Chapter 13
The moment the bracelets they wore were hung on each of the wooden dolls, the dolls slowly lifted their heads. It was a chilling sight—the figures made of burlap sacks, straw, and wood moving as though they had all been granted life at once—but everyone here was used to training, so not a single person flinched. They only set their wooden swords forward.
Sylvia took her place behind them to support the team and let out a quiet sigh without really meaning to. She had a feeling this was going to be a long fight.
Michelle was the type who needed to grind men’s pride under her heel before she could feel satisfied. Just thinking about standing on the opposite side of a woman like that made Sylvia uneasy.
Let’s just think of this as training.
She calmly poured mana into the men, helping them see the dolls’ weaknesses and enabling them to leap higher and swing harder. But the training did not unfold the way Sylvia had expected.
Unaccustomed to such a high-ranking Supporter, the knights—including Wilden—jerked in surprise when they suddenly found themselves jumping a full meter higher than usual, and some even spun a full circle in midair when they couldn’t control the force surging through their right arms.
“Hngh!”
The dolls pounced on them as they fell from the sky in a thoroughly ridiculous state. Blue bruises bloomed all over as the dolls, like monsters, tangled themselves around the knights’ bodies.
“That’s twelve already?”
When Michelle’s cackling voice carried from afar, their faces flushed red with humiliation.
Their anger, having nowhere else to go, turned squarely on Sylvia.
“You laughing at us?”
Hot-tempered Japael roughly pushed back his short hair and strode toward her with obvious menace. Wilden put a hand on Japael’s shoulder and made a show of calming him down, but his expression was no better after that elegant flip through the air and humiliating fall.
“Sorry, Sylvia. Can you just stick to the basics?”
He tried to sound gentle, but he couldn’t quite hide the irritation in his voice.
Sylvia froze. She had helped other knights a few times before, but this was the first time anyone had reacted like this. Besides, what she was doing now was incredibly basic, and if they couldn’t even handle support at this level, she had to wonder whether they’d survive a deployment and make it back alive.
“Fine.”
Still, she nodded as if conceding. There was no point arguing that she was right; it would only lead to a fight. Of course, that didn’t mean she intended to become invisible the way they seemed to want.
Since when was a Supporter just a glorified errand runner who provided whatever service the knights wanted?
Sylvia clenched her fist as if making a vow. Then she checked their conditions more carefully and adjusted her mana to brace them properly. She wanted them to recognize that a Supporter was someone who fought alongside them, not someone who merely stood at their side and followed orders.
Thwack, thwack.
As time passed and they grew used to the rhythm, their movements became far more agile and skilled. The score gap that had been stretching wider and wider began to stabilize, and she could feel their concentration deepening little by little.
“Japael, ease up on your left shoulder. It’ll be easier for support if you relax it.”
“……”
“Most monsters don’t really register anything below them, so keep your body lower.”
Since they seemed to be taking training more seriously now, Sylvia threw out little pointers here and there. For a while, they focused quietly on the dolls in front of them, as though they were actually listening.
But as the difficulty kept rising, they started furrowing their brows and sweating bullets, and eventually they began snapping at her too.
Before long, they stopped bothering to block attacks coming at Sylvia at all, and she was forced to leave her original position and dodge the dolls herself.
“Can’t you do this properly? How is it okay for Sylvia to have to dodge on her own?”
Michelle shouted in exasperation, but Japael only barked back that she should mind her own business.
“What a bunch of low-class bastards.”
Michelle’s muttered insult seemed to strike their pride, because the men lifted their brows and appeared to decide, all at once, to become even more petty.
“As if we’re the Supporters’ dogs. It’s annoying enough having to move the way they tell us to.”
Mumbling their complaints without the slightest effort to hide them, they began pretending not to notice the dolls whenever they had even the tiniest bit of room to spare. In real combat, if a Supporter were injured it would be a huge loss, but for now they seemed to think this was only training, so it didn’t matter.
Even if they’re dolls, it still hurts when you get hit! Do I look like one of those knights who train their bodies all day?
Sylvia squatted to dodge the arm swung at her by the first doll, but when the second one came around and cracked her on the head, she couldn’t avoid it in time. The blow landed square on the crown of her skull.
Rubbing the spot where her head throbbed, she heard Buckley, who had just blocked a doll with his wooden sword, snap, “Why aren’t you healing us?”
He said it as if she were the one loafing around. Sylvia swallowed the urge to smack him on the head and cast the spell anyway.
