Volume 1 - CH 16

Act 1-16 : Temple’s Training Ground

Shrill voices were resounding in the Alrena Temple’s knight training ground.

A crowd of girls, their numbers surpassing thirty, were swarming around Reiji, all aiming for him and trying to get his attention.

「Thank you for coming to cheer for me, everyone.」

The horde of girls raised joyful screams when Reiji spoke to them with a refreshing smile on his face.

These girls were all citizens of the Holy Republic of Lenaria. They all hailed from noble households and had come in a hurry to the Alrena Temple once they heard about Reiji’s recovery.

「My apologies, ladies. Can I ask you to leave for the time being so as to not disturb Reiji-kun’s training?」

Chiyuki shooed the girls, who were surrounding Reiji, away with a wave of her hand. They had suddenly come unannounced, interrupting Reiji’s sword training session.

The reason why Reiji was currently training was to prepare himself for a rematch with the Dark Knight.

In fact, he had scheduled sparring sessions with Shirone as soon as he had gotten better. But, that plan went awry when Shirone was dispatched to exterminate the Perdas. Thus, Reiji ended up training by himself til Shirone returned from her mission.

Chiyuki was extremely surprised when Reiji asked Shirone to help him train in swordsmanship because, prior to his loss in the Nargol battle, Reiji had never even considered learning martial arts. He had deemed it unnecessary when in fact, he was a complete amateur when it came to martial arts and proper battling techniques.

It seems that when he was young, his parents had tried to make him learn martial arts. However, their several attempts utterly failed due to Reiji’s languid and arrogant personality, which was no different from his attitude prior to his loss against the Dark Knight. Nevertheless, Reiji’s motor skills and power were extremely outstanding, even without any martial arts skills. That was the reason behind Reiji’s lack of seriousness and interest in taking martial arts lessons.

When Chiyuki found out about Reiji’s circumstances, she was immensely surprised by the fact that Reiji was this strong without any sort of training. She was even more surprised that that same naturally strong Reiji suddenly said that he wanted to learn swordcraft. His loss against the Dark Knight had really affected him, making him reach this decision.

Chiyuki felt that this loss was a good thing. Although it had taken a toll on them, it was a necessary failure that would improve their overall strength. She was certain that the extremely powerful Reiji would become even more powerful after proper training.

His childhood aside, it seems that Reiji had never lost in anything against someone of his generation and was practically undefeated after he entered his teens, which boosted his arrogance and confidence and made him think that he didn’t need to work for anything.

Chiyuki had once read in a book that a defeat might become the necessary trigger for a human’s true growth. Thus, she thought that the Dark Knight wouldn’t win the next fight as easily as before against Reiji, who would become more powerful with martial arts training.

It’s just that the current Reiji was still in the middle of recovering, thus he was told to only do some light training.

Chiyuki heard the girls’ dissatisfied voices when she shooed them away.

（Good grief, these girls really are…）

Chiyuki was enraged inside seeing the girls’ attitude towards her.

「Sorry, everyone. Please bear with only looking at me training for the time being.」

The girls’ dissatisfied voices vanished as soon as Reiji told them so.

（These girls really are…）

Chiyuki pressed her throbbing forehead. Reiji was a handsome man, thus making him really popular amongst women, even in this world.

The apprentice knights, who were also training, were looking at Reiji’s direction with vexed looks on their faces. This was an everyday scenery both in this world and back in Japan—other men would always feel jealous and annoyed of Reiji’s popularity.

「He really is popular everywhere, huh…」

Chiyuki then glanced at Sahoko on her side.

「Hahaha. Rei-kun is special after all…」

Sahoko replied with a wry smile on her face.

（Special, huh…? Can’t retort to that after seeing his superhuman specs.）

Chiyuki then recalled the fact that she was only one amongst many candidates to become Reiji’s fiancée.

—Since Rino is also a candidate, I was wondering just how many women he was planning to keep by his side?

–It might be the same for both Shirone and Nao.

– Could it be that the same thing happened during Reiji’s father and grandfather’s era?

– Is it even possible for him to have so many cousins and second cousins?

Chiyuki couldn’t help but ponder about that matter because, all this time, Chiyuki had never heard anyone talk about Reiji’s family matters. So far, she only knew little information about Reiji.

The man in question was currently wielding a sword. The one who taught him the proper way to hold his sword was Shirone.

‘Only put more power into your grip the moment you swing your sword towards your opponent or vice versa, otherwise hold it loosely.’ Chiyuki recalled Reiji’s face was unusually serious when Shirone told him so.

The girls who moved to the spectator seats ended up getting charmed and raised shrill shrieks after seeing Reiji’s serious look when he swung his sword. But, that wasn’t the case for Chiyuki, she could see that Reiji’s movements were rather clumsy.

That was only natural considering the fact that there was a deep gash running along from Reiji’s right hip all the way to his left shoulder. His life was barely saved due to Sahoko’s magic. Thus, Chiyuki judged that this training session was enough for now.

「Chiyuki-san…」

Sahoko looked at Chiyuki with an anxious look on her face.

