Training (5)
Training (5)
When training started, Atra informed me plainly that she had no bias for or against special admissions.
She said there would be no systematic curriculum—we'd train through live sparring, close to real combat. She added that it would hurt enough to wring the tears out of me, so I should bite down and keep up.
Two small lies mixed in there.
"No bias for or against special admissions." A lie. In truth, she tilted a little toward "against."
Teaching someone.
Not just giving an ordinary lecture, but personally instructing a student one-on-one—that stirred memories I found intensely unpleasant.
Memories I didn't want to recall. But now and then, I couldn't help recalling them anyway.
If anyone else had made this suggestion, I'd have told them to shove it and cursed them out. If they kept running their mouth after that, I'd have thrown a fist straight into it.
But the one who proposed it was none other than the Master of the Cradle—someone who had extended me numerous courtesies, my benefactor, a person who knew my circumstances.
If even that person broached the subject, there had to be a reason. So I grudgingly consented.
A question lingered. Could this cadet truly be someone the headmaster would personally bring in? Was he worth it?
And my personal feelings further inclined my perception of one-on-one instruction toward "against."
No systematic teaching. That was true enough. Though, by my own standards, I was being reasonably systematic.
No matter how shit the work, you had to do the bare minimum to save face.
On the first day, the run was meant to gauge basic physical ability and will. There were other measurement methods, but you couldn't expect anything special from a newly awakened superhuman who'd only just manifested his powers.
'Bottom of the barrel.'
Physical ability was a failing grade among failing grades. Weak even accounting for someone freshly awakened—barely scraping lowest-grade.
Will... decent. Some grit there. But really, did it stand out uniquely? No.
His unique ability was detection-type.
Even blind, he could function in daily life normally. I hadn't measured it precisely, but extrapolating from the answers Lee Ha-yul gave, it was irregular among detection abilities and in the upper range.
The second day, I made him run again—to see how much he'd grown via the Blessing of Growth.
Normally, expecting results overnight would make you a crazy bitch. A person rarely grows in a single day. Even the newly awakened aren't that different.
But with the Blessing of Growth, it wasn't impossible. Siyoram was, by design, a place where growth outside the norm was possible. It wasn't for nothing that young superhumans desperately wished to enter Siyoram.
'Adequate.'
His growth rate was high compared to other cadets. But being higher than others, higher than the average—that was only natural.
A special admission cadet received a different multiplier. His growth should naturally outpace the rest.
Next, I put a sword in his hands and ran a simple test.
'Hmm.'
I might maintain a skewed gaze, but I didn't fabricate facts or deny reality.
In this area, he had a certain talent.
When I first handed him a sword and launched a surprise attack—he'd detected it beforehand and responded well. That surprised me.
After that, even without further comment, the moment-by-moment improvement stood out.
The arc of his blade grew sharper. His grip and stance shifted, becoming notably more stable.
At first, many movements looked awkward, as if copied from others. But as time passed, those movements changed, as if he were embodying them into his own technique.
Still, it was middling. There's talent. With effort, he might match those who possess a sword-technique-type unique ability. Alternatively, he might possess a technique-type unique ability on top of detection-type.
And?
Sword-technique-type unique abilities are countless. Among the countless who have that talent, the countless who've bled and sweated to reach mastery—they gather right here at Siyoram.
That didn't mean his talent was mediocre.
But if you attach the "special admission" label... I just think: really?
If it were general admission, I'd call it serviceable.
If it were recommended admission, I'd think it quite decent...
The special admission tag looms too large.
A frail body, passable mental fortitude, a high-grade detection ability, and swordsmanship that advances fairly fast.
All of it is unsuited for an unprecedented special admission.
Between the brilliant prospects of past golden generations and the potential Lee Ha-yul shows now, there was a massive gap.
Still, it's only been two days. He might have a special talent not in swords but elsewhere. It's too early to judge.
So the next day, I handed him a spear.
Accepting the spear, Lee Ha-yul wore a queasy expression. He turned the shaft over in his hands with a face that seemed to ask: is this right?
I get it. It's only been a day, but he'd adapted to the sword—and now I was telling him to switch weapons straight away.
As the proverb says, "Dig one well deep." When time and aptitude are finite, focusing on a single thing is indeed efficient.
