As the morning hours passed, Gramps and I left. Granny was staying home. It was a journey of the 2 of us only. We went at a leisurely pace since it was fine to go there by noon. We had a lot of time to kill.
"Gramps, since this place is supposed to be an all sword training heaven, was this the place you grew up at?"
"Well… I did grow up there, but I soon left the place to master new techniques."
"Wow you lived totally like an adventurer. Unlike me who stayed at the place he got first."
"That's fine in it's own way, Well, the true adventurer was your Granny, after she left the Stein kingdom, she trained for a while under a magician… I don't know who that was but she seemed to shrink at the mention of the subject so I avoided it."
"It is better not to talk about that then." We both agreed.
"But when I left this place, I had gotten the chance to go to the Beast Kingdom. There I learned many body strengthening techniques, not to mention, I even found a friend there, he was a real fighter, the only problem was, he had too many family responsibilities, so we had parted after a while."
"That's an interesting story, so what did you do after that?"
"Ha ha, after I got back to Treastein, I actually found that I was asked to kill your Granny.."
"What!?" what's this sudden drama!?
"Yeah, you probably already know but she has a thing for cute girls, she had gone on a rampage and it was reported that she had actually traumatized 4 lords daughters. I don't even know what she did with them. So when I went to find her, I actually fell in love…. So since she tended to dislike men, and I was a weak one in her eyes, I got her to duel with me, of course she agreed and threatened to kill me the moment it started…. The funny thing was, the duel was over in an instant, Training in the beast Kingdom had made me stronger than I thought and Melinda told me to make the first attack. So with that, I broke her barrier and my sword was at her neck, so she was seen as defeated. Since the duel was held in public, she couldn't refuse my order and ended up with me."
"I feel like the story ended on a high note…." I know for sure Granny was a sore looser.
"Well the truth is, after she lost the duel, she tried to self-destruct with the whole country... sadly her self destruction was blocked by Lilith's father and as a punishment, she had to train Lilith until she was the next overlord." Granny looked like she would do something like that…. But man… Lilith's dad might have been one hell of a guy...
"If it were me, I would have fled the country, you know?"
"Well I think she liked the country…. That's why she stayed back…"
"Gramps… we are already near?" Since we had increased our speed quite a while ago while talking, we were close to Lord Rin's territory.
"Yeah, we are. It looks like you can control your strength well. Before your running speed increased and decreased, constantly wasting your stamina." that was still when I couldn't control my strength.
Talking and traveling like this… it really made me remember the past, it was nice to adventure with gramps and granny.
...….
We were on a journey to find a sword style suitable for me. I, who couldn't adapt to gramps techniques at all, was sure that I was not fit to learn the sword any more. Thus Gramps made this occasion to help me find a suitable sword style.
All in all, it was a time only gramps and me spent. As we had some talks on the road we finally reached Lord Rins domain.
As we neared the City of Lord Rin, I actually saw some knights stationed at the gates of the city.
"They were waiting for us huh, that Rin, she never changes." Gramps said, looking at the knights. They were wearing shiny armor… the sun rays were reflecting the rays so the armor that was probably polished for a long while was dazzling...
"Welcome Sir Merlin and Sir Rekka!" The knights gave us an excited greeting..
"Paul and you all are Elite knights, you shouldn't waste your time with welcoming me." Gramps said, looking apologetic. He was completely different from my granny.
"Sir Paul you don't have to address me so formally, I am your junior here and moreover today I am here to learn." Paul was the Elite knights captain. His whole squad was quite formidable. They had even completed a trip to the edge of the world.
"Alright, It is always refreshing to talk with you Rekka! I wish the other arrogant knights would learn a bit from you." there was a trend here in lord Rins territory, the knights here were very high and mighty, they even said that the other lords were not equal to them.
Many knights held those thoughts here. Well, they were strong compared to other territories. This place was more civilized and focused on growing power, so in a way they were among the strongest forces in Treastein.
Still, sometimes this has drawbacks too. These knights can be too prideful to learn from others, making them grow much slower than other territories. every lord in Treastein has something special about them and they pass those special techniques and teachings among their students. so interacting with other lords would be quite beneficial for these knights, but if they can't even look at others with the will to learn... they can only do so much then?
