Early in the morning, when it is still dark outside, wooden weapons clashing sound can be heard from the field.
"Check your feet' positions! She will blow you away at this rate!" Mark Grandcross gives me a bit of advice while I am sparring against his wife, Rose.
It has now been two years and six months. Ever since the incident with their daughter, they have become strangely strict and passionate about my training. Rose, especially, started striking me for real with her wooden sword like she had a real warrior in front of her. From time to time, Mark also spares with me, but he is too straightforward in his fight, so I never learn anything from him.
"Ah!!" After Rose does a backstep to avoid my overhead strike with the wooden raizen, I use one of the three techniques she taught me: CROSS SLASH.
You simply do a double slash in rapid succession while doing a 360-degree rotation of your body. Since the raizen is long, I don't need to worry about reaching her. The problem is power. As I expected, she deflects it like nothing and jumps on me. But I was actually waiting for that. When she does, I now use one of the assassin's techniques I was taught recently: DISPERSE.
It's the technique she used every time she came and went to my room. It was so hard to understand I thought she was lying, but I finally understood it when I sparred with Rose yesterday. Actually, you just need to disappear from the person's field of view so quickly even his other senses won't follow. Pretty simple to do in theory but hard to execute. I jump. She didn't turn or look above, so it must have worked.
I point the raizen's tip towards her back and places my feet on the handle's guard while holding the other end with my hands. I must put the maximum power on this one. I did jump a good four meters above the ground. Rose looks above approximatively at the same time as when I should have landed on her. She evades my attack by a hair's thread.
But to her surprise, the side of her coat is still caught by my falling attack, making her fall as she tried to get away from where I was landing. I can't let such an occasion pass. I jump on her and block both her arms with my knees.
"Okay, that's it. Well done. Your first win in almost three years." Mark is praising me, which is truly rare. He is not a very talkative man from what I have seen.
"That's why I don't like to wear coats. How do you guys even stay without one when it is so cold now?" The reason why Rose is wearing a coat is that winter has started. So my birthday is close. Oh well, it doesn't matter.
"Coat or not, you lost."
"I know. You don't need to remind me."
"What do we do now?" I ask Rose since they seem pretty happy today.
Maybe she will change my training menu. She increased it so much over the past two years that I am sure if I could feel pain, I would be dead now. I am even surer because Secily gave me a pill to speed up my muscle recovery since she got tired of seeing me every day. Well, I was against it since I can't feel pain, but Rose said it was part of my training.
"That will be all for today. You have improved so much for somebody your age. I have a hard time thinking you are still a child. Rose, you did great."
"N-no need to tell me. I only did what was told to." Rose is blushing while looking away. Pretty cute. "Let's go back, the sun is rising, but it is getting colder. I hate the high-cold month." She is eager to go. She really must not like cold.
I can't feel it, so I don't really care, but last year I discovered that I should always keep my body in check. I fell ill with a huge fever because I was always wearing the typical apprentice's clothes in winter. It was so bad Secily had to create a drug for me. She used Angas to do it, but I don't understand how. To each his own, I suppose.
"Okay, thank you for today. May you go back home safely."
"Yes, you too, Kevin."
***
Rose and Mark go their way, but I stay in the field. The reason being, the assassin is there. On a tree near the field, she was observing our training session.
"They are gone. You can come out."
I look in her direction. She disappears and reappears in front of me.
"So you can already feel my presence. In only two years and a half. Not bad kid. Not bad at all."
With all the techniques she has taught me, I should at least be able to do that much. The assassin taught me six techniques up until now: ASSASSIN'S BREATH, THE EYES OF MIDNIGHT, which actually has two techniques: WEAKNESS EYES means that you read the opponent's movements, patterns, and habits to learn his weakness. And NIGHT EYES means that you train yourself to see better in the dark. The last three are DISPERSE, SILENT STEPS, AND POISON CRAFT.
During those two years, I have managed to execute twenty contracts ever since VARGAS. Thirteen of them were from rich families, so now I have reached 12.000.000 wellis like nothing. I am even more surprised since the first contract she gave me brought me only 15.000 wellis.
"Today, I will teach you the last technique needed by a male assassin. Although I call it a technique, I don't really think it is one: SHADOW STAB. Basically, you must pinpoint a vital part or organ of somebody and stabs it without him noticing your killing intent."
One thing I have noticed is that assassins and knights can complement each other. I don't know if I am the only one thinking that. When I look at the three techniques, Rose taught me: CROSS SLASH, GREAT THRUST, AND OVERHEAD STRIKE. All those, if used with WEAKNESS EYES and DISPERSE could become an absolute strength. I hope that as I become stronger, I will be able to combine them instinctively.