But my thinking was a little different. Dig one well deep for efficiency... true.
But shouldn't you also learn how other wells are dug, and see what results come from them?
Does it even make sense to hold a sword forever and be ignorant of how to use a spear?
Even if you won't carry a spear, you need to know how to face one.
I, now in charge of Lee Ha-yul's combat major lecture, thought at least that much.
The reason for making Lee Ha-yul handle different weapons was to search for talent by experiencing various arms.
And the teaching aimed to let him grasp how to counter those arms by using them firsthand.
At the very least, I believed this, trained accordingly, and—after talent backed me up and I sweated blood through the effort—became a top-grade hero in the anti-personnel combat division.
"Here I come, then."
For a while, I'd gauge his talent this way. If Lee Ha-yul's talent didn't match the "special admission" label... I'd lower the training intensity and give him adequate instruction.
Looking at Lee Ha-yul, who had firmed his grip on the spear shaft as if mentally prepared, I issued a short warning and thrust my spear.
- Clang!
The spear was immediately struck aside.
'Hm?'
A faint sense of dissonance. I recovered my slightly wavering spear and thrust in again.
Three thrusts followed, toward the brow, the throat, the heart.
Yesterday, when Lee Ha-yul held the sword, he'd blocked the initial strike well, too. He'd deflected an attack I'd fully expected to land—quite decently.
But his follow-up responses had been clumsy. The links between moves were raw and easy to cut apart. You could even choke them out before the motion unfolded.
That was yesterday's Lee Ha-yul.
- Crash! Clang! Scrape!
He responds. The spear blocks all three thrusts. My eyes widened.
The linkage was remarkably smooth. At the very least, far better than yesterday's. I recovered the spear to confirm.
Then came a follow-up slash.
The spear is a weapon specialized for thrusting, but its length lends devastating power to cuts and swings too.
- Whoom!
The attack sliced empty air. Lee Ha-yul evaded by stepping back several paces instead of blocking, steadying the shaft and kicking off the ground.
'Hoh.'
From a missed slash, I transition into a thrust. An attack that changed in an instant. The spear-tip tore the wind. A straightforward thrust.
Clack! The spear that was cutting the air struck another spear. I didn't step back and worked my spear again. This time, Lee Ha-yul didn't retreat either and answered in kind.
Spear tangled with spear. They met with thrusts, blocked cuts, shafts collided and wrestled for leverage.
'This guy...'
What's his deal?
Amid the clashing spears, my eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
Yesterday's Lee Ha-yul. He'd handled the sword well. I'd called it clumsy, but for a first attempt, he really had handled it well.
Today's Lee Ha-yul. He was handling the spear well. Clumsy? By my standards, still clumsy. But he'd improved far beyond yesterday.
Yesterday, he trained the sword. But today he was using a spear. Yet he'd improved.
And.
- Clack! Taptap! Chink!
He was still improving. At a markedly steep pace. Faster even than yesterday.
To test it, I raised the level. Physical output stayed the same, but the density of technique increased.
Lee Ha-yul, who'd been answering back fairly confidently, furrowed his brow. As if facing me head-on was too much, he switched to deflecting instead of contesting directly.
Both legs moved like flowing over the ground. The awkward footwork I'd pointed out had improved as well. Thanks to that, his freed-up upper body blocked attacks and occasionally slipped in counters.
He seemed to put more effort into defense and counterattack than offense. I played along. I didn't use other tactics; I pounded his defense from the front.
The spear that blocked the thrust aimed at his throat wobbled precariously. His spear's defensive formation wavered as if about to break.
But he held the final line. Still, as yesterday, no blow had yet reached him.
And more than anything, his physical level was different from yesterday... No, that wasn't it.
Something unusual was going on.
I narrowed my eyes. I hadn't reached a clear judgment yet. I lacked the grounds to conclude. To build those grounds, I needed to press Lee Ha-yul harder.
To set his future direction, I needed a little more—
- Brace yourself, Master! The moment I catch up, I'll pay you back for everything you've done!
'......'
An unpleasant memory. Again, it surfaced.
After a hundred-some exchanges, his defense was breached.
* * *
The spear flies at me without a moment's pause. I sense it via spatial perception and respond as best I can, but before I can fully handle one, another—another!—strike comes flying in.