“Hah……”
This was the hardest training she had ever endured in her life. If she weren’t someone who could use support magic as naturally as breathing, those fools never would have been able to make this kind of bet with Michelle in the first place.
Then she felt the training hall door open behind her. Sylvia didn’t know who it was, but she desperately hoped he would stop this exercise. Instead, as if he’d come specifically to enjoy the rare spectacle of a sweating Supporter hopping in and out of the dolls’ arms in person, he opened the door and then simply stood there watching. Sylvia glared at the long shadow stretching over the floor.
“Ugh.”
She was in the middle of stepping aside from a doll that jabbed at her ribs when her foot caught on something on the ground, and she pitched forward, hitting the floor hard. Her chin smashed into the ground, and her head rang from the impact. But no one even noticed she’d fallen, and the knights in front were still squealing like pigs, demanding support.
“Those bastards……”
……They sure are having fun.
Just as she clenched her fist, the man who had only been watching this whole time came over and held out a hand to her. Sylvia knit her brows and looked up at him.
For some reason, the moment the door had opened and the person had only stood there watching, she had thought it might be Owen—and there he was, Owen Summers in the flesh. She had no idea what business had brought him here, though.
“You think this is fun?”
Sylvia’s voice came out sharp as she pushed herself up with her palm pressed to the ground.
“Weren’t you just standing around because you were bored with life?”
“Do I look like I’m doing this because I like it?”
“Then?”
He looked at her with such an innocent face, as if he truly couldn’t imagine any reason other than her wanting to do it. Sylvia let out a long breath. Her chin hurt like hell. She raised her hand, then lowered it again, unsure whether she should even try to touch it, and he bent down and grabbed the top of her head with less finesse than she would have liked.
“Let me see.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Sylvia snapped at him, then, feeling as if she’d been taking her frustration out on him since earlier, added awkwardly, “What if it makes the mana sharing worse?”
“Even if it does, I’m the only one who’ll suffer for it anyway.”
At that shameless answer, she gaped at him in disbelief. Had he forgotten how much hell she’d been through?
But he looked at her again, patient and thoughtful, as if asking her to consider it properly, and Sylvia opened her mouth to retort—then suddenly remembered something from a few hours ago.
She had felt her stomach twist when she saw the scratch marks on Heston’s nape. Had that somehow been transmitted to Owen as well?
“You—don’t tell me……”
Yet there hadn’t been any terrible retaliation like the one he’d once threatened. Had he simply let it go?
Owen Summers? The same man who had made her pant so many times before?
Was he capable of mercy? It was so unexpected she found her mouth falling open on its own. Even now he was just staring at her, perfectly calm, as if it didn’t matter whether she was hurt or not.
At that moment, Michelle noticed Sylvia had fallen and immediately cut off the training, then rushed over.
“My God, Sylvia, are you okay?”
“Ah—”
“Your chin’s red. Let me see.”
Michelle took Sylvia from Owen’s hands. The moment her fingers touched the injury, Sylvia winced, and Michelle’s eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint. She hated nothing more than men behaving like rotten filth.
“Hey!”
Michelle roared at the male knights with a voice like a lion’s. Now that Sylvia’s support had stopped, they had also been pummeled by the training dolls and were standing awkwardly still, blue marks scattered all over their bodies. Michelle stomped over, snatched up her sword, and shouted, “Are you people out of your damn minds? You’re the ones who dragged a Supporter here begging for help, and this is how you leave her to get hurt?”
“It’s not like we did it on purpose, so quit your damn whining.”
Japael shook his head rudely, and Buckley leaned on one leg while picking at his ear. The whole thing was insulting beyond belief.
Not only that, they even mocked Sylvia in a roundabout way.
“I thought she was only able to keep up because she had room to throw every kind of support spell around.”
“Those bastards—!”
“That’s enough.”
Sylvia stood up. She found them infuriating too, but they were leaving for deployment next week, and she didn’t want them fighting over something like this. Teamwork was the most important thing in the field, after all. At this rate, if one of them got in danger, the others might very well pretend not to notice.
“It’s not a big deal, so stop raising your voices at each other. I think we should end training here for today.”
Then she felt Owen staring at her. She couldn’t see his expression clearly, but it almost seemed as if he were asking, Are you really going to let it go like this?
Michelle seemed to understand Sylvia’s intention not to make a bigger mess of things, but she still looked at the men with lingering annoyance. Then she sighed and shifted her gaze to Owen, as though changing the subject.