Sparring
"Um, this is the last one. But is it really all right to smash every last log like this?"
"It's fine. They're firewood anyway."
"Ah, that's right. They'll be pleased, if anything."
Runesa came up in front of me with a log in her arms.
"Do you feel anything, miss?"
I drained the last of the mana potion and nodded. Something was there. A warrior who had pushed this far ought to have grown at least a little where mana was concerned.
I could feel the progress clearly enough: the dizziness after a single strike was gone. Whether a second would still be all right, I couldn't say.
"I'll throw it."
The last log went up. I watched it, gathered my mana, and swung the sword in a light arc.
Thwack!
It split the way they all had. I tightened my grip and poured mana into the blade once more.
One more time.
"Hah!"
I cut sideways into the falling pieces.
Crack!
A sharp impact rang out, and the fragments burst in every direction. Done. It had worked.
"Ugh..."
"Miss Selen!"
My vision swayed, and then there was nothing but sky. Only then did the pain arrive, and with it the fact that I had gone down flat.
"Ah..."
"Are you all right?"
Runesa caught my arm and hauled me up. I stayed sitting, and before long the fog in my head began to clear. I rubbed my eyes and drew a few easy breaths, and it seemed I would be able to stand again soon enough.
"Let's rest now."
"Yes. You worked very hard. Still, you succeeded at the end, didn't you?"
I had, in a sense. But this hardly counted as success. Unless I was prepared to die right alongside whatever I was fighting, ending up in this state had no place in a real battle.
"I'm hungry."
"Yes. Let's go and get you some dinner, then."
I slept hard, and the next day I headed for the guild.
"Already burned through a lot."
Checking my coin on the way, I found the purse already much lighter. I had bought a heap of mana potions and used every one of them to scrape out a little growth. Part of the silver had gone to Runesa so she could ready us for the next venture, and once armor and weapon maintenance, lodging, and meals were subtracted, I was already feeling the pinch.
"I'll just earn it back."
Still, I could use one small skill to some degree now, and that left me more confident than usual.
I went to the guild alone. Runesa hadn't managed to get up — I had made her throw far too many logs yesterday — and Levan was nowhere to be seen.
"Been a while."
Coming to the guild by myself was almost a first since I had arrived in this world. I had been stuck to Levan's side nearly the whole time.
I stepped inside with a faint, pointless tension, and felt the noisy adventurers' eyes drift toward me a few at a time.
"Is that the Skeleton Swordsman's blade?"
"Looks about the same as what the soldiers use."
"What's with that beggar's cloak?"
"There's probably something to that, too."
If they were going to whisper, couldn't they at least keep it down? Hearing myself appraised — and, it seemed, envied — was a weight I didn't need.
"Miss Selen, you've come."
"Yes. I heard something came in under my name."
The guild clerk had clearly been waiting, and promptly produced a small pouch of silver coins along with a letter.
"Is this all?"
"Yes."
There was less silver than I had expected. Castle commissions really couldn't be trusted.
"They said you should be sure to read the letter."
"The letter."
Wondering what smooth talk they meant to fob me off with, I nodded, went to a corner of the guild, and opened it.
"Huh..."
Elian had invited me. Come to the training yard, it said. Something about that sat wrong.
"There you are."
Levan came over and sat down across from me.
"What's that?"
"He's summoning me. To the castle training yard."
"What?"
He took the letter from my hand, looked it over, let out a dry laugh, and set it back down.
"Payment for the commission is a beating? What is this?"
"I don't know what he wants, but I should at least go and see."
"Well... going to see is probably the better call."
Explaining it to Levan would be difficult, but one way or another I had to stay tangled up with Elian if the main story was going to move. Dodge him here, and I might be stuck living out my days as an ordinary adventurer.
"What happened to Runesa?"
"She's asleep."
"Ah. You ran her that hard yesterday. She crashed, huh. Haha."
I stared at him, then shook my head.
"I should go now. I think he's waiting."
"I'm coming."
"You too?"
Levan nodded as if it were obvious.
"When have I ever not come with you?"
"Ugh, don't get weird."
Fair enough. He had followed me to the church in the end, too.
"Who knows what they'll do to you there. I'm not sending you alone."
Nothing much was likely to happen, but there was an uneasy part to it all the same. Above everything else, the letter had called me to the training yard, plain as written.
"Anyway, if we're going, let's go."
We left the guild and made for the training yard inside the castle.
The soldiers standing guard saw us coming and opened the gate at once, and we stepped into the wide, empty yard.
"Ah, you've come."
Elian had been waiting. He seemed to have been training in his armor, sword in hand, and he wiped the sweat from his face as he came toward me.
"Yes. What did you call me for?"
"I wanted to see the skill of the one who brought down the Skeleton Swordsman. If it isn't an imposition, would you spar with me?"
Ah. I knew it. I swallowed and started to draw back, and Levan stepped in.
"What kind of manners is this? You commission someone, and instead of paying them properly—"
"Ah. My apologies."
Elian offered a sheepish smile.
"Knowing how strong the Skeleton Swordsman was, I found it interesting that an adventurer of such strength is working out of our castle."
"Well, all right."