"Well, they just have to see that there are other fishes outside the pond too…"
"What a perfect way to put it."
As we chatted, we went to Lord Rin's Mansion. It was really gaudy….. Well, she was a knight..
"Welcome Master and Rekka, I can't believe the hero's grandson is here to learn, leaving the best teacher at his doorstep." Rin made a comment that seemed a bit sarcastic but I knew she was just playing around.
"Well, for some reason I can't learn Gramps' style at all…" I took the blame since that was the case….what could I do? My Gramps had a boat load of students, then their students had been the star of our country. Even now… Miss Rin herself was a student of Gramps. Or should I say Gramps' successor. She had learnt every one of my gramps teachings.
"Well, things don't always go our way." as Miss Rin stood in front of me in that Gaudy armor, it actually looked dazzling… I wonder if she is out of my league… there is a charm in making a proud knight fall from grace... damn... I am really turning into a philander this way...
"It is no use looking at me like that, I have gained immortality at the cost of losing my way to co-produce…" that was a waste…
"Sorry about that… I seem to have been a bit too lax lately.. It was true after coming from the empire… I was indulging too much…" boy I really have to tone this down. It hadn't even been a month since I had my first time.
"Hmph!" and the angry eyes that were looking at me from the corner of the room were none other than Rose's… she hated me…. I wonder … last time we were quite friendly though…. Hardly there was a reason she could loath me.
"Anyway! Since you are here to train as a knight, get changed! I will provide knight equipment to you… but it would be better if you use another sword for practice ...."
"Yeah that is not happening… look." as I took out a sword from the storage and held.. It burned away in a second… like air, it vanished.
"Well… then we have to improvise… wrap it with a cloth or something…."
After our discussion, I was given shiny knight armor…. It looked so gaudy that I felt nauseated even looking at it… but as I looked around, everyone was wearing this stuff…
"Do I really have to?" I looked at Rin with a helpless expression! please like the maids at my home, melt and say I don't have to!
"Wear it" Rin said again with a smile which was nothing but a threat… far from melting, she was just freezing up!
"I am very tough, my skin won't bleed by normal attacks."
"Wear it." again with a smile.
"I can be even freer this way, I am not used to wearing that, you know?"
"Wear it!" Yeah, we were getting nowhere.
At last I wore the armor and equipment.
"At least let me color it in black…"
"Black armor huh… not bad, looking at the sword, it would match well…!" Rin might just be a Chūnibyō, in any case, I think I saw a side of Rin that I didn't want to...
After all that, I was left at the field albeit losing a bit of respect for my new teacher Rin. I looked at various sword man practices…. But not many were holding a great sword. Amanori was a great sword… so looking at other swords was futile…
"Is it not helping?" Rin who came to check on me looked depressed…. She herself used a rapier… her style was fast and precise hits…. I was interested in that sword in my 1st life. Still I never got to learn it really… in my 3rd life…
"If only…!" suddenly I thought of something…
"Say Miss Rin, I want to learn how to use the sword that you use.." she was surprised to hear me but I brought out Amanori and covered her in miasma … a while later, the sword shrank and thinned down and looked like a rapier…
[it feels a bit stuffy... but alright?]
"Oh ho! I never saw this outcome!" Miss Rin looked excited… she was a sword nut alright…
........
Since there were only 2 rapier users here, they were obviously Rin and Rose. Both of them were beautiful.
"You sure you want to go with me first?" Miss Rin asked since she was my first opponent. I was going to put my concentration to work and let the System gather data. Then with an accelerated thought process, I would be able to grasp the technique in a while… of course, this was the process of training smart not only hard!
"Come at me with all the variety of patterns and attacks you have please. Even if you get me injured, it is fine." I can quickly recover.
"That is a gutsy statement but I will do just that… not mind if I pierce your heart okay!" as if she had vanished from the spot in mere moments…. Before I could react, my Leg was mercilessly pierced… I quickly matched Miss Rins speed.. But holy hell, she was fast. My concentration was put to the test.
{New battle data collecting in progress.}
Good! Collect it all, her movement and patterns, her breathings too…
Miss Rin moved fast and with precision, she didn't even make any noise… It was like silently finding your death. Every attack was powerful enough to destroy your defenses. Even armor would be pierced.
