Chapter 261: Training with the Slaves, and Its End (1)

Sara picked up the cloth that had been shaken off, and looked at Regina with a sad face.

I drew Sara close and looked at Regina glaring at Sara.

"For now I will keep you at my place for a while, but do not fight."

"...Yes, understood."

Regina, still in the dogeza posture, raised her face and tried to glare at me, but at the same time an expression of fear floated, and eventually maybe having given up she hung her head and answered.

Around here, had slave nature soaked in?

Or was she resigned?

Well, even if another’s, she was a Dule, so leave the rest to Muriel.

"Muriel, leave the rest to you."

"Yes, Master. Regina, fine. I will treat you not as a guest but as a Dule the same as us. An A-Dule was fine, right?"

Muriel answered, stood beside Regina, put the cloth received from Sara on Regina’s shoulders again, made her stand, bowed to me, and took her to the waiting room.

Sara bowed to me the same, and followed behind Muriel and Regina.

"No, no, you showed something quite interesting. As expected of the hero who defeated the Demon Lord."

Freit, who had watched our exchange silently, called to me judging that it had settled for a while.

At that time he looked at the door Ivano had entered and grinned, but I will pretend I did not see.

"Even so, the win and loss had been decided that clearly, yet he found fault well."

"He was probably that frustrated. Well, from our view, when we saw the skill of Lord Asahi who stopped the Dules, we knew it would become like this."

Freit and Nikolaus began grumbling about Ivano.

Well, I had not thought a "wait" would come out there either.

"Lord Hiroyuki, after this, what will you do?"

Maybe thinking the talk between Freit and Nikolaus would drag on, Rosina, taking the place of Muriel who had taken Regina away, asked me.

Because in front of people, maybe, the usual way of speaking was subdued and it had become a polite way of speaking.

"Right... Nikolaus, I want to use here a while longer, is that fine?"

"Yes, I do not mind. What will you do?"

This morning when Ivano reserved the arena with Nikolaus I had heard there was nothing planned to use today, so I expected a good answer would return from Nikolaus.

"The war is near, so I thought training."

"Will Lord Asahi participate too?"

"Yes. That is the intention."

I answered Nikolaus’s question.

"Then we can see Lord Asahi’s battle again. No, just now was not enough."

Nikolaus said that while smiling wryly.

Just now was the battle between me and Regina, probably.

Well, it had ended in an instant.

"I am looking forward too."

Saying that, Freit entered the talk from the side.

"Then I think to begin. Magic may be used, so for form please go up."

The talk seemed about to get long again, so I put in a crosswise and ended the talk.

"Understood. Lord Freit, then shall we go. Over there the view is better..."

Nikolaus nodded and walked together with Freit, who took Lotte, Laura, and Rine.

It was the direction Nikolaus had headed when Sara and Regina fought, so he would probably go to the commentary seat.

"Now then, Rosina. Gather everyone."

"Yes, got it."

Maybe because we were alone, Rosina’s tone returned to the original.

As expected, this had no incongruity.

...

Now I confronted my Dules across the center of the arena.

The vanguard placed Gejia at the very front in the middle, Sara behind her, Rosina on the right, Birga on the left, and Muriel behind Sara.

The midguard, behind Muriel’s right Lilli, behind left Ito, the agile girls waited.

The rearguard, Tiria who was good at protection came out front, behind her Sophia good at magic battles, and Yanica, better at close combat than magic battles but because there was no one else who could use magic, lined with Sophia.

Behind Sophia and Yanica, Sheena waited to heal the injured.

Lily and Yuki, normally could apparently fight in close combat, but because the decorations attached to their bodies became shackles, they would guard the magic users on both sides of Tiria, apparently.

In the real thing Lily’s bells could apparently be removed, but now they could not be removed so it could not be helped.

Then further behind Cathy, Rina, Ilma, and Helma who could not fight gathered and looked this way anxiously.

Opposite, I was alone.

I confronted Gejia, closest to me, and held bastard swords in both hands.