'Gyaaah...!'
Yesterday he put a sword in my hands. Today he tells me to use a spear. No, I ran simulations all last night and this morning exclusively with the sword, and now you say 'spear.'
I didn't understand, but I picked up the spear anyway. An expert had told me to, so there had to be a reason.
Luckily, maybe because the combat category overlapped, I could handle the spear decently. Perhaps because the simulations I ran while cutting down on sleep paid off, I managed to block everything at first without taking a single hit.
Thanks to yesterday's sparring and what happened this morning, I'd spent time thinking hard about spatial perception.
I saw Calamity Flame blazing fiercely. It wasn't my first time seeing it, but it had never flickered like today, and I'd never seen it as vividly.
Spatial perception.
On the first day, the sheer flood of information nearly killed me. After that, the stripped-down radar-style spatial perception had far too little information.
My current spatial perception uses light and dark... meaning a version that recognizes color—its performance is hardly different from normal human eyes.
But I had a thought.
Radar spatial perception lacked information. Without color recognition, daily life was inconvenient. But did it fail to perceive motion? No. It perceived motion just fine.
I asked myself. During combat, is color that important? Depends on the kind of combat.
But it wasn't necessary in yesterday's sparring when I fought with a sword.
The information spatial perception can absorb has a limit. More precisely, I have a limit to what I can process.
On the first day, my brain couldn't cope with the overwhelming information load, hence the overload.
Radar spatial perception and color spatial perception.
In a sparring match, when it comes to distinguishing simple movements, which spatial perception is more efficient?
- Scraape...! Chink! Chang-chink!
The answer is radar mode. At the very least, I can feel Atra's movements better than yesterday.
A world of black and green. A nauseatingly unpleasant sight—but for combat, this suits me better than color.
My skill at handling spatial perception has grown considerably, too; even with radar spatial perception, I can now roughly distinguish facial features.
Where a palm used to feel flat before, now I even perceive the lines of a palm.
Thanks to that, I'm sensing more than yesterday and responding to it.
Plus, the simulations I ran even through sleep helped tremendously.
In fact, the main reason I ran simulations like my life depended on it was that it hurt so damn much.
Honestly, I thought I might actually die if I kept getting beaten this badly for days on end.
Growth must be accompanied by pain. I've heard that somewhere.
But there's another saying.
Better than growth accompanied by pain is growth without pain.
Simple. I didn't want a clubbing.
I've been used to getting hit since I was young, but being used to it doesn't mean I want to keep enduring it.
With that kind of drive, I worked hard... and yet—!
- Chink-chang! Smack! Clang! Smack!
"Here. Here."
"Guhk! Gaarghk!"
The spear shaft broke through my defense and lashed my shoulder and thigh. I bit down hard at the sting of pain crawling up my spine.
'I'm still getting hit just the same...!'
I improved compared to yesterday...!
At first I blocked well, but then Professor Atra raised the difficulty and in a flash ripped my defense apart, delivering a beating.
- Smack!
"Your counters are sloppy, so your opponent gets more chances to attack. Doesn't that make every blow against your defense hit even harder?"
- Chink-chang! Thud!
"Use your legs properly. Your arms swing the spear, but ultimately your body moves through your legs."
- Thud!
"Don't think of actions in isolation—link them. One move affects what follows."
But I couldn't just lie there whimpering, because each blow came immediately followed by legitimate instruction.
If she'd just beat me senseless with no teaching, I might've offered some resistance, but since I could see she was trying to teach me something, resisting felt awkward.
A few hours later.
Once again, I was the one sprawled on the ground.
As I lay there blankly, absently touching the battered spear, Professor Atra—who'd seemed to be mulling something over—approached.
"You've unquestionably improved compared to yesterday. Growth beyond expectations."
But that didn't get me out of the beating. Not even after I'd sacrificed almost all my sleep and even the normal vision I'd earned through hardship.
After a few more words, Professor Atra turned her back and left the training yard. My head was foggy enough that what she'd just said didn't stick right away.
"......?"
Something's weird.
I thought it over for a moment, then let out a soft sigh: Ah.
'W-water...?'
Usually she'd at least give me water after we finished,
why didn't she today...?
I'm really thirsty...