Chapter 64: Training (1)

“Jessica, did I hear that wrong?”

I must have misheard. Otherwise, how could she refuse such a golden opportunity to learn Baldo, the world’s strongest swordsmanship, even if it was a punishment in disguise?

“I heard wrong, right?! You didn’t refuse, did you?!”

“I did!! I refused!! No sane person would accept a challenge with those conditions!!”

“What are you talking about?! I would’ve accepted immediately!!”

“That’s because you’re not sane!! Like I said, I’d rather have my body defiled than accept those terms!!”

“What the… that doesn’t make any sense!!”

As this incomprehensible situation unfolded, my mind started racing.

Could it be that this wasn’t really about hating Baldo, but had some hidden meaning?

‘Damn…! If I’d chosen liberal arts, I would’ve caught Jessica’s hidden meaning right away…!!’

I cursed my past self for choosing sciences. As I stared intently at Jessica’s flushed face, thinking her words, I had a realization.

‘She said she’d rather have her body defiled than learn Baldo, right?’

In other words, could she be indirectly saying that instead of Baldo with a sword, she wanted to do Baldo with her body?

It seemed like quite a leap, but Jessica’s reddened face lent credence to this hypothesis.

“Jessica… could it be that you want to do Baldo with your body instead of with a sword?”

“Huh? Baldo with my body…?”

When Jessica didn’t understand, I made a gesture to illustrate my meaning.

However, Jessica, the cherished daughter of a Count’s family, didn’t understand such a vulgar gesture, so I had no choice but to be more direct.

“Look here. If we consider this to be the scabbard, and my thing to be the katana…!!”

As I pointed to Jessica’s lower abdomen while kindly explaining, she understood the meaning before I could finish and swung her hammer at me.

“Whoa! Jessica!! How rude to interrupt someone who’s talking!!”

“Shut up, you pervert!! How dare you say such vulgar things to me?!!”

Outraged, Jessica charged at me, wildly swinging her hammer.

Her attack, fueled more by anger than skill, was so sloppy that even someone other than me could have dodged it easily.

“Jessica, letting anger take over during a fight isn’t a good idea.”

“Shut up!! Stop spouting nonsense and die already!!”

I couldn’t understand why Jessica was so angry when she had said something that could easily be misunderstood.

“You started it, Jessica!! You said you’d rather do Baldo with your body!!”

“That just means I hate it that much!! You idiot!!”

I could have subdued the half-crazed Jessica at any time, but seeing her so worked up that she forgot her usual polite speech was too amusing, so I forgot about subduing her.

“Stop right there!!!”

“Hehe!! Try to catch me!!”

After a few minutes of this Tom and Jerry-like chase, while we were having a jolly good time…

“…What’s all this commotion about?”

Rain, who had entered the room unnoticed, was looking back and forth between Jessica and me with an incredulous expression.

“Can’t you see?! I’m trying to smash this rude man’s head in!!”

“Jessica!! You’re using polite speech again? Has your anger subsided?”

“You shut up!!”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but both of you stop it!! What’s with all this noise first thing in the morning?!”

Ignoring Rain’s words, the chase between Jessica and me continued for a while longer, but it soon ended as Jessica’s stamina was depleted.

“Haa… Haa…”

Having exhausted herself chasing me, Jessica sat down on the floor, panting heavily.

Seeing Jessica so drained that she unconsciously dropped her hammer, I approached her and asked,

“Feeling better now?”

“Haa… Sh-Shut up…!”

Judging by her return to polite speech, it seemed her anger had subsided somewhat during the chase.

“Are you going to attack me again once you’ve recovered?”

“O-Of course. I’ll definitely punish you for your rudeness…!”

“You think you can punish me? It doesn’t look that way to me.”

“……”

Looking at the current outcome, even if the same thing happened again, the result was obvious.

Jessica, as she was now, had zero chance of beating me.

If Peter, who was superior to Jessica in every way except for curly hair, had lost to me, how could Jessica possibly win?

The only path to victory would be learning Baldo from me, but she was rejecting that sole and absolute path to victory.

“You know, I believe in only fighting battles I’m sure to win. It’s up to you whether you want to attack again, but think about it. Charging in and losing when you know you can’t win just looks like you’re trying to act cute.”