This time there was no judge or such.

Without a "begin" signal, the moment Gejia grew impatient and started moving, I moved too.

First Gejia stepped forward one with her right foot, I stepped forward one too, but with that one step closed the distance at once.

Gejia’s weapon was a large scythe like the one the god of death held, but because I appeared right in front of her suddenly, she swung down the scythe held in both hands in an unstable posture in surprise.

The scythe swung down by force, even so the swing down was fast, maybe because of Gejia’s strength.

About twice as fast as the speed of Regina enhanced by the magic just now.

Now then, I was surprised for an instant, thought for a while what was optimal, and then dodged to the left.

Maybe because Gejia was right-handed, the scythe was swung down not in the middle but to the right.

After that if she changed direction toward me who had dodged the scythe, there was fear of injuring her own foot with the long blade, so to attack me she had to swing like striking with a staff.

I hit that with the bastard sword of my right hand and suppressed it, and tried to give a strike to the chest with the pommel of the left-hand bastard sword.

Gejia wore an expression of astonishment, even so followed the left-hand bastard sword with her eyes, and maybe having understood my purpose tried to fly behind and escape.

Good movement, but I would not let her escape.

I stepped on Gejia’s right foot still touching the ground with my left foot, made it so she could not escape, then hit the pommel of the bastard sword.

"Guu!"

Gejia folded her body and set a knee on the ground.

Confirming that, I determined the next opponent.

From the front Sara ran, and from both sides Rosina and Birga ran a step late.

But all three had expressions of surprise stuck on their faces.

I ignored Sara, one step faster, and aimed at Rosina and ran close.

Rosina’s weapon was a flail.

A difficult weapon to handle, but Rosina held it in a familiar manner.

That, she swung up at the same time as applying hard braking.

But I passed beside Rosina, and set my left wrist on the neck of Rosina who tried to swing down.

Maybe having lost consciousness, Rosina leaned forward from the momentum of swinging down the flail, and I caught her with my right arm and lowered her to the ground.

I looked to the side, and Sara had stopped there and taken the defensive stance she showed when fighting Regina.

Muriel and Birga ran to Sara.

Lilli and Ito ran to Sara’s place too.

I approached Sara in one step, stopped before the left broadsword of Sara held as if thrusting, rotated my body and circled to Sara’s left side, and set my right wrist on Sara’s neck.

Sara thought she could not deal with the left broadsword, and seemed to have tried to rotate right and receive with the right broadsword, but her movement was slow.

I paid attention to the broadswords held in both of Sara’s hands, caught Sara whose strength had left in the state of having started rotating, and lowered her to the ground.

"Teyaa!"

Just there Muriel arrived, and tried to swing down the bastard sword on the head of me kneeling.

From the right too Birga tried to swing down that vicious warhammer.

The appearance of the huge warhammer Birga held approaching before my eyes was fully a target of fear.

But there was no time to tremble.

I jumped between Muriel and Birga and dodged, set my left wrist on Muriel’s neck, my right wrist on Birga’s neck, and knocked the two out... I thought.

Both were swung by the weight of the bastard sword and warhammer, leaned forward and about to fall, and I supported with both hands and laid them slowly on the ground.

With this the vanguard group was annihilated.

I looked around, and Lilli and Ito would contact me in a little more.

Tiria, Lily, and Yuki faced my way while blank, Sophia and Yanica opened their eyes in surprise, but had not interrupted the spells for using magic.

The magic circles would soon be completed, so some magic would fly.

Whatever magic came, so that damage would not reach the lying vanguard, I jumped one step to the rearguard side.

The guards of Tiria and the rearguard’s bodies twitched, and they hurriedly took their weapons.

But my target was not Tiria and the others.

Still holding the bastard swords, I drew two magic circles with the fingers of both hands.

"Source of life."

I spun the spell while careful so that mana would go evenly to both magic circles.

Careful so it would not become line-symmetric magic circles like reflected in a mirror, and generated the spell so the words would be heard doubly.

This... had to concentrate quite a bit.