LEGEND

Chapter 222

The sixth day of Baslero’s combat training. Today, Rei, Baslero and Set were out in the city and not at Baron Cisne’s residence as usual.

Fortunate enough to have the fine weather from yesterday, the two people and one animal headed for their destination as the bright sun shone down.

But of course, if Rei and Set walked through the city, there would obviously be people calling out to them.

「Oh, isn’t it Rei? Long time no see. Where are you heading?　Want to buy something as usual?」

「Oh, Rei. Today’s sandwiches are mostly Garm Bird ones, would you like some?」

A cheerful older man in his 50’s who was selling skewers called out. A woman in her 20’s, who was selling sandwiches next to him, recommended some Garm bird sandwiches.

On that note, the Garm bird was a chicken like monster. It’s fatal flaw was that it couldn’t fly. It’s only means of attack were with its beak and claws. Even G rank adventurers could easily kill one and its meat was also delicious. For low ranking adventurers, it was quite literally a tasty monster.

As people called out to them like that, they walked through the city while buying skewers and sandwiches as usul

「Hey, Baslero. You try some as well.」

Rei said that as he passed some freshly cooked Fang Boar skewers to Baslero.

Next to him, Set was eating a Garm bird sandwich with a happy cry.

When Baslero saw that, he wondered if Set was fine with eating birds like him. 　However, he wasn’t courageous enough to ask about it and just walked straight through the city with Rei.

(Oh, delicious.)

He thought as he happily at the freshly cooked Fang Boar skewers that were still dripping fat.

After that, the proceeded straight down the main street and eventually arrived at the adventurers guild.

「……Teacher?　I’m still haven’t decided to become an adventurer yet.」

Baslero said that hurriedly to Rei, who was about to leave Set and head inside the guild as he usually did.

However, Rei placed his hand on Baslero’s head to assure him.

「I didn’t come here to register you as an adventurer. ……Or rather, they wouldn’t let you register as an adventurer since you’re still too young.」

「Ah, that’s true. ……whew.」

Hearing Rei say that, Baslero gave a sigh of relief.

Rei smiled when he saw that and put his hand on the door to the guild.

「Today, what we’ll be using……is the guild training ground.」

With that, Rei entered the guild with Baslero.

「Training ground?」

Baslero followed Rei puzzledly.

After all, they had the garden in Baron Cisne’s residence for training. Of course, it wasn’t possible to run around that much there, but there was still room to some extent. Regardless, Baslero didn’t know why they were heading to the guild.

Still, he didn’t ask about it but just followed Rei and entered the guild due to his respect for Rei from the past few days of training. ……No one knew what would happen if he found out that the methods Rei had used to train his evasion and defense in the past few days were all things he had recalled from manga.

「Uwa~. ……This is the gui……ld?」

As soon as he entered the guild, he heard some noise. Baslero almost sighed in admiration, but his expression soon turned strange. After all, the only noise that could be heard was from the bar in the guild. There were only a few people near the important guild reception. There was Rei, who had already gone over to talk to the receptionist, but aside from him, there were only about four people.

「Uh…this is?」

Looking around while confused, he suddenly saw a drunk adventurer come towards him and Baslero waited where he was.

He wondered if the man needed something because he was coming towards him. He decided that was the case, but in a way that was right and in a way that was wrong.

「Oi, oi, what’s a kid doing in this place. Hey, go home and suck on your mother’s breast.」

「-!? 　Just now, what did you say.」

Due to the sudden insult, Baslero’s cheeks turned red.

In particular, the mention of his mother was particularly bad. For Baslero, his mother was already not around by the time he could understand things. In other words, it was a figure he longed for. He couldn’t keep quiet after having his longing being made fun of.

「Hah?　Didn’t you hear me?　I’m telling you to go home boy.」

A drunk said that to him as if he was stupid. Friends of the man, who had stayed at their table, laughed as if they were tasting a good drink when they saw Baslero’s cheeks go red.

「-!?」

Just as he reached for the sword at his waist……

「This happens as soon as I take my eyes off you.」

His hand extended from the side and pressed against Baslero’s sword sheath with a sigh.

「Seriously. It’s nice to have a drink and make some noise, but don’t cause problems.」

「Aah!?　You, what do you think you’re doing……」

Because he was drunk, even though Rei was there……he didn’t realise that Rei was an adventurer in Gilm that he shouldn’t mess around with. He glared at the impudent fellow who had interrupted his fun and showed off his arms as if he would beat him down.

However, the friends of the man, who had been watching while laughing pleasantly a few seconds ago, suddenly had their smiles start twitching and woke up from their moderate intoxication. Yes, the man’s friends were not completely drunk yet, unlike the man who was currently with Baslero. Because of that, they didn’t miss the existence of Rei.

「……」

Rei gave a flat look towards the men. The men realised that Rei’s look basically meant『I’m going to do something to this man here』and hastily got off their chairs before coming over to Rei.

「Hey, Plage. You’re drunk.」

「Yes, yes. Do you know who you’re trying to mess with?」

「Look, just come over here. Don’t you know what will happen if you get drunk and cause a mess in such a place?」

The man, whose face was red due to intoxication, turned to look at his friends.

「Aah!?　Do you think I’m causing trouble dealing with these two kids?」

「No, I understand. Hey, let’s go. Sorry kid. He’s drunk. I also didn’t know you were a friend of Rei. Please forgive us. Take this money as apology for the inconvenience.」

One of the men took out a silver coin from the pocket of the man called Plage and handed over to Baslero.