"Hey, Selen."
As I raised my sword, Levan blocked my way and caught my shoulder.
"Do you even know how this ends? That guy's no ordinary man."
"You think he's going to kill me?"
There was no reason for the castle to kill an adventurer working for it, and he surely had the skill to hold his strength in check.
"Of course not. I don't believe you are so weak as that."
Levan let out a sigh and stepped aside, and Elian took up a wooden practice sword.
"I'll use this. Miss Selen, please use that weapon of yours."
He held only a practice sword, and yet a cold presence began to seep from the man standing before me with a blade in hand.
"I'll keep this light."
The moment I raised my sword, Elian charged. He closed the distance in an instant, and as his blade came flying I moved mine on instinct.
Clang!
"Ghk!"
The instant the swords met, it felt as if my body were being smashed apart. Had I even blocked that?
"Impressive."
"Urgh."
The one mercy was that I hadn't lost my grip.
Then a chill began to seep from the sword in my hands. The cold reached my fingers, and my hand clung to the hilt as if frozen there. It was like the cold aura I had felt at the western fortress, closing in around my body.
Elian waited until I had my wits about me again. The moment I reset my stance, he came on.
"Again."
"Wah!"
The shock from a moment ago flashed through me, and a cry tore out before I could stop it. But my eyes tracked the incoming blade. This time I braced for real pain, putting strength into the arm on the hilt and dropping my stance a fraction.
Clang!
The instant I caught his wooden sword, ice crystals burst out around us. Thanks to that, the impact was nothing like the first.
"Oh. This is..."
Elian smiled as if intrigued and drew back. I had no idea what had just happened, but it was cold.
"It seems to be magic dwelling in the sword."
"Hoo... ugh. Yes."
The Skeleton Swordsman's blade had been made so this ice magic would proc on a chance. Even that alone seemed to suck the mana out of me. My strength was draining away.
"Can you continue?"
"Yes... a little."
When I barely managed to raise the sword again, Elian looked at me and smiled.
"Then attack this time. Receiving any more of my strikes looks as though it would be too much."
Grateful for the consideration, I nodded. He wasn't going to simply stand there and block, though.
"Haaa!"
I charged. He watched me as if he meant to take the blow without moving.
One strike ought to be fine. Let's do it.
"Hup!"
Clang!
The moment sword met sword, mana burst. The shock spreading outward was so clear I could almost see it.
Elian, who had stopped steel with wood, went round-eyed in surprise — then smiled and shoved me back. Strength poured straight out of my body, and I nearly collapsed on the spot. I stayed on my feet, but the hand on the sword trembled.
He didn't give me that moment. He closed in fast.
"Hk."
The strike he threw was a little sloppy, but all I could do now was barely knock it aside.
I loaded mana into the sword one more time. For an instant I thought that if I landed one clean hit on that clumsy attack, I could win.
"Hup!"
I held my breath and swung. Elian cut his attack short and slipped past mine, and when my descending blade bit into the ground he struck my thigh with the wooden sword and dropped me.
"Urgh."
I hadn't landed it. Still, I had used it twice. Satisfaction came together with the sense that I was dizzy enough to fall over. As expected, it wasn't easy in a real fight.
"Selen!"
Levan ran straight to me. Elian, apparently done fighting, simply withdrew.
"From your reaction, it doesn't seem to be a power you use often."
He smiled and nodded, as if he already understood the attack.
"The moment you bring the sword down, you gather the mana in your body and swell your strength. It is a technique knights mainly learn through training, but it seems you have grasped a fair amount of it on your own."
"...Yes. Hah... that's how it went."
Elian laughed at my answer.
"Remarkable, just as I expected."
If it hadn't been for that attack just now, I wasn't sure how things would have gone even against the skeleton.
"Haha..."
"I have confirmed your ability well enough. My elder sister will be pleased to hear that an adventurer of such fine talent has come to our castle."
"You mean the lord?"
Elian smiled and nodded.
"Yes. In truth, after hearing that the trouble in the west had been resolved, the lord entrusted me with a task."
"What?"
"I called you in order to speak of that task."
He lowered his sword and came closer.
"You know our soldiers are fighting the gnolls."
"Yes."
So it would be gnolls. I was worried already.
"A messenger coming from the Holy Kingdom has gone missing. The Kingdom's answer to the support we requested should be written in what he carried, but we cannot confirm it, and the operation has been thrown off. Receiving another reply will take time as well."
Right. That was the one. The memory came back, and I nodded at once.
"Gnolls, though. Won't that be dangerous?"
Levan cut in. I turned to him and shrugged.
"I don't think it'll be a hard job."
All we had to do was follow the road the messenger had been returning by and retrieve the letter he had been carrying. We might run into gnolls or other monsters along the way, but a fight wasn't guaranteed.
"Yes. It is not an extermination request, so if you go carefully, you should be fine."
"In exchange."
I took out the pouch of silver I had received at the guild and held it up.
"It can't be like this again."
"Ah, haha... I am sorry. Our finances have their limits."
"Then give us something else."
Elian glanced this way and that as if thinking it over, then nodded.
"Yes. Then I shall have to give it some thought as well."