episode_0032

After seeing everything there was to see in the Moratium Duke’s mansion with Ion’s guidance, we had a quick dinner and went up to Ion’s room.

“It’s really wide and there’s nothing there.”

I mutter as I look around Ion’s room.

If it weren’t for the desk, bookshelf, and large bed in the corner of the room, you’d almost think it was a small gym rather than a room.

“Exercise equipment and such are one thing, but why wooden dolls and vision tools?”

When I ask him this question, looking at the wooden training dolls placed in one corner of the room and the vision tool that projects virtual opponents for sparring practice, Ion shrugs and answers.

“For use on rainy days, when you don’t feel like going out, or during your period.”

“Oh… I see.”

I thought I’d gotten used to the gender reversal after coming here and spending some time here, but this is an unfamiliar topic.

“Ah, I’m full. I’ll sit down for a bit.”

Lulu sits on Ion’s dry, luxurious bed, rubbing her belly, which has never been flat.

“That’s right. Ain, do you want to learn how to use a blunt weapon to digest food?”

“Blunt weapon? Yeah, okay.”

When I answered Ion’s suggestion without hesitation, she giggled and looked at Lulu.

“How many males in the empire would say “yes” if you asked them to learn blunt weapons?”

Lulu gestures to me with her legs crossed and her body leaned back in a relaxed position in response to the question.

“That one.”

“I see, right?”

After joking around with Lulu like that, Ion brings a practice mace and a small shield and hands them to me from a place close to the bed so Lulu can see them clearly.

“It’s for practice. A mace is a weapon that requires weight, so it’s the same weight as a real mace… It would be difficult for an average male to hold it, but you, Ain, should be able to handle it somehow.”

She says that my evaluation within Ion is strangely high, and hands me a weapon and a shield.

Ion, who helped me put the shield on my arm, then stood in front of me wearing his favorite mace and shield.

“Let’s start with how to stand.”

As he said that, Ion leaned his left side forward, raised his shield at chest height, and held his mace upright so that it was not visible due to the shield, and lowered his body’s center of gravity slightly.

“This is called the ‘middle guard’ stance. Think of it as the most versatile stance.”

While Ion is in position, I circle around her and examine the details of her pose.

“Is it like this?”

I’m trying to imitate Ion’s posture, just like when I learned Hoyo and Iron Foxtrot.

The mace was quite heavy and not easy to hold, but I managed to hold on somehow with my grit.

“Well, it’s not bad. The mace is heavy, but hold it higher. Lower your stance. Move the shield further away from your body. That’s much better.”

As Ion smiled with satisfaction after adjusting my posture here and there, a system message appeared at the same time.

-‘Ion Moratium’ and the intimacy synergy allow you to acquire the Moratium Guard Blade variant, [Ion Moratium Bludgeoning] trait.

-Strength, stamina, endurance, and fighting spirit slightly increase, and the limits of the corresponding statuses increase.

-Now you can use spells without receiving equipment penalties by gaining proficiency in ‘One-Handed Blunt’, ‘Small Shield’, and ‘Medium Shield’.

As soon as the message appears, I feel the heavy mace and small shield in my hands becoming lighter.

“Oh, really?”

“What is real?”

Ion’s eyes widened as he looked at me, my posture slightly corrected and I was now in a more perfect position. Lulu asked me what that was.

“Hoyo said that if you teach him a little, he’ll learn surprisingly well. But it’s true. It takes a lot of time just to get into a good posture because of the weight of a blunt weapon… But there’s nothing you can do to correct Ain’s posture right now.”

As he explains this to Lulu, Ion looks around him.

“Perfect. Ain, can you loosen up your posture and try again?”

I nodded at Ion’s request, slowly releasing and re-releasing my posture, repeating this several times until she was satisfied.

“Hmm, what’s going on? Ain, you really don’t want to be a knight?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Oh my, you want me to be a knight when I have two level 4 spell slots?”

Lulu responded indifferently, but seemed to be thinking about something.

“Hmm, holding a weapon and shield while casting spells. Interesting, though.”

“Right? Okay, then let’s move on to swinging the bell.”

And a moment later we were in a brightly lit smokehouse.

If you ask me why I was in Ion’s room just a moment ago and now I’m in the martial arts studio, I’ll say it’s because Ion saw what I was doing and felt that the room was stuffy, so he dragged me and Lulu down to the martial arts studio. (Lulu was extremely annoyed.)

