Ch.122Trigger (1)
by fnovelpia
I couldn’t tell what time had passed since the morning sun rose, but seeing the sun now directly overhead, it seemed noon had already arrived.
From dawn until noon, throughout those long hours, I had been rolling around in the dirt.
My hair, which should have been a deep ash gray with a hint of blue, had turned yellowish from being covered in dust, and my skin, constantly thrown against the rough ground, was scraped all over with beads of red blood clotting on the surface.
I tried to push myself up with trembling arms, but there was no strength left in either of them.
As I lay sprawled on the ground, gritting my teeth in an attempt to rise, Silvia approached me and said firmly:
“Get up.”
“…I’m trying to get up.”
“Don’t try to get up. Just get up. Is that something you need to put effort into?”
Silvia’s attitude was so resolute it felt almost cold.
I didn’t think she was like this during magic training before…
Or was she?
Come to think of it, during magic training, she had thrown ice shards at me with enough force to burst a bear carcass in one hit.
“I’ve already been at this for hours… Please… let me rest a little…”
“Get up.”
“…Damn it,”
In response to Silvia’s firm reaction, I spat out a short curse and struggled desperately to get up, biting my lip hard.
Using the groans escaping through my clenched teeth as a battle cry, I somehow managed to arch my back and lift my upper body, but when I tried to raise my knees, both legs trembled uncontrollably.
Silvia slowly approached me, then crouched down to meet my gaze.
Pathetically enough, I felt a glimmer of hope looking at her.
Hope that she might finally let me stop.
But on Silvia’s face was a sharp, cutting gaze directed straight at me.
Silvia placed the branch she was holding in front of me and said:
“Ash… look at this. Look at the weapon I’m holding. No, this can’t even be called a weapon. It’s just a branch.”
“…Ugh,”
“Am I asking something difficult of you? Stand up, look straight, dodge the branch. These are the only three things I’ve asked you to do. It’s not like I’m making some ridiculous demand like someone else, saying let’s go cut off the Demon Lord’s head right now, am I?”
I ground my teeth with my face pressed to the ground at Silvia’s remark mocking what I had said.
Of course, I wasn’t feeling anger toward Silvia.
I wasn’t naive enough not to understand that she was only trying to motivate me for training, and I knew well that if I couldn’t endure even this much pain, the journey to defeat the Demon Lord would be nothing but a pipe dream.
I just felt pathetic.
My casual determination, thinking that somehow things would work out if I followed fate, now seemed laughable.
Perhaps this was how Sister Alice had felt.
The overwhelming difference in power that Silvia had physically demonstrated to me.
It made me realize how irresponsibly I had spoken.
“Alice is right. At this rate, Ash, you will certainly die.”
“I… know.”
The goal of Silvia’s training was very simple.
Just once.
Just once, properly dodge the branch Silvia swings.
That was all she asked of me.
But for the past few hours, I had failed to dodge even that one time.
I had been hit, rolled around, and gotten up dozens, no, hundreds of times, but to no avail.
At first, I tried to dodge by sight, but after an hour of being knocked down, I realized I couldn’t track her movements with my eyes.
Next, I tried to run away, but she approached me at a speed close to teleportation.
I tried using magic and even asked Pia for help, but the branch she swung tore through and penetrated both wind barriers and water walls, rendering them useless.
It was incomprehensible.
It was just a branch, wasn’t it?
Clearly, all she held in her hand was a thin branch like a switch, but strangely, every time that thin stick touched my body, a huge impact like being hit by a large hammer pounded through my entire body.
When it hit my arms or legs, I felt as if they might be severed, and the few times it hit the center of my body squarely, I was lifted off the ground and sent flying.
It was a scene that looked more like abuse or merciless violence than training.
When I heard about the training from Sister Alice, I had certainly prepared myself, but I thought it would be a bit more sophisticated than this.
I tried to complain to Silvia that it hurt and was scary, but she just nodded and repeated the terrifying statement that it was actually good since it doubled as endurance training.
“You’re even getting slower.”
“…My stamina is…”
“What do you need stamina for? Did I tell you to run? I said just dodge.”
“Even when I dodge… you chase me.”
“Of course.”
Silvia tilted her head as if bewildered.
“If you dodge so obviously, of course I’ll chase you… wouldn’t I?”
“What does that…”
I don’t know anyone besides Silvia who can swing with such speed, or who can observe their surroundings in the split second of swinging a sword to change the trajectory of their attack.
But she’s telling me not to dodge obviously.
What exactly am I supposed to do?
As I looked at her with a puzzled expression, she seemed to realize something and muttered while slowly shaking her head.
“No, that’s not it… I shouldn’t give too many hints.”
I was dumbfounded by the offhand remark she made.
Hint?
What hint?
Is she saying that telling me she chases me when I dodge obviously is a hint?
It didn’t take long to understand what she meant.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t dodge in advance but wait until the last moment?”
“…”
“That’s… impossible…”
Silvia looked at me as I protested in a hollow voice, scratched her head for a moment, then slowly got up and said:
“Forget it if you don’t understand. Come on, you’ve rested long enough. Get up again.”
