CH 25

[As the Swordsman’s Hope]

Gawain returned from Youg Hannotes where Lloyd was when it was near dusk as planned.

I was a little worried because many arrows were stuck in the wings of the Wyvern that he rode on, but he said “No Problem.”, so I didn’t pursue it deeply.

Also, for the time being, he seems to have received permission for Noelia to stay from Lloyd.

About the words that he said before he left, “Your daughter will take care of me”, I’m worried if he said it as it is to Lloyd, but perhaps because they are in acquintance since a long time ago, there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding.

Listening to Gawain’s story at dinner, I keep thinking about such a thing, and I decided that from the next morning, I would start practicing Body Strengthening magic outdoor with Gawain as my instructor.

Next to me, Noelia, who is weak at body strengthening, would also undergoing the training together with me under the name of retraining.

“(Strength), which is the basis of Body Strengthening magic, is a magic that imagines muscle fibers in the body and uses magic power to thicken each muscle fiber to improve one’s own muscle strength.”

Gawain, who regularly uses Body Strengthening magic, pointed at his bulging to the point of almost bursting pectoralis major muscle and explained the magic effect.

I understand what he was saying, but I wonder if there’s any need to jerk his muscles while being half naked like that.

I don’t get half of what he’s talking about because those muscles are taking my attention though.

Noelia, who had already learned it before, also saw the appearance of Gawain, sighed and giving up halfway.

“Frick, Noelia. Try it now. Imagine thickening each muscle with magic power.”

“Yes, I’ll try it.”

“Good reply. But be careful, since Frick has a lot of excess magic power, if you suddenly thicken a lot of muscle, you’ll run out of oxygen and you’ll faint.”

So most oxygen flows into the magically thickened muscles, causing oxygen deficiency huh.

If so, I wonder if there is magic that can increase the volume of breathing in the Body Strengthening magic.

I feel that Body Strengthening magic can become dangerous magic if you are not familiar with the structure of your body before using it.

I close my eyes and think of my arm muscles.

Then, I chant the incantation of Strength.

“Oh overflowing magic power. Become new flesh to my body. Strength.”

As I am used to sense the movement of muscles in every corner of my body with swordsmanship training, as Gawain said, I carefully put in magic power to each of my muscles, so that I wouldn’t run out of oxygen by thickening a lot of muscles at once.

The magic power that I poured in made my arm muscles swells more and more.

I don’t feel a shortness of breath either, so I think I did it.

“Hou, even I can’t activate the Body Strengthening magic in one try when I devised it…it’s the same as I’ve heard, it seems that you have high comprehension in regard to magic. As expected of the man who I’ve recognized.”

When I opened my eyes, Gawain who was in front of me was looking at my arm and had a satisfied expression.

“Is this means that it has been activated?”

“Ahh, it did. Although it’s just on one arm, but it still activated. It seems like Frick has a great potential for Body Strengthening magic.”

Next to me, Noelia was also successful in activating it, but since her body is petite from the start, her lungs were also small, so she seemed to lack oxygen and had a pale face.

“This is why, I’m not good at Body Strengthening magic…it is also necessary to train the mind and body to some extent apart from magic power…huu, huu.”

Noelia, who managed to activate the magic, was breathing roughly.

“There is also a magic to increase the volume of breathing, but it is a particularly dangerous category even in Body Strengthening, so it is better not to use it yet. Noelia, don’t overdo it.”

I understood why many mages treat this Body Strengthening magic as a heresy.

Because they can use magic to attack from long distance, there’s almost no mage who chose hand to hand combat, so if they need to train mind and body aside from magic power, there was a possibility that they would erase the trait of mages themselves.

However, if it’s magic swordsman like me, who has a trained body from swordsmanship training and is also capable of using magic, this magic that can strengthen one’s body is a magic that would make them drooled.

“Can I try swinging my sword?”

I asked Gawain for permission to swing my sword in order to test my strengthened arm strength and see how much effect it has.

“Ahh, of course. Swing it.”

With permission, I pull out my dull sword.

With my strengthened arm that has swelled to about twice it’s size, I felt that the weight of the sword was reduced to less than half of the original weight.

“Light…to think this sword has become this light…”

Holding the sword that I pulled out, I tried to swing it a couple of times.

The speed of the swing was so fast that it was faster than Alfine’s slashing attack.

“Fast…Frick-sama has already been a master of swordsmanship since the first time I met him. To think that Body Strengthening would have this much effect on him…”

Noelia, who was sitting and resting because of oxygen deficiency, was astonished when she saw the movement of my sword.

It has this much effect even though it’s only on my arm, huh…

Indeed, it’s understandable that Gawain, who regularly activates this on his whole body, has that much muscular strength.

It seems that if I strengthen my whole body, even with this sword, I can cut a hard monster into two with a single stroke.

It seems that even my swordsmanship that I thought couldn’t grow further could still aim for the top with the help of magic.

With Body Strengthening magic, I found a way to further my sword skill which I felt had hit the limit.

“Lloyd will be vexed when he sees Frick’s swordsmanship. He doesn’t have magic talent, so he couldn’t learn my Body Strengthening magic.”

“My swordsmanship is still far behind if it’s compared with the Frontier Count-sama’s.”

“Certainly, you haven’t mastered all of the Body Strengthening magic yet. But when you do, you can definitely become a top-class swordsman.”

Gawain folded his arms and nodded to me.

I felt that if I can supplement my lacking muscle strength and explosive power with magic, I would be able to become top-class swordsman, as Gawain told me.

As a magic swordsman, I am thinking of mastering both swords and magic, so I was happy to learn that the swordsmanship that I have been training for many years can still grow.

“I don’t know if I can be a top-class swordsman, but I think I’ve found the hope with Gawain-sama’s Body Strengthening magic.”

“I’m also grateful that I can find a talented person who can inherits my magic other than Noelia. Now that is has come to this, it would be better to make Frick’s sword special.”

With a nod, Gawain pull out his notebook from his trousers pocket and wrote down something.

He might be writing down the concept of the sword that he will be making, looking at my practice swinging.

“Now, next is一一”

Shortly after taking a break, the next practice of Body Strengthening magic began.

Gawain’s instruction may be quite strict, but I was confident as my body was trained with swordsmanship.

“I-I will just be observing from the next magic.”

The pale faced Noelia said while sitting on the ground.

“Noelia, are you okay?”

“Yes, it’s just it became difficult for me to breathe, so please don’t worry.”

She look to be in an extreme lack of oxygen.

In the case of Noelia, the demerit of being unable to move due to lack of oxygen seemed to be greater than the merit of strengthening her body.

“Noelia, don’t overdo it. You’ve passed out many times before, so I can’t force you too.”

Gawain is also worried about Noelia’s condition.

“This Body Strengthening magic is a life threatening magic after all. Frick too, use it with caution.”

“Yes.”

Replying to that, I restarted the training of Body Strengthening magic.

So Body Strengthening magic is like another category of magic on its own, like attack magic or support magic? Welp, that opened up a lot of possibilities, like Super Saiyan mode or Ultra Instinct~~

As a side note, the author originally use blood as Body Strengthening magic’s fuel instead of oxygen, but he changed it to oxygen. Makes sense.