The Young Master's Relentless Training
“Young Master Kyle—!”
“Young Master Kyle, where are you?!”
The voices of the maids and servants calling for me echoed through the halls. I quietly slipped away in the opposite direction, dodging their calls. After running for quite a while, I finally reached my destination. Well, to be honest, the place I always ran off to was pretty much always the same.
“Oh dear, Young Master. Did you run away again?”
“Uahaha—! Yep! You gonna tattle on me again?”
“No, how could I… However, the Count instructed me that if you fled here, I should make your training even more intense. Are you sure you’ll be alright with that?”
“Of course. It’s way better than studying.”
At my words, Sir Leon broke into a sly grin. It was the kind of smile that seemed to say he’d make me regret ever uttering those words. But honestly, that was exactly what I was hoping for. Over the past few days, I had realized there was a limit to training alone.
“Then let’s begin, Young Master. First… we’ll start with running.”
“Ugh—”
“You’re not going to say you don’t want to now, are you?”
I hated cardio. But he was someone who could send me straight back to the study with a single word. I had no valid excuse to defy him.
Guess I have no choice. Just do what he says.
I let out a heavy sigh and started jogging around the training grounds.
It had already been five years since I reincarnated into this world. I was slowly adapting to it.
Over those five years, I came to understand that this world was the exact same setting as the game I had been playing right before I died. How did I know? The moment I heard the name of the country, it clicked.
Not only that, but all the headache-inducing settings from the game existed here too, which only made me more certain. This world was a game. And not just any game—it was that godawful trash game I had been playing. That fact pissed me off to no end.
To vent that frustration, I whined to my tutor.
“This feels like something I’ve heard before.”
“Yes, I explained it last time as well. And you got it wrong on every single test. That’s why I’m going over it again. Because you don’t remember it.”
“Ah…”
I’ll admit it now—I’ve always been a bit weak when it came to studying. I was great at physical education and the arts, but I never saw the point in memorizing stuff for humanities or sciences. Since I didn’t see the point, my interest and grades naturally tanked, which made me even less interested. It was a vicious cycle. Even after dying and being reborn, that habit hadn’t changed.
Even now, I’d much rather be running around outside than doing this kind of studying.
“Man, I just wanna play.”
“You may play once you’ve finished your studies.”
“…Hey, I’ve got a question. Why do I even have to study this stuff?”
I was a noble. The eldest son of a fairly powerful Count family. In other words, just like the nobles of medieval Europe, I didn’t actually need to work. Studying? Just make a commoner do it. Math? A commoner could handle that too. I was a noble, and nobles were basically gods.
But my tutor shook his head and countered my question.
“It is precisely because you are a noble that you must study.”
“Where’s that written?”
“There is something called noblesse oblige, Young Master.”
Unfortunately, this world wasn’t that simple. It was a world that placed even more duties on the nobility. Maybe because it was a game world, the developers must have had flowers growing in their heads.
Can’t be helped…
I forced my sluggish brain to work and started cramming the empire’s history into my short-term memory. After barely passing the history teacher’s pop quiz, I immediately slipped out of the mansion and headed for the training grounds.
On the training grounds, the family’s exclusive knights and soldiers were running, moving, and training hard. As I approached, Sir Leon, sensing my presence, quickly turned his head.
“Ah, Young Master.”
“Sir Leon.”
“Have your lessons ended?”
“Yeah. They said I could play now.”
“Play, huh.”
Sir Leon let out a small chuckle at my words. In truth, after hearing Kyle say that, Leon realized this young master’s mentality was far from normal.
After being worked that hard, he calls it playing…
Normally, children around this age didn’t welcome such grueling training. That was true even for those of knight or noble blood. Noble or knight children were simply conditioned from an even younger age to bear duty and responsibility, but even they didn’t think of training as ‘play.’
“Then shall we push even harder today?”
“Yeah. Oh, right. Sir Leon, I want to learn the sword.”
“The sword, you say.”
At my words, Sir Leon let out a low hum. After thinking for a moment, he nodded, deciding there was no reason not to.
“Then after today’s physical training, I will teach you swordsmanship.”
“Oh!”
“Are you that happy about it?”
“Of course. It’s cool, isn’t it? Wielding a sword.”
In my previous life, I had never learned any martial arts. People would just look at my size and back off on their own. Since I never needed to fight, there was no reason to learn fighting techniques. I wasn’t the type to pick fights first, either.
But if I had been possessed into another world—especially inside a game—things were different. I didn’t remember exactly what the ending of this world was, but I did remember that it was fundamentally an action game.
Someday, I’ll have to fight others. Even if it’s not people, I might end up fighting monsters…
It wouldn’t hurt to learn swordsmanship in preparation for that. After all, swinging a sword to defeat villains and monsters was every man’s dream, wasn’t it?
