"Get up. Haah… that's why I didn't want you to make yourself so cute…"
Rotsard repeated himself, but when he was being ignored again, her rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath while shaking his head.
"...eh…?"
…and the petite maid flinched while letting out a shocked voice…
"Eh? Wh-what did you just…? Eh?"
"..."
She kept asking, but when she was the one being ignored, she wasn't able to stay curled up and stood up, slowly and hesitantly approaching the bleached-blond-haired boy from the side.
She kept trying to walk around him to take a peek at his expression, evenytally even causing him to weave and duck just to get away.
…only that, not really.
"Eh?!"
When he finally had enough, Rotsard grabbed the maid's wrist and put the wooden sword he picked up for her into her hand, causing her to let out a dumbfounded gasp.
"As I said, we will continue the training like normal."
"!"
Rotsard declared with perfect composure, causing the petite maid's expression to turn bashful.
"Considering just speaking about how it should feel like isn't the right way in your case, we will try a different manner. Once."
"?!?!"
Without letting go of her wrist, Rotsard pulled the maid back to the training dummy and stuck close to her from behind.
Close, as in full-body contact close, causing the petite maid to tense up, speechless from sheer shock.
"I swore to myself to never wield a sword again, but I'll be breaking that oath just this one time to help you out. The least you could do is stop acting like a pervert and actually try to learn something from it."
"!"
As Rotsard put his arms on the maid's arms and his hands wrapped around her hands holding the sword, the bleached-blond-haired boy scoffed through his teeth, causing her to flinch and making an apologetic expression through her embarrassment.
"While we're at it, I'll also tell you what bothers me the most in your entire fighting style."
Rotsard added with his face right by the maid's ear.
"That ridiculously telegraphed jump slash. Not only are you completely exposed while making the jump itself… which you should try to fix somehow on your own… But also, you are left wide open right after performing it."
Rotsard furrowed his brows and used his body to fix all the little mistakes in the maid's posture while talking.
"Would it hurt you to immediately do a follow-up attack? Anyway, that's the immediate thing that should be fixed. Since, for a thick-headed commoner like you, even one additional attack will be a success, we will be aiming for two."
With the announcement, Rotsard finished the preparation, getting the maid into the correct stance.
"Don't try to interfere with the movement I'll be guiding. Go with the flow. Concentrate on the flow of mana. Try to get a feel of it on your own."
"..."
He said to the completely silent maid whose face and ears were burning bright red.
"You can sense it already, can't you? The training sword sucking in my mana. It's pulling so much that it passes right through your hands. What you're experiencing is the correct feeling. No forcing anything, just allowing yourself to become one with the sword. Allowing its will to become a part of your own will."
Rotsard's words were obvious to him. That very experience was always the case for him. From the moment he first picked up the sword, the moment he killed his sparring partner, and even now, despite not directly touching the weapon itself.
"...!"
"I told you to concentrate! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't touch a sword even if the only other option for me was death, so don't think about anything else!"
The petite maid's body stuck so close to Rotsard's body trembled, which immediately earned her a scolding.
"Just don't relax completely."
After a brief pause, Rotsard added as if he just remembered that he didn't mention something that might be unclear to an idiot.
"I-I keep training every day! Don't treat me like an ama…!"
"Then let's start. I'll try to do it slowly and with barely any strength to better showcase how the mana should flow through. Remember, that's the only time I'm showing it, don't waste the chance."
The maid got grumpy, but she was immediately cut off by Rotsard's declaration.
"!!!"
His movements were like a brewing blizzard, even though the maid knew that they were coming, their swift oppressive might left her short of breath.
*SHING*
A single downwards vertical slash.
A natural disaster.
Overwhelming.
Unstoppable.
Like an avalanche swallowing a defenseless village at the foot of the mountain.
*SHING* *SHING*
Following it, an upwards diagonal slash effortlessly flowing into a third attack, a returning horizontal slash.
Pure, concentrated violence with the death of their target as the only objective
Like a starved beast with nothing left to lose, ripping into its prey.
"Of course, it's a bit simplistic and can be countered, but there is no perfect single sword technique in the first place. Timing is key, and there is a response for every action. That said, it's still better than just jumping up and slashing down while hoping it will be enough."
"!!!"
And then, as if the display was nothing much at all, Rotsard simply breathed out and shrugged his shoulders, his words pulling back the petite maid from the world of cold and ice back to reality.
*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump*
*thump*
As if they forgot to do it initially, the pieces of wooden log fell to the ground, the fall of the last one timed perfectly with the petite maid plopping down to her knees the moment Rotsard stepped away from her.
"Huh? Hey, are you alright…?"
"...! …! …!"
Taken aback, Rotsard asked when the girl turned ghastly pale and started sweating profusely while gasping for air.
Instead of subsiding, the symptoms turned more severe, and the girl started violently trembling and wheezing as if her lungs were being blocked and couldn't get filled with air.
Even on her knees, and supporting herself with both hands she couldn't help it, and soon enough the convulsions caused her to jolt…
*splurt*
"Khh…!"
*thump*
"What in the…?! Commoner?!"
The next moment, blood burst out from the petite maid's nose, her eyes flashed white, and she dropped to the ground unconscious while still shaking and twitching, everything happening so fast that the bleached-blond-haired boy barely had the time to call out and rush back to her.
All while the magic barrier around the academy was visible again because of Rotsard's showcase, with the splashes of color like an oil spill on water swirling around.