Chapter 25 : Chapter 25
Chapter 25 : Looking for a Beating?
The next morning, Ryan was awakened simultaneously by the birds outside the window and a certain ominous premonition.
He stared at the ceiling for three seconds while Eleanor’s silver-gray eyes, burning with complicated flames from last night, and her declaration—“You must join my group”—automatically replayed themselves in his mind.
‘Practice Experience Week…’
Sitting up, he rubbed at his brow.
‘It sounds like some kind of family outdoor bonding activity. In reality, it is probably just a polite way of saying public execution.’
Cosette had already prepared breakfast, and concern hung on her little face.
“Master, please be careful today.”
Ryan glanced at her.
Before going to sleep last night, the little girl had secretly left a smooth stone by his door, claiming that it could bring good luck. Although no matter how he looked at it, the thing seemed more like something she had dug out of a flowerpot.
“Mhm.”
He answered and picked up a piece of bread.
At the very least, this breakfast was peaceful.
The venue for Practice Experience Week was the Rockhold Training Hall on the eastern side of the academy.
It was a large facility specially built for courses in dual cultivation of magic and martial skill as well as combat techniques.
The ground was paved with specialized stone slabs that absorbed energy and resisted magic, while the surrounding area was reinforced with protective barriers.
When Ryan entered the hall alongside the flow of third-year junior division students, his first impression was—large.
His second impression was—so many eyes.
More than three hundred junior division students were crowded to one side of the hall like fingerlings packed into a sardine tin, gathered there with a mix of curiosity and nervousness.
Opposite them stood forty figures dressed in the combat uniforms of the intermediate division’s dual cultivation specialization, arranged in neat formation like forty unsheathed swords, giving off a sharp and seasoned aura utterly different from the immaturity of the younger students.
Ryan’s gaze instinctively swept across that line of figures and then—
Locked on precisely.
Eleanor Astrea stood near the front of the formation. Her blazing red hair was even more eye-catching beneath the training hall’s bright magic light orbs, tied up with immaculate precision into a high ponytail.
The deep gray combat uniform perfectly outlined her upright figure and smooth body lines. Black over-the-knee stockings wrapped around her long, straight legs, and the plain longsword at her waist seemed as though it had already become part of her body.
She appeared to sense his gaze. Her silver-gray eyes turned and collided with his across the distance.
At that moment, Ryan felt that what he saw were not a pair of eyes, but two masses of magma forcibly sealed beneath ice.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
The instructor responsible for today’s lecture was a broad-shouldered middle-aged man with a scar on his face, named Barton. It was said that he had once been a high-ranking officer in a frontier legion, and his voice was so thunderous that he did not even need amplification magic to make people’s ears ache.
“Silence!”
Instructor Barton roared, and the murmuring inside the hall vanished instantly.
“Welcome to the world of dual cultivation of magic and martial skill! Here, magic is not some decorative trick of hiding in the back and chanting spells, and combat arts are not just brute force relying on muscle alone! They are your two arms—they must coordinate, they must work together, they must twist into a single force capable of smashing an enemy’s skull apart!”
A very direct opening speech. Very characteristic of a military man.
“Today’s content is simple!” Barton continued to shout. “First, the outstanding students of the intermediate division will demonstrate the fundamentals of coordinated magic-and-martial combat for you! Second, each of you will be assigned an intermediate division student as a temporary guide for the most basic sensory and adaptability exercises! Third—”
He deliberately drew out the last word and let his gaze sweep over the entire hall.
“—we will randomly select a few groups for simple demonstration matches! That way, you can personally experience what real combat rhythm feels like!”
‘Random?’
Ryan looked at Instructor Barton’s expression, which practically said I have already arranged everything, then glanced at Eleanor, who was staring at him without the slightest attempt to hide it.
He had a strong feeling that the “random” part was not especially random.
Sure enough, after introducing a few basic combination techniques and having several pairs of intermediate division students perform some flashy demonstrations—already more than impressive enough for the junior students—Instructor Barton clapped his hands.
“All right! No amount of theory beats trying it yourselves! Now then, begin grouping up!”
After a brief flurry of activity, Ryan watched the red-haired figure walking straight toward him and sighed inwardly.
What was meant to come could not be avoided.
Eleanor stopped in front of him. There was a meter and a half of safe distance between them—or perhaps it was more accurate to say an invisible buffer zone on the verge of becoming a battlefield.
“Velt.”