「Oi, why did you take that from my pocket……」

The man tried to complain, but had his mouth held down by his friends the next moment and was dragged towards the table.

「……」

The gave a bow with a bitter smile towards Baslero, who was just watching him silently.

「Hey, sorry. Besides, we’re not stupid enough to pick a fight with one of Rei’s friends. Could you accept this and call it even?」

For the man, he had known that Claws of the Hawk had had all their belongings taken from them in a fight. Because of that, if the price of accidentally messing around with Rei’s friend was just a silver coin, and it wasn’t even his own money, then he would be happy with that.

「Take it.」

「But, teacher……」

At Rei’s words, Baslero looked uncomfortably at him, but still received the silver coin given to him with reluctance.

「Ehem, sorry about this. I’ll tell him when he sobers up.」

Saying that, the man returned to the bar.

Seeing him off, Rei gave a small sigh and went to the guild’s back door. Then they headed out towards the training grounds.

Baslero also followed after Rei with an unsatisfied look.

「Rei-san!」

Rei and Baslero arrived at the training ground. And a voice greeted the two of them and Set.

The voice came from a yellow haired man who looked a little older than Rei. A thin sheath that didn’t seem to hold a long sword hung at his waist.

(An estoc?　It looks like he has a unique weapon……is he a friend of teacher?　Since he’s here, I guess he’s an adventurer.)

While looking at the person who had greeted them, Baslero whispered to Rei.

Rei wasn’t particularly concerned about Baslero’s question and raised his hand in reply to the person who had called out to him from the training ground.

「Hasta, sorry for calling you over all of a sudden.」

「No, no, don’t worry about it. I have to be cautious about taking on requests in winter, especially since I hunt monsters. I would rather you invite me to get some exercise.」

「……Isn’t it tough to solo hunt monsters in winter?」

Because he had grown up in the mountains of Tohoku and knew about the dangers of winter, Rei had decided not to take on any monster subjugation requests during this season. However, if Hasta, who was weaker than him and had no partner like Set, told Rei he was taking on requests, he would be worried.

Hasta shoook his head with a wry smile at Rei’s words.

「Of course, I’m not thinking of going out solo at this time since that would be reckless. I’ve formed a temporary party with some people lacking money. Well, that’s enough about that story……who’s this kid?」

Hasta asked as he looked at Baslero.

「Ahh. At the request of the guild, I’m supposed to teach him how to fight for about a week. Baslero, this is Hasta. A solo D rank adventurer. After yesterday’s training, I negotiated with him to help you with today’s training.」

「Nice to meet you!　My name is Baslero Cisne. I’m receiving combat training from Rei-san!」

Hasta’s eyes went wide when he saw Baslero give a vigorous bow.

「You have a last name……」

「Ahh. He’s the son of a Baron.」

「That is, well……for a noble to receive combat training from Rei-san……」

Hasta knew that Rei’s main weapon was the Death Scythe, a huge scythe, and inadvertently turned to look at Baslero. However, although it was still a bit short, it was still a sword than hung at Baslero’s waist. No matter how he thought about it, it wasn’t a scythe like the Death Scythe.

Rei probably guessed what Hasta meant when he looked over like that. Rei gave an involuntary smile.

「Well, for that reason, I’m going to ask you lend a hand today Hasta. I don’t use a sword, so my way of teaching is distorted. In the first place, it’s my own style.」

「Even if you say that, my own sword style is one that was taught to me by a senior adventurer you know　It seems that he learned his swordsmanship from another senior, and that senior had learnt from an established sword school……」

「I’ll be in your care!.」

Baslero listened in to the conversation between the two and gave a large bow.

Rei’s training had taught Baslero the importance of defense and avoidance, it was now ingrained in his blood. Still, Rei’s weapon was a scythe and it was a fact that it wasn’t enough to teach Baslero, who used a sword.

……But he were to say such a thing to Rei, he would have been scolded so thoroughly that he wouldn’t be able to speak a thing.

「I understand. Well then, I’ll be your sparring partner. Is a mock fight fine?」

「Yes, that was how teacher taught me.」

「Is that so. ……Come then.」

As Hasta said that, he pulled out his own estoc from his sheath.

Baslero took a deep breath when he couldn’t spot any gaps in his stance. Still, when Baslero looked towards Rei, he thought to himself as he pulled out his sword from the sheath at his waist.

(Is this what a D rank adventurer that isn’t teacher is like? His strength is amazing.)

Exclaiming to himself, Baslero gave a shout to raise his spirits under the pressure from the man who was ready to thrust out his estoc at any time.

「……Here I come!」

Along with that shout, he dashed forward to close the distance. It was an attack he judged impossible for a weapon like an estoc, which specialised in thrusting, to block. Certainly, it was difficult to block a sword with the very thin blade of an estoc. However, that was only true if it was used to block.

Hasta didn’t show a particularly surprised expression and pulled back a step to avoid it. As soon as Baslero’s sword passed by him, he quickly stepped forward to thrust out his estoc. The next moment, the tip of his sword was touching Baslero’s neck.

「Your attacks are quite sharp, but you’re conscious about them. It’s better to be more conscious about defense.」

In this way, Baslero’s sixth day of training went by as such, tossed around by the sharp attacks of Hasta while Rei watched on from the side and Set slept on the ground.