword. His saber was going to be an even smaller target. I needed to prepare.
And I may have had a little more fun than I care to admit…
But Giulio shook his head.
“No need for another match. I got all I needed from the first one.”
“All you need?”
“Yes. And I believe I see why you needed my help. But no worries, I know how we can fix it. Although, I do have to say that it was pretty irresponsible of you to join an adventurer’s guild without taking care of it first, mio amico.”
“Wait, wait, wait, hold on. What are you talking about?”
“It’s your wrists,” he shrugged. “They’re weak.”
“My… wrists?”
I looked down, turning the training sword in my hand back and forth to watch my muscles move. Nothing looked out of place. My arms haven’t developed too much since I started training seriously with Yua, but they have gotten bigger. My forearms and wrists should have been affected by all the exercising too, let alone all the sword swinging I’ve been doing.
“Yes,” he said confidently. “Training your arms isn’t all there is to swordsmanship. It requires your entire body to move fluidly. Don’t you ever work your wrists?”
“Well…”
Thinking back to our usual routine, I could think of various exercises that involved the use of your wrists to varying degrees, but nothing stood out as targeting them specifically. Nothing except, well… there was a certain memory that sprang to mind.
Around about a week ago, Mana had darted back into the mansion after playing in the forest for a few hours and, as usual, she was butt-naked the entire time.
She’d run straight up to me, smiling that big cute smile of hers even though her hair was a mess after Yua’d painstakingly brushed it for her earlier that day. Excited, she’d detailed all she’d done, what animals she’d played with and so on, but being a man, I couldn’t help but to notice how her animated retelling had her and her tiny breasts bouncing all over the room.
I’d gotten a good look at her, at all of her. She was covered in a thin layer of dirt and sweat, but after having to suffer through Elane walking through the house wearing just a baggy shirt and a thong before disappearing upstairs to go work on her maps, that was all I needed. Naturally, things got heated. I’d pulled the little cutey onto my lap as she talked and my mate happily put her stories on hold for a few minutes.
With her back to my front, I kicked things off by slipping a hand between her thighs and, as she melted to the touch of my fingertips, I had to admit, the position left my wrist feeling a little more strained than it should have – I had to switch hands a time or two to give my stamina regen a chance to kick in.
We’d practiced like this several times since, more for her than because my pride as her mate demanded stronger effort, but, uh… let’s not mention that.
I glanced over at the girls and found Mana lazily kicking her feet as she watched us. She caught me looking and waved happily.
Yea, she was in a good enough mood to blindly bring up that moment if I gave her the slightest of chances.
“Other than practice swings, I can’t say that I have.”
“Mhmm,” he nodded sagely. “That’s all well and good, but it’s not enough. Especially not with a heavier sword like yours. As my instructors taught me: no matter how light your sword feels in your hand, you must never forget the weight it carries. One slip up, and you might cut yourself.”
I turned my practice sword over in my hand, feeling its weight. Whatever its core was, it was similar enough in weight to steel. By this point, that wasn’t saying much. Even the real deal didn’t feel all that heavy. It was hard to see myself getting hurt swinging it the wrong way, but the memory of my old self hurting his back just picking up moderately heavy things off the ground kept me rooted in reality.
“Yes,” Giulio said, nodding to himself. “I believe I know exactly where to begin our lessons for today.”
At this, Giulio lowered himself to the ground and kicked his legs back into the push-ups position.
“Just do as I do and we’ll have those wrists harder than steel in no time. Be sure to keep up!”
“Wait, are we seriously not going to spar again?”
I haven’t collected nearly enough data on his style yet.
And, honestly, going up against another actual swordsman got a little of my old chuuni blood boiling.
Smiling broadly, Giulio shook his head.
“I told you, there’s no need for that just yet. I wish to clash blades with you again as well, but setting you on the path to settling your weaknesses is top priority… Otherwise, you’re just going to get hurt next time. Now, come.”