Now I don't get why I had to even wear this gaudy thing. with the heat of the battle finally warming up my body, I felt my senses catch up with Rin, I could see her fast and precise moves.
"I am starting with 11 stage attacks now!" Miss Rin shouted then changed her movement. Now every attack looked like it was chained with the next attack, or rather a single attack pierced me 11 times repeatedly, the speed of the thrusts' were so fast, I feared that she would pierce space itself. Like that, 11 consequent attacks pierced my body… I couldn't even see them… damn… this was hard.
"I will increase my speed!" As Miss Rin said, her attack patterns changed again but this time when she moved, it felt like there was a unique rhythm with her step. For some reason, I could easily follow that. And even though her speed had doubled, I grasped it easily. For the first time, I was able to strike back.
{Master has analyzed the data. Stored in with collected data.}
It looked like I had already been able to get this rhythm… Rin of course looked surprised but she continued with this style for a lot longer, then moved on to another rhythm. Even now I could grasp it…. I don't know why but I could see her and even copy her movements well. After an hour like this, Rin stopped and I started to see that the System had collected a lot of data.
"Rekka, the good news is you can probably learn the way to use the rapier…. But your foundation is not strong… what I mean is you may grasp the later attack patterns but the beginners are not in your reach… the way you held your posture, your stance, you are too used to it, in a way, I guess what you developed back when you were at the Edge of the world has deeply rooted in you, in any case, it should be very hard to learn any new forms from base.. You're just too used to unarmed combat." It should be solved after getting the system's data… but man… Miss Rin gave such an astute statement… She was one great teacher...
"I see.. I will try it out a bit longer… I feel like I can use this style in some fights… as for the stance and posture… I hadn't thought of that… I will look into it too then..."
so my stance and posture need to change too… I had no idea of that… was that the reason I can't master the sword? come to think of it, Gramps never taught me the stance or posture, I remember him saying one time that it's already mastered...
"That's good, by the way, I heard you use a peculiar way to fight in hand to hand combat, how about a spar? I want to see it."
"That's alright." my boxing was certainly peculiar here.. Where people aimed for deadly attacks to kill an opponent, my boxing was much more straightforward. Making the people in this world get bewildered, since if I don't attack those spots, their guard would easily break.
Although after I faced off against that dragon… my technique evolved into a more fierce one.
"Okay let's do this!" Rin moved just as fast as before. This time with her bare hands. She was wearing thick gauntlets this time… the gauntlets were quite dazzling too.
I only used miasma to coat my hands, with boxing gloves…
As Miss Rin closed in on me, I fixed my stance for a straight punch. It was the most basic punch you learned in boxing. But since my strength speed and perceptiveness was all really top notch, this punch could easily be lethal.
As she told me to not hold back my strength, I punched straight at her… she was coming in while skipping over left and right. It should have been hard to see through her feints. But all that was futile, I could see through it.
With a single punch that I threw at her, my speed seemed too much for her to dodge, so she guarded against it,
only to be blown away by tremendous force. Since it was an open ground.. She actually was blown away…..
I may have overdone it… anyway, back at the empire my punches straight up pulverized the bodies, it was too gruesome so I had changed the force to make my opponents fly away rather than explode out right. if they are gonna splash their guts and blood anyway, they can do that a in some corner after I blew them away.
But seeing Miss Rin practically fly out like that… man, it was kinda funny...
"Did you really just do that?" Rose who was watching our duel all this time finally said something with a bewildered face…..
"She should be fine right?" I asked, feeling a cold sweat on my forehead…
Since Miss Rin was not stopping, I moved with a flash step and caught her before she collided with anything…. She was actually fine…. There were no wounds or any broken armor parts…
As I got back to Rose, I laid Miss Rin down and sprinkled some water on her.
"That punch… it would have actually been a disaster…. If it hits…."
"What? but you didn't take any damage…?" She did take a hit.
"Well, I did take a hit but didn't you see? I was blown away with it too, you could say that was a dodging technique. I went with your flow of the wind so as to not collide with the force" I had to say she was one heck of a lord… without using any magic, she really was the real deal.
"All right, I will still heal you…. Newborn. You should be okay now." I used my healing spell since she was still looking a bit pale. Sadly, she told me that she never wants to make an enemy out of me. I wonder if I had traumatized her?