*
After more hours of meaningless violence, as the sun slowly began to hide among the trees, the branch Silvia was holding snapped with a crack.
Of course, by then, I still hadn’t managed to dodge even a single attack.
Although Silvia healed me with holy power after each critical hit, so I didn’t have many major external wounds, I had essentially learned to be helpless after being beaten all day, and by the end, I just passively received her attacks with my body.
The training had long since devolved into building endurance.
Silvia paused for a moment, looking at the broken branch, and I took the opportunity to catch my ragged breath.
“Haa… huu,”
“Ash…”
“…Heurk,”
I sat on the ground, spitting up bile and hanging my head.
With no strength left in my body, I simply couldn’t answer.
Silvia tossed the broken branch to the ground and said quietly:
“What are you doing?”
“…Ha, what… do you mean…”
“I’m asking what you’re doing right now.”
Silvia spoke with a trembling voice.
Between gasps for breath, I swallowed dry saliva and barely moved my lips.
“…Training,”
“You weren’t even trying to dodge toward the end. Are you joking right now?”
Silvia approached me with a contorted expression.
She grabbed my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and shouted:
“You said you wanted to hunt the Demon Lord. You said you wanted to go to the Demon Lord’s castle, you said you wanted to get… married.”
“…”
“But why aren’t you thinking? Why are you just getting hit? This is a branch. If it were a sword, you’d be dead. If it were magic, you’d be dead too.”
“…”
“…Don’t you want to do this?”
“No… that’s not it…”
“You said you wanted to hunt the Demon Lord. Ha, did I say that? You’re the one who said it. So what is this you’re doing now?”
“…I’m sorry…”
“Haa…”
Silvia sighed.
“I know it’s difficult. I know it’s not easy. But this was clearly a problem with a definite answer. And the Ash I know could definitely have passed it.”
“…”
“Are you looking down on this?”
“No…”
I barely opened my parched lips and answered with an exhausted voice.
“I can’t dodge… I don’t know how to dodge.”
“No, you could have known. If you had just thought a little.”
“…Then I guess I’m just stupid.”
“Ash!”
“…”
I couldn’t answer anymore.
Not because I resented Silvia’s questioning attitude.
And certainly not because I was disappointed in my weak body.
I was clearly physically unable to respond.
Having been awake since last night and spending all day running around and getting hit repeatedly, my fatigue seemed to have reached its limit.
“How can I possibly dodge you, Silvia…”
My vision slowly blurred, and suddenly the ground was rapidly approaching my face.
“Ash!”
I collapsed forward as I heard Silvia cry out my name in surprise.
I felt sharp grains of sand prick my cheek.
I couldn’t even satisfactorily move a single finger anymore.
My consciousness gradually faded.
In my consciousness that was slowly dispersing like watercolor paint in water, the last thing I detected was Silvia’s quiet murmur:
“Ash needs… a catalyst.”
Catalyst…?
What on earth was she planning to do…
With that question, my consciousness completely cut off.
*
I regained consciousness sometime after midnight.
It seemed my day and night pattern had been reversed again since yesterday.
For having been beaten all day, I didn’t feel much pain in my body.
The only pain I felt was in my throat, which stung as if I had fallen asleep with my mouth open.
“Haa…”
Silvia must have had a hard time healing me.
I sighed with that thought.
Suddenly, I recalled Silvia’s face as she scolded me before I passed out.
“Silvia… she seemed angry…”
I raised my arm and placed it over my eyes as I muttered.
She was right.
I don’t know if it was a problem I could solve, but it was a challenge I absolutely had to overcome.
I could fail, I could be wrong.
But I shouldn’t have given up, yet toward the end, wasn’t I essentially resigned to just taking her attacks?
I felt so pathetic that I thought tears might burst forth at any moment, so I pressed my arm harder against my eyes.
That’s when it happened.
“I’m not angry, Ash.”
“Wh-what, Silvia?”
Only then did I realize something felt off.
There was no pain, but strange sensations were traveling through various parts of my body.
First, it was oddly cold, and second, my lower body felt wet.
And there was a heavy weight on my pelvis, as if something heavy was sitting on it.
I slowly removed the arm covering my eyes and looked down at my lower body.
Silvia was there.
“…Silvia…?”
“Mmm, you’re awake… haah,”
“What are you… doing…”
Silvia was straddling my pelvis.
As I witnessed the scene with my eyes, the strange sensations in my body, especially my lower half, became increasingly clear.
She was having intercourse with my unconscious body.
“Silvia… st-stop, wait, what are you doing?”
“Ha… inside… it’s warm…”
“…Huh?”
I realized that the moisture soaking my lower body wasn’t just hers.
In that moment, I felt the blood drain from my face.
“…No way.”
“Haah, mmm,”
“No way, no way…”
“That’s right… Ash.”
Silvia’s smiling face slowly approached mine.
Her lips parted slowly, and I heard her sweet, aroused voice:
“Inside me…”
.
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