His smile sharpening with a little provocative curl to his lips, he thumped his palm on the grass beside him and quickly returned to position. He then slowly turned his wrists around until his fingertips pointed back towards his feet. It wasn’t the sort of workout I was expecting, but I could see where he was going.
Matching his smirk before realizing I hadn’t meant to, I jumped into the same position and turned my wrists back. The stretch I felt under my own weight was painfully immediate, but I clenched my teeth and bore the pain.
Giulio doubled down on my determination and shifted forward, adding more weight onto his hands. Our eyes met amongst the combined strain and he didn’t need to speak a word for me to hear him ask “is that all you got?”
I met his challenge by leaning forward as well. The strong stretch I’d been feeling quickly accrued some extra pain, but I powered through. This was supposed to help and besides, it wouldn’t last forever.
Soon enough, my elbows started to shake while his remained still. I couldn’t tell if he was just that used to the position that it didn’t bother him, or if I really was just that weak.
“Come on! The first one to fall has fifty more pushups waiting for them.”
“You’re on!”
Sweat slid down my face in streams, pooling in the corners of my eyes to force a blink at every inopportune instant. What’s worse was that it was starting to affect my grip on my sword, not that our “attacker” cared, as she continued her assault.
“Hyaa!”
A rock flew at me with all the voracity of a deranged bullet and I knocked it out of the sky with a heavy swing of my sword. Expecting a home run, I was left trying not to fall on my ass as it flew out of view and another rock flew at my face.
Giulio and I were both perched on one foot, just a couple of graceless flamingos wielding our swords to the best of our ability. Yua, meanwhile, pelted us with small rocks non-stop from less than thirty feet away. Each pitch came at us with all the fervor of a desperate wannabe trying out for their state’s baseball team, and it was our job to knock the rocks out of the air before they could hit us.
And like one of these overzealous pitchers, Yua scooped another pile of rocks off the ground and held it to her chest before blindly selecting one and arching her arm back. Never one to pull her punches, at least not completely, she stepped into the throw that sent the stone rocketing for Giulio’s head.
With all the ease of a professional, all it took to knock the rock out of the air was a small flick of his wrist. The stone clacked against his sword and soared off and away, only to bounce off the fence at the far end of the yard. Even standing on one foot, Giulio’s body didn’t so much as wobble.
“Tch…” Yua clicked her tongue, sounding a bit too much like her father as she did.
While her aim might have suggested otherwise, she wasn’t actually trying to harm Giulio. She’d eased up the tension a little as our training continued without issue, but upon seeing that she still looked restless, Giulio offered the girls all a chance to join us. It was a chance Yua in particular was very nearly happy to accept.
The next rock was loosed from Elane’s hand, only to bounce off my sword hard enough to have to spread my flailing arms out to balance myself – I suppose I was the only graceless flamingo between us.
I dug my toes into the soil to keep myself from falling forwards, only to have to immediately bring up my sword, not to hit the second stone thrown by Yua, but to block it. And just barely at that. The stone bounced off my cross guard, forcing the blade to spin a little in my sweaty palm.
Yea, you’d be forgiven for thinking that my wives would take it easy on me, but not these two. Needless to say for my exquisite skill with a sword, I had several small bruises dotting the skin beneath my shirt.
Hell, not even Mana showed me any mercy, as she kept running about the yard, collecting the stones for the other two to keep on throwing. We’d gathered them from a nearby construction zone, so we had plenty to work with, but they weren’t infinite.
Heaving a quick sigh to catch my breath as Mana helped to load the next barrage, I corrected my grip and readied myself.
“Haha. Looks like you’re ready to give in,” Giulio laughed, sweating himself. “Go on. Give up now and I’ll only make you do sixty pushups.”
“That’s… more… You’re supposed to offer less.”
“And would you accept it if I did?”
“Go to hell!”
“Hahaha!… Woah!”
With another flick and flourish, Giulio knocked the next two stones out of the air in a single swipe. And without so much as budging on his toes, the surprise third one Yua launched at him with her off hand didn’t so much as make it past the tip of his blade before flying into the fence.
