LEGEND

Chapter 221

The third day of combat instruction with Baslero.

This day, as with the two previous days, Rei and Baslero were training intensively in the garden in Baron Cisne’s residence.

「Look, the defense of your feet is lacking again!」

As Rei said that, Baslero’s legs were swept out from under him by the spear handle and he rolled to the ground.

Today alone, he had rolled to the ground more than 20 times. But even so, compared to yesterday, it could be said that he was a child with a high learning rate as he could already respond appropriately to attacks aimed at his feet.

(Or perhaps he inherited his great grandfather’s talent for the sword.)

Rei muttered to himself as he watched Baslero, who used his hands to lift himself back off the ground.

Two pairs of eyes watched them as they continued their sparring. One was the maid of the Cisne family, Ashie, who also waited from the side, ready to use healing magic as soon as anyone was injured. The other pair of eyes belonged to Set.

Set, who hadn’t come along the day before, had come today because Rei had told him that all the tree branches which had been scattered around the backyard had been cleared out and also because Milein had not come to play with him today. As for the latter, Sulunin and Ecryll had no intention of taking on another request during the snowy winter and forcibly stopped Milein from heading over to the Dusk Wheat.

If they had let her come over and give as much food as she wanted to Set, the money she had earned from the Lizardman subjugation would start to drop rapidly. Sulunin, who could be considered the advisor of Scorching Wind, had noticed that.

Anyhow, with that situation, Set had also come to Baron Cisne’s residence.

「Fuu, fuu, fuu……here I come!」

Baslero steadied his breathing and shortened his distance to Rei while holding his sword.

Rei’s method of teaching him how to fight was to repeatedly spar.

Rei couldn’t teach the『form』of how to use his body or swing his sword. However, as Rei had said, he had gotten to this point in his own way. Because of that……he couldn’t teach the eldest son of a noble how to fight in a proper manner, so the final decision he reached was to repeated fight mock battles for now.

「Yaaa-!」

He thrust out his sword with a spirited cry.

Its speed was much faster compared to yesterday when he had been distracted by his defense.

However, it was still duller compared to the attack he had made with all his strength on the first day when he paid no attention to defense

「……」

Rei silently parried it with his spear handle.

The tip of Baslero’s was parried just like that. However, this time was different from before.

Baslero used the momentum from his parried attack to spin around on the spot. Then, maintaining that momentum, he struck out towards Rei’s body.

「Eiii-!」

Rei’s raised his eyes lightly, as if impressed with the attack. But the next moment, he flicked his wrist and parried the blade with the spear handle.

Kin-!

A high pitched sound of metals colliding against each other echoed into the surroundings.

If only the sound was heard, Rei and an Baslero’s attacks would sound as if they were equal. However, there was a fundamental different in the physical strength of the two.

The next moment, the iron spear was still in Rei’s hands but the sword that was in Baslero’s hand a few seconds ago was nowhere to be seen.

「Ouch!」

His hand had gone numb from the impact of the spear handle with his sword. Baslero crouched to the ground while holding his right hand with his left.

「Young master!」

「Wait, don’t move!」

As soon as he saw Baslero crouch down, Rei stopped Ashie’s almost reflexive movements.

「But!」

Why did you stop me, Ashie’s expression seemed to say as she turned to look at Rei fiercely.

However, her fierce expression soon went away. After all, the sword that had been knocked high into the sky by Rei had fallen down right between Baslero and Ashie, stabbing into the ground.

「It’s okay now. But, I don’t think you need to go over since he’s not really hurt that badly.」

Ashie rushed to Baslero’s side as soon as Rei started to speak.

「Young master, are you okay?　I’ll use healing magic right away……」

As she said that, Baslero gently held out his hand.

「I’m okay, Ashie. As teacher said, there is no need for healing magic for this level of injury」

In fact, Baslero’s hand wasn’t really injured. The numbness was just caused by the impact of Rei’s parry hitting his hand. It was just that the numbness had reached his bones.

「Are you really okay?」

「Ahh, don’t worry. More than that, it’s dangerous here, so you should stay away Ashie. I still have to practice.」

Baslero reached for the handle of his sword that had fallen to the ground, though his grip hadn’t fully returned yet due to numbness…

Ashie looked worriedly as Baslero but decided that remaining here would only be a hindrance to his combat training. She gently bowed apologetically at Rei before returning to her previous location.

After that, he continued to practice attacking and being struck by the spear at his weak points, although not as many times as the previous day.

Day 4. Unlike the previous days, it was snowing heavily and it was impossible to train in the garden. No, rather than being impossible, it should be said that it was still possible but the chance of getting unnecessary injuries was much higher. Of course, if Baslero had a certain level of skill, he should have also practiced combat in bad weather. But, he was still a beginner. No, in fact he was more dangerous than an ordinary beginner since he had some knowledge on how to use a sword. For that reason, Rei didn’t feel the need to risk needless injury even though Ashie could use healing magic. Instead, they did a different kind of combat training rather than mock battles.

「Here’s the next one.」

「Haa, haa, haa……yes!」

Taking in short breaths, Baslero nodded at Rei.

The two of them were now in the guest room where Rei had first been brought to when he came to Baron Cisne’s residence.

