Training (3)
Training (3)
At first I thought I'd misheard.
She handed me a steel sword, then came charging at me gripping a wooden one.
A wooden sword attacking a steel one. That's insane by any normal standard.
And I'm technically blind, aren't I? Sure, I've got a detection ability, but my eyes are closed.
Normally this would look like crazy behavior, but once I considered the gap between me and Professor Atra, I concluded there had to be intent behind it.
She's a professor in the combat track. Just speculation, but she's likely at least an upper-grade hero in terms of skill.
So I drew my sword without hesitation.
I tightened my grip on the blade as Professor Atra rushed in.
I swung with everything I had, aiming to resist. I figured she'd block or dodge on her own no matter how I swung.
That prediction was spot-on. My blade didn't even graze Professor Atra.
She evaded every strike by a hair's breadth with uncanny body control. When I thrust, she tilted her head and dodged. When I swung wide, she avoided it without shifting a single step.
After evading several times as if she could see the future, Professor Atra raised her wooden sword, her face impassive.
— Tack! Tack! Tack!
"Here, here, here."
An attack following the evasion. She dodged my sword like she was out for a stroll, closed in, and then smacked me all over with that wooden sword.
Head, shoulder, arm, ribs, thigh, calf... she distributed the blows quite evenly as she struck.
I barely suppressed the scream trying to burst out. If a scream escaped, there was a chance the curses would chain-activate.
The pain wasn't lethal, but it was enough to force a scream out. Holding it back was the real ordeal.
Is this what they call Spartan education?
She dodged absolutely everything I swung at her, all while giving pointers on how to swing, then leisurely closed in and smacked me here and there, calling those spots my openings.
It was a merciless beating without a shred of pity. Almost enough to make me doubt her claim of having no particular thoughts about special admission.
I even checked her expression, wondering if she actually disliked me, but it was just a blunt, emotionless look.
— Tack! Tack! Smack!
The beating went on.
.
.
.
The lecture didn't end until I'd been thoroughly pummeled by a wooden sword for hours.
"That's all for today."
Professor Atra approached me as I lay sprawled on the dirt, a complete mess.
As if offering some recompense, she set a water bottle by my head. In my state, water was urgent enough that I reached out with a trembling arm.
By then, evening had come, and the ground was tinged with pale orange sunset hues.
"For the next few weeks, the lessons will follow the same format as today."
Oh, god.
I nearly choked on the water I was sipping.
At the thought that I'd be getting beaten up for weeks, the corners of my eyes twitched.
I felt like I might cry at the thought of having to get hit like this again tomorrow.
My whole body ached. Yesterday's pain was from overusing my body. This pain was from getting beaten.
"Furthermore, do not receive recovery or healing from other superhumans if you can avoid it."
Ah... I had a guess at the reason, and I hated it.
"If you go through a healing-type unique ability, the wounds will vanish immediately, but most of today's training gains will be lost, and it will hinder the development of your intrinsic recovery. So entrust yourself to natural healing where possible."
Physical growth occurs through the simple process of muscles tearing and recovering.
Muscles torn by harsh exercise strengthen so they won't tear next time—and that is physical growth.
Healing-type unique abilities branch into several effects, but most are classified as either 'Instant Recovery' or 'Recovery Amplification,' as I recall.
If you slam torn muscles with Instant Recovery, they heal before they can even begin to grow.
Recovery Amplification is similar. Less so than Instant Recovery, but ultimately it relies on external help, which delays growth.
In other words, I had to return covered in bruises.
"For reference, this regimen was planned on the premise that your detection ability could substitute for ordinary vision. And as I expected, I've judged that it can replace sight, so I'll continue the lessons according to this schedule."
Perhaps sensing my puzzlement, Professor Atra added an explanation.
"Arrive on time tomorrow as well."
With those closing words, Professor Atra turned her back.
Lying flat on the ground with my back against the earth, I felt the breeze blowing. I exhaled vacantly.
The ground was clearly behind me, and my face was aimed at the sky, but the sky remained invisible. A suffocating feeling.
One more thing I realized anew: the importance of Spatial Perception.
I felt so apologetic for cursing Spatial Perception early on. If Spatial Perception hadn't been able to substitute for sight? I... I'm not sure I could have survived.
No matter how much that ability screwed over its user from the start, right now it was indispensable.
'Whew.'
I let out a heavy sigh and replayed the sparring in my mind. This too was thanks to that filial son, Spatial Perception.
I've barely ever swung a sword in my life. I've held a blade a handful of times, and aside from cooking when I lived alone, even less than that.
And when it comes to combat, even more so. I've been beaten plenty of times, but I've rarely ever hit someone else.
The spar with Professor Atra just now. Every sword swing I made had mimicked movements I'd glimpsed during friendly sparring matches.
The bout between Katsuki Yusei and Hong Yeon-hwa. Both used wooden swords, and their mana remained at the level of body reinforcement. They didn't use their unique abilities either.
Almost identical rules to what just happened.