“Tch…”
For all her earlier caution was worth, Yua was now fully locked into training mode. It was her job to provide us targets, but she also had to try and land a hit as well.
This was all Giulio’s idea for training, of course. Supposedly, forcing me to defend myself like this while standing on just one foot was supposed to help me stop swinging my sword like an axe, as putting too much into it would cause me to fall, which would cause me to lose the round. This, however, was only an additional benefit.
The simple stone projectiles served a three-fold purpose: One, their small size and the speed they were thrown at helped with hand-eye-coordination when swinging a sword. Two, the strange ways I had to move my body to deflect them without falling over helped with my internal balance. And three, the impacts made whenever I landed a hit helped condition my wrist.
And I had to say, I could feel it working. Whether or not it was due to my memorization trait helping me to catch on faster, or just because the girls had actively chosen to hold back so as to not give away their true power, who could say?
All that mattered was that fewer of the rocks hit my body now than when we started. Giulio, however, while sweating quite a bit, was bruise free. And the difference was starting to tick me off.
What was supposed to be a few sparring matches I’d use to study his movements in battle had quickly become a competition.
“Who even taught you to train like this?… Hraa!”
My sword cut through the air, clanking against another stone, only for it to bounce off the wrong part of my sword and slam into the grass down by my feet.
“This doesn’t feel like something a beginner should be doing.”
“Hahaha. I used to be something of a soldier once. The army doesn’t shy away from harsher forms of training.”
“If this is harsh, then it should be smooth sailing from… Ow!”
Stopping to rub the spot on my thigh that was sure to have a welt in the morning, I barely had time to block the next rock flying at me.
“Hehe…”
Grinning, Yua pitched, this time looking at me, but aiming at Giulio. Unfortunately, the feint didn’t work and he blocked it easily enough. She grinned, pitched another one, harder this time, but he blocked it as well. She wiped her brow clear of sweat and launched another at me.
Seems the best way to get her to lighten up was to offer her a chance to get sweaty – and not even in the fun way.
“Here’s some more, Booby-Lady.”
With an adorable smile plastered to her face and with a swish of her tail, Mana dropped an armful of rocks at Elane’s feet. Uninterested in an actual workout herself, she found some joy in running all over the yard, both collecting more rocks and nimbly dodging the ones we hit.
Similarly, Elane only decided to help out because she got bored just watching us. She was taking this training a little differently than the rest of us, though.
“Take that! And that! And that! And this!”
Calm and collected, Yua was enjoying herself by taking her time deciding when and where to launch her stones, but Elane was doing her best to mimic a machinegun being fired haphazardly from the hip. Rocks flew from her faster than Mana could collect them.
As for why she did this, who could say?
“Here’s more rocks, Booby-Lady!”
“Why, thank you, Kitty… Take this! And this! And…!”
Another flurry of stones flew at us, both of us, the girls were indiscriminate with their aim. One after another, I blocked, hit and, once or twice, I managed to worm my way out of the path of the ones that slipped past my guard.
A droplet of salty sweat slipped down my forehead and off my lashes to burn my retina. I winced, closing my eyes for only a second to try and blink it away, but this allowed Yua a free chance.
Unable to see, I could do nothing but swing blindly until I felt the heavy, blunt force of something crashing against the shin I stood on. The pain forced a grunt, but it was the wild swinging that caused me to fall face-first into the grass.
“Shit…”
“Haha. Looks like it’s my win again, mio amico!”
I rolled onto my back and shielded my eyes from the sun so I could catch my breath in peace.
“Dammit… You’re too good at this.”
Slowly and with a happy smirk, Giulio pressed the tip of his sword into the grass and lowered himself to the ground. He rolled onto his back next to me, his chest heaving with every heavy breath. Guess this took more out of him than I thought – at least I had my stamina regen trait helping to perk me up again.
“Our experience is not the same. You’re good enough to start here, but I used to do this all the time.”
“Used to?”
“There are not many people here I can train with here. At least, not at this level. I’ve tried teaching the other guards, but I can only do so much when they don’t take their training seriously.”
