“You have many other things to learn right now. And you’ve started learning spirit arts already, no?”
“But I want to be with Onii-chan.”
“You shouldn’t be selfish like that,” Sara said with a stern shake of her head.
“I don’t wanna! Hmph, Sara’s such a grump.” Latifa muttered under her breath. Sara’s mouth dropped open in dumbfounded shock.
“Wha... Latifa! Sit down right there!”
“Don’t wanna!”
“Kuh, this child...” Sara’s body trembled as Latifa mockingly stuck out her tongue. Her cute and fluffy ears and tail were twitching in a menacing way.
“S-Sara, don’t you think Latifa must be feeling lonely?” After watching silently until now, Orphia quickly stepped in to calm Sara.
“That’s right, sister. Latifa just wanted to see her brother. She’s studied so much more than us, so she deserves the break! Don’t you think?”
Vera tried to chime in with her support, but suddenly...
With a noisy, flapping sound, a human-shaped figure descended from the sky.
“What’s wrong? There seems to be a commotion over here...” It was the winged werebeast, Uzuma. She looked around at the gathering of people and widened her eyes upon spotting Ursula and Rio. She immediately dropped to one knee before them.
“I-If it isn’t the Head Elder and Lord Rio. Good day...”
“Hum. It’s been a while,” Ursula nodded.
“H-Hello, Lady Uzuma.” Rio returned the spirit folk’s greeting somewhat awkwardly. This made Uzuma turn to look at Rio with wide eyes.
“You’ve already learned to speak the language of the spirit folk?”
“Y-Yes, if it’s at an easy enough level, at least. I’m... I’m still not used to it, though. I learned together... I learned with Latifa,” Rio replied to Uzuma’s question in a stiff manner.
“I’m surprised. And, well... I am sorry for what happened in the past.”
“...Oh, no. I am still not used to your language yet, so please excuse my use of the Strahl tongue from here... In regards to what happened, I have heard that you were punished by being put under house arrest. Please do not let yourself be troubled by the incident any further. All is forgiven.” At first, Rio wasn’t quite sure why he was being apologized to, so he took a moment to respond.
“Uzuma — long time no see. When did your house arrest end?” Sara asked Uzuma, joining in on the conversation.
“Long time no see, Lady Sara. It just ended this morning.”
“I see. Will you be returning to work today?”
“No, I am still resting from my warrior duties. The first thing I wanted to do after I was allowed outside was to apologize to Lord Rio...” Uzuma said, expression clouding over with guilt.
Rio gave a strained smile and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
“So you don’t have anything else to do for today, Uzuma?” Sensing the awkward air between Rio and Uzuma, Sara changed the topic out of consideration.
“Yes, nothing in particular.”
“I see... then, would you like to spar? It’s been a while, right?”
“O-Oh, sure. I don’t mind...” Uzuma nodded mildly.
“Ooh! Uzuma and Sara are sparring?! I wanna see that!”
“Do your best, sister!” Hearing the word “spar” made Arslan and Vera jump with excitement.
“Who’s stronger?” Latifa asked her two friends curiously.
“That’d be Uzuma, of course.”
“My sister, for sure!”
Arslan and Vera replied at the same time, but with different answers.
“No, no... Uzuma is the warrior chief. Sara’s strong, but she can’t defeat her yet.”
“That’s not true!”
“You’re just biased towards your family, Vera!”
“Grrr!”
Arslan and Vera bickered like noisy spectators.
“But I think my Onii-chan is the strongest!” Latifa chimed in, unable to endure listening silently any longer.
“Sorry to say this about Rio, but my sister is the strongest.”
“Uzuma is definitely stronger than everyone else!”
Vera and Arslan immediately shot down Latifa’s statement, but Latifa refused to back down, too.
“That’s not true. Onii-chan drove away a whole flight of demi-dragons by himself!”
“A whole flight of demi-dragons, you say...”
“Impressive as always.”
Uzuma and Ursula both murmured in awe. Sara and Orphia also threw a look of respect Rio’s way.