I compared my movements from a moment ago with the movements of Hong Yeon-hwa and Katsuki Yusei.
'Hmm...'
The internal evaluation result: a mess. Something that couldn't even be placed on the same comparison line...
When I lined them up side by side and focused on comparing, it was so clumsy it was laughable.
Katsuki Yusei's sword had a gentle flow like a river current.
Though he was steadily being pushed back by Hong Yeon-hwa, even then his sword combinations never broke, and from moment to moment they produced results that sealed off Hong Yeon-hwa's blade.
Hong Yeon-hwa's style was bold and daring, as if her personality had soaked through.
Every motion carried weight, making it burdensome for an opponent to defend. Yet her movements weren't sluggish either, which made her attacks tricky to evade.
Her actions seemed large and flashy, giving the appearance of many openings, but every single one of those was a trap—charge in recklessly and you'd lose your head.
That's why Katsuki Yusei, who wielded a defensive swordsmanship style, got tangled in Hong Yeon-hwa's flow and ultimately lost.
Their sword proficiency itself was comparable, but let's just say the matchup was poor. Even before technique, the sheer stat gap was significant.
Right off the bat, Hong Yeon-hwa was at the level of having solo-subjugated a 5th-Rank Monster. Although Calamity Flame accounted for a large portion, it was still Hong Yeon-hwa's skill that evaded the monster's attacks and landed the Calamity Flame.
Compared to that, I was...
My sword kept cutting in and out. River current? More like water droplets sputtering from a faucet that wasn't fully submerged.
I couldn't chain one strike into the next, and in those gaps Professor Atra calmly cut in and struck. Even if I'd managed to link my strikes, given the level of my skill, she'd have cut in anyway.
Part of it was Professor Atra's doing, constantly cutting my flow short.
The moment I tried to settle into a stance, she pushed in. She'd thrust in before I could even raise my sword, making me fumble midway. Even when I succeeded in attacking, she evaded, then ruthlessly smacked me before I could restore my stance.
Unlike Hong Yeon-hwa, I had no powerful attacks. Partly because my base stats were bottom-of-the-barrel trash, but I also lacked the instinctive ability to read openings and bring the blade down like Hong Yeon-hwa.
In short, my score was a flat zero.
And Professor Atra?
I discarded the image I'd built up so far and called up the image of Professor Atra I'd observed through Spatial Perception throughout the entire spar.
...Professor Atra had nothing you could really call a distinguishing feature.
She held her stance firmly. She cut in at appropriate moments. She shut down my flow before I could attack. She cut my flow short before I could continue it. When the flow broke, she struck.
When an attack came in, she dodged by a hair's breadth. Not with unpredictable movements, but with perfectly natural postures. The kind of response anyone could think of.
And then she transitioned into attack.
It was textbook movement. Most of the motions were ones I'd seen in the swordsmanship manuals I'd skimmed before. Utterly plain overall.
Which meant I could imitate it too.
I kept recalling it. The data was overflowing. Over the course of hours of getting beaten, Professor Atra's movements were continuously observed and stored.
Katsuki Yusei's movements. Hong Yeon-hwa's movements. Professor Atra's movements... and my own movements.
I placed them on the same line, comparing and analyzing them.
The manner of planting the feet. The distribution of breathing. The method of managing distance. The way of gripping the sword. When to adjust stance. The center of gravity in the lower body. The twist of the shoulders. The direction of the pupils. The handling of the gaze. The transition from defense to attack.
I processed the data. Converted it into information.
I applied the information to myself. Fixed what needed fixing. Ripped things apart and reassembled them anew. Ran mental simulations, and if it didn't seem right, tore it apart again.
The result was still the same defeat, but within that process, the me inside my imagination seemed to be making a little progress each time.
I repeated the mental images. Kept repeating based on the data obtained from Spatial Perception.
As the sun slipped out of sight behind the earth, the sunset faded. In its wake, starlight spread across the night sky and shone upon the ground.
A tickling sensation arose in a corner of my mind. A subtle stimulus—frustrating since I couldn't scratch it directly, yet stirring a sense of anticipation.
It resembled the signs of change I'd received while agonizing over Spatial Perception back in my studio apartment before coming to the dorms.
But this time it wasn't Spatial Perception.
'All-Rounder.'
Combat Arts, Body Arts, Martial Arts, Swordsmanship, Spear Art, Crafting, Cooking, Mana Manipulation Art, and so on. A generalist-type unique ability that grants minimum aptitude across all manner of skill types.
I'd caught signs of change. I'd also gotten a sense of how to grow it.
A satisfied smile bloomed.
.
.
.
'Ah, review.'
I finally remembered after lying there in a daze for a while.
I scrambled up and headed for the dormitory. Thanks to the 24-hour shuttle bus, I arrived quickly.
So ended the day.
"Who did this?"
[Y-yes?]
"What the fuck... who did this to you?"
The next day.
Hong Yeon-hwa's face, which I encountered in the lecture hall, contorted like a demon's.
She looked terrifying enough to make me want to flee on the spot.