At Least 100,000 Times
...I would have to do it at least a hundred thousand times.
The training ground sat near the club room. It had originally been the Spear Arts Club's exclusive facility, but as the club shrank, it had supposedly been converted into a shared space for all the minor clubs.
Spears being classified as a minor discipline was absurd from the very start.
"There's no one here?"
"It's the minor clubs' training ground, after all."
Ene Lizua, the club president, pushed open the window of the deserted hall. Dust swirled thick in the light that poured through the frame.
Looks like this place hasn't been used in a while either.
"In the first place, 'training' was something only combat clubs bothered with. Since we're literally minor, hardly anyone comes, and the training itself faded away too."
Besides, this had been the Spear Arts Club's grounds to begin with. The Academy had plenty of shared training halls, and any club of real size had one built right into its club room — nobody had any reason to trek out to this forgotten corner just to practice.
"Anyway... here."
Ene handed me a spear — the least decrepit-looking of the ones that had been sitting in storage. I took it, ran through a quick inspection, and turned to face her.
She was already settling into her stance.
"Like I said before, I won't be going easy on you."
"Ah. Neither will I."
"...Begin."
Ene moved first. Whether her claim about testing my qualifications was sincere or not, a green blaze erupted from her spear — deeper and richer than the worn green of the shaft itself.
Life Mana.
The source of the World Tree, and a form of mana carried by every living thing born and raised beneath it. The mana-soaked spear came screaming in, its tip locked onto my right arm.
I shifted my blade and batted it aside.
Teeeing!
Metal shrieked against metal. Ene was knocked back a full step, then immediately folded recovery and counterattack into a single motion — a movement that should have been impossible. But the Life Mana was lending reach and momentum to her spear, and her half-elf body carried the rest.
She had a genuine talent for handling weapons.
Clang...!
"...!"
Her attack jammed against mine a second time. Her spear tip had slid straight down and caught itself on my lowered blade.
Her spear was the better weapon by a wide margin, but so long as you read the flow of force correctly, it was well within the range you could stop. Our mana levels were roughly even, so brute-forcing through was out of the question.
"Nnngh...!"
KWAGAGAGA!
The spear multiplied.
Or rather, it appeared to multiply.
Not quite the Split Spear — one real spear hiding among phantoms. A simple trick of the eye, then.
Had she materialized all of the illusions, it might actually have been worth something. I swung my spear in a wide arc, picked the true one out from among the phantoms, and cleaved it clean in half.
Tududuk!
"Wh-what—"
In the same motion, I swept away every phantom spear that had been deceiving my eyes. The illusions dissolved into shapeless mush like scattered water the instant they touched my shaft.
And then.
KAANG!
"If you want to use deception, you should learn to deceive properly first."
One light flick of my shaft against its end, and Ene's spear shaft clattered uselessly to the floor. As her final trump card — the hidden blade aimed at my back — went tumbling across the ground, her expression twisted completely out of shape.
"...How did you see through it?"
"You used the phantoms and the real spear up front to draw my gaze, then — right when it seemed like everything was finished — you quietly conjured a clone spear and sent it at my back."
Zzaang.
"That might work on amateurs, but against someone at your level or above, it won't get through."
Ene Lizua had formed a single clone spear with physical force behind it and aimed for my rear guard. I couldn't tell whether she'd summoned only one because that was her limit, or deliberately, as part of the deception — but judging by the flow of her mana, it was almost certainly the former.
"In that case, you simply do this instead."
"Huh... wha?"
I raised my spear.
Six green spears took shape around me.
Six is my limit right now, apparently.
"Simply launching them outward is one valid answer. If you burn your mental focus preparing a single trick, you may well fail to see the thing you actually needed to watch."
In war and battle alike, you never know where the next attack will come from. You could be locked in combat with an ancient monster when a distracted beast gets blasted by an angel's strike and comes crashing into your battlefield, flattening everything in the process. You could be holding back a horde of magic beasts when the fallout from angels and demons warring across the continent reaches all the way here and erases an entire kingdom from the map.
