The King of the Training Ground

There was hardly anyone at the training ground at six in the morning.

A light rain had fallen the night before, and the air smelled of damp earth. I took a wooden sword from the rack by the posts and hefted it. It didn't feel quite right in my hands, but it would do.

First, a warm-up: a hundred swings.

Downward cuts, diagonal cuts, horizontal sweeps, and thrusts. Twenty-five of each. When Ghislaine taught me, she said every swing I skipped meant losing a little of my feel for the sword, so I shouldn't slack off. I wasn't sure if she was right, but I'd kept at it anyway.

By the fiftieth swing, my body had warmed up completely. Sweat ran down from my temples and dripped off my chin, leaving little dark circles in the yellow earth, one drop at a time.

At the seventieth swing, I heard footsteps behind me.

More than one person.

I didn't look back. I kept swinging. The eightieth, the ninetieth, the hundredth.

I lowered my sword and turned around.

Three people stood at the entrance to the training ground. Two were upperclassmen in swordsmanship department uniforms, with third-year armbands. Behind them was a boy in an ordinary academy robe, holding a notebook.

The tall one in front stared at the wooden sword in my hand, then looked at my face. His gaze lingered on my red hair for a second.

"Are you that red-haired swordswoman?"

"Who?"

"I heard there's a redhead among the special students who comes to the training ground every morning to practice. Everyone in the swordsmanship department's talking about her."

I rested the wooden sword on my shoulder. "What do you want?"

The tall guy smiled. He gave the person beside him a look and took a wooden sword from the rack.

"How about a match?"

Another challenger. Sigh, how many times has it been this month...? Looks like I'll have to beat them into submission!

I didn't refuse, and I wasn't going to. After all, I liked the feeling of fighting.

"What are the rules?" I asked him.

"Free-style swordsmanship, with wooden swords. We fight until one of us surrenders or drops their sword."

"All right."

I walked to the middle of the grounds and lowered the wooden sword from my shoulder. I gripped the hilt with both hands, right foot forward and left foot back. The standard opening stance of the Sword God Style.

The tall guy took his stance too. It was the standard academy stance, perfectly conventional, with no obvious openings and nothing remarkable about it either.

He moved first.

His wooden sword came down from the upper right, fast and at a tricky angle. In the past, I probably would have been thrown off for a moment. But after three years on the Demon Continent, the Red Dragon's Lower Jaw, the poisonous swamp, and all sorts of monsters whose names I didn't know, I'd cut down more things than this guy had training sessions.

I turned sideways, letting his sword sweep past the tip of my nose. The wind lifted the loose strands of hair over my forehead.

Then I smacked his forearm with a horizontal swing of my wooden sword.

Arm Slash.

The tall guy's wooden sword flew from his hand. It spun once through the air and stuck in the dirt at the edge of the grounds. He dropped to one knee, his right hand clutching his left arm. It probably took all of 0.3 seconds for the confidence on his face to turn to shock.

"Y-you're Sword King Rank?!"

"No, Sword Saint Rank."

"How can someone at Sword Saint Rank possibly be that fast?"

"Because you practice forms. I practice killing."

Rujierd had taught me that, and I thought it made a lot of sense.

The tall guy opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He picked up the wooden sword, nodded to me, and left with the other two.

I stood in the middle of the grounds and rested the wooden sword on my shoulder again.

If it were Rudeus, he'd probably say something nicer. But I can't. All I can do is fight.

Over the next few days, more and more people came to challenge me.

Word spread fast. Something like "the red-haired swordswoman beats people in one move" couldn't stay hidden in a place like the training ground. Every morning, someone came looking for a match. Sometimes they were swordsmanship students, sometimes students from other departments. There were even a few outsiders dressed in adventurer gear.

I turned no one away and won every match cleanly.

Even the strongest lasted only three moves.

I didn't know when it started, but Linia and Pursena began following me to the training ground every time I came. They didn't practice swordsmanship; they just sat on the posts at the edge and watched. Linia called out to the crowd, while Pursena gnawed on dried meat.

"Today's odds are 0.1 to one, meow! Because the opponents are too weak, meow!" Linia stood on a post, her tail wagging like a rattle. "Anyone want to place a bet, meow? Bet on how many moves Big Sis Eris will need to win!"

"0.1 to one is way too low!" someone heckled.

"Then bet on Big Sis Eris losing, meow! The odds are a hundred to one, meow!"

"...Who'd bet on her losing?!"

Pursena quietly gnawed on her dried meat beside her, occasionally looking up at the grounds. "Big Sis Eris, today's opponent is a little stronger than yesterday's, I say."

"Is that so?"

"He'll probably last half a move longer, I say."

I couldn't help laughing. The corners of my mouth lifted a little, then quickly settled back down.

Those two. Pursena doesn't say much, but everything she says is frighteningly accurate. Half a move longer-she probably means today's opponent will make me use another half a move to end the fight.

