Learning Time?
First of all, setting the current problem aside, my training progress up to this point hadn’t been all that bad. If anything, it was far better than most hunter aspirants my age.
“Whoa, what the fuck. That move was insanely complicated, and you nailed the whole thing in three hours. Are you even human?”
“……You’re the one who taught me a move that was supposed to be short and simple, so what are you even saying?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be short. Normally, that technique takes three weeks to learn, Teacher.”
“Huh?”
“And if you finish it that fast, it just means I have even more to teach you today.”
Learn, and absorb. Absorb techniques quickly. Especially since I’d been mastering mana manipulation while learning swordsmanship, my balance and efficiency weren’t lacking either. Naturally, I had more than enough time on my hands—so much that I poured the excess straight back into training, and my progress never slowed.
According to Cheon Mari, at this rate I’d master all the necessary martial arts before the end of my third year of high school. Even if using my Time Esper ability and learning various spells was delayed for now, everything would supposedly be ready by the time I entered the academy. If things went according to plan, it would be the best possible scenario. At the very least, I wouldn’t be looked down on when I got in.
But how often does anything in this world go according to plan? The very reason I was even doing this was because someone’s insane stunt had already derailed my entire life plan.
Then, right in the middle of learning, I hit a wall.
“Uh……?”
“Sian?”
It wasn’t my own problem. This was something separate from individual talent. A matter of innate aptitude—more precisely, a problem on the teacher’s side.
“Hold on, Mari. You’re doing it…… by going all the way around like that? And then……”
“You just zip-zap, whoosh-shoom, clang-clang! Then twist your waist and pop-pop! Pew-pew! And that’s it!”
That wasn’t an explanation—that was just noise. It was a problem I’d been worried about from the start. Cheon Mari’s talent for teaching others was catastrophically bad, and it had finally come back to bite us.
“No, wait! Like this—chop-chop, chop! Spin around, pour in mana, and boom! Then the second you grab the enemy, you just wreck them, got it?”
“Even with Time Esper, I still can’t tell what you’re doing.”
Basic martial arts could be learned just by watching and copying. Beginner techniques could be mastered by recording them and reviewing the footage over and over. But starting from the intermediate level, even that became impossible. The movements were so complex that recording them on camera was pointless. Every time I got stuck, I had to ask Cheon Mari, and the answers I got were…… less than helpful.
Of course, if I kept asking, she would eventually demonstrate the move in slow motion. But because the techniques were so intricate, she had to repeat them multiple times. Time dragged on endlessly. Sometimes it took an entire day just to learn a single move. And as the martial arts grew more advanced, the mana consumption increased along with them, so the amount of time I could actually train each day kept shrinking.
There was a solution—mana potions—but Cheon Mari was firmly against using them.
“Well, it’s true that if you use up all your mana and recover, your total mana capacity does increase in the process.”
“Then why are you telling me not to use potions?”
“Because recovery has to happen naturally. If you force it with artificial means, your total capacity barely grows at all.”
“Still, it’s ‘barely,’ right? If I use potions to increase the number of recoveries, wouldn’t that help at least a little?”
“If your total barely increases, what’s the point of doing it more times?”
“Ah……”
“Besides, you’re already taking mana growth agents. That’s how you’re able to draw out this much mana in the first place. For the sake of future efficiency, we can’t do that.”
“I looked it up online, and people said using potions works just fine for increasing capacity.”
“Only brain-dead idiots who believe every rumor would say that. And how many of those idiots are actually high-rank? Even if some of them are high-rank, how many have actually verified it properly?”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Besides, if you asked doctors or top-tier hunters, they’d just ask where that nonsense even came from.”
So that was that. In the end, I had no choice but to keep training with whatever pitiful amount of mana I had left. Training time gradually shrank, while rest time grew longer. At first we just talked or lounged around, but eventually even that stopped.
“Kang Sian. There’s a break room downstairs. Want to just go rest there?”
“Yeah, sure.”
One day, we ended up in the break room. It had a plain TV, a fridge, and a table—nothing more. It was clearly made for employees to rest when they were tired. In other words, it was far too shabby for someone like Cheon Mari, the daughter of a wealthy family, to use.
“This is my spot!”
She didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion. Contrary to my expectations, she didn’t seem to mind at all. Cheon Mari threw herself onto the single sofa, flopped down, and immediately turned on the TV. The image I had in my head of a rich young lady sank even further into the abyss.
“Hey, where’s my spot?”
“There’s a chair right there. Or you could sit on the floor in front of me.”
With a perfectly good sofa right there? Obviously, I had no intention of doing that. I told her it looked soft and sat right on her stomach. It was actually pretty firm, but she still made a huge fuss, and before we knew it we’d completely forgotten about training and started wrestling instead.
The next day, I claimed the sofa first, and Cheon Mari tried to steal it back. We bickered again, and it seemed like it would never end. Realizing neither of us would get to rest at this rate, we called a truce. After a deep, rational discussion in pursuit of fairness and logic, we reached a conclusion—the communist-style solution where everyone suffers equally. We would both lie on the sofa in uncomfortable positions.
The sofa was ridiculously narrow, so the positions ended up looking pretty weird. Still, they say awkward postures are good for your health, so it couldn’t be that bad.
“Aigoo.”
“Aigoo indeed.”
It was truly an astonishing conclusion. And so, our days of eating snacks and watching TV during training breaks continued. I thought nothing much would change from here, but our dear friend always exceeded expectations.
One day, when we went to the break room, a new shelf had appeared.
🎞 Cheon Mari’s Selection of Cinematic Masterpieces 🎞
※ These are genuinely expensive, so handle with care!
“I brought some movie discs from home. There’s a disc player under the TV, so just put them in and watch.”
“Oh…… But why don’t I recognize any of these movies?”
Un Chien Andalou
Martyrs
Eraserhead
The Act of Killing
The Woman Who Was Called One-Eyed
……
Cao Cao (film)
How strange. Well, as long as it killed time, it was fine. After that, we watched movies whenever we had spare time. Of course, unlike the person whose eyes sparkled every single time, after watching a few I had no desire to watch any more.
“Kang Sian, how about this movie today? Hm?”
“No. I’m never watching another movie you recommend.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“Lord Cao has descended upon the Central Plains. Long live the great and venerable Chancellor Cao. From this moment on, Lord Cao shall begin his righteous education. You showed me that same repetitive garbage last time—why would I trust you again?”
“C’mon, just trust me one more time. This one’s actually a rare film.”
So I trusted her—and was betrayed again. The next day, I glared at Cheon Mari as she pulled out yet another bizarre movie.
“What the hell is this, Elephant? After showing me that Russian abuse simulation, what kind of dogshit movie have you handpicked this time?”
“This one’s real! Do you know how much money I spent trying to get this?”
“Bullshit.”
“No, I’m serious! Just look at the cover—doesn’t it scream classic masterpiece documentary?”
“Ugh……”
So once again, I watched it on the assumption I was being tricked. And while watching, I ended up smacking her back repeatedly.
“Ugh, I can’t live like this!”
“Ack, ahh! Ah!”
This one was at least a somewhat normal classic horror film with a chainsaw in it. The real problem was that she kept messing around the entire time we were watching.
“Ah, ahahaha! Kang Sian, you crazy bastard, stop tickling me—ahhhehehet!!!”
“You had the nerve to call me a scaredy-cat. Taste this.”
“Kang Sian, ah, no! Lord Sian!! Big brother Sian, ahhahaha—sorry! Sorry! I surrender!!!”
And so the two of us spent our school days bickering, rolling around, and laughing until our sides hurt. It might have been full of nuisance and frustration, but personally, I found those school days fun. They were so fun that I completely lost track of time. So much so that before I knew it, my first year of high school was right around the corner.
“Oh, shit.”
“Mother is a good movie.”
Training and playing, over and over. But the reality that out of five hours of supposed training time, four hours and forty minutes were spent playing felt completely absurd. Was this really what happened even after taking mana growth agents? Was it really okay to just play around once my mana ran out? If things continued like this, I might get rejected from the academy the moment I graduated.
It would probably be better to adjust my goals realistically and move forward. At least then, even if things didn’t go exactly according to plan, the current situation would be maintained. After thinking it over, I decided to speak to Cheon Mari directly.
“This isn’t working. We need to change the method.”
No, that wasn’t quite right. I was going to abandon the current method entirely.