Ch.5
I'd been carrying the protector for three days before I worked up a reason to return it.
It was a wrist guard, articulated metal over leather, light and well-made. I'd found it on the floor of the Dungeon corridor after Ais and Bete left, half-buried in the dissolving residue of the Minotaur. It must have come loose during her swing. I'd picked it up along with the magic stone and carried both home, and the magic stone had been sold but the wrist guard had been sitting on the shelf beside my bed since then, and I'd been thinking about how to return it without looking like I'd been holding onto it for a reason.
I went to the Guild after my Dungeon run. The afternoon crowd was thin. Eina was at her counter. She checked me for blood, found none, and went back to her paperwork.
Then I saw her.
Ais was at the counter two windows down from Eina, talking to another clerk. She was out of her battle armor, wearing the white one-piece dress with gold trim I recognized from the anime. Her hair was down and clean, gold in the Guild's lamplight, and she was standing very still while the clerk shuffled papers.
She turned before I got close. Those gold eyes found me, and for a second her head tilted, the same fraction-of-a-degree that I remembered from the corridor. Placing me.
"Hello." She said it like a complete sentence. No follow-up.
"Hey." I held up the wrist guard. "This is yours. It came off during the Minotaur."
She looked at it. Looked at me. Took it with both hands and turned it over, examining the joint where the hinge had loosened. Her fingers were precise. She tucked it under her arm.
"Thank you." Then, after a pause long enough to walk through: "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"The blood." She touched her own cheek, indicating where the spray had hit my face. "From the Minotaur. I... wasn't careful."
"You saved my life. I'll take a little blood."
Her lips pressed together.
"I'm sorry too," I said. "For making you chase a Minotaur up five floors."
"I was already chasing it."
"Still. Thanks."
We stood there. The Guild's afternoon noise filled the space between us. A clerk dropped a stack of papers behind the counter and swore under his breath. Neither of us moved.
"I want to get stronger," I said. "I'm Level 1 and I can barely handle Floor 5. You're the best swordswoman in Orario. Will you train me?"
Ais blinked. The head tilt came again, a fraction deeper this time. Her eyes stayed on mine, and I let them.
She was quiet for long enough that I almost repeated myself. Then:
"...Okay."
One word. Complete.
"Come to the wall. The north wall of the city. Tomorrow, at dawn."
"I'll be there."
She nodded. Turned to leave. Stopped.
"You can..." She paused. Her jaw worked on the next word like it was stuck. "Just Ais. You don't need to use my full name."
"Okay. Ais."
She nodded again and walked away. Her steps were silent on the Guild floor. People moved out of her path without looking up.
Eina's voice cut in from my left. "Bell. Was that the Sword Princess?"
"Yeah."
"What did you... did she just agree to train you?"
"Apparently."
Eina adjusted her glasses. Adjusted them again. "Bell. Ais Wallenstein is a Level 6 first-class adventurer. You're Level 1. The gap between you is-"
"I know."
"Her normal sparring partners are Level 5 and above. If she hits you-"
"I know, Eina."
She stared at me. Then she pulled a fresh form from her stack, wrote something on it, and pushed it across the counter. "Medical supply checklist. Stock up before you go. You'll need potions."
I took it. "Thanks."
"Please don't die."
"I'll do my best."
The wall was cold at dawn.
The north wall of Orario was a massive stone structure that doubled as a training ground, flat and open along the top with crenellations on the outer edge and a long stretch of packed earth that adventurers used for sparring. At this hour it was empty. The sky was gray-pink at the eastern edge and the city below was still dark except for the bakeries and the Dungeon entrance, which never closed.
Ais was already there when I climbed the stairs. She was standing in the center of the packed earth with a wooden practice sword in each hand. She wore her battle cloth and light armor, hair tied back in a loose tail. When she heard my steps she turned.
"You're early."
"You're earlier."
She held out one of the practice swords. I took it. The balance was different from my knife, longer reach, different weight in the hand. She watched me adjust my grip and her head tilted.
"Footwork first," she said. And demonstrated.
She moved. One step forward, one to the side, a pivot, a return to center. It looked simple. Every joint did exactly what it needed to do and nothing else.
"Like that," she said.
I tried. My version looked like a different exercise entirely. My pivot was too wide, my weight shifted wrong, and my feet couldn't find the return path without looking down.
"Your hips," she said. "Turn from here." She put her hand on my hip and adjusted the angle. Her fingers were cool through the fabric. "Again."
I tried again. Better. Still bad.
"Again."
