“All right, then, gather your weapons and make whatever preparations you need, then meet me at the drill grounds. While you five are getting ready, I’ll go reserve the grounds for private use.”
The five left the busy tavern, watching Seigrat depart.
“At last. I’ve been looking forward to a fight.”
Only Jin seemed excited about their training. The other four girls just felt uneasy.
“You don’t think ole playboy will get carried away and kill us by accident, do you…?” said Psycho.
“I mean, I hope he would try to hold back…,” said Homura.
After making their preparations, Homura and the others headed toward the drill grounds.
✦ ✦ ✦
Just as Seigrat said, they had the grounds almost entirely to themselves. Only a handful of spectators were present.
“I didn’t think we were going to have such a VIP audience…,” said Homura.
Three onlookers sat there stiffly in the middle of the deserted stands.
“They wanted to see how your training is coming along. You are the rising stars tasked with hunting down the Dark Lord, after all.”
The audience consisted of Ieskha, who was a Holy Protectorate of the Shield just like Seigrat; Lady Falmeyr, who was the hierarch of the Eye of the Moon; and a third woman, Lady Falmeyr’s attendant.
“Ieskha wanted to fight as well, but she’s even worse at holding back than I am, so she’s just going to watch instead.”
According to Seigrat, the audience of Ieskha, Falmeyr, and Falmeyr’s attendant were only there to take a look at what the girls could do.
“When you say even worse than you…,” said Homura.
It was surprising to learn that Ieskha was not very good at holding back, considering her whole appearance and demeanor, but Homura was more worried about whether or not Seigrat, whom she had once seen slay a dragon with a single strike, was actually capable of controlling himself. The tiniest bit of extra oomph behind his strikes might be enough to splatter them entirely.
“Relax. I’ll do my best not to kill anyone.”
“I should hope so!”
That didn’t make Homura feel better at all.
For his own part, Seigrat hadn’t even bothered to put on a breastplate. His only weapon was a wooden staff about the length of a person. He did not look equipped for a proper fight.
“Even if I do slip and accidentally kill someone, Lady Falmeyr is here, so there’s no need to worry. Lady Falmeyr is the only person in Galdorssia—in the entire world, probably—who is capable of casting Resurrection.”
“Give it all you’ve got, girls!” Falmeyr waved, seemingly unconcerned.
“So death is a possibility, then!”
Joking aside, it sounded like the slightest misstep could genuinely result in homicide.
“Don’t worry, my Resurrection skill is infallible,” Falmeyr said, cheerfully.
“I’d still prefer not to die again…”
Homura didn’t even like pain. She was hardly eager to die again. Death was supposed to be a one-time event. She wished they could just go home already.
“Before we get started, let me explain the difference in strength between the badge ranks. You’re new to this world, so you probably don’t have much of a sense of what the badges mean yet.”
He was right; they only had a vague notion of how strong each rank was.
“A soldier’s ability to fight against a large monster, such as a clawbear, is often used as a benchmark for their strength level. Bronze-badge soldiers have to group together in order to eventually bring down a large creature like that. A silver-badge soldier would be able to bring one down on their own. And a gold badge would be able to handle a whole group of such creatures all by themselves.”
Judging from what Seigrat said, those soldiers the girls had met on their way to Aurerich would not be getting their silver badges anytime soon. Poor guys. They had bragged about how they were going to make silver in no time, but even as a group, they had struggled with a single clawbear.
Ares, meanwhile, had slaughtered the next clawbear all on his own. That was apparently the level of strength needed for a silver badge. It was just a matter of time, probably, until he got promoted to the next rank.
“Based on ability alone, Jin and Proto would likely be at silver-badge level. Maybe even gold.”
“Wow, that’s pretty amazing…”
Homura had known that Jin and Proto were strong, but hearing Seigrat’s assessment firsthand really brought it home for her. However, Proto seemed disappointed with that.
“Maybe gold? Is that all? But I took down that humongous monster during our last mission.”
“Yes, you did some excellent work back there in Aurerich…” Jin seemed to be bothered as well.
“But it was more or less a draw in the end, wasn’t it?”
“Erk!”
Seigrat’s comment hit Proto like a punch in the gut.
“The standard I mentioned generally assumes that you take out your opponent without dying yourself. It doesn’t matter how powerful an enemy you manage to take down. If you wind up half dead, you won’t be much use in the next fight, will you? Our job is to protect people until the end. Winning at any cost is not the same.”
Whether in the Aegis Guard or the Phalanx of Blades, survival was paramount. Though maybe not quite as important for the Phalanx, seeing as they were expected to fight in more distant areas…
These high standards were to prevent soldiers from pushing themselves to rise through the ranks too soon and then getting assigned missions beyond their true capabilities.
“Back in Aurerich, Captain Torreque faced a demon and that giant monstrous beast at the same time on his own, but if he had been able to fight them one at a time, I suspect he would have been able to defeat them both with less difficulty than the two of you experienced… Of course, we all have opponents that we are more suited to than others, so things aren’t necessarily cut and dried.”
“Now that you mention it, Torreque left an even bigger wound on the monster’s head than I did, despite the state he was in.”
Proto recalled her battle with the gigantic monstrous beast. She and Jin had fought separately, both managing to defeat their respective opponents after long fights. But Torreque had stood up against both monsters at the same time and had only lost an arm because of it.
“Getting stronger isn’t just a matter of being able to defeat powerful enemies. You also need to nurture the strength to survive and carry on.”
“I see your point. I only barely managed to win by resorting to the use of this malefic sword, which extracted a heavy toll from me. I wouldn’t be able do something like that over and over again.”
Jin ran a hand along her cursed sword, Crimson Rain. The sword was dangerous. That was why she had gone out of her way to get her hands on a second, ordinary katana.
“Of course, sometimes you have no choice. That style of fighting isn’t wrong, exactly, but I want you girls to learn to fight in a way that helps you survive. Just think of how sad I would feel if I never got to see you again.”