"Alright, let’s begin." Leonis raised his training sword and stood in front of Rhea with a calm smile.
Unlike what he expected, Rhea did not attack immediately, she took a few steps back and kept her sword beside her body, the distance between them reached about six meters, and the cool evening breeze moved her long red hair.
"You attack first. I want to see how capable you are after your Core was healed." She glanced at her sword and continued with a frown.
"Of course, I don’t expect much, so you don’t need to do anything stupid to impress me."
"Wow. I thought you would at least have some trust in me." Leonis smiled.
"I trust you.... To do stupid things."
He laughed, but placed his sword in a proper position.
The memories of this body told him that Rhea was far above him in physical strength, speed, and Mana capacity, even without using the true power of her race, she was one of the best students in Avalon Academy.
He had no intention of defeating her.
But losing did not necessarily mean that he had to walk away empty-handed.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Whenever you want."
Leonis moved immediately.
Mana flowed into his legs, and with [Quick Step], he closed the distance. His sword rose from the right and came down toward Rhea’s shoulder.
Clang!
Rhea only turned her wrist to deflect the strike, Leonis changed the direction of his blade and launched a second attack, but the girl’s sword appeared in front of him again.
Then she took half a step forward and stopped the tip of her sword in front of his chest.
"You’re dead." The girl announced with a serious expression.
Leonis glanced at the blade.
"Don’t you think it’s a little too early to announce my death?"
"If that were a real sword, you would be looking at it through your chest right now."
Leonis could not argue with that, and Rhea pulled her sword back.
"Again."
The fight started again.
This time, Leonis performed two strikes in a row, but Rhea easily blocked both of them and answered with a controlled strike to his shoulder.
A brief pain spread through his arm.
"You’re dead again."
Leonis kept his smile, but his gaze became more serious, if he wanted a different result, he had to change his method.
During the next attack, just as Rhea moved her sword from right to left, Leonis changed the flow of Mana in his body.
[Calamity Sense] showed him the path of the attack.
Waist, opposite leg, and shoulder.
[First Veil of Seven Veils of Evernight]
[Lost Moon]
For a fraction of a second, his movement and presence shifted away from where Rhea expected them to be.
The girl’s sword passed through the spot where Leonis had been a moment earlier, but he had not moved backward.
With a short movement, he entered the inner angle of her attack and sent his sword toward her side.
Clang!
She turned at a much higher speed and blocked the strike, Leonis was forced two steps backward by the impact.
But this time, Rhea did not immediately launch another attack.
"Wait, what was that move?"
"What move?"
"Don’t play dumb. I had already figured out your position before you attacked, but right before our swords met, it was as if your movement and Mana flow had changed."
"The only thing I can say is that I have a good master." Leonis smiled.
Rhea frowned even more, stared at him for a few moments, and then raised her sword.
"Very well. Let’s see how long you can last with that new skill of yours."
Ten minutes later, his body was feeling almost all the effects of the training.
Clang!
Rhea’s sword struck his blade, and before he could counterattack, the girl moved into close range.
The flat side of her sword hit his side, forcing the air out of his lungs.
Leonis retreated with Quick Step, but Rhea immediately followed him and stopped the tip of her sword beneath his throat.
"You’re dead again."
Leonis took a heavy breath.
"I think I’ve died enough times for today."
Rhea pulled her sword back.
"Your problem is distance, whenever you see an attack, you either move too far back or get too close, come here."
Leonis approached her.
She moved behind him and grabbed his right wrist to correct the angle of his sword. Since she was a little shorter than him, she had to stand on her toes.
The distance between them almost disappeared.
He felt the warmth of the girl’s body behind him.
The light scent of her red hair also reached his nose with every movement, and the closeness of her soft, well-shaped body made it a little difficult to focus on swordsmanship.
"Lower your elbow, if your arm is this open, your enemy can easily knock your sword aside." She moved her hand along his arm.
Leonis smiled.
"Rhea, I think this part of the training has become more interesting than I expected."
"I’m just teaching you how to hold your sword, idiot!"
"I know, I hope we can practice this more often."
Rhea fell silent for a moment.
Then she placed her foot behind Leonis’s ankle and threw him off balance by twisting his arm.
Boom!
Leonis fell onto the training mat, and before he could get up, Rhea placed one knee beside his side and held the tip of her sword against his neck.
Her long red hair fell over her shoulder and beside his face, their faces were much too close to each other.
Leonis looked into the girl’s eyes, despite all her threats, Rhea had been careful not to seriously hurt him even when she took him down.
"If we’re going to get this close every time I lose, I think I should lose more often." He said with a mischievous smile.
As the old saying goes, if you can’t defeat your opponent with your fists, then defeat them with words.
Rhea froze for a moment.
Her gaze unconsciously stopped on his lips, but she immediately pulled her face away.
"Y-You really are a pervert!" The girl stood up with a red face. "Next time, I’ll really hit you!"
Leonis slowly sat up.
"I thought you were already doing that."
"Shut up!"
He laughed.
With her proud personality and sharp tongue, Rhea was very different from the girl who now could not even hide the redness of her cheeks.
And that difference... was very attractive.
After a few more rounds of training, she finally allowed them to rest.
They both sat on a stone bench beside the training field, the girl took two bottles of water out of her bag and handed one to him.
"You even brought water for me? What a kind childhood friend I have."
"I brought an extra one for myself."
Leonis looked at the two identical bottles.
"What an interesting coincidence."
"If you don’t want it, give it back."
"Who said I don’t want it?"
Leonis took a few sips.
Rhea also picked up her bottle, but unlike usual, she was quiet, she parted her lips and closed them again several times, as if she did not know how to bring something up.
Leonis noticed, but said nothing, finally, the girl took a short breath.
"Leonis... do you still love that girl?"
His hand stopped on the bottle, there was no need to ask who she meant.
The former fiancée of the previous owner of this body.
"No." He answered calmly.
She raised her head.
"Just like that?"
"Yeah."
The girl pressed her lips together slightly.
"But you loved her for years, even after your engagement was broken off, you were still chasing after her, and then you confessed to her in front of everyone, even though you knew she had a fiancé."
She paused for a moment, and her voice became softer.
"You almost died because of her, too."
Leonis looked at her face for a few seconds, the memories of the previous owner of this body moved through his mind.
Little Rhea, who used to sit beside him for hours after the destruction of the Habsburg Family, the girl who brought him medicine when he was sick and defended him whenever someone humiliated him.
She had almost always been there.
But the previous owner of this body had been so caught up in his one-sided love that he failed to notice the people around him.
"A person can chase after something for years and finally realize that it was never worth all that effort in the first place. That girl had the right not to love me, but I should have accepted that much earlier, too."
Rhea lowered her gaze.
"So you finally understand?"
"Yeah. And I think you also had the right to be angry with me."
The girl slowly raised her head, she had not expected this answer.
"You were always by my side, Rhea, even when I didn’t appreciate it. When others made fun of me or thought the Habsburg Family had ended with me, you never acted like them." He added.
He fell silent for a few moments.
"I realized this too late, but I don’t want to make the same mistake again."
Rhea tightened her fingers around the bottle, her cheeks became slightly red, but this time, it was not because of Leonis’s jokes.
"Idiot..." She whispered softly.
Then she turned her gaze away.
"I was only angry because you kept humiliating yourself for someone who wouldn’t even look at you anymore."
Her voice trembled for a moment.
"When I heard about the duel and found out that your Core had been broken, I thought I might never be able to talk to you again."
This time, Leonis did not smile, he could feel the fear hidden behind the girl’s words.