“It wasn’t anything spectacular. I’m still in training too,” Rio responded with uncomfortable modesty.
“Umm, Rio. What do you think about sparring with me once? I always see you swinging your sword alone early in the morning and late at night, so I wanted to try fighting you,” Sara requested in a humble manner.
“Onii-chan, do your best!”
“You too, sister! This is the perfect chance to show everyone who the strongest is!”
Latifa and Vera cheered before Rio could even get a word in. Evidently, they had already decided that Rio and Sara’s match was set in stone.
Or rather, they were just happy to have an excuse to get out of more studying.
“Then, shall we?” Rio wasn’t brazen enough to betray the pure expectations of two young girls.
“Yes please!” Sara nodded happily.
After that, Uzuma took to the air and brought their training weapons back.
News of their match spread before they knew it. Before long, a small crowd had gathered, making their sparring session more like a mini event of sorts. They drew straws to decide who would be sparring together first — the result was Rio and Uzuma. Once they had settled on the rule of limiting spirit arts to the use of body enhancement only, Rio picked up his longsword and stood across the square from Uzuma, who gripped her short spear tightly. Sara would be their referee.
“Begin!”
The match finally began, and Uzuma charged at Rio the instant the signal was given. The propulsionary force of her wings sent her shooting forward like an arrow. Her incredible speed closed the gap in the blink of an eye, and she released a sharp jab towards Rio as though to test him.
Rio saw through the jab easily, using the minimum amount of movement to shift his body and evade it.
“Oooh!” the spectators cheered.
Meanwhile, Uzuma continued to launch an avalanche of stabbing attacks towards Rio, who parried them efficiently with his refined movements. A surprised expression flashed across Uzuma’s face, and she widened the distance between them. Then, she took on a lower stance and readied her spear, charging forward with her body held close to the ground to aim at Rio’s chest from below. Rio received the attack head-on, but Uzuma tried to brute-force her spear through his defenses. Once Rio’s body had been lifted up, she focused more strength into her arms and stepped forward firmly, flapping her wings to blow him fully into the air.
I see her crazy strength hasn’t changed, Rio thought as he flew through the air, impressed by Uzuma’s physical strength.
Of course, Rio had strengthened his own body with spirit arts too, but there was a vast difference in the basic fundamental build of a human and a werebeast. That difference was all the more emphasized when their bodies were enhanced with spirit arts.
“Hah!” With a powerful yell, Uzuma flew into the air and launched a follow-up attack on Rio. She aimed at Rio’s limbs in mid air, stabbing her spear four times in one breath with precision.
Rio twisted his arms and legs around his body to evade them by a hair’s breadth. Then, before Uzuma could withdraw her extended spear, he grabbed the pole with his left hand and pulled her towards him instead.
Rio swung his longsword horizontally, aiming for Uzuma’s torso. Uzuma immediately let go of the spear and flapped her wings upwards, positioning herself just out of reach of Rio’s sword.
With his left hand, Rio readjusted hi
s grip on the spear and swung it at Uzuma above him, but the tip of spear uselessly cut through empty space. It would be difficult to catch her in the air.
The two landed back on the ground, maintaining their distance — until Uzuma charged at Rio once more. Rio casually tossed the spear towards Uzuma.
“Kuh!”
Uzuma’s specialized weapon was voluntarily returned to her before she could steal it back, slowing her reaction by a fraction. In the time she took to hurriedly catch the spear, Rio spied an opening and charged forward.
Oh, how the tables had turned.
Uzuma tried to back away to regain her balance, but Rio closed in so she couldn’t escape, now so close to her that she couldn’t freely swing her spear. He weaved through the gaps of her defenses sharply, slashing his sword.
“Guh...”
Uzuma was at a disadvantage. Overwhelmed by the factors working against her, she only barely managed to block Rio’s attack, forgoing her own to do so. If Rio had been swinging a real sword, she would have been covered in countless wounds already.
Rio thrust at Uzuma’s momentary opening with massive force, swinging his sword in his strongest hit yet. The spear was blown away, causing Uzuma to stumble back from the recoil. She leapt after the spear, catching it midair.
