Chapter 132: Late-Night Training

That night Cortina’s house was enveloped in chaos. Drunkard chaos, rather.

From the perspective of Maxwell and Gadius, being an Elf and Dwarf respectively, It was hard to bear to see Lyell just weakening like that before their eyes. For them, it happened so fast it almost looked like an illness.

But with this, their old age was no more. They could now spend years and years together with them and their daughter. As someone who had gone on adventures with them, I understood the joy they felt now.

That day, after I dealt with Lyell that kept pushing alcohol at me—like, I was seven you know—I went to sleep… Pretended to, rather.

We haven’t done anything in a few days, but Cloud’s sword training was not done. My comrades were piss-drunk and knocked out now. That allowed me to easily sneak out without anyone discovering me.

I arrived at the usual lumberyard at the usual time. I arrived before Cloud did, so I decided to check my own abilities first.

I started by changing my dagger’s form into a spear and put on the illusion. I would have to use two weapons when the situation called for it, so I needed to get used to it.

I changed my clothing and let my threads fly, dashing through the gaps of the lumber and buildings. I put magic power into the spear and adjusted its length, then released the threads from my favorite gauntlets.

“This is quite amazing…”

One round of actions clearly took me less time than in my previous life. My physical ability hasn’t changed that much since the last time, but handling the spear and adjusting my center of gravity accordingly allowed me to make much more intense maneuvers.

“It feels like it’s particularly effective due to how light my body is.”

As the spear increased in length and gained more weight, it influenced my light body accordingly. By utilizing that to my advantage, I could move even quicker than before. However…

“But the heavier it is, the more burden it puts on my body, huh?”

Because I forcibly moved my body with threads, it put far more burden on my joints than ever before. After that one round all my joints were already screaming in pain.

“I need to take my time and find out my limit or I might end up with a big injury like before.”

It’s already been a few months since my blunder of trying to reinforce my body with threads and hurting myself in the process.

“Anyway, it’s about time Cloud showed up.”

That said, I was already at my limit before he even showed up. There’s no way I could handle sword training as I was now. I felt bad for him, but it was probably better to give up on the training for today.

Just as I reached that conclusion, I heard the light sound of footsteps.

“Whoa!? He’s here! That brat sure is diligent when you need it the least…”

I was too focused on my own body and was too late to notice his approach. I hurriedly canceled my illusion and returned to my normal form. And then, he finally appeared.

“Master, you’re already… Huh, Master?”

The one in front of him was me… me without the usual disguise. Cloud was aware that I was a girl, but I always hid half of my face and even my hair with the scarf. In other words, this was the first time I stood before him without any disguise.

“Oh, sup?”

“So it’s really you, Master? So that’s how you looked.”

“Well, I’ve got this conspicuous appearance, after all. I try to hide it from those I don’t trust.”

“So, you didn’t trust me either until now?”

“Don’t be like that. I’m but a frail beauty. I have to be vigilant.”

“You? Frail?”

My appearance had not a shred of dignity so he was being more talkative than usual. But that aside, I had to let him know that we had to give up on training for today. The previous test put more burden on my body than I expected.

“Sorry but I’m feeling bad today. Can you just settle for the basic stamina training?”

“Oh man, do you really want to teach me the sword… I mean, I feel like I’m plenty strong already, but still.”

Although he complained, he didn’t ask ‘why’. Today’s pacing mistake was completely on me, but he was considerate enough not to ask.

“Sorry about this. My body kind of hurts.”

“Well, this is you we are talking about, Master, so I bet you did something unreasonable.”

“How rude. I just got too into experimenting.”

I sat at the nearby lumber and cracked jokes with Cloud who started jogging around in the lumberyard. Still, his consideration for girls wasn’t a bad thing. At the very least, he seemed to be more sensible than me of the previous life.

As an apology, I should make a mental note to give him a souvenir handkerchief as a present.