An hour later, in a patch of forest left in complete disarray, Shulim collapsed flat on the ground, utterly spent. Every last bit of mana in her body had been drained.
[Congratulations. You defeated all enemies. Battle experience increased.]
Shulim stared blankly ahead and lifted one hand, then smacked the glowing words out of the air without mercy.
"Aww. I thought that little touch was kind of fun."
Semirys pouted in complaint.
Shulim did not have the strength to list all the ways Semirys’s tastes were deeply questionable.
Just now, after she had barely managed to use the terrain to deal with three slimes, Semirys had released four more. After those four, she sent out five. Then six...
Are you a demon? Where are you even getting this many slimes from?
Come to think of it, Semirys had been going off to faraway places a lot lately. I thought she was just goofing around. Was she actually out catching slimes?
"Oh, come on, don’t be mad."
Semirys waved a hand dismissively.
"You’re growing faster now, aren’t you? Compared to the start, by the end you were taking down slimes way faster."
Shulim wanted to argue.
Unfortunately, that did seem to be true.
At the beginning, she had been extremely cautious. By the end, she no longer even needed a barrier to block the corrosive slime fluid. Most of the time, she could simply use the speed boost from Reinforcement to dodge it outright.
A shower of green light poured down over Shulim’s body, and her strength came rushing back.
As Semirys lowered her hands, Shulim pushed herself upright and stood again. She rolled her shoulders and stretched. The deep muscle soreness from all the hard fighting had completely vanished. Semirys’s healing magic really was absurdly convenient.
Though of course, it still could not restore the mana she had spent.
"All right, that’s enough for today. Starting tomorrow, there’ll be new monsters waiting for you."
"There’s more...?"
...
"Cheep. Cheep."
The first light of morning had only just begun to spill across the sky, and birds perched high in the branches were beginning their songs for the new day.
"Hah. Hup."
The sudden voice startled them, and the birds scattered at once.
In the Hayeral family courtyard, Shulim was practicing with a wooden training sword, working through the forms of the Hayeral family sword art again and again. The air still carried a trace of the night’s chill, but sweat had already formed along her brow.
"You’re up early, Shulim."
Shulim paused and glanced over at Amon, who had just stepped into the yard and was stretching.
"Morning, Amon."
After greeting him, she went right back to her drills.
Amon finished stretching, but instead of starting his usual sword practice, he watched her movements instead.
"Oh. Shulim, your form’s gotten really solid."
"Mm. I practiced a lot. Hah."
She answered while continuing to swing.
"All right."
Amon looked interested. He grabbed a wooden sword from the side.
"Shulim, spar with me a bit. Let’s see where you’re at now."
"Can I?"
Shulim stopped mid-swing and looked at him.
"Of course. Come at me."
Amon was already settling into stance as he spoke.
The air between them shifted. Shulim tightened her grip on her wooden sword.
"Then I’m coming. Hah."
Whoosh.
Her wooden blade sliced through the air with a sharp whistle. One instant she had still been two or three meters away, and the next she was right in front of Amon, her blade cutting straight toward the opening at his neck.
Clack.
Amon held his sword one-handed and deflected her full-force strike at a sharp angle, turning her blade aside and using the momentum against her. The result was immediate. Shulim’s balance broke, and her guard opened wide.
Amon seized the chance. He drew his sword back, gathered force, and thrust straight in.
But the instant her attack had been knocked aside, Shulim had already sensed the danger. As her balance tipped, she hooked one toe into the ground and threw her body sharply backward, narrowly slipping past Amon’s thrust. Using that same backward motion, she flipped away and opened the distance again.
"You’re really going all-out, Shulim. For a second I thought the sword was going to snap."
Amon sounded relaxed, almost playful, but his stance remained airtight.
Shulim did not answer.
She watched him carefully, and without even realizing it, her gaze had shifted into the same mode Semirys drilled into her during training.
Or rather, the mindset of a real fight.
A chill ran up Amon’s spine.
What is that look? Why does Shulim suddenly feel dangerous? It’s almost like the way Zieg looked the last time he came home on break.
No, no. That has to be my imagination. There’s no way Shulim could have the kind of presence that comes from being honed through repeated life-and-death fights.
While Amon’s thoughts drifted for that split second, Shulim caught it immediately.
She attacked.
"Ah. Bad."
The moment Shulim disappeared from directly ahead, Amon felt danger flare. At the same time, a sharp rush of air cut in from his right.
He turned, and a flash of wood was already in his vision.
Clack.
He reacted fast enough to catch the strike on a slant and block it, while his feet stepped backward, trying to create the kind of space that suited him better.
But Shulim did not hesitate at all when the strike failed. She pressed forward before he had properly reset his footing, launching one rapid attack after another.
Clack clack clack...
The wooden swords rang again and again through the yard.
Because Shulim refused to let up, Amon was forced to continue defending and countering from an unfavorable position.
"...Ha. Shulim, I’ve got to hand it to you. You’ve already mastered Glimmer Reversal."
Even in the middle of their fierce close-range exchange, Amon still found time to speak.
Shulim remained completely unmoved. She stayed silent and kept driving her sword forward, the pace seeming to get even faster.
"Oh. Nice. Very nice. You can still speed up from there? Looks like you’re already close to the second form, Hunter’s Gaze."
Amon kept talking as though he had not even noticed her silence.
"But your technique is still..."
He suddenly sharpened his voice.
"...too green."
Fwoosh.
A sound like a burst of wind tore through the yard.
Crack.
With one crisp impact, the feel of breaking wood traveled through Shulim’s hands.
The clash of blades stopped at once.
The two halves of the broken wooden sword flew up from Shulim’s hands and landed several paces away.
Amon stood there with a ring of sword shadows swirling around him like a circling gale, but he did not follow through any further.
The third form of the Hayeral sword art, Stormguard.
There was no need for anyone to say who had won.
What Amon and Shulim had used in that match was not ordinary swordplay. It was the Hayeral family sword art, their hereditary style, famous throughout the Empire and originally created by their ancestor Orubet. From lowest to highest, it consisted of five forms.
Glimmer Reversal.
Hunter’s Gaze.
Stormguard.
Starflash.
Thunderstroke.
It was precisely because of that sword art that, even as House Hayeral’s lands and power had steadily shrunk and the family had even come close to ruin, no one in the Empire had ever seriously entertained the thought of stripping them of their title.
"I lost..."
Shulim stared at her empty hands in a daze.
"Uh... Shulim, don’t take it too hard, okay? I’ve still got several more years of training on you, so it’s only natural I’d win. And besides, you kept me pinned for that long and nearly pushed me into real trouble. You’re already incredible. Honestly, you might be a genius when it comes to swordsmanship."
Amon put away his wooden sword and hurriedly tried to comfort her.
"Really?"
Shulim looked up.
"That’s right. I can vouch for that."
Razelian’s voice came from the side.
"Dad? When did you get here?"
"Razelian."
Razelian walked over with a smile.
"I got here not long after the two of you started."
Then he turned to Shulim.
"Just like Amon said. In only a year, you’ve completely mastered the first form of our Hayeral sword art, Glimmer Reversal. And you’ve already touched the threshold of the second form, Hunter’s Gaze. That’s impressive, Shulim."