[The Saintess, Anastasia Lacroix - 13]
[The Saintess, Anastasia Lacroix - 13]
I decided to train Eris.
Teaching a total newbie who had never learned anything to defeat a Holy Knight. It wasn't an easy task, and it was no exaggeration to say it was a reckless challenge, given that the title of Holy Knight wasn't something one could just easily obtain.
No matter how much the Cathedral wasn't a battlefield, and therefore they were generally weaker compared to Holy Knights who fought on the front lines, anyone who managed to get into the Cathedral's Holy Knight Order was already an elite.
The fortunate thing was that Harold would likely be conscious of that fact, so he wouldn't come out himself, nor would he send someone of equivalent strength.
It was best to assume that an average Holy Knight would appear.
I thought that, depending on Eris's potential, it was a challenge worth attempting.
"Ah, let's start with training to draw out mana first."
"We're starting from there?"
"Since you lived in the slums, you probably don't know anything at all."
"I've never been taught either."
"You're not human."
"Eh."
Because I was born using mana, it made people think, 'She's a true Saintess who awakened the moment she was born!!'
It wasn't for nothing that people around were misunderstanding that the Saintess had awakened just now.
"W-wait! Just a second! Fight a Holy Knight? Me?"
"If you want to work under the Saintess, not just anyone, you have to do at least that much."
You couldn't just be a normal noble; to serve as a subordinate and bodyguard to the Saintess, who in some sense was more important than the Pope in the Goddess Church, you had to be stronger than a typical Holy Knight.
It was no exaggeration to say that you needed that level of skill to be qualified to stay by the Saintess's side.
"You brought me here on your own!"
"There are plenty of people who want this opportunity. I think it would be good for you to understand what great luck it is that this opportunity came to you, ignoring the queue. You even have the opportunity for education."
"It's your choice, Eris. I won't force you. If you don't listen to Ed's training properly, get defeated, and want to return to the slums, I won't stop you."
The Saintess put sugar cubes into her black tea and said while stirring with a spoon.
"But you have to try. Prove it. Prove that bringing you wasn't the wrong choice. If you can just prove that, I will make your strength meaningful. And I will give you all sorts of things you couldn't taste in the slums."
Eris stared blankly at the Saintess at those words for a moment.
In any case, Eris seemed to feel something from the Saintess's attitude, who possessed powerful strength and spoke with absolute confidence as if looking down from above.
Moreover, having lost cleanly in battle once, it seemed she had developed feelings close to admiration for the Saintess.
"......There's an urn in my house in the slums. It's the person who raised me. I want to hold a proper funeral."
"Good, I'll bring that urn first. And if you win, I'll hold the funeral. Proudly at the Cathedral."
"Okay, I'll take the training. If I beat a Holy Knight, you really guarantee food, clothing, and shelter?"
"Not only that, but you'll get a proper salary. You'll get more than most people."
"My life started spinning in just one day. It's almost awkward."
"Life is always sudden. My life's turning point also suddenly opened the door and found me."
The Saintess looked at me and said.
"Ed, then start. I'll listen as a review, too."
"You can just stay in your room, though."
"I'm staying here."
"Yes."
I don't know why, but it seemed she didn't want to leave me and Eris alone.
A girl's heart is truly like a reed; I thought she was reading her heart properly just a moment ago, but after about 10 seconds, it seemed that wasn't the case anymore.
It's hard to read a normal girl, but especially with the Saintess, since she couldn't recognize emotions, the speed at which her emotions changed was too fast.
She couldn't even recognize her own emotions properly, only understanding them with her head, so it seemed like awkward situations would occur often for various reasons.
I sighed inwardly and approached Eris, placing the orb on her.
"What's this?"
"It's an orb that tells you your basic attribute and the most basic training. You can find out what your main attribute is by putting mana into this. If it's wind like me, it glows green, and if it's light like the Saintess, it glows white."
"I see."
"If you can put mana into it, you can draw out mana at that point. Shall we try it?"
Putting it into the orb is easier than just drawing it out. That's because the orb is made of a material that conducts mana easily.
But that didn't mean it was something a total newbie who knew nothing could do.
Simply drawing out the nature of mana and focusing it into an orb are completely different stories.
To compare, should I say it's the difference between lighting a fire with a lighter and burning paper with fire?
You could produce the fire itself if you just had mana, which is the fuel inside the lighter, but burning paper requires a kind of 'control' to find the paper.