She spoke, her voice steadier than it had been in the corridor yesterday, though the taut string beneath it remained plainly audible.
“According to the arrangements, I am responsible for guiding you today.”
Ryan’s gaze swept over the surroundings.
Most of the gazes converging on them were filled with curiosity and envy. After all, being personally guided by this young lady of ducal birth, who possessed both beauty and strength, looked like an honor no matter how one viewed it.
Of course, that was only on the surface.
Saint Roland’s students had long heard about the grudge between the two of them. One was the young lady of a ducal house who had been knocked off the pedestal of being the academy’s greatest genius. The other was the son of a viscount, aloof in manner and sharp-tongued in speech.
In the simple understanding of most people, the script could not have been more obvious. An ill-mannered villain repeatedly provoked a noble and righteous heroine, while the tolerant heroine merely upheld her knightly spirit, waiting for a public chance to defeat him and force him to finally understand reality.
Thus, what shone in the spectators’ eyes was less curiosity than excited anticipation for justice to be carried out.
Ryan took in every one of those looks, but his face remained calm.
“My honor.”
Ryan curved his lips into a fake smile devoid of sincerity.
“So then, Instructor Astrea, what are we learning today? How to gracefully knock oneself unconscious with the hilt of one’s sword, as you do?”
Eleanor’s brows twitched slightly. She was almost used to Ryan’s mockery by now. Ignoring his barb, she went directly to the point.
“The foundation of dual cultivation of magic and martial skill lies in synchronization. Synchronization between mana circulation and physical movement. Synchronization between thought and reaction.”
The theory sounded rigorous and correct.
But as Ryan looked into those silver-gray eyes fixed intently on him—eyes that seemed to be calmly evaluating where to cut for maximum efficiency—it was difficult to believe that what followed would stop at basic training.
“Let us begin with the simplest thing.”
Eleanor walked to the weapon rack and took down two unsharpened practice shortswords, casually tossing one of them to Ryan.
Ryan caught it steadily and weighed it in his hand.
The feel was balanced. A standard training weapon.
He adjusted his grip and stance, which did not look especially unfamiliar.
Then he stepped forward and thrust in a standard straight stab.
Eleanor barely moved. With only a turn of her wrist, the flat of her training sword struck Ryan’s blade precisely with a crisp clang.
“Your strength is dispersed, and your intention is too obvious,” she said coldly.
Ryan changed angles and swung horizontally.
Eleanor shifted her body slightly and tapped with the sword point, easily deflecting the attack.
“Your rhythm is too single, and your transitions are slow.”
Slash, lift, sweep.
The following attacks were all effortlessly neutralized or blocked by Eleanor using small, highly efficient movements.
Her gaze was focused and her actions precise. After each defense, she would pause briefly, as though silently waiting for Ryan’s next move.
And yet Ryan could sense the undercurrent beneath that calm exterior. Her breathing had already grown slightly quicker than at the beginning, and the knuckles of the hand gripping her sword had begun to whiten from constant force.
‘She is observing,’ Ryan thought silently, ‘and at the same time suppressing something.’
Finally, in the brief opening after one of Ryan’s blocks left his recovery slightly sluggish, Eleanor moved.
Her practice sword became a swift gray shadow that shot straight toward Ryan’s centerline. Its speed suddenly increased, the angle viciously tricky, the thrust concise and ruthless with the polish of countless repetitions.
Ryan instinctively stepped back and blocked. With a dull clang, a clear numbness shot through his arm.
Before he could adjust, the second strike came sweeping upward at a slant.
Then came the third, chopping down.
Eleanor’s offensive suddenly flowed one strike after another.
Although she was still controlling her strength and using an unsharpened training sword, the sharp rise in pressure and the increasingly brilliant light in her eyes—so keen that it almost felt scorching—made Ryan understand instantly:
This had already moved far beyond the boundaries of guidance.
This was probing. A warm-up. The muffled thunder rolling faintly at the horizon before the storm truly broke.
She was confirming whether, after a holiday apart, the towering wall against which she had repeatedly broken herself was still as impossible to overcome as ever.
Or rather, she needed this warm-up under the guise of instruction in order to gather the courage and battle intent necessary for what she truly wanted to do next.
“Your movements,” Eleanor said during a brief gap between exchanges, “are stiffer than last year.”
Ryan knocked aside a thrust, his own breathing becoming somewhat uneven.
“Perhaps my diet has been too monotonous lately. It may have affected my physical condition.”
“An excuse.”