“And let me guess, you don’t want people chucking rocks at you if they don’t know what they’re doing?”
“Haha. Would you?”
“I guess not.”
He laughed to himself and, before I knew it, I was laughing as well despite the pain. The moment didn’t last too long, though.
Giulio forced himself into a sitting position and reached with his right hand for his back pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Still with that seemingly permanent upward turn to the corners of his lips, he hefted his sword onto his lap and started wiping it down.
“Why bother?” I asked, lifting myself onto my elbows. “It’s just a training sword. It’s not like it’s going to rust.”
“Maybe not, but a proper swordsman cares for his training tools just as much as his weapons.”
“Is that so? That’s why you had us hitting rocks with a piece of easily-dented wood? Because you care?”
Still wiping, he nodded. He stopped for a moment, but only to hold his sword up to the sun. Ignoring how its surface was riddled with indentations both large and small, he inspected the blade’s spine briefly before setting it back on his lap to rub his thumb against a particularly dirty spot.
For all his skill, his training sword was just as beat up as mine.
“Training swords take the brunt of the damage that comes with inexperience. Think of it as a kindness to spare your true weapon. After all, a real sword would have ended up even more damaged than this, no? You can replace it easily enough when needed, but at least you don’t have to take a wooden sword to a blacksmith.”
“True…”
Letting myself fall back into the grass, I craned my head back to find my real sword resting against the barrel Elane had used as a chair. The image of it bending at a ninety-degree angle after hitting a rock compelled me to agree.
Truth be told, though, I didn’t know how it would have fared training like this. Not only was it made of the rare and durable metal parundum, but it was also enchanted and had been reformed through Material Creation, meaning it was extra durable. It was not the same cheap bronze sword I started with.
I’d gotten used to using my abilities to repair our training equipment back at home whenever it was needed, so I knew my weapons were sturdy, but who could say how they’d handle hitting actual rocks hundreds of times over. And out here, I wouldn’t have any excuses for ending training with a bent blade, only to show up the next day with it already repaired.
Then again, I only needed to do so because of how hard we’d smash them against one another. No wonder I lacked the finesse of a skilled swordsman, I practically skipped the training weapons and moved onto the real thing. I ignored skill and form for raw power.
Honestly, it was hard to think that the girls let me get away with that, but with Yua having the natural strength of a beast-kin and with Elane building up her strength by swinging around an axe since she was young, it simply must not have occurred to them that it probably shouldn’t come first. Not that I was any better.
“I don’t suppose this is where you tell me that I should be skilled enough to clash my wooden sword against a metal one? You know, without mine breaking?”
I wriggled my training sword in front of him before letting my arm fall limply to the ground.
“Ha! I wish. No, wood is too weak. It can be made to be strong, but when what you’re hitting is stronger, there’s not much you can do about it. However…”
Giulio pushed his sword out in front of my face with a grin and, before I could question if I was supposed to compliment his cleaning, the countless dents marking the sword slowly started to pop back out one by one.
As if something inside the grain were pushing the dimples back into place, the wood reformed itself. In just a few seconds, all the damage we’d caused was undone and the sword was smooth once again.
What the… Are these magic items?
Knowing from their info boxes that they were at least not enchanted, I let a little mana flow into mine and, sure enough, the dents, scrapes and scratches all started disappearing.
Amazed as I was that the city provided their guards with this level of training gear, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why didn’t you just say these things fix themselves? Why go on and on about repairing and replacing them?”
Giulio jumped back to his feet and offered me a hand up. I took it and dusted myself off. Trying not to wince from the pain, I was late to see that he was holding his handkerchief out to me.
“As your teacher,” he continued with a faux air of superiority. “I must demand that you make a habit of tending to your training gear properly. Do so, and you won’t be able to neglect the real thing. Your sword is your life – even if it isn’t sharp. Protect it, and it shall protect you.”
“Protect it… I see… Thank you for the lesson, Sensei.”
“Sensei?”
“Nothing. Thanks.”
I took the offered cloth and made quick work of cleaning my sword.
