Enhancement Training Day 4 Morning: Supernatural VS Ordinary
“Alright! It’s my turn today!!”
It was the fourth day of training.
Jero stood, holding a thin, short iron rod and a long, thin wooden stick, his voice full of high spirits and enthusiasm as he addressed the three trainees, Stella and the others.
Jero’s tension seemed unusually high compared to the previous days. The three trainees turned to look at Ferno, who was sitting on a chair as if he knew what was going on. They saw him covering his eyes with his hand, looking up at the sky, and letting out a deep sigh.
It’s not a secret, so I’ll just say it. Yesterday, Jero had been wandering around the town and found an orphanage, where he spent the whole day playing.
He had received a supply of interaction with children, including fresh lolis, and as a result, his tension had skyrocketed, and he was now in a great mood to start his training session.
“Well, unfortunately, I can’t teach you anything… So, I’m going to go all out in sparring, and you can just pick up whatever you can from that. As for your issues, the boss over there will probably see them, so don’t worry.”
With that, Jero walked away from the three of them and stood in an open space with nothing around, arms crossed, holding the iron and wooden sticks.
“First, it’s the two beast-folk over there. Until the lunch break, those two will spar with me, and after the lunch break, the former Knight Captain will spar with me. Well, I’m used to holding back so you don’t lose consciousness, so don’t worry about that either. If the worst happens, the boss will stop it.”
Jero then called Rio and Fon over with a look and a gesture of his finger, telling them to come quickly. The two called approached Jero, while Stella, who was told to wait, moved closer to Ferno, who was sitting apart.
“Alright, let’s get started.
I’ll give you the first move, come at me from anywhere.”
After confirming that they were ready, Jero told the two he had called over, and without a reply, the two-on-one unorthodox sparring began.
The first move was given.
Taking advantage of that, Rio and Fon ran, taking positions that were blind spots for normal humans, and launched a pincer attack. They were not throwing hidden weapons, but attacking with knives and daggers.
“Well, I figured you’d come like that.”
Jero dodged without even looking, moving backward. There was no after-movement or opening, he dodged as if he had been there from the beginning, without even holding his sticks.
Of course, the two, who didn’t think it would work, saw the beginning of the dodge and stopped abruptly, then charged again with their knives.
This time, only Rio engaged in close combat, while Fon threw hidden weapons at Jero from behind Rio to keep him in check.
“That’s too soft, that level is.”
The throws were aimed precisely at the vital points of the human body.
There was no time lag, nor did the trajectory waver. Jero dodged the check with ease, as if he couldn’t stand alongside the supernatural if he couldn’t handle that much.
He avoided the path of the hidden weapons with the smallest and shortest movements, and focused his attention on Rio, who was trying to engage in close combat.
He wasn’t in front of Jero’s eyes.
The moment Jero tried to find him by tracing his breath, the wind, his presence, and his gaze, his instincts sent out a danger signal, and he devoted all his attention to it.
The location was behind him, the type of danger signal was severe injury, and the answer that his thoughts drew was the possibility of growth.
Having grasped all of that, Jero smiled and sent an answer to the assassination strike that had been completed as a single technique behind him.
“I see, I understand. Let’s get serious.”
At that moment, all of Jero turned into water.
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“Okay, okay! Nice, nice! As expected of someone the boss brought in!! My bad, I apologize!! I was underestimating you!!”
After turning into water and disappearing, a few moments after Rio’s attack blew the water away, Jero was laughing in the sky while shouting those words.
His carefree and elusive demeanor had changed completely, and he now exuded a ferocious aura like a beast that had found its prey.
“Well, let’s go.”
With that, he kicked off the sky, and Jero thrust the iron rod in front of Rio, who had started running for his next attack, and flicked the tip of the wooden stick he had left in his hand against Rio’s forehead.
With a heavy thud, Rio was blown away in the opposite direction from which she had been moving and rolled on the ground.
While keeping that in his sight, Fon threw hidden weapons and tried to respond to Jero’s movements with his dagger, but at that moment.
“You’re full of openings, you know?”
Jero, who had somehow ended up standing on top of his dagger, sent him flying with a face-first impact, unable to defend himself.
However, the impact was weaker and smaller than the blow Rio had received, so he immediately regained his posture and landed, launching a counterattack at Jero’s neck, who was still in a stance.
“If you want to do that, get as fast as the boss.”
But it didn’t work.
Jero dodged Fon’s counterattack with the fastest, most efficient movement, and thrust the tip of the iron rod into Fon’s abdomen, sending his body flying upward.
Then, when Jero snapped his fingers, Fon’s body, which had been launched upward, suddenly stopped and fell rapidly to the ground.
“Hey, hey, it’s almost over—”
“Tch.”
“As expected of a Black Lion, huh? Not bad, you’ve got the skills to be the boss’s companion. Come on.”
“I’ll kill you.”
As Jero was about to taunt Fon, who had been slammed to the ground, Rio’s assassination strike attacked. Jero dodged it as a matter of course, and Rio clicked her tongue, directing her killing intent at Jero from the front and launching an attack.
The reason for engaging in a frontal battle, which she was not good at, was that Jero was much faster than Rio, making it impossible to confuse him or get behind him. Rather than challenging the impossible and getting blown away two or three times, it was better to aim to overpower him in a frontal battle.
That was the judgment that Rio had made, and whether that bold choice was good or not,
“Sorry, but when it comes to weapon combat, I’m stronger than Ferno Desire (the strongest). It wasn’t a bad decision, though.”
It was both correct and incorrect.
If it was just a loss in a speed contest, it would have been a useful tactic, and Fon could have taken advantage of the opening to launch a pincer attack.
However, they were losing in everything, including speed, and Jero had the power to surpass Ferno, who was far superior to Rio in the single aspect of using weapons.
After a few exchanges, Rio’s knife was knocked away, and she was left defenseless, able only to defend or deflect with her bare hands. Jero’s wooden stick was thrust into her.
A blow was thrust in with a needle-like movement. Rio was blown backward again by the blow that was gouged out with overwhelming skill.
“Come on, come on, the training has just begun, you know? Get up quickly, time is limited, so let’s get on with it.”
A battle against an overwhelmingly superior opponent.
It was the element that she and the others, who could fight well enough in the ordinary world, lacked, and it was the trigger for becoming stronger that Ferno had judged was necessary.
It was not a challenge with resignation to the defeat that was known, but a challenge with the desire to overcome the difference in power and steal victory, and that was why it became a meaningful experience.
“Combine.”
“Understood, milady.”
The powerlessness of not being able to get on the stage of battle in front of her eyes, the lack of skill that prevented her from even clenching her fist in the face of her enemy, the ideal form that was far above where she should reach.
Knowing all of that, Rio was able to challenge with the desire and as the king of beasts (Black Lion) with her subordinates.
“I will kill you.”
“Try it, Black Lion (little girl).”