And so her training with Bete began the same day she approached him in the mess hall.
They were in Twilight Manor’s courtyard, the open area surrounding the central tower.
The werewolf’s unbridled kick landed cleanly on Lefiya.
“Gaha, gh, gugh…?!”
“How many times do I have to say it to get it through your thick skull?! Quit focusing on your damn casting!”
It was the seventh day of their training.
The sparring began right after breakfast, continuing past lunchtime and well into the evening. The reason it did not start early in the morning was because Bete considered stopping for breakfast “a real pain in the ass.”
The sun had risen high above, straddling noon.
“You don’t defend, and you can’t dodge! So stop mumbling those shitty songs!”
“Geha…argh…?!”
“It’s nothing but bullshit! Figure it out already! Quit humming like a one-trick pony!”
His next blow slammed straight into her stomach, sending her spinning and leaving her on the ground on all fours, groaning in pain as Bete berated her.
Other than not hounding her with follow-up attacks, he showed no mercy and no consideration for gender, size differential, race, or anything else.
The sword and wand slipped from Lefiya’s hands as she tried to endure the terrible pain.
“Hah! What’s the point of copying a dead woman and being even slower than she was?!”
“Gh…!”
Lefiya’s eyes flared with sparks of rage.
But Bete was correct. She couldn’t deny anything he said.
While trying to learn how to fight at close-range using a shortsword from Bete, she was also aggressively attempting Concurrent Casting. Holding her friend’s sword in her right hand, she wielded a wand in her left hand just like her friend, desperate to learn the techniques of a magic swordswoman.
“Copying a dead woman? That’s some cringe shit.”
No matter how much Bete sneered at it, though, that was the one thing Lefiya refused to compromise on. What she wanted was a way to fight on her own.
It was not because she thought less of the dedicated mage role she had performed until now or that she undervalued it. If serving as stationary artillery was what was asked of her, she would gladly fill the role. But that was something she could still do after mastering the fighting style of magic swordsmen. If anything, she would become better at supporting her allies by understanding the movements of the adventurers who fought in the front and center. Becoming a magic swordswoman would be like a mage with a magic circle. Having the ability would be a plus, and not having it wouldn’t be a minus.
She didn’t want to just be protected anymore.
The vanguard protected the back lines, and the back lines covered the vanguard. However, Lefiya wanted to become someone who could protect herself and save others. She wanted to be self-sufficient.
But:
“What do you mean you want to be able to fight by yourself? You don’t even qualify as a small fry! You’re an ant wishing for wings!”
The werewolf spat on her goal with venom in his voice. He dismissed it as wild-eyed optimism, an impossible dream. Even in that, Bete was merciless, stomping down on her naive ideas and forcing her to face reality. All while hammering her with kicks and punches. His strength tyrannized her with far more persuasiveness than a hundred insults, forcing her to realize just how difficult it would be to achieve her goal.
Bete Loga was sterner than anyone else, just as she had expected—and even more than she could have imagined.
—I was right to ask him.
That was why she was glad.
Even as tears welled in the corners of her eyes, even as a strand of spit dribbled from her mouth, even as she coughed over and over, even in the grips of terrible pain that kept her from smiling, in her heart of hearts, she was still glad.
Bete was hammering reality into her. He was teaching her just how harsh the choice she had made really was. The wolf was more familiar with the logic of the law of the jungle than anyone.
She felt no shame. No humiliation. She had no pride left to lose in the first place. Having already lost something truly precious, what did trivialities like embarrassment matter anymore? If this level of disgrace would help her take even one step forward, she welcomed it. It was worth the price. She would pour her limited time into it. She was more than satisfied with Bete’s unforgiving handling. When she came through on the other side, tomorrow’s Lefiya would be more potent than ever.
“…Again…please…!”
“…”
Seeing her pull her knees up off the ground and try to stand, Bete was silent for a moment.
It was the one thing that Bete was willing to acknowledge in Lefiya, who lacked everything.
Resolve. Obsession even.
No matter how battered she was or how merciless his words were, Lefiya quickly stood back up. She would clench her fists, force her quivering knees up, wipe away the tears in her eyes, and leap back into the swirling vortex of Bete’s violence.
Some people would consider her mindset concerning, even potentially dangerous, but Bete didn’t see any reason to stop her. He welcomed it even as he fought the urge to grin at it.
It seemed like he refused to let anyone get in the way when a small fry was trying to change herself.
Bete’s eyes narrowed, and he shifted from the rough, gruff tone he had maintained up to this point.
“Okay, listen. You need to think. About the difference in how things look from the front and back lines. About your positioning. About the lame-ass role of a mage.”
“…! Yes, sir!”
Lefiya nodded in shock as, for the first time, Bete actually gave her some advice.
“When I’m fighting, magic swordsmen are the easiest to deal with. I always say bring ’em on. You know why?”
“…No.”
“Because they’re half-assed at everything. Casting or attacking. Half-assed is the most useless thing to be. Just like you right now.”
“!!!”
Lefiya’s deep blue eyes widened as he told her, in not so many words, that she was in the process of becoming emblematic of the bad side of a magic swordsmen.
“If you know someone’s weaker than you in a brawl, then all you have to do is charge ’em head-on. Show them you’re stronger, and they’ll get scared of tripping an Ignis Fatuus and just panic. Easy pickings.”
“That’s…”
“There’s nothing scary about a magic swordsman’s Concurrent Casting.”
It was a scathing assessment that hit Lefiya close to home. During all her training with Bete this past week, she had been preoccupied controlling her magic power more than a few times. From her own experience, she could only agree with his stinging evaluation.
Feeling like her resolve and the very existence of her friend Filvis had been rejected, she gripped the sword and wand in her hands.
But:
“The scary thing isn’t Concurrent Casting. The scariest thing about a magic swordsman, or really any mage, is their eyes.”
“…Their eyes?”
He still had more to say.
“The eyes of someone casting with the resolve to self-destruct…the ones who will finish their spell no matter what have feral eyes.”
Lefiya was taken aback. She understood just what Bete was trying to say.
“A mage who’s ready to take you down with them in the Ignis Fatuus…is the most dangerous…?”
“The method ain’t what matters. A mage is like a bomb. Anyone willing to set off their bomb, no matter what it takes, is a pain in the ass. And at the old lady’s level, she even uses it as a bluff.”
Using her casting to keep the enemy off-balance and lure them into making a careless mistake. It was similar to a tactic Riveria had taught her before.
She had used that distraction to coordinate with Finn and the others to land a blow on the monstrous Levis.
Drawing from the example of the city’s strongest mage, Lefiya could grasp the idea more concretely.
“Hesitate? Lose. Get scared? Lose. I don’t know magic, but I know that much. In any case, Filvis was like that.”
When Lefiya heard those words, her determination flared up.
“You aren’t desperate enough.”
It was a brief summary.
So brief that Lefiya was ashamed of getting ahead of herself.
She thought she had been prepared to do anything, but that wasn’t nearly enough. She did not yet have the resolve to cast spells and swing her sword fully prepared to die if it meant landing a decisive blow.
“I’ve said all there is to say. If you still can’t change, then I’m done bothering with you. It’s a waste of time.”
“Yes, sir!!!”
Lefiya nodded as Bete’s eyes took on their usual dangerous gleam again.
Raising her sword and wand again, she leaped forward.
“Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree—!”
She charged while singing over and over, only to be knocked away repeatedly. Time and time again, she wiped away the caked-on mud before returning to the fight.