CH 24

In any case, I eventually managed to get permission from Mom, and I soon headed towards the mansion’s drill hall. It felt a bit weird since I was wearing pants today, which was very unlike my usual attire.

“Hmm…”

While training alone in my room, I usually wore negligees. Still, no matter how thin and light my negligees were, it’s uncomfortable to train in a dress.

Now, however, the new training suit I was given to wear was so comfortable, and when kicking too, I could feel no discomfort in my movements.

Not far from the drill hall, I went straight towards the archery field. Everyone’s scheduled for patrol duty, so there’s no one here.

Beside me, I set down my quiver full of practice arrows. I took one arrow out, took in one breath, and drew the arrow on my bow. The slight tightness I could feel on my muscles was pleasant.

Pausing for a moment, I stared at my target, then soon let the arrow fly.

Shot forward from the bow, the arrow struck the center of the target. Bull’s eye. Even though I was holding a bow for the first time in a long while, I had trained under such bloody conditions in my previous life. It wasn’t difficult to draw on those memories and remember how to do it.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was as if I’d been bewitched—I shot arrow after arrow, like I’m making up for all the lost time.

Even the wind, as it would carry my arrows forward, seemed to be cheering me on. My arrows cut through the air seamlessly, and just seeing this made my chest swell in pride.

Completely engrossed, I plucked arrows from the quiver one after another and shot them all right into the target. And, perhaps swept into a reminiscent mood, I even shot a few actual combat arrows.

Ever since I reincarnated to this place, it felt to me like time passed by in a blur. Whether it’s because my previous life was so terrible and so full of hardships, or perhaps because my current life now was so peaceful, I lived my new life as though I was a tranquil stream of water flowing through a valley.

Even so, it seemed like I wasn’t completely suited to a life that was much too peaceful. As I was moving my body actively in this manner, I could truly feel that I was full of vitality.

Not noticing just how much time had passed, I finally set down the bow. At that moment, someone behind me started to clap.

I turned around, startled. It was David. I didn’t even feel his presence because I was so focused.

“You’ve only recently learned how to pull a bowstring, but… You look like you’re already better than most of the guys in the garrison.”

“Brother, when did you get here?”

“Rin, how in the world did you figure it out on your own?”

“I read about it in a book…”

I couldn’t say that I already knew how to, from the very beginning, so I answered vaguely instead.

Technically speaking, it’s true that it’s from a book. At one point in the past, I read about the archery techniques in this world to acclimatize myself to them. I was afraid that I’d stand out if my own techniques turned out to be much too different from that of this world.

My family had been producing knights for generations and generations, so naturally, we had a variety of books about combat in our collection—I don’t know about other genres though. I checked out the books I needed from the library and read them all.

With perhaps a tone of exaggeration, David praised me.

“Goodness… then, this means that you taught yourself. Is my baby sister a genius or what?”

David’s compliment made me feel a bit shy.

“It’s only because I got it from you and Dad, right? I keep hearing from others that you two are geniuses…”

It was one of the rumors that circulated the mansion. In fact, I had never seen with my own eyes Dad and Brother catching monsters, but I’ve heard a lot about how they’re so good at it. The rumors that had spread amongst the garrison inevitably found their way to the mansion.

Brother was a genius swordsman.

As I had redirected David’s praise back to him, he replied with an equally abashed expression, the same as mine earlier.

“Eyy, how can I be on the same level as Father? I don’t think I am, but Father is definitely a genius.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Father can freely use aura, too.”

“Aura?”

It’s an unfamiliar term.

Of course, I knew that magic and divine power existed in this world. In a way, magic was comparable to the abilities of Espers that I had seen in my previous life. I initially thought that the difference between them was paper thin, but it actually was much thicker.

One major difference had something to do with incantation. It didn’t seem like much, but having to recite the incantation mattered when it came to cutting down on the time needed to evoke one’s abilities.

Mages needed to utter their incantations to conjure their abilities, whereas Espers did not need to do so.

Being able to activate one’s abilities with just your thoughts was a notable difference between mages and Espers, however there was also a greater point of contrast between them.

Basically, even if you had the talent to feel mana, you would need to focus all your attention on your studies at the magic tower, which in itself was a difficult institution to enter. From there, they would endeavor to raise their circles as full-fledged mages.

Additionally, when comparing an Esper to a swordsman, the difference lay with training. Unlike Dad and Brother, who had to train for years to become the swordsmen that they were today, Espers were naturally gifted with tremendous abilities, and they could use them freely without having to train the way swordsmen do.

Unlike mages and swordsmen, who must gradually build their skills to match their abilities, an Esper’s abilities were like blessings that had fallen from the sky. However, it’s not as if God had given everything to Espers; along with their abilities, a fatal flaw hovered like a curse.

An Esper could never be whole without a Guide.

Quite literally, an Esper was one half to a whole. The more Espers used their abilities, the more they also accumulated impure energy.

The stronger the built-up energy was, the greater the eventual recoil would be. Therefore, it’s important for a Guide to be there to remove all the impure energy from the Esper’s body. This would allow clean energy to circulate once more.

That’s what Guides were.

Fundamentally, guiding was done through physical contact. Such a thing called  ‘radial guiding’ was also possible through a certain distance, but it couldn’t be compared to direct contact.

That’s why most Espers tended to prefer being guided directly.

In particular, even if the distance between the Esper and the Guide was nonexistent… Still, the most effective guiding method was through the exchange of bodily fluids.