Eleanor pressed forward another step, the tip of her sword trembling slightly as it locked onto Ryan’s throat.
“After choosing Magic Tools, are you planning to abandon even the basics of your physical training?”
“I am merely allocating my limited time and energy rationally.”
Ryan twisted aside to evade and tried to counterattack, only for the move to be effortlessly dismantled.
“Rational?” Eleanor’s swordwork suddenly grew even fiercer, the practice blade howling through the air. “Abandoning the tempering of your own strength, and instead turning to rely on external objects—that is what you call rational?”
At last, her emotions had begun to leak through the sharpness of her blade.
Sword shadows crossed, and the ringing of metal on metal became especially clear in this corner of the training hall, drawing more and more eyes. Whispered discussions spread like a rising tide.
“Look, Senior Eleanor and that Ryan…”
“This does not look like ordinary guidance…”
“The grudge between those two—it looks like today there is finally going to be a reckoning…”
Ryan gradually felt the pressure mounting. The original owner’s body had a good physical foundation, but after transmigrating, his focus truly had not been on close combat.
By contrast, Eleanor was a genuine practitioner who had spent years tempering both swordsmanship and the fusion of magic with martial skill. With one side advancing while the other lagged behind, the gap was beginning to show.
At last, after a forceful clash from a slanting slash, a slight distortion appeared in Ryan’s blocking posture, and a brief opening exposed itself in his chest and abdomen.
A sharp gleam flashed through Eleanor’s eyes. Her sword advanced with her body, and the point of her practice blade stopped steadily less than an inch from Ryan’s chest.
Time seemed to freeze for an instant.
Eleanor was breathing faintly harder now, several strands of sweat-dampened red hair clinging to the side of her neck. Her silver-gray eyes remained tightly fixed on Ryan, the emotions churning within them difficult to read.
Ryan lowered his arm, and the tip of his practice sword lightly touched the floor. Steadying his breathing, he looked at the motionless blade before his chest.
“Is the guidance portion over now?” he asked, with no emotion discernible in his tone.
Eleanor did not lower her sword immediately. She looked at Ryan for several seconds before finally letting her arm slowly fall. And yet her gaze now felt to Ryan heavier than the blade itself had a moment ago.
“You have grown weaker,” she stated. There was no joy of victory in her voice. It sounded more like she was confirming a cold fact.
“Perhaps,” Ryan replied noncommittally. “A person’s time and energy are always limited.”
“Limited energy…”
Eleanor repeated the phrase softly, as if tasting its meaning.
Then suddenly she drew in a deep breath, as though she had finally reached some firm decision. She stepped back, opening the distance between them, and then drove the practice sword in her hand heavily into the solid floor beside her.
Clang!
The dull impact sounded like the striking of a bell announcing something solemn, instantly drawing nearly every eye in the hall.
Even Instructor Barton in the distance turned to look. His rough brows lifted slightly, but instead of stopping her, he folded his arms and wore an expression of mild interest.
Eleanor turned to Ryan. Her voice was not loud, but it carried clearly through the gradually quieting air.
“Velt. The basic guidance ends here.”
She raised an arm and pointed firmly toward the open central area of the hall, the space reserved for formal demonstrations.
“Now then—do you dare to have a real match with me, using your true strength?”
In her silver-gray eyes, every hesitation, struggle, and suppression from before had now transformed into the purest battle intent, so intense it nearly seemed ready to burst through her pupils.
“You may use the Magic Tools you chose, or any magic you are skilled in.”
“I want to witness with my own eyes—”
She spoke one word at a time, every syllable seeming forced up from the very depths of her chest.
“—what sort of result your so-called rational allocation has truly brought you!”
Suddenly, the training hall grew so quiet that a falling pin could have been heard.
All eyes were drawn, as if by an invisible hand, firmly onto the boy and girl standing opposed at the center of the scene.
Ryan looked at Eleanor’s eyes, lit with the fire of obsession. Out of the corner of his eye, he took in Instructor Barton’s tacitly approving posture, and then the faces all around them—some expectant, some excited, some simply eager to watch the spectacle.
He loosened his grip.
The practice sword fell to the floor with a clatter.
Then, beneath the many different gazes fixed upon him, Ryan casually dusted off his hands as though brushing away dirt that was not there, slowly raised his eyelids, and met Eleanor’s blazing stare.
There was still nothing particularly special in his expression, and his voice remained so steady that not the faintest ripple could be heard in it.
“It seems you are already impatient to lose to me again.”