Private Training Ground (1)
“Aaaah. I can feel the fatigue melting away.”
The words slipped out on their own the moment I sank into the bath. This instant of collapsing after grinding myself half to death and then soaking in the tub—wasn’t this actually the true happiness of life?
My body felt like it was going completely limp. It was only natural that a body steeped in exhaustion would go slack the second it hit warm water, so there was no helping it.
I seemed to have gotten used to this body by now. Looking at my naked form no longer stirred any particular thoughts.
Instead of these useless musings, maybe I should try thinking about something more productive.
“It’s about time I headed out to the battlefield, isn’t it?”
According to the old records, previous Saintesses began using their Grace for the sake of others only a few days after receiving it from the Goddess.
But I had been a Saintess for quite a while already. By this point the upper ranks of the Church should have made some kind of move.
And yet they still showed no movement at all?
“Looks like they really don’t want to send me to the battlefield.”
I could understand why. There had been Saintesses who were martyred on the battlefield. They would want to avoid putting a Saintess in danger as much as possible.
But in the end I would go to the battlefield. There was nowhere else for my Grace to regularly shine, after all.
No—more precisely, the current battlefield desperately needed my Grace.
The existence that served as humanity’s main enemy in Grand Fantasy. Another name for the extinction of the human race.
“The Demon King.”
Aside from the demonkin who sought to wipe out humanity following the Demon King’s will, mankind had no other enemies.
So naturally the muzzle of my beam weapon would be aimed at the demonkin as well—both before the tutorial of Grand Fantasy and after.
And the demonkin existed only on the battlefield.
To be exact, the battlefield was the result of stopping the demonkin from invading the Empire and slaughtering civilians.
Why only take hits? Why not counterattack?
It wasn’t that they didn’t; they couldn’t.
“Because if you enter the demonkin’s stronghold, everyone dies.”
According to the setting of Grand Fantasy, the demonkin lived inside the barrier the Demon King had raised.
The territory within that barrier was called the Demon Realm in Grand Fantasy, and the Demon King expended considerable power just to maintain it.
Thinking about the Demon Realm suddenly made the whole thing feel absurd.
“No matter how I look at it, the Demon Realm is a balance breaker. Even if they wanted to hype up the Hero, there’s no way a cheat like that should exist.”
The Demon Realm was a stark example that nakedly displayed the power of the Demon King, the so-called concept of humanity’s extinction.
Inside the Demon Realm the concept of humanity simply did not exist. It was not permitted.
That was both a law and a providence.
In exchange the Demon King had to bear the risk of being stuck inside the Demon King’s Castle to keep the Demon Realm running, but the return compared to the risk was so enormous that the risk no longer felt like a risk at all.
Anyway, because of this Demon Realm, humanity could not counterattack even while being beaten by the demonkin.
Until the Hero arrived, that is.
“More accurately, until the Holy Sword arrived, they could do nothing.”
Those who received the Grace of the Holy Sword could survive even inside the Demon Realm. That was the law.
The law of the Holy Sword offset the law of the Demon Realm.
Of course the Holy Sword wasn’t omnipotent either. Only four people could receive its Grace.
But it seemed to balance things out in that there was no need to bear any risk whatsoever.
“Anyway. There’s still five years left until the Hero appears.”
Until then humanity had to keep focusing solely on defense.
But the reality was that they were gradually being pushed back by the demonkin’s attacks.
The defensive lines slowly receding was proof of that.
In this situation a Saintess who had received the Grace of Bombardment appears?
It painted a perfect picture. A Saintess sweeping away the demonkin who threatened humanity on the battlefield.
Moreover her firepower surpassed most long-incantation magic, yet she could fire faster than short-incantation spells?
“It would be stranger not to deploy her to the battlefield.”
By now they were probably preparing measures to ensure my safety as much as possible even on the battlefield.
Of course if I firmly expressed that I didn’t want to go, I might not have to. In the end the Church had to respect my will. But I had no such intention.
Honestly I didn’t want to go to the battlefield either. Who in the world would want to walk into a place that dangerous?
Even so, I felt the necessity of going.
As of now the place where I could regularly and most efficiently accumulate real combat experience was the battlefield.
I do not overestimate myself. Until recently I was an ordinary citizen who had lived a life far removed from fighting.
Could someone like me immediately adapt to the story of Grand Fantasy, where I would have to kill countless demonkin?
Me, who had never even killed a single animal?
“I’d be lucky just not to panic.”
I needed to become a combat veteran through real experience. The story of Grand Fantasy was by no means easy.
Think about it. The Demon Realm is a place where no allies exist at all.
There, including the Hero, just four people have to survive in the demonkin stronghold and take the Demon King’s head.
