CH 106

Episode 106 – After the First Day of Instruction…

Under Kirty’s guidance, we continued with the sword swinging practice. In the past, I was always swinging my sword while imagining myself fighting another person or monster, so it was pretty fun for me. But this time, since I was trying to focus on practicing with the intent to perform clean overhead slashes, it was way less fun than usual. Besides…

“Lewin, your sword is off again. You need to first align your body with the proper posture, and then you have to swing your sword carefully or it won’t work out.” (Kirty)

“Yes! I’ll keep that in mind!” (Lewin)

If my sword wavered in a tiny bit, Kirty would provide strict input to fix it. Doing repetitive work where I didn’t have to think was my strong point, but since this way of practicing sword swings required my brain to work at full speed in order to keep up with her advice, I was accumulating a lot of mental fatigue. In order to prevent my form from crumbling, I had to be completely aware of how every part of my body was moving from head to toe at all times during each swing. I wasn’t moving much, but I was building up fatigue at a much faster rate and was sweating much more than usual. Since I was getting distracted by the crazy amount of sweat that was flowing down my body, my sword swings were getting sloppier, and I started getting stuck in this vicious cycle.

“Let’s take a bit of a break, shall we? You seem to be losing concentration.” (Kirty)

The amount of time I had spent swinging my sword hardly amounted to one hour so far. My body was already unusually tired, even though I had only swung my sword around one-tenth the number of times I usually did each morning. As I sat there with my head hanging down, wiping the sweat dripping from my brow, Kirty walked over to me.

“It’s water. Drink it.” (Kirty)

“…Thank you.” (Lewin)

“You seem to be quite tired. Shall we stop here for today?” (Kirty)

“I am pretty tired. This is the first time it’s felt so hard to move my body at will. But… I’m not going to give up so easily. You’ve given me your precious time, so I can still keep going!” (Lewin)

★　　　★　　　★

“Alright! Let’s stop here for today. You did a great job hanging in there, Lewin.” (Kirty)

After three long hours of practicing my sword swings, it was finally over. In these last three hours, I was constantly putting strength into every part of my body, and the fatigue was so bad that I felt my muscles continuously cramping up. I had been doing sword training and muscle training almost every day, but this was my first time feeling so tired.

“….Haah…Fyuuu…Kirty-san… thank you… so much.” (Lewin)

“Except, when you notice yourself getting this tired, it’s a good thing because it means that you were properly swinging from the same correct posture every time. It must have been rough for you since you still have those strange habits, so you did a great job, Lewin.” (Kirty)

I was still sitting on the floor when Kirty squatted down in front of me and praised me with a smile. While I was swinging my sword, she would only speak strictly to me, so suddenly receiving her praise made me experience such a wide gap between the two that it made me feel even happier to hear it.

“….Kirty-san… Thank you so much… Tomorrow as well, would you be willing to teach me?” (Lewin)

“Yeah, of course. It’s exciting for me to see you become stronger, Lewin. I will stay with you without fail until you feel that you’ve reached a level you’re satisfied with.” (Kirty)

Just like that, I was able to safely finish my first day of instruction under Kirty. It was many times harder than I imagined it would be, but I managed to grit my teeth and endure it until the end. For all the fatigue I felt, today’s special training was enriching. My sword swings still had a long way to go, but I could now swing my sword without shifting off my central axis. Even though it was only a little bit, I managed to improve again today.

More than anything, Kirty’s teachings were excellent. Her instructions were detailed, and if I lost focus for even a moment, she would send strict words flying my way, and so I could never let myself get unconsciously distracted. If I continued to follow Kirty’s instructions like this, it wouldn’t be long before I would be able to wield my sword properly. With that belief in mind, my evaluation of Kirty had shot up a lot today.

…A Captain of the Knights of the Royal Order, and at a master level in swordsmanship. Not only that, she was good at teaching, and was a beautiful woman with a precise, discerning eye… I realized all over again that she was really a person with absurdly high specs.

At our first contact, perhaps I was a bit unfair with my evaluation of her, but now I came to realize that I might have gotten to know one hell of a person. Kirty had to leave for work, but these thoughts crossed my mind as I saw her off with words of gratitude.