Shuraina ate with gusto as she tried to prevent food from spilling onto their clothes. She wasn't really chewing on her food more than she was letting it melt in her mouth. She felt like she was sneaking food during class, trying to hide from the teacher.
Hylli's arms were tight against her, so Shuraina couldn't really move her arms. She twisted her wrists as much as she could as she put food in her mouth. Then, when the food became too small for her to reach easily, she stretched her neck and tongue as much as she could to put it in her mouth. Then, when she got it in her mouth, she stared into the distance and waited for it to melt, then repeated the whole process again and again, letting out a huff through her nose.
"....!"
She accidentally spilled a bit of food on Hylli's shirt. The food had been located precariously, too. She had tried to control it as much as possible as she ate, though.
Then, her eyes met with Hylli's. Hylli looked surprised before he closed his eyes again, pretending to be asleep.
"....."
"....."
Shuraina quickly removed the stain on Hylli's clothes and stayed quiet. Then, after a few minutes had passed, their eyes met once again. Shuraina calmly began to speak.
"Did you sleep well?"
When the arms around her grew loose, Shuraina pushed his arms away and stood up.
"Why was I hugging you?"
"You have some pretty nasty sleeping habits."
"Oh….. You should've woken me up."
"You were sleeping too soundly."
She took the meal he had been holding, almost dropping, onto the floor and sat next to him, finally able to eat comfortably.
"I'll wake you up when I'm done eating; want to sleep a bit longer?"
She closed Hylli's eyes with her small hands smelling like sausages. Hylli was about to close his eyes and knock out even before she spoke, but his eyes went wide open when he remembered what had happened between himself and Shuraina just moments ago. He had been mesmerized by Shuraina's squirrel-like cheeks, but wasn't he lying down and hugging Shuraina just moments earlier?
Shuraina buried her face into the meal dish and ate every single bit of it, even the sauce, when Hylli shot up from where he laid. He suddenly stood up and began stretching. His ears and neck were burning red.
"..."
"51 seconds."
"..."
"15 seconds."
"..."
"1 minute."
While Hylli counted down, Shuraina quietly went up and down the cliff twice and ran five laps around the lake, and was currently ducking from any oncoming obstacles. She swung a sword as big as her own body and cut down any targets coming her way. She didn't use any magic–only used the aura emanating from her core and worked on her strength and stamina.
Her body had become incredibly swift in the short time she had trained. Every unnecessary bit of movement had disappeared, leaving only the most efficient movements.
Her eyes were sharp as they focused on the targets. She didn't know where the attacks were coming from, so her lips were stiff. She cleanly swiped any and all attacks coming her way, and stabbed any target straight through the center.
She looked like the perfect swordsman–not a magician. She occasionally used magic as a protective method when she was in danger, but she used a sword otherwise.
'She really improved a lot...'
Hylli watched a much-improved Shuraina and smiled, proud of her achievement. If she had this much skill and magic on top of it, she would be absolutely invincible within the 1st order.
After a round of training, Shuraina walked over to Hylli, who had a suspicious smile on his face as he watched her.
"What do you think?"
"I think you need to twist your waist a bit more when you strike. You have a tendency to close your eyes when there's a strike coming from above. That needs to be fixed."
"Hmm."
Shuraina remembered all of the movements she had made from before. She repeated all of the movements she had made before stopping at the part that Hylli had mentioned earlier.
"You mean at this attack, right?"
"Uh-huh. That's right."
"Then, I should move like this…."
Shuraina went through the movements again, now revised and perfected. When Hylli looked awed and complimented her, Shuraina was so excited that she took out a giant piece of beef jerky, as big as her face, from her dimension pocket and began to munch on it. She had saved it for a happy moment like this.
"Shuraina, you know how the test is coming up soon?"
"Of course."
"You need to focus on your health and avoid hard exercise for about a week prior, so you can go home."
Shuraina nodded a few times as she ate her beef jerky. She wasn't afraid of something as tiny as her entrance exam anymore. To be honest, she was a bit excited–she thought, how hard could it possibly be when she had survived this?
"Before you take the exam, there's one more thing that you need to accomplish."
Hylli balanced a hand on the ground and stood up from the ground. He grabbed a sword lying on the ground and straightened his back. He stared at Shuraina, eyes aimed low as he looked at her.
"I'll fight with all my strength. If you're able to put a single scar on me in that state, then you can go home right away, even though the test is two weeks ahead."
"Ooooh. I can hurt you in any way?"
"Yes."
After that, Shuraina tried to hurt Hylli more than focus on her training. Shuraina was a bit confident about the whole thing–she had trained with Hylli for so long. She'd definitely be able to hurt him in one way or another, right?
"Okay."
The first duel ended with her landing in the nearby pond,
"Ack."
And the second one had her hanging from a nearby tree branch.
"Uck."
The third one had her landing on a pile of leaves.
The fourth, fifth, and the sixth. The slowly growing number of failures only made her hungrier. She flopped onto the ground and added some protein into her system and tried again. But once again, it didn't end well. Hylli stopped his movement right before the strongest strike, and that meant that the wind mixed with his aura created a terrifyingly strong gust that threw her to weird places. She almost smashed into a rock when Hylli caught her.
She thought she had finally reached the end of the terrifying training, but there was no more improvement. She felt like training had just started up again. Dueling meant that she actually had to think, so it was even more exhausting.
"How do you have a single scratch?"
Shuraina asked, miserable after another loss. She hung from his shoulder and asked, huffy.
"I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but I am a swordmaster."
"I never asked."
"…..but you did just now."
Shuraina shifted her hand near Hylli's arm and pinched it as tightly as she could. As expected, the body of someone who had surpassed all limits was different from the average person. His skin didn't even turn red when she pinched it. There wasn't even a single scratch.
"How can it be so hard to make a tiny little scratch?"
"Good luck. To be honest, that last attack was pretty close."
Sure, sure. I know you were going easy on me. I'm jealous. I wish I was a swordmaster too.
Hylli was probably busy training with the sword when she had been training with magic, and that was how he got to this point, right?
If she had given up on the sword and had just focused on magic, maybe she would've been a great magician. Then she would've had to give up on becoming a knight and would've gone into research. Shuraina whined as she rested her cheek on Hylli.
"A scratch, huh….. Scra….tch...If I hurt you, then it's a scratch."
She wanted to go home quickly, so she began to analyze the meaning behind a scratch. If she hurt him, that was a scratch.
"What do you mean?"
Hylli asked, worriedly staring at Shuraina. She had been practicing the sword for months and was seemingly close to her limits.
"Is it really difficult?"
"Yes…No."
Shuraina thought that she had to look good in front of her future employer, so she denied it immediately. He was her friend, yes, but once they were in the real world, he had his position. She tried to match that. For the both of them, that is.
"Yes. It's so hard that I'm going to cuss you out."
But they were alone right now, so Shuraina decided to be honest for now.
Shuraina began to whine about it being difficult, so Hylli put Shuraina down on the ground and opened his arms wide.
"You're not holding your arms out to hug me, right?"
When Shuraina asked with a frown, Hylli frowned back and blushed.
"No! Stop reading romance novels."
"But you read them more."
They argued for a bit before Hylli sighed and opened his arms out again.
"I won't retaliate, so you can vent your anger on me."
"Wow! Really?"
Shuraina regained her energy and jumped up from her spot. She stretched up and sideways. She grabbed a rock about her size and held it up high.
"Wait, hold on! I take it back, I take it back!"
Shuraina looked at his terrified expression and laughed loudly. She smiled the brightest she had the entire time and chased after Hylli.