“…It’s not just ‘not easy’—the difficulty is insane.”
Moreover there were the surprise attacks from the Imperial Palace and the Holy See that could happen at any time. The perpetrators of those attacks were the demonkin.
If I had experience fighting demonkin on the battlefield, I would be able to deal with their surprise attacks more skillfully.
“And because I can obtain [that].”
To obtain [that], I absolutely had to go to the battlefield.
Of course I had no intention of heading out right now. I planned to go once I became strong enough for Andreus to acknowledge me.
“Safety first. Even a stone bridge should be tapped before crossing.”
So what should I do from now on?
“First I need to reach a level where I can freely mix close combat and bombardment in a fight.”
I also needed to check how accurate my aim actually was.
I did have experience with shooting from my time in the military.
But a beam weapon that had to be fired while lifted up around waist height and a gun that could be shouldered with a mechanical sight for some degree of aiming were completely different weapons.
So my experience shooting guns was likely of no help at all.
Close-range bombardment wouldn’t be a big problem, but long-range bombardment would probably have significantly lower accuracy, right?
Of course when I fired bombardments at the private training ground tomorrow, the results might differ from my expectations.
“I wish tomorrow would come soon. ……Huh?”
For a moment I wondered what I had just said. I wish tomorrow would come soon?
Tomorrow I had to do a mock battle with Andreus that allowed bombardment—essentially real combat. It would definitely be a far more merciless mock battle than usual.
And yet I was looking forward to it?
But this strangely floating feeling was definitely anticipation.
“I must finally have gone crazy.”
Saying that, I climbed out of the bath. I must have soaked too long in the hot water; my brain had gone soft and fried.
Concluding that, I returned to my room.
For some reason I couldn’t fall asleep even lying in bed today, but anyway it wasn’t anticipation.
Anyway, it wasn’t.
In fact I had been a little worried.
Until now there had been no precedent in this world for a training ground built for someone who used beam weapons that looked like they had stepped straight out of science fiction.
So I had assumed the first private training ground would have many shortcomings in various ways.
And the Church shattered that worry of mine in the best possible sense.
“…Is this really okay? Didn’t you spend way too much of the Church’s budget?”
I had thought at most they would have built the training ground in some remote corner of the Holy See so my bombardments wouldn’t cause collateral damage.
I never imagined they would even construct a shooting range.
The shooting range was a large hill with targets of various sizes painted all over it—designed so both close-range and long-range fire could be practiced.
Honestly, looking at it reminded me of a military live-fire range and left me feeling strangely nostalgic, but there was no helping it. Apparently this form of range was widely used among mages as well.
Bombardment limit: thirty shots. That upper limit was higher than I had expected.
A few shots and this place would be a mess, yet they said thirty were allowed? While I was still harboring doubts, Andreus bent one knee.
He swept the ground once with his palm, then spoke with a rigidly hardened expression.
“The ground has been replaced with Memory Mud.”
“…What?!!?!! You replaced the ground with that!!?!!”
The moment I heard Andreus’s words I momentarily doubted my ears, wondering if I had misheard.
But my ears had clearly caught the words Memory Mud.
Memory Mud.
It looked like ordinary mud, but once a certain amount of mana was poured into it, Memory Mud hardened while retaining a slight elasticity.
And once hardened, Memory Mud continued to try to maintain that form—even against heat, cold, or impact.
Even just hearing the description made it sound incredibly useful as a construction material, yet if you suggested actually using Memory Mud that way people would call you insane.
First of all, Memory Mud was extremely rare. And yet it was useful. Demand was more than sufficient while supply was far too lacking?
That meant it was insanely expensive.
“D-don’t tell me that shooting range too—”
“We’ll have to check to be certain, but it seems likely.”
The amount of Memory Mud required to completely overhaul the ground and even create the shooting-range hill.
Literally an astronomical budget had been poured into my private training ground.
“A-are you insane?! Spending this much money on just one training ground!?!!!”
“…I was honestly surprised as well, but if I think of it as being for the Saintess, it is fully understandable.”
“…What?”
“We are servants of the Goddess. Therefore it is only natural that we devote ourselves for the Saintess, who is the incarnation of the Goddess.”
It’s no use. Words don’t get through. This is why fanatics are terrifying. Common sense simply doesn’t apply.
The problem was, I had thought only the Holy Knights had this fanatical streak—but did the Church leaders like the Pope and the cardinals share the same fanaticism?
No, right? They just happened to have stockpiled Memory Mud and, while wondering where to use it, my private training ground turned out to be a convenient place, so they used it?
“…Let’s just train.”
Trying to think any further made my head start to hurt.
It seemed far more efficient to empty my brain and move without a single idle thought.