I followed Sir Leon’s instructions, running laps around the training grounds and doing strength exercises until my arms and legs were shaking. It had been a while since I last did proper strength training. Getting the form perfect took a long time, but since my body weight was still so light, hitting the reps wasn’t that difficult.
Sir Leon seemed to notice this and frowned slightly.
“Hmm… Your strength is quite high for your body weight. For now, we should focus on increasing your flexibility and endurance.”
“I think that’s a good idea too.”
Starting strength training from a young age was good, but pushing too hard too early could hinder proper bone and muscle growth. The right time to begin proper strength training was during the second growth spurt, when natural testosterone was pumping like crazy—basically getting free natural steroids.
“Then, as promised, I will teach you swordsmanship.”
“Yes!”
“Here, take this first.”
Sir Leon handed me a training wooden sword. There didn’t seem to be a child-sized one, so it was a wooden sword of the same weight the soldiers used. I took it with trembling hands and tried to lift it. Just lifting it put an enormous strain on my forearms.
Seeing me struggle with the wooden sword, Sir Leon took it back with a look that said this wouldn’t do and picked up a suitable wooden stick from nearby instead.
“I’m sorry, Young Master. For the time being, we’ll train with this instead. I’ll find a wooden sword that suits you.”
“…Yeah, thanks.”
It was embarrassing to learn swordsmanship with a mere twig, but there was nothing I could do about it. There was no way I could learn anything while swinging a sword I couldn’t even lift properly. It was the same when I first started working out at the gym. Starting with a weight you couldn’t control would only lead to injury. You had to gradually increase from a weight you could handle.
“Alright, Young Master. The fundamentals of swordsmanship are these three moves: vertical slash, horizontal slash, and thrust.”
As he spoke, Sir Leon demonstrated—swinging the sword from top to bottom, right to left, and straight forward. The kind of technique that would be described in martial arts novels as the Three Talents Sword Technique—Heaven, Earth, and Man.
…Honestly, it wasn’t that cool.
“Hey, aren’t there any cooler techniques?”
“Cooler techniques? Haha. It’s still too early for you to learn those, Young Master. And more importantly—those kinds of sword techniques won’t be taught by me, but by the Count himself.”
“…Dad?”
I had forgotten. My family, the Meyer family, was a knight house that had once produced a Sword Saint. Naturally, the direct descendants of the family learned the secret sword techniques passed down through the generations. Even Sir Leon, a direct knight of the Count family, had not learned the secret arts. Only direct blood relatives could teach them.
“Yes. So until the Count returns from his expedition… let’s focus on building your foundation.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll show you once more. The downward strike like this, the slash like this, the thrust like this…”
Sir Leon continued giving me swordsmanship instruction until he eventually left to train the soldiers. I couldn’t ask him to focus only on me forever, so I practiced the techniques he had shown me, swinging the stick over and over.
For now, let’s just do a light hundred reps each.
“There! Straighten your back!”
“Yes sir!”
“At that rate you couldn’t even cut a goblin’s neck! Keep your arms closer to your sides!”
“Understood!”
While shouting commands and training the soldiers, Sir Leon briefly wiped away his sweat and glanced behind him. Since he had just taught the young master swordsmanship, it was only natural that his eyes kept drifting over.
I wonder how he’s doing…
Leon turned his head slightly to check on Kyle and realized the boy was swinging the sword exactly as he had been taught. After watching a few more swings, he turned his attention back to training the soldiers.
Thirty minutes later, after punishing the soldiers with extra drills, Leon looked at Kyle again.
Still going? That’s impressive.
Kyle was still swinging the stick even then.
One hour later. After all training had ended—Leon tilted his head as he watched Kyle, who was still swinging the stick.
…What is this?
Wondering if the boy was only pretending to swing when he was watching, Leon observed Kyle closely. That wasn’t the case at all. His arms were trembling violently from swinging the stick so many times, and even standing straight to maintain balance seemed difficult—his core and legs were shaking too. His cheeks were twitching, and his eyes had lost focus. It wouldn’t have been strange if he collapsed at any moment.
Yet despite all that, Kyle continued swinging the sword. Perfectly replicating the exact posture Leon had shown him, like a machine.
How is this possible…
It was something even he, who had trained as a knight for half his life, couldn’t do. There was bound to be some error every time you swung a sword. Leon only knew one person who could swing a blade with such perfection.
“The Sword Saint…”
The first head of the Meyer family, Bel Meyer. If it was the man who had reached the realm of the Sword Saint and been granted the title of Count, then something like this would have been possible. In other words, Kyle possessed such monstrous talent that he could be called the reincarnation of Bel Meyer—a true genius…
Thud—!
“Young Master!”
The moment he saw Kyle collapse, Leon rushed over and caught him. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he had hit anything when he fell. Holding the boy, whose entire body was drenched in sweat, Leon urgently called for a maid. Shortly after, the maid who came running at his voice gasped in shock and immediately ran off to fetch a doctor.