「Don’t worry, Sahoko-san. I’ll stop his training as soon as things get dangerous.」

Right after Chiyuki spoke those words, the peanut gallery, or rather the spectating girls, suddenly became extremely noisy.

When Chiyuki looked over there, she caught sight of people advancing while pushing those girls aside.

It was Kyouka and her maid, Kaya.

The spectating girls were grumbling about Kyouka and Kaya’s unreasonable behavior. However, both girls paid them no heed and flatly ignored them as they continued their advance.

Chiyuki knew something was off when she saw how the two girls acted while coming towards her because, in spite of her haughtiness, Kyouka was by no means a high handed person.

「What’s the matter, Kyouka-san?」

「Something really bad happened, Sahoko-san!」

Kyouka replied to Sahoko with a rather loud voice.

「Eh? What do you mean, Kyouka-san?」

Sahoko tilted her head, clearly confused by Kyouka’s remark.

Right at that moment, Chiyuki noticed that Kaya’s maid uniform had been sullied. Her appearance was as proper as usual, but her clothes were dirty, covered in dust and mud. Therefore, Chiyuki guessed that Kaya had fixed her appearance before they came to report what had happened to them.

「What happened, Kyouka? Aren’t you supposed to be observing that frenzied manticore’s subjugation right now?」

Reiji stopped his training, joining the conversation.

「Brother! The manticore was already dead before we had the opportunity to subjugate it!」

「「Eh?」」

Chiyuki and Reiji’s voices overlapped.

「Someone exterminated that manticore before us, Chiyuki-sama. When we searched the Black Fang’s base, we found the manticore’s corpse in the basement.」

Kaya explained the situation without even batting an eye.

「What does that mean? The manticore had already been exterminated? Then, what about the Black Fang’s leader?」

「The leader, Gendor, is currently being transported to the medical ward to undergo treatment. Except for him, there was no one else in the base. All the members had long left when we arrived.」

「「Eh?」」

Chiyuki and Reiji’s voices overlapped once more.

「Everyone but their leader had left the base. How can that be?」

Both Reiji and Chiyuki were confused by this situation.

「Is that leader person suffering from some sort of grievous illness, Kaya-san? Should I take a look at his condition?」

Sahoko, who was closely related to the medical ward, asked Kaya. Her specialty lay in healing magic, so she was often found in the healing ward, treating many patients in her spare time.

「He’s fine Sahoko-sama, by that I mean physically. Maybe Rino-sama’s treatment is more suited for him.」

Kaya shook her head as she replied to Sahoko.

「Rino-san over Sahoko-san? So, that means his injury is related to his psyche?」

「Correct, Chiyuki-sama. Someone broke Gendor’s mind. When we found him, he was in a crazy state and kept muttering and screaming unusual words. The biggest problem is that we don’t know what kind of method that person used to do it.」

Upon hearing Kaya’s remark, Chiyuki’s mind was put into disarray.

「That’s not the only thing we need to report, Kaya!」

Kyouka suddenly interrupted the conversation.

「What’s the matter, Kyouka? Did something else happen aside from that?」

""

Both Kyouka and Kaya nodded in response to Reiji’s question.

「Reiji-sama. This matter might be more serious than the manticore’s issue. A suspicious person approached us when we were encircling the Black Fang’s base.」

Kaya proceeded to tell them about the events that occurred during the encirclement.

「What do you mean by a “suspicious person”?」

「It’s exactly as I said, Chiyuki-sama. That person erased his presence with magic then approached us. Even I wouldn’t have been able to sense his presence if not for my presence sensing powers.」

Though not as powerful as Nao, when she was summoned to this world, Kaya was bestowed with the ability to sense killing intent, hostility, and anyone or anything approaching her vicinity. It was a skill that enabled her to sense someone’s hidden presence.

「I see, he tried to approach you by erasing his presence, huh. That’s suspicious indeed. So, is something wrong with that suspicious person? You must have captured him when you noticed his presence, right?」

Kaya shook her head.

「No, unfortunately, we failed to capture him.」

Those words surprised Chiyuki more than anything else today.

「That’s unusual indeed. For Kaya-san to let go off a suspicious person right in front of you is unfathomable. What happened back then?」

Chiyuki knew that Kaya would never deliberately let go off such a suspicious person, thus she thought that something might have happened.

「You’re wrong Chiyuki-sama. It’s not that I let go of that person, it’s that I couldn’t apprehend him. That person was far more powerful than me. In fact, he flung me away.」

「… EH?」

Chiyuki couldn’t believe what she just heard.

（He flung Kaya-san away? You must be kidding me right?）

Kaya was Kyouka’s attendant and bodyguard, it was for that reason that she had been learning Kempo* and Karate since her role instatement. Despite not being a master, she was powerful enough to defeat an amateur adult by herself back in Japan. Much less one human of this world, Kaya could defeat hundreds of this world’s adult men by herself. [TL* : Chinese martial arts]

That just showed how serious the matter of Kaya being flung away in this world was.

「Stronger than Kaya? What kind of a person is he?」

Reiji was tilting his head in confusion.

「I guess we have to gather everyone to discuss this matter.」