"Rekka, you have overwhelming physical strength. I think the great sword Amanori is best, stop with those technical sword arts and swing straight for your target, even if that doesn't hit, it will have enough strength to blow the enemy away. Like that punch, do the same with the sword. I was not holding back, so you could say that You hit me when I was coming for you in real life. Still, since you are perceptive enough to hit me, I believe you won't have that much problem with others too.."
As she gave me my results after training. it seemed that sword techniques were not for me…. She did say that I had a battle sense but I guess that was not with the sword…
"Well, the problem is if I am not around mana, I can't always expel this much energy. Like the Edge of the world. There I can expel this much energy but as a price, my stamina will drop like a rock. As long as I can stay around mana, I can always expand force like this you know? But I still want to polish my techniques so that I can fight better even after using less strength and force…."
spirit energy reserves that I had were actually quite large now, but what if I have to fight in a place where I can't replenish that supply? I have to think of fighting with less strength then.
"I see… so this much power is provided only with a mana filled atmosphere… I get it why you want to polish your technique now…" as Rin nodded I got into thought.
Sorry Amanori I guess I will only swing you like a beginner…..
[You say that after you annihilated an army with me?]
Well.. I wanted to learn those special sword swings too, you know? And then I could give them cool names too…..
[I don't care about that, just swing and destroy things, a powerful swing is loads better than techniques.]
{System has found a hypothesis, would the master want to hear it?}
Hmm sure, System is allowed to make suggestions too.
{System has found that the Master has the tendency to use unarmed combat with a difficult opponent. And with the earth magic, the system has found that master uses it like a gunfire battle, as such it has been hypothesized that master is too adept in that fighting style from masters 2nd life, as such, master is unable to learn sword arts and other difficult sword techniques.}
It is an adept explanation alright. Even in the modern world, guns were more popular, even though there were fantasy games, guns were popular with many players…
So in my 2nd life being a magician and all, I might have fought like a gunslinger… not to mention my Combat sense in close range is a bit weird too… since I don't have a gun now.. It must be because of that….
{Affirmative.}
[Whatever that gun thing is, can't you make me like that too? You did change my shape? So why not make a completely different weapon.]
Amanori, that might be possible but… aren't you taking yourself too lightly? I mean… you are named after your sword…
[Does that really matter? You are the best wielder, just do what you want with me.]
It's like you are inviting me to bed…
[Hmph! You are starting to have too many vulgar thoughts.]
Sorry… alright… I will try to make you into a gun… but what to do with the bullet?
{Answer: Master has enough information about the ins and outs of many guns, after analyzing, the system should be able to make changes to Cursed sword Amanori. The bullets can be made from Miasma. Option of inducing spirit energy should be available too. Would, master like to proceed?}
System you are as cool as ever! If I can have a gun to fight, I feel like my combat ability might just double…. Moreover I can make many types of guns, I am glad I read through many profiles of guns when I played those games….
{System only does what master desires}
I still thank you.
If I can use a gun, then I might be able to fight with normal physical strength too and not expel my energy… if I get stuck in the Edge of the world or a place like that, I still might be able to tackle the challenge.
Since I was standing while thinking all those things, I had put the 2 ladies on hold in front of me.
"Wow, he really does get lost in thoughts sometimes… it is as if we are not even with him? I hadn't believed Master Merlin when he said that he can zone out like that." Rin said, tapping her foot restlessly….
"Hmm." Rose, who was mad at me, only nodded. Still I guess as a beautiful lady very few men have made Rin wait on them while they daydream… Rin looked a bit annoyed, so as soon as I broke out of thought I apologized in a hurry.
"Sorry about that, your lecture really helped me… I am thinking of changing my way of fighting…"
"Do not worry…. But still, I will advise you to not get lost in thought while keeping 2 ladies in wait."... Wow I had really Annoyed her, I should not annoy beautiful women. It is never a good idea.
"I am terribly sorry and for your kind advice and conciliation today, ask me anything, I will do any favour for you." I know it sounded high and mighty off me but I could get her tasty food, let her travel anywhere around the human lands and give her money, even raw materials that are valuable. in the human lands, I can probably give her anything there is.
"If you truly want to fix my worries, then at least Take Rose as your wife please?"