The examples were extreme, admittedly...
But not wrong.
Back then, with a stroke of bad luck, a whole species could be annihilated and a kingdom wiped away in a single morning. Even when they'd done nothing wrong at all.
"Rather than thinking only of your own attack, you need to read your opponent's as well. Though if the gap is severe enough, there's no need to bother."
"......"
"Or you can make use of other abilities. Use magic to assist your attack calculations, or shake the opponent's mind instead. There are plenty of methods."
Which was exactly why I preferred the hammer. In the face of one overwhelming blow, technique, numbers, raw strength — none of it mattered. That was the reason I rarely used magic for anything beyond support, even though I knew spells on the level of a grand archmage. Rather than assembling a magic formula in the middle of a desperate fight, it was simply better to swing the spear or hammer one more time.
If I were facing demons, the story would be different.
Ene Lizua swallowed hard as she stared at the six spears, each one flawless in form.
No... at this level...
"Um... junior?"
"Yes?"
"I can't make anything like that."
Could those even be called spears anymore?
"Haven't they... gone beyond the level of a spear entirely?"
"I didn't realize you were the type to quibble over that."
"No! This is practically magic!"
A clone spear was nothing more than a bladeless shaft with Life Mana laid over it to form only the edge. But the six spears her junior had just shown her were different.
From tip to butt-end, all of it was mana...
Weren't those just Sphere Arrows wearing the shape of a spear? She certainly hadn't sensed any magic circle or spell being cast, but somehow, she felt she had to believe that was what it was. Otherwise, everything she had ever learned might suddenly feel worthless...
"I didn't use a single spell."
"B-but..."
"It's exactly what you did, Club President. Just as you lay a blade of mana over an empty shaft, you simply make the shaft itself out of mana too."
"No, that's impossible—"
Even forging a single mana blade had taken her enormous effort. Without the medium of a physical shaft, manifestation was outright impossible in the first place. Unless you used magic, or some other specialized art...
"You can."
No.
"You will."
Without fail.
"...I'm sorry, what?"
The clone spear Ene had been using worked by applying the transfer of mana. You poured mana into a bladeless shaft, and that mana stood in for the blade itself.
Because the 'shaft' existed as both a medium and a concrete image, she had been able to move it freely — but in truth, she should have been able to do the same without any shaft at all. The reason she couldn't push beyond that was that she had unconsciously walled herself in. Whether it was the influence of whatever teacher had first taught her the technique, or a possibility she'd abandoned after defeat upon defeat, hardly mattered.
She had drawn the line herself, insisting a 'medium' must absolutely exist — and so, naturally, it had become impossible.
"W-we're going to die..."
"Let's do a hundred more. Come on, quickly. Quickly."
"Uuuughhh..."
And so I resolved to take drastic measures to shatter the 'wall' Ene had built around herself.
I looked around. The room, painted a stark white, was lined with countless spears, and Ene — sweat pouring down her face — gritted her teeth and thrust again.
"Faster. Thrust faster. Mana recovers quickly in here, so use it freely. Pour it all out."
"I'm literally going to die..."
"If you die, I'll bring you back."
Even if it meant lifting the restrictions myself, I would revive her.
This space wasn't a Room of Spirit and Time, mind you. It was simply a training ground modeled after the one that person had once created for their own practice. There was no time dilation, no special law or constraint governing it.
"It's just a space where stamina and mana replenish quickly. Perfectly suited for training, really."
A single month inside this space, and Ene's skills would grow to a level incomparable with what they had been before.
"I won't be doing all of it myself."
Admittedly, I was willing to go that far — up to a point. But unfortunately, I had an episode time limit to contend with.
Episode 3: The Club — In Progress
Progress for this episode has exceeded 90%.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to do it...
"But Ria Elfosis can."
The month that remained. During the time that would be skipped, Ria Elfosis would diligently whip her into shape... rather, nurture her along.
I hid my disappointment as I restored the stamina of Ene, who lay half-dead on the floor.
"...I would have to do it at least a hundred thousand times, though."
It was simply a shame there wasn't enough time.
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