Training started at dawn. Early in the morning, Duncan dragged Bell out of bed and ran him through their basic routine: long-distance running to build stamina, strength work like push-ups to add muscle, then weapon-swing drills—everything had to be finished before Chardo and the others called them in for breakfast.
For a man built like a bear, Chardo's cooking skill was unexpectedly outrageous. Even Duncan—who'd eaten plenty of good food back in his old world—had to admit the meals were genuinely excellent. Of course, it was also possible his taste buds had been "assimilated" after living here for so long.
Chardo himself claimed it was thanks to his Skill: since he'd "eaten the world," he naturally started thinking about how to make food even better.
The explanation sounded perfectly normal… yet judging from the awkward expressions on Alfia and Zeus, there was probably more to it than he was saying.
Two more months slipped by after that. Once they'd recovered fully, Duncan and Bell returned to the same relentless daily grind. After Bell told Alfia what he wanted, she agreed to let him change weapons: his defensive gear shifted from a shield to gauntlets—maximizing agility and dexterity while still providing enough protection that a beast or monster wouldn't break through his guard in a single hit.
For basic protective gear and the training weapons used by Duncan and Bell, Zeus and the others didn't demand payment. First, even in their fallen state, the Zeus Familia wasn't so poor they needed to squeeze them for a few valis. Second, after Duncan's earlier rampage, the monsters nearby had thinned out. With their limited intelligence, they'd sensed that something even more terrifying than the Magic Wolf King now "ruled" that forest. Months had passed and the wolf king's traces were long gone, but even when Duncan went hunting, he could barely collect any magic stones.
After breakfast came the daily "get beaten" session. Sometimes Chardo ran it; sometimes Alfia did. Their objective was always brutally simple:
Still be standing by the time lunch arrived.
"Your power is too light," Chardo barked. "Dodging alone won't solve anything. Especially you, Bell—daggers already have short reach and weak offense. If your strength is lacking too, you won't be able to harm armored monsters or enemies at all."
He flicked his wooden baton—only the thickness of a rolling pin—and the sharp wind pressure instantly knocked aside Duncan's spear thrust. At the same time, his left hand shot out in a clean capture, grabbed Bell mid-attempted sneak attack, and flung him away like a rag doll.
Today's theme was footwork and attacking patterns, so Chardo wasn't going all-out. Otherwise, Bell's fate after getting caught was usually simple: black out in bed until tomorrow… or the day after.
Even so, that plain wooden stick moved in Chardo's hands like a heavy greatsword. Duncan didn't dare to block it head-on. Chardo had clearly told him he'd keep his force within the bounds of a third-tier adventurer—but Duncan's spare spear probably wouldn't survive a direct smash anyway.
After separating from Bell, Chardo switched his focus and drove straight at Duncan. Their two-man coordination was consistent: Duncan held the front line, Bell hunted the blind spot from behind. Part of it was Bell's dagger—part of it was also the level gap.
"The advantage of a spear is reach," Chardo said as he pushed into Duncan's range. "Once someone gets inside, it becomes dead weight. Figure out how to fix that."
As he spoke, his right hand snapped the baton with exquisite precision, parrying Duncan's sharp thrust. His left hand clenched into a fist and, without any pause, hammered straight toward Duncan's face.
In the instant of crisis, Duncan didn't retreat. Instead, he ducked and rolled toward the side of his deflected spearpoint, slipping past Chardo's fist by a hair. Then he re-gripped the shaft, turned the spear into a staff, and swept backward—blind—using pure instinct.
Chardo was already ready. He stabbed his baton into the ground to brace it, blocking the sweeping shaft. The impact numbed Duncan's hands.
He didn't have time to think.
A shadow blotted out the sunlight again. The crouched sweep left Duncan momentarily locked—he couldn't rise or roll in time.
And right then, Bell—who'd been thrown away—quietly reappeared behind Chardo. Using the opening created by Chardo's wind-up, he drove a hard stab toward Chardo's ribs.
"Too reckless!"
Bell's movement didn't escape Chardo's notice, but it forced him to give up his clean shot on Duncan and take a backward step to disengage.
In a blink, offense and defense flipped.
Bell had already committed his whole body into that lunge—his feet were still on the ground, yet the momentum carried him forward like he was half airborne. He couldn't change direction immediately. Forced to adapt, he turned the thrust into a horizontal cut, trying to use the dagger to push Chardo back.
Chardo, now safely withdrawn, showed no mercy toward the wide-open Bell. He knocked Bell's arm aside with his forearm, then—without the slightest delay—drove a fist into Bell's unguarded waist.
At that moment, as Chardo dipped forward and down—
His head seemed to slam into an invisible wall.
His body jolted, locked for a split second.
It was only about a second of delay—barely anything.
But it was enough.
Duncan, already recovered, finally found his opening. He swung with everything he had, smashing the spear-shaft toward Chardo's midsection.
Crack!
A heavy impact rang out. The spare spear's shaft shattered—splintered—under Chardo's hands, which had somehow returned to guard in time. The speed of the recovery was far beyond what a Level 2 should have been able to track.
"Not bad," Chardo said, smiling with genuine satisfaction. "You actually forced me to put strength into my defense. That thing just now—was it your Skill?"
"Yeah." Duncan bent down, picked up the spearhead, and answered between ragged breaths. The shaft was already pulverized—no hope of repair. "Sky-Step. Originally, it makes something like an 'air brick' under your feet—so you can move even while in midair."
"So it's not just under your feet," Chardo said, thinking back over what he'd felt. He was already reconstructing the trick. "You can control where the air brick appears. And you don't need to push off with your feet to use it, do you?"
"…Yeah." Duncan nodded. "After leveling up, I found I can form them with my hands too. And I can manifest them anywhere within about two meters of me. About the size of a cutting board. They last around five seconds… but if they take a strong impact, they'll break."
Chardo's eyes widened slightly. "That's a nasty surprise. An invisible wall—fragile, sure, but it can disrupt an enemy's movement and create an opening for a counter. How do you form it? Do you 'fire' it outward like a projectile from your center, or can you generate it directly at any position you imagine?"
"Directly at any position," Duncan said. "And I'm not fully used to it yet—the formation time takes one to two seconds."
"That's enough," Chardo said decisively. "Even short-chant magic can't match that kind of deployment speed. A Skill that lets you move in the air and set traps to mess with people—this is excellent."
He pulled the baton out of the ground and rolled his shoulders once, satisfied.
"Training's over for today."
He glanced at the two boys—one panting, one crumpled and bruised—and delivered the verdict like it mattered.
"For once… you passed."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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