Asher twisted his arm mid-air. The sword in his hand drew an arc and stabbed at his opponent's neck. Reika tilted her sword in trajectory, blocked Asher's stab, and hit it away. Asher ducked and avoided her then flurry of blows that followed directly after. As Reika concentrated on trying to land a blow on him, he turned his body low and kicked out with his leg, sweeping her balance underneath her.
"Ugh."
Reika took a step back with a dull and trembling pain in her ankle that was hit. She grit her teeth fiercely, holding back the pain and gripped her sword tightly. Then, her sword shook and split into several images in a blur as they shot out at Asher.
"Whoa."
Asher took in a deep breath and adjusted his footwork and stance to the basics of Imperial Swordsmanship. Avoiding with minimal movement and narrowing the gap, he dug and swung the sword wide in an arc. The several images of swords vanished, and all that was left was the frightened expression of Reika panting with her sword in tow.
"And…this is the end."
Asher swung the sword with one hand, grabbed Reika by the shoulder with the other hand, and hooked her foot. She groaned as she collapsed onto the ground.
"I lost again…"
"You've gotten used to it."
Asher held her hand with a smile. It was not a smooth hand due to the numerous callouses from practicing so much swordsmanship, unlike any aristocratic daughter's hand.
"I'd like to win at least once."
Reika groaned. Her face was scratched up and had dirt all over her clothes, but showed zero discomfort with it. Asher picked up her sword for her while thinking to himself.
"It's been a year since I started learning from you, right?"
"The same goes for me."
Asher shrugged his shoulders at Reika's grumbling words. From her point of view, yes, she had a point to be upset about. However, his experience and efforts had been decades, not just one year.
"Well, it won't all change in a mere day or two. There's nothing to despair about for right now. You're right where you need to be."
Reika had been swinging the sword with a loud and powerful sound, yet with a much firmer and compressed grip. Asher glanced at her.
It was quite different from when he had first been teaching her. Although she was still young, her beauty had been gradually becoming, more and more apparent. And it seemed that in just two years or so, Asher predicted that every man who she would walk past, would definitely turn their heads back around and stare at her.
"It's already been a year…"
Many things had happened after he had reincarnated, and a year had passed. He had turned eighteen and Reika had turned fifteen.
(T/N : Wtf finally get an age here that's substantial.)
"A year? Oh, you mean when you lost your memory?"
"Yes, time flies by doesn't it?"
"You're right, I think I'm just rather slow on the uptake"
From Reika's point of view, too many things to keep track of had happened. To think Asher would lose his memory one day, suddenly show a monstrous talent for the sword, be asked to become the disciple of a Swordmaster… but to even reject an apprenticeship from that very Swordmaster! There were a lot of things that had happened over the course of the past year.
"The sense of time varies from person to person. Anyways, Reika…."
"Yes?"
Reika corrected her posture. Asher had been teaching her for over the course of the year, and had been correcting her shortcomings as well as growing her strengths properly.
"Your swordsmanship is about at the halfway mark to becoming completely mastered. The downside is the rest of the mastery over it will be more of a… personal problem for you, but I can't do anything about that. You basically, tend to be too wary in general, when fighting. The opponent doesn't know anything and everything about you as a swordsman, Reika. With Lepenia's swordsmanship, it's meant to be aggressive. Not to be submissive in nature is how the swordsmanship is meant to thrive as a high-tiered swordsmanship."
"Even… if you want me to be bold, you aren't bold yourself with your swordsmanship either."
Reika looked at Asher with an ambiguous face. Her swordsmanship and mentality when sparring with the sword was Asher. That meant her habits stemmed from Asher's own style of swordsmanship.
"You know almost everything it seems when it comes to the sword Asher. When to approach, when to recede, when to parry. It's like you have the perfect answer for every scenario possible. It's hard not to want to be like that."
"You can't set me as a reference point. You and I had a lot of duels and you should know the imperial swordsmanship is completely different from Lepenia's in nature and is a reactive style of swordsmanship."
Asher cracked a smile. Their tempo was incredible. Asher could count at least 300 different sets of variations the two of them had mastered over each other's swordsmanship from the past year of practice.
"I can't even think of how many variations we have developed together. I can't wait to apply this against other people."
"It's because you're still immature. But you're still developing pretty well. To be honest, I didn't know it would be this fast even for someone as talented as you."
The pace of Reika's growth for the past year had been… questionable. Even if he compared her to others of the past century, even counting his first life, he didn't think there was anyone in the same realm of growth and talent as her.
"And I heard you beat Charon a few days ago."
"Oh, I did."
When Charon was defeated by Reika, his face looked quite funny. Reika said in a way that it had happened, but it was never going to be taken as well as she had pictured it in her own head. Charon was a well-known knight in the empire.
A knight of such ability who would be greatly pleased if he swore loyalty to someone, but to lose to their daughter who had only been learning under someone the knight disdained? And be defeated by that same daughter in less than a year of her picking up a sword?
If anybody had heard of this story, Charon would be ashamed and try to lie that it never happened.
'This is real talent, no matter how you look at it.'
The absolute power that could trample on time and effort with ease.
He was amazed, and Asher was slowly coming to terms with it. Although he wasn't losing to her now. The story would most definitely change in a couple years.
Once upon a time, he too was jealous of such a thing. But, he had given up on it. He knew even in this life he didn't have such "talent" but, it would never change the fact that he would still swing his sword with diligence.
"Hmm."
Asher remembered those times and smiled bitterly. It wasn't a very interesting story really.
It was just funny to him how childish he was back then, and how childish he still was about certain things regarding talent.
"But, I don't understand Asher."
Reika glanced at Asher. She had been training with him for the past year but still didn't understand Asher in one aspect.
"…why do you have so many muscles?"
"Personal reasons."
"Yea sure…."
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