Happy Days with Master

About half a year has passed since I met Master.

The seasons have turned, and it's almost summer!

The mountainsides are covered in lush green, Naked Awful-tasting Mice are crawling out of their nests, and Polly Bugs are wriggling under the leaves; in just such a season,

I'm running through the mountains, following Master.

Silently, like the wind...... I run at a speed that would have been unthinkable in my previous life.

Well, that's because I'm applying the techniques of 【Grasshopper】 to every single step I take!

If you take the kind of power that lets you jump vertically several meters in an instant and apply it to horizontal movement, what happens?

The answer is simple.

No need to even think about it!

You get incredible speed.

Plus, since I convert the impact into magic power, I don't make a sound either.

Kicking off the ground, kicking off tree trunks, sometimes bounding along as if I were flying, I keep going, and where do I arrive but that cliff from before.

Master, carrying the momentum from running through the mountains, runs straight up the cliff.

That's just movement using 【Silverfish】.

I chase after him.

Whoa! Master's throwing pebbles at me from up ahead!

These pebbles are part of the training, so of course they won't do lethal damage, but they're incredibly hard to dodge.

Which is only natural, since Master throws them to be hard to dodge!

And if I get hit, a penalty game awaits.

Master's gross-tasting tea gets even grosser!

Seriously, what is your deal, Master?

Isn't brewing tea his hobby?

For the tea to get grosser as a penalty, doesn't that mean he's aware that the tea he brews is gross in the first place?

Brewing tea like that is practically a blasphemy against tea!

While all this is going on, we reach the top of the cliff.

We've run nonstop for over 2 hours to get here, and now, at last, a little break while we take in the view...... is not how Master's training goes.

Master fixes his eyes on me and raises his fists. I answer in kind, and the exchange begins.

Yes, this is sparring.

At first slowly, then gradually faster, and faster!

We parry each other's attacks.

......You can't let your guard down just because the punches are slow.

Because those punches are infused with magic power!

Yes, Master has, of course, completely mastered the 【Magic Strike】 I picked up by accident a few months ago.

When we first sparred, I carelessly tried to catch Master's slow-moving fist and got blown back several meters; that's a slightly embarrassing memory of mine!

To parry a 【Magic Strike】, you have to use magic power conversion to cancel out the magic power in your opponent's fist......

This sparring takes way more concentration than it looks.

The sparring continues endlessly after that, and we only take a break once the sun has reached its peak.

In the afternoon, I go hunting or gather medicinal herbs with Master, and we head home around the time it gets dark.

After that, I do handiwork like creating traps or mixing simple medicines, and then I go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

And then I wake up before sunrise...... and so on.

That's what my days of stoic training look like lately.

I push my stamina and my magic power to the limit, and I'm worn out every day by bedtime, but strangely, it doesn't feel hard on me.

I can tell I'm getting stronger little by little...... and more than anything, Master is here.

Master is strong. Unfathomably strong.

I knew that from the start, but after learning body and magic power control and how to parry from him, I've become somewhat capable of fighting myself......

So, with all that, I try to measure Master's strength all over again...... but I can't really tell.

He's so strong that I can't even tell how wide the gap between us is.

We exchange punches.

Just by doing that, I can feel Master's staggering prowess.

His body movements, and the way he flows, infuses, and scatters magic power.

There's no wasted motion in any of it, and it's beautiful.

I've guessed that his total magic power might not be that different from mine right now......

And yet the gap between Master and me is this wide, so it must come down to experience, or technique.

I sincerely respect Master for building up that kind of strength.

I'm grateful for the luck of meeting him.

I want to stay with him forever.

I want him to teach me many more things.

My beloved Master.

Please keep taking care of me, okay?

Eh? What happened with mastering 【Mantis】?

That one? Apparently its basics and principles were exactly the same as 【Magic Sword】, a technique for sharpening a blade's edge that Omake-sama <saw on the Sword God's Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast>.

Once I knew how to do it, mastering it was easy.

And in no time at all, I could do it. The end.

That's all!