"Hnnngh!!"
Eris concentrated on the orb, but the orb didn't react.
"Ah, it's not working?"
"No talent."
"This is normal. If you don't fix the habit of looking at everything from your own perspective, it will hold you back later."
"Okay, okay."
"What do I do? Don't tell me I'm already out?"
"No, concentrate. Feel the blood flowing in your body."
"Blood?"
"In the end, mana is an 'image'. Imagine it. Mana flowing through your body according to the feeling of blood flowing."
Blood is flowing through the body 24/7, 365 days a year. If so, feeling that flow and making mana flow along with it is the easiest to imagine, so it lowers the difficulty a bit.
Imagination has such a huge impact that there's even a saying that mana is merely a byproduct of an image.
That's why you could often see more amazing mages in childhood.
The younger they are, the less they know reality, and they can use true magic in their delusions.
Moreover, because they ignore the laws of physics to some extent, there were plenty of cases where 'if they thought so, it had that tendency'.
For example, if they believed deep in their hearts that a flame wouldn't go out even underwater, it was easier for them to create such a flame than for others.
Of course, this is only a story about a person's tendencies, and it doesn't mean that if you make a sword while thinking your sword will never break during battle, it will actually have that effect.
Since it's life or death, it's not that it has no effect at all, though.
Deep in the heart.
The feeling of believing it as if it were natural.
It's what's commonly called an image.
If it's a flame, it would be like this.
If it's water, it would be like this.
If it's lightning, it would be like this.
Or there were plenty of cases where the thought, 'If it's this', 'it wouldn't be strange if it were like that', created magic.
Especially those who use powers other than elemental ones have such tendencies, so you couldn't trust only what you see.
Conversely, there are cases where this becomes a weakness.
For example, there is an image that wood burns in fire, but in reality, it has a high moisture content, so it takes a considerable amount of time to burn completely.
Even if it's the surface, it's difficult to burn the whole thing with a mediocre fire.
But if someone who doesn't know that and thinks it burns well uses magic related to wood, the wood created by that magic burns too easily.
In this world, image is important for mana.
It's a world where the saying, "Imagining yourself as someone with a cool back is always the strongest self," holds some truth.
"Mana flows according to the flowing blood, and you concentrate that on your fingertips and put it into the orb."
"Haa......."
"Everyone is so bothersome."
"Saintess-nim, if you're going to disturb us, get lo....... No, please leave."
"You were just about to tell me to get lost, weren't you?"
Mistake.
A habit from the battlefield slipped out before I knew it.
Fwooom, at that moment, the orb in the palm of Eris, who was frowning hard, began to glow faintly.
Faster than I thought. Seeing that her learning speed was considerable, there was no doubt she had talent.
People who really have no aptitude get stuck from this point and sometimes spend days. If she did it within a day, she did well enough, and Eris, who did it almost immediately after hearing the explanation, could be seen as having talent.
"It's yellow."
"Yellow is lightning. Your basic attribute is lightning."
"Lightning......."
"The property of lightning is definitely penetration, right?"
Holy Knights sometimes use shields, and in particular, about 70% of the Cathedral's Holy Knights carry shields.
In other words, since there was a high possibility that the Holy Knight Eris would spar with this time would also carry a shield, lightning might be used as a quite effective means.
"Eris, a fast but dangerous method and a slow but sure method....... Which do you prefer?"
"......If I choose the latter, can't I beat the Holy Knight in time?"
"If your talent is beyond my imagination, it's possible."
"......."
Eris put down the orb and said.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that won't come again.
If she loses here, she has to return to the slums, and if she wins, she can turn her life around in one shot and get a stable job under the Saintess.
"I'll go fast."
"Understood."
I also took off my outer garment and lifted the wooden sword.
"Eris."
"Yeah."
"From now on, I will be rude to you."
"Huh?"
"That's a line I've heard somewhere. Reminds me of when we first sparred, and I almost died from being choked while you said that."
I said while warming up.
"Every time you fail, it's going to hurt a bit."
"Huh? Huh?"
I slowly approached Eris.
"W-wait! You have to tell me what you're going to do......!"
"I will hit you at a level that won't hurt if you defend with mana. If you defend, you succeed; if you fail, it will hurt."
"What kind of training is that! A-are you serious? Wait, wait!"
Thwack!!
Along with the sound of impact, Eris's scream rang out in the training hall.