Speaking of what they were doing there, Rei was throwing crumpled paper balls at Baslero and Baslero was training to dodge them.

The maid, Ashie, spent her time on housekeeping as she judged that there wasn’t much danger to this training and that there would be no point in her staying with them.

In addition, Set stayed back at the stables due to the strong snow.

「You ready? I’ve said this many times, but this paper ball is an enemy attack. Don’t let it hit you!」

As Rei said that, he threw lumps of crushed paper at him, one after another.

Baslero tried to avoid it, but the speed of the balls thrown by Rei were so fast that he would do well to avoid half of them.

「With regards to your defense of your weak points, you’ve improved somewhat in yesterday’s mock battle. However, you’re still focused on attack. This exercise helps to train your kinetic vision. Look firmly at the paper ball and dodge it. Instead of anticipating the direction of the paper ball and avoiding it, avoid it after you see it.」

「Yes!」

Rei said that to Baslero while throwing multiple paper balls in succession.

On a side note, Rei didn’t come up with this training himself. Because he was unable to spar outside, he improvised with reference to a manga he had read while in Japan. Because of that, Rei knew that it was quite ridiculous in various ways, but he still decided it was better than doing nothing as he continued to throw paper balls.

How tough this training actually was could be seen at a glance by looking Baslero was running out of breath as he stood up. After all, even if it was just paper, it could still be thrown at a reasonable speed when crumpled up. And since the paper ball was thrown with Rei’s strength, although there was no worry of injuries, there was still a fair bit of superficial pain. Moreover, the paper balls were thrown with almost no breaks in between, so since Baslero didn’t want to feel the pain, he had to dodge them desperately. As a result, his dodging skills, which Baslero was originally poor at, were compensated by his rapidly draining stamina.

Day 5. Unlike the previous day, the weather was so unusual compared to a normal winter day. The sun shone brightly on the ground from early morning. Still, it was winter so the temperature was still quite cold. Meanwhile, the location of today’s combat training had moved back to the garden.

There wasn’t that much defensive training done yesterday……but there was a greater focus on avoiding attacks.His kinetic vision also showed some improvements. After completing that, the next step today was to learn to defend against or avoid magic attacks.

Today as well, Baslero was looking at Rei energetically. He had sore muscles due to yesterday’s training, but his movements weren’t awkward thanks to Ashie’s healing magic.

「You ready? I will use magic from now on. ……That said, although it’s a fireball, it only feels a bit hot and won’t burn you. The main point is the same as yesterday. To avoid it……or to intercept it with your sword.」

「Eh?　Teacher, my sword isn’t a magic item though?」

Baslero responded to Rei almost reflexively.

In a sense, it was natural that a noble as poor as Baron Cisne would be unable to afford to buy an expensive magic item.

Of course, although being magic items……not all magic swords were expensive. An ordinary magic sword could be made with metal with magic powers such Mythril or Flame Ore. Or, if made by coating a sword with a processed magic stone, a magic sword could be purchased at a reasonable price.

「That’s fine. I have made the fireballs such that they can be affected by an ordinary sword. If you hit it, the fireball will disappear. The purpose of today’s training is to get used to magic. Unlike yesterday’s paper balls, this is real magic, although its power has been adjusted. Whether you become an adventurer or take over the title of Baron, the worst thing is not being able to deal with an enemies use of magic in battle. Here we go.」

「……Yes!」

Baslero nodded at Rei’s words and readied his sword. Unlike the previous days, his stance wasn’t an outright offensive one but one that could shift to defense immediately. Perhaps this was due to how intently Rei had attacked his weak points.

Taking the Death Scythe out from the Misty Ring, Rei cast a spell while Baslero was inadvertently distracted by the strange weapon.

『Fire, be soft and warm. With my magic power, appear as a cloud.』

At the same time as his incantation, a flame about 30cm in diameter formed at the tip of the huge blade of the Death Scythe. And……

『Faint Flame』

The spell was completed and the next moment, a fireball about 10cm in diameter was shot out from the tip of the Death Scythe towards Basrelo.

However, its speed was very slow, just like a lightly thrown stone.

「Eh?」

Baslero made a surprised noise when he saw its speed. However, as soon as he collected himself, he swung his sword down at the fireball approaching him.

「Yaa-!」

With a spirited cry, his sword swung down, cutting the fireball cleanly in two and causing the flames to scatter into the air.

「I did it……?　I did it teacher!」

Baslero revealed his happiness at cutting through magic. Ashie, who had been watching them from inside the mansion, was also smiling happily.

「You know how to do it now?　Even if it touches you for a while, you won’t get burnt, so we’ll continue.」

「Yes!」

Baslero nodded cheerfully at Rei’s words and readied his sword again.

After seeing that, Rei then shot two fireballs at him at a slightly faster speed than before.

「Ei!　Yaa-!」

One strike, two strikes. The two fireballs were cut apart instantly. Whether due to his own attack focused training or whether he had learnt something from Rei in the past few days, his attacks with his sword were rather sharp.

But that was only at the beginning, as the speed and number of fireballs increased, his responses reached a limit and the fireballs began to hit his body.

「Look, you don’t have to slash everything with your sword. You can also dodge them.」

「Ah, yes. I understand!」

Like that, Baslero was hit by several more fireballs that day.