“...I acknowledge that your abilities are worthy of a warrior. It seems I must take this seriously.” Uzuma’s aura suddenly changed as she landed on the ground.
A chill ran down Rio’s spine. It was like looking into the eyes of a starving beast.
In the next instant, Uzuma had closed the distance between them and aimed a harsh thrust at Rio’s body. The suffocating pressure made Rio step to the side immediately. At the same time, though, he could feel a bad presence flanking him, so he stepped backwards next.
Moments later, Uzuma’s spear passed through where Rio had just been with the sound of air being ripped through.
“Huh, well done evading that. Let’s see if you can dodge this!” Uzuma said in delight as she firmly stepped forward and swung her spear with all her might.
So heavy!
Rio had tried to receive the attack with his sword, but he felt the difference in their physical strength, and had to jump back to negate the power of the spear.
“Isn’t this a bit too much for a sparring match?” Rio said with a wry smile, but he seemed to be having fun.
“You’ll have to forgive me! I haven’t encountered an opponent this worthy in the last few months!” Uzuma yelled with a ferocious smile. It seemed as though Uzuma was a bit of a battle junkie... That thought made the corner of Rio’s mouth curl up faintly. He certainly wasn’t one to talk. It was nice to have a simple and straightforward fight like this sometimes, where neither opponent was overthinking things. At the very least, Rio could feel himself getting heated by being able to spar with someone who he could face with all his might.
That being said, while he wasn’t losing in technical ability, as a werebeast, Uzuma was far in the lead in terms of physical ability. At this rate, the fight would slowly become one-sided.
He had to even the playing field.
With that decision, Rio released a huge amount of ode from within his body. Then, he condensed it, and poured all of it into his physical enhancement. In using physical enhancement through spirit arts, physical ability was raised in proportion to the layer of ode cloaked around the body, so if his base strength was lower than a werebeast, all he had to do was strengthen his spirit arts enhancement... that was Rio’s thinking, at least.
“Mm... What dense ode.”
Ursula’s eyes widened as she looked on. Sara and Orphia, who were watching beside her, gulped. The villagers who had gathered out of curiosity were in a similar state.
The answer Rio had come up with was simple, but not something anyone could do. Even if a considerable amount of ode could be released, controlling it was another matter completely. Condensing such a massive amount of ode to cloak the body required a considerable display of control; it was no wonder their audience was surprised.
“I see you weren’t taking this seriously before, either,” Uzuma said with a grin.
“No, I was serious. Although I may not have been using my full power.”
“I see. However, you still seem fairly far from your limit...” Uzuma closed in on Rio as she spoke, swinging her spear.
“No, I’m having a fairly difficult time here.” Rio received the attack head-on. This time, he didn’t lose to the battle of power.
“You can say that with a straight face? Ha!” Uzuma thrust her spear forward wildly, but Rio moved his hand swiftly to intercept each move.
Their weapons clashed several times in quick succession; if they had been using metal weapons, sparks would have been flying. Their exchange of blows appeared to be a close contest, but Uzuma was slowly being pushed back. While Rio hadn’t moved a single step, Uzuma had been moving around to attack from all angles. Eventually, Uzuma’s breath grew short.
“Amazing. No matter how I attack you, it doesn’t feel like I can land a blow at all!” Uzuma stated happily, and in a stubborn attempt to make Rio move, drove her spear up from a lower angle, putting all her might into one thrust. Rio took half a step to the side and evaded it elegantly.
Then, he retaliated with a swinging slice at Uzuma. His sword was aimed precisely at her body, stopping just barely before making direct contact.
Judging that the hit was one she certainly could not have dodged... “...I admit defeat. Forgive me — I became too frenzied in the heat of the moment.” Briefly, her expression twisted with frustration, but she accepted her loss calmly and gave a polite bow.
“No, I had fun. I’d love to spar again some time.”
“Yes, it would be a pleasure!” Rio offered her a hand, which Uzuma shook immediately.