“……”

Having no rebuttal, Jessica simply hung her head without saying a word.

Leaving the dejected-looking Jessica behind, I sat down in an empty seat. Shortly after, Marina entered the classroom.

“……”

Marina looked troubled as she surveyed the scene: me sitting properly, Jessica still on the floor with her face down, and Rain watching indifferently from a distance.

“…What happened here so early in the morning?”

I had only one answer to that question.

“…Nothing happened!!”

As Peter was still holed up in his room, unable to overcome the shock of defeat, Marina had no choice but to take over our classes for the time being.

Of course, being a mage, she couldn’t teach us martial arts, so she only taught history and other general subjects, along with theory.

The classes, which started in the morning and lasted until the afternoon, were honestly not fun, even as a polite lie.

The lessons on dealing with mages weren’t suited for me, and while I initially paid attention to the history lessons hoping for clues about the possessed, I soon lost interest when no such information seemed forthcoming.

By the middle of the lessons, I was half-dozing. Marina glared at me until the end of class but didn’t bother to reprimand me.

“That concludes today’s theory lessons. Everyone, the rest of the time is free…”

“……”

Before Marina could finish speaking, Jessica abruptly stood up and headed out of the classroom.

“…Huh? J-Jessica?”

Ignoring Marina’s bewilderment at this unexpected behavior, Jessica boldly walked out.

Curious about where she was going, I noticed that her destination was not the exit but the training grounds.

‘You’d think she’d hole up for a while after having her pride so thoroughly bruised…’

While Peter, her superior counterpart, couldn’t overcome the shock of defeat and had shut himself away, Jessica was different.

Her indomitable spirit, refusing to succumb to the shock of defeat and instead training herself, was truly befitting of a Baldo practitioner.

I was about to follow her outside to cheer on her efforts to train herself to smash my skull.

However, just as I reached the door, a wall of ice exuding an intense chill blocked my path.

“Whoa! Headmaster! What’s with this sudden prank?”

“Ian, this is no prank. Have you forgotten our agreement from yesterday?”

“Agreement? Wasn’t that forgotten?”

I thought I could get away with it since she had even shed tears yesterday, but it seems I had underestimated her.

“I haven’t forgotten. Now, sit down!”

“Damn…”

Muttering under my breath, I obediently took my seat.

Then began a lesson on etiquette even more boring than the history class from earlier.

Using chivalric literature instead of difficult philosophical texts to spark interest, we analyzed characters’ emotions, but even that was excruciatingly dull for me.

“Now, Ian, please continue reading from where I left off.”

“Yes… ‘Her other name is Justiana von Astraia. That insolent fool who dares impersonate Your Majesty, die.'”

“Very good. Now, what would be the correct emotion the traitor felt at this moment…”

“Excuse me, Headmaster.”

Unable to contain my curiosity any longer, I raised my hand and spoke.

“Will taking this class really help me develop social skills and make friends?”

“…Of course. I read many such literary works during my school days too.”

“Then why didn’t you make any friends?”

“……”

Deliberately ignoring my comment, Marina continued with the lesson. When it finally ended, she fled the classroom as if escaping.

Imagining Marina blubbering and cursing me again, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the pathetic scene.

Though two hours had already passed, I headed to the training grounds where Rain was intensely training on the left and Jessica on the right.

“Huff…! Huff…!!”

Jessica, swinging her hammer at the air with a fierce expression, exuded an unapproachable aura, but I paid no mind to such atmosphere and approached her.

“……”

Drenched in sweat from two hours of continuous training, Jessica glanced at me briefly before turning away and continuing to swing her hammer.

“Jessica, I have a fantastic proposal for you.”

“…If you’re going to talk about Baldo or whatever, just leave without bothering me.”

“As much as I’d love to make such a fantastic proposal, you wouldn’t listen anyway, right?”

“…You know me well.”

Jessica stopped swinging her hammer, took a deep breath, and turned to face me.

“So what’s this proposal you want to make?”

“How about training under me?”

“…Training?”

For the first time that day, a glimmer of interest seemed to flicker across Jessica’s face, which had been clouded with displeasure all day.