“Okay, nothing is as important as actual combat. Try using the vertical swing and horizontal swing that you showed me in the room earlier on me. It’s more important to know what it’s like when it’s blocked by a shield and what it’s like when it actually hits you, rather than swinging it in the air.”

“I’m having fun alone.”

Unlike Ion who was very excited, Lulu dragged a chair from the training ground and sat down, yawning as she muttered that.

“Oh, really? Ain. Are you not having fun?”

“Put up your shield instead of asking that question. Right now, I’m thinking about how to swing this mace so that people will know I’m swinging it well.”

At my answer, Ion laughs and raises his shield.

“Ah, what luck that the most entertaining male in the empire is my pack male.”

Bang! My mace is blocked by Ion’s shield. The impact on my hand is greater than I thought.

“Hold on, Ain! You’re supposed to wear gauntlets, but we don’t have any gauntlets that fit your hands. Next is the horizontal swing!”

Ion says so and lowers his shield towards his body! Another bang!

“Okay, repeat vertically and horizontally!”

“How do you look, Icarus?”

At one corner of the Moratium mansion, which overlooks the smokescreen, two women are looking at the smokescreen, from which the sound of “bang!” can be heard all the time.

“I thought Ion was joking. Even so, I thought he had a talent for humor at the male level.”

Duke Icarus Moratium answered Marquis Lucio Anastasia’s question without taking his eyes off the training ground.

“Look, Ion didn’t tell you, but the moment you swung the mace, you twisted your waist, and the moment the weapon fell, you started to adjust the strength in your hand. ”

“What do you mean, Ion is holding a mace?”

Duke Icarus laughs and shakes his head at the laughter in Marquis Lucio’s voice.

“Which mother in the world can defeat her daughter? Ion’s swordsmanship is on track. It will grow without me saying anything. It’s just a habit for me and Ion.”

Again, a bang! The sound is heard, and the two see Ion startled and startled.

“A horizontal slash… No, is that a modulation to a horizontal swing?”

“That’s right. The son-in-law must have twisted his wrist right before the strike. Risky, but effective. Didn’t Ion’s shield lift up for a moment? ”

From afar, a surprised Ion’s voice can be heard scolding Ain.

But their proud son-in-law is not at all intimidated and looks like he’s saying, ‘Anyway, it’s not my fault.’

“You don’t seem to be intimidated at all by what the female said. That kind of attitude is necessary when learning weapons.”

At the words of Duke Icarus, Marquis Luciola watched Ain, Ion, and Lulu together for a long time.

“Look at that. Looks like Lulu was right. He’s recovered and moving again. ”

“Uh… I hate to say this, but if my son-in-law were a female instead of a male, I would have searched the territory like a guild and brought in a male who was not too shabby to join the Knights.”

Marquis Luciola nodded as if he understood what Duke Icarus said a hundred times over.

“I can’t stand this. I should go and teach Anastasia Duel Technique.”

As Marquis Luciolas snorts and tries to move, Marquis Icarus stops her with a look of bewilderment.

“Wouldn’t it be unpleasant to interfere while children are playing?”

“Kids? They’re all adults. And my daughter is a magician, so our family’s dueling skills are rusty now. If my daughter doesn’t learn, my son-in-law should learn. When my daughter gives birth, I’ll leave the baby to my son-in-law. ”

At Marquis Luciolas’s words, Duke Icarus’s expression became like, “Is that so?”

She has no problem succeeding the throne as her daughter, Ion, has been diligently learning the Moratium Guard Blade.

However, like the Moratium family, the Anastasia family has only one daughter, Marquis Luciola, a knight mother, and only one sorceress, Lulu, so the matter is ambiguous.

Of course, because there are the Knights of Anastasia, there are many knights who have learned the art of family dueling.

However, there is always a hidden trick in martial arts. It is extremely rare for such a thing to be revealed to the Knights.

Even Ion has learned techniques classified as unknown secrets from the Moratium Guard Blade learned by the Moratium Knights.

“Next time, but.”

“Do you know when your son-in-law will come back? It’s 7pm now. There’s plenty of time.”

As he watched Marquis Luciolas walking away while responding like that, Duke Icarus muttered, “You’ve either left your mother or your daughter behind,” so that she couldn’t hear, and followed her to the training grounds.

After a while, Marquis Lucio, who had been talking to Ain, Ion, and Lulu, brought a practice rapier and placed it in Ain’s hand.

If Sir Kino Anastasia, who was chatting with Sir Shizu Moratium at the Moratium Manor, had seen that sight, she would have laughed and said, ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen my wife this excited.’