Thinking back to a certain feline father-in-law of mine telling me to always keep my weapon close at hand – by punching me in the gut for forgetting to do so – I couldn’t help but re-acknowledge how dangerous my life had become since reincarnating.
Why was it so hard to keep this sort of mindset?
Pressing a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes, Giulio gazed at the sun. Knowing Elane often did the same to check the time, my gaze landed on my HUD’s clock. It was barely after four o’clock – we’d been out here for hours without realizing it.
“I think it’s about time I head back.”
“Got guard duty tonight?”
“Just some patrolling. After last night, Father Werner asked us to step up security around the church. Nothing special, but it’ll free me up for tomorrow morning. We won’t have to wait to meet up again.”
“Sure thing.”
Fighting to keep a straight face, more from the mention of what happened last night than the pain in my limbs, I pulled out my purse. I loosened the strings to start counting coins.
Even if I didn’t get to learn much about his specific fighting style just yet, I did learn quite a bit.
“How much should I…”
But Giulio waved his hand. “No need. I enjoyed myself too much to ask for coin. If you want to pay me, do so by cleaning this place up. Haha! Actually, your teacher demands you clean it up!”
Grimacing, I looked around the yard.
Mana had done a good job keeping the arm-cannons stocked, but she’d been outpaced. On top of having to move things around to make room for the cardio portion of our training, rocks of various sizes and shapes were strewn about all over the yard. In the grass, on the boxes, and a few were even lodged into the back fence (hopefully we wouldn’t get in trouble for that).
It was nothing a touch of Material Creation and elbow grease couldn’t fix, but it was still going to take a while.
“Haha… Yea. We’ll take care of that. Thanks for your help.”
“Don’t thank me just yet,” he said, his smile turning just a little teasing. “You still have fifty pushups to do.”
“… Ugh.”
So were the conditions of our competition, but just the thought of going through with it forced the pain in my arms that I’d been suppressing to reignite. After all the stretching, we’d done hundreds, literally hundreds of practice swings before jumping into the rock throwing. My arms were already on fire.
And that wasn’t even mentioning all the times I got pelted in the arms or the pushups I’d done so far. Before I knew it, I was rubbing my arms.
“If you knew he was better than you, why did you even accept his challenge?”
“Shut it,” I barked. Elane chuckled to herself.
“So, Gino, you think I got any better?”
“You want an answer after one day? Ha! Who knows? I will say this, though, you do seem a little nimbler on your feet.”
“Haha… Well, that’s something, at least.”
“It is. It is,” he said, thumping his sword on his shoulder as he made his way back to the tavern. Specifically, he headed towards the crate that had been suspiciously positioned beneath a window. “You can keep that sword, by the way. Go ahead and practice more later tonight. Now get to it! So says your teacher!”
“Yea, yea… wait, I can keep it? Isn’t that a bit…”
Laughing, he proved me right when he slid open the window and hopped inside before I could refuse his likely pricey gift. He didn’t wait to see if I was really going to go through with my punishment for losing our bet, but I carefully set my training sword down and fell into the pushup position all the same.
“Ugh. It’s a good thing we skipped our usual training this morning.”
I may be able to outlast anyone in bed, but out here, I was already dying.
While I started on the last of my exercising for the day, Elane and Mana started cleaning the yard together. Meanwhile, Yua dropped into the same position directly in front of me. It may have appeared like she also wanted to compete, but she’d actually taken it upon herself to endure the same punishments whenever I lost against Giulio. Meaning my punishment was her punishment, which didn’t make losing any easier.
Though I had a sneaking suspicion she only bothered this time because her being in front of me allowed me a chance to enjoy the sight of her cleavage as I worked my arms to the bone. It certainly perked me up a bit, anyways.
Despite the ease at which she moved, her emerald eyes remained strained on the tavern. And so were her ears. Whatever joy she’d found working out was starting to fade.
“Alex,” she whispered, likely when she was sure nobody was listening. “We need to talk.”
Or perhaps, I was in trouble… again.