They seemed to have come to an understanding. The air of awkwardness present from before the fight had dissipated, leaving relaxed expressions on both of their faces. The spectators of their fierce battle watched in dumbfounded amazement.
Meanwhile, Latifa puffed up her modest chest proudly.
“See? Arslan? Vera? I told you! Onii-chan is the strongest!”
“Y-Yeah. Rio really is amazing,” Arslan replied to Latifa’s words with a dazed expression.
“S-Sara hasn’t fought yet! My sister is strong!” Despite being shaken, Vera boasted for her sister’s sake with all her might and looked at Sara with hopeful eyes.
V-Vera, don’t raise their expectations! I’ve never even won against Uzuma before! As she was on the receiving end of her little sister’s pure expectations, Sara broke out into an excessive sweat.
◇◇◇
Several days after the sparring match between Rio, Uzuma, and Sara...
Early in the morning, while the others were still asleep, Rio and Sara sparred again. After she had tasted defeat at Rio’s hands, Sara had asked Rio to train her.
“Your movements are getting duller. Do you want to take a break?”
“I-I’m still... fine...! I want to at least land a scratch!”
Unlike Rio’s calm breaths, Sara was panting harshly. Her tone was a little rougher than usual too. Even then, she held her wooden knife and attacked Rio.
“All the warriors of the village have wonderful physical abilities, but their movements are inefficient. The same goes for you, Sara. You make too many unnecessary movements.” Rio dodged Sara’s attack as he gave her advice.
Perhaps it was because of their isolation deep within the forest, living peacefully amongst their own kind, but the battle style of the village’s warriors were entirely specialized towards facing creatures of the natural world. Since they would never fight amongst themselves, the most practice they got from fighting others like them was through practice matches.
Furthermore, since their individual physical abilities were so advanced, it didn’t require them to hone their combat techniques against other people. That’s why when it came to fighting others, their style
was dauntless and daring, to put it nicely... or reckless and foolhardy, to put it bluntly. Rather than luring the opponent into lowering their guard, changing their attacking pace to shake up the opponent, or relying on technical movements, they preferred to fight with plain strength and speed.
That preference applied to Sara too.
“I-I know that!” Sara said, lunging to stab at Rio with a large swing.
Rio grabbed her hand easily, toppling her off-balance and throwing her to the side. Sara flipped in the air and landed on the ground.
“For someone so calm, you’re unexpectedly competitive,” Rio said with a small smile.
“Grrr! But... but... the battle isn’t over yet... It’s not over yet!” Sara was bright red with frustration and a little bit of embarrassment. In order to brush that off, she charged towards Rio again.
Suddenly —
“Good morning, you two. Do you mind if we join you, Rio?”
“Morning! I wanna do it too!”
A sleepy Alma and Latifa appeared. The two of them wanted to learn from Rio’s training as well, but neither were morning people, and often showed up late like this. However, it was still early in the morning, so they had plenty of time to practice before breakfast.
“I’ll check the forms I taught you yesterday, so let’s slowly go through the movements.”
They all poured their sweat into training until Orphia finished preparing breakfast and came to call on them.
◇◇◇
After their morning practice, Rio and the others sat on deck chairs and ate the sandwiches Orphia had prepared for breakfast.
“Ugh... I couldn’t land a single hit on Rio again... Ah, this is delicious,” Sara muttered with her head hung low, munching on her sandwich dejectedly. Her wolf ears were drooping a little more than usual.
“Sara was defeated rather splendidly,” Alma pointed out, making Sara’s wolf ears flick in response.
“A-Alma, you’re not one to talk! You were in a similar position to me.”
“I’m not as reckless as Sara.”
“Ugh...”
Sara was in no place to object, having had Rio make similar observations numerous times.
“I like Sara’s direct way of approach. We’ll work on fixing her habit of getting too engrossed and making the same repetitive motions again and again.” Rio smiled faintly from where he sat before Sara, offering her words of encouragement. Sara blinked blankly for a beat.
Blessing of the Spirits Page 16