The challenger on the fourth day was a third-year swordsmanship student. He was tall and muscular, and he held his wooden sword tightly. As soon as he took his stance, I knew he'd fought real battles. The air about him was completely different from those people with their flashy but useless forms.

His first strike was faster than any of the previous challengers'. His wooden sword slashed upward from the lower right, at a tricky angle and with fierce force. Against an ordinary student, that move probably would have ended the match right there.

I turned sideways to dodge. His wooden sword swept past my waist, and then mine smacked his wrist from the side. He flinched in pain and nearly dropped his sword, but he managed to hold on.

"Not bad."

For his second strike, he brought his sword straight down, and I raised mine to block. The wooden swords collided, sending a numbing jolt through the web of my hand. He was strong, much stronger than an ordinary student.

On the third strike, he changed his move. He turned the slash into a thrust, driving the tip of his wooden sword toward my chest. I stepped back half a pace, and it passed two inches in front of me.

Then I swept my sword up from below and smacked him on the chin.

His wooden sword flew from his hand. He staggered back two steps and fell to the ground, landing on his backside.

"...You win," he said, panting.

I rested the wooden sword on my shoulder again. "Your thrust was good, but you telegraphed it too much."

He blinked, then nodded. "Thanks."

His shoulder moved first. I could tell at a glance. But if you asked me to explain exactly what was wrong with it, I couldn't. Rujierd never explained why when he taught me either. He just said, "Again." My body remembers better than my head does.

The fifth day, at the training ground.

I was on the hundredth swing of my morning practice. There were quite a few more spectators behind me than in the previous days, maybe twenty or thirty. Some had come to watch, some were waiting to challenge me, and a few had notebooks out and were taking notes.

Linia was calling out the odds again, and Pursena was gnawing on her third piece of dried meat.

I lowered my sword and turned around.

Someone stood at the edge of the training ground.

She wore Water God Style training clothes: a white top and dark blue trousers. Her long, dark blue hair was tied behind her head, and her features were delicate. She stood there without moving, like a statue.

She had been watching me since I started my morning practice. I didn't know how long she'd been watching, but her gaze was intent, unlike those who had come for the spectacle.

It was an appraising gaze.

This woman... she's really strong. Even standing there, she doesn't have a single opening.

I paid her no mind and continued my warm-up. The hundred and first swing, the hundred and second.

She walked to the edge of the grounds and stopped beside a post. She didn't sit down, just stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, never taking her eyes off me.

I swung another fifty times before lowering my sword.

She walked toward me.

Her steps were so light I could barely hear them. I didn't realize she had come over until she was three paces in front of me.

When did she walk over here? She doesn't have any presence at all. No, that's not it! Her presence is as calm as water, without the slightest killing intent.

"Your sword is fast," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was clear. "But it has only hardness, no softness."

"Who are you?"

"Isolte. Water God Style." She gave a slight nod. "I'm a visiting instructor at the university."

A visiting Water God Style instructor? I think I've heard of her.

"Would you like to learn the Water God Style?"

I looked at her. Her expression was calm, as though she were stating a fact.

"The Water God Style?"

"Overcome hardness with softness. Use your opponent's strength against them." She held out her right hand, palm up, and made a very slight movement. Her fingers curved gently, as if catching something. "The stronger your opponent, the more effective the Water God Style becomes."

She turned her palm over. The movement was slow enough that I could see every change in each finger. But in that one motion, I felt something. A subtle change in the flow of force, like water running from high ground to low, natural and effortless.

Her hand... just now, if I'd cut at her, it felt like she would have guided my sword somewhere else. She's "guiding" it, directing the force another way, like water flowing around a stone.

"If you added the Water God Style to your way of fighting..." She drew back her hand and looked at me. "You'd become even more formidable."

I lowered the wooden sword from my shoulder.

I don't understand the principles, and I don't need to. I only know one thing.

"I want to get stronger," I said.

Isolte looked at me, the corners of her mouth turning up.

"That's enough. If you want to get stronger, I can teach you."

She turned and headed toward the eastern side of the training ground. After a few steps, she looked back at me.

"Six tomorrow morning. The dojo is on the east side. Don't be late."

"I won't."

She left.

I stood there, watching her back disappear down the path on the eastern side of the training ground. Her long, dark blue hair fluttered gently in the morning breeze, and her steps were still so light they made almost no sound.

Linia jumped down from her post and ran over to me. "Big Sis Eris, meow! That was a Water God Style teacher, meow! She's amazing, meow!"

"Yeah."

"Are you going to learn the Water God Style, meow?"

"Yeah."

Pursena finished the last piece of dried meat beside us and tossed the bone into a nearby bucket. "Big Sis Eris, if you combine the Sword God Style with the Water God Style... you'll be really strong, I say."

"I know."

I put the wooden sword back in the rack.

In the distance, the pale blue light atop the Ranoa University of Magic's spire was almost invisible in the morning sun.

Six tomorrow morning. The Water God Style.

I was looking forward to it a little.