Again. My feet found the groove on the fourth try. She nodded.
"Now faster."
She demonstrated the sequence at combat speed. I tried to match it.
She kicked me into the wall.
It wasn't a kick exactly. She demonstrated a defensive pivot and her foot caught my chest on the follow-through and I went backwards. Hit the stone wall shoulder-first. The impact rattled my teeth and I slid down to a sitting position with dust in my hair and a ringing in my ears.
She was beside me before I finished blinking. Her eyes were wide, the most expression I'd seen on her face since the Minotaur corridor.
"I- I'm sorry. I was calibrated for-"
"Level 5 sparring partners?" I spat dust out of my mouth. Grinned at her. "I'm a little below that."
She stared at me.
I stood up. My shoulder ached. My back ached. I picked up the practice sword from where it had landed.
"Again."
Her mouth opened. Closed. She picked up her own sword.
We sparred. She held back so much it was physically uncomfortable for her, like trying to write with her non-dominant hand. Even restrained, she was faster than anything I'd faced in the Dungeon. Her sword touched my ribs, my shoulder, my thigh, tapping spots I'd left open without pressing through. Each tap was a lesson: here's where you died. And here. And here.
I got faster. The body's reflexes were sharpening. Liaris Freese was doing its work underneath, I was sure of it, the stats climbing every time my heart rate spiked and my desire to keep up with her burned. I couldn't land a hit. I couldn't come close. But by the end of the hour, the taps were coming slower.
During a reset, she reached for my sword hand. "Your grip. Here." She took my fingers and repositioned them on the handle, one at a time, pressing each one into the correct position against the leather. Her hands were calloused and precise. When she finished, she didn't let go. Her fingers stayed wrapped around mine on the sword handle, adjusting the angle of my wrist, and she was looking at the grip, at the placement, with the intense focus she gave to everything technical.
She held on for a while. I didn't pull away.
When she let go, she stepped back and picked up her own sword like nothing had happened.
When we stopped, I was breathing hard, sweat soaking through my shirt. The morning sun had cleared the eastern buildings and the wall was bright and warm. I leaned on the practice sword and tried to catch my breath.
Ais was barely winded. She stood across from me with her sword at her side, watching me. My shirt was plastered to my chest and my hair was dark with sweat. Her eyes dropped for a half second to where my collar had pulled open, the wet fabric clinging to my collarbone, and then snapped back up to my face fast enough that I almost missed it.
Almost.
"You're fast," she said. "Faster than you should be."
"I have a good teacher."
"No. You were already fast. Your stats are..." She trailed off. Shook her head once, a small sharp motion. "I'll tell you what I see."
She walked closer. Stopped within arm's reach. Her eyes were level with mine.
"You're a coward," she said. "Being a coward is important when adventuring. If you're not afraid, you'll die. But there's something else you're afraid of. I can see it when you fight. You hold back at the last moment. You pull your strikes. There's a line you won't cross, and it's not about skill."
I looked at her. She was close enough that the individual strands of golden hair that had come loose from her tie were visible, stuck to her neck with sweat she probably didn't even know she'd broken.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said. "If that's what you mean."
Ais blinked. The head tilt froze. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. She'd expected a different answer.
"I..." She started a sentence. Abandoned it. "That's... not what I meant."
"I know." I held her gaze. "But it's still true."
She looked down. Her fingers tightened on the practice sword, loosened. She adjusted the grip on the wrist guard I'd returned, still tucked under the arm she wasn't using.
"Same time tomorrow?" I asked.
She looked up. Her face was the same as always, but it sat differently on her. Like a thing that usually fit and suddenly didn't.
"...Yes."
I started walking toward the stairs. Behind me, I heard her pick up the second practice sword and begin a solo drill. The wooden blade cut air, precise and fast, following me down the steps.
Halfway down, I stopped. I turned back and leaned over the top step.
"Ais."
She stopped mid-swing. Looked at me.
"I'm going to get strong enough that you don't have to hold back."
The corner of her mouth moved. A fraction. Barely. But it moved.
"I'll be here," she said.
I went down the stairs, and my shirt was sticking to my chest and my arms ached and my shoulder was going to bruise where I'd hit the wall. The city was waking up below me, merchants and adventurers and a kid chasing the same ball from three days ago through the same intersection while the same elf stepped around him.
I had a training partner. The Sword Princess of Orario was going to teach me how to fight, every morning at dawn, on a wall that smelled like dust and old stone and the faint trace of whatever soap she used.
I was going to need more potions.