Chapter 1632 - 228 - On The Frontline (8)
The five of them immediately looked toward one another.
For a few seconds, nobody seemed particularly interested in volunteering.
I couldn’t really blame them.
Being the first person to fight against someone they had specifically asked to train them probably wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in.
There was also the fact that they had no idea what kind of test I was planning to give them.
For all they knew, I could have asked them to fight me seriously from the beginning.
Then again, considering what I had just told them about needing to determine their abilities, they probably should have expected something along those lines.
After a short silence, Sakai seemed to finally make up her mind.
She took a small breath, straightened herself, and then stood up from where she had been sitting.
"Well then, I’d like to try fighting you," she said while looking directly at me.
I looked at her for a moment before giving her a small nod.
"Alright," I replied. "I want you to use your weapon, and I don’t want you to hold anything back."
I paused briefly before continuing with a more serious tone.
"Fight me with the intention of actually cutting me down."
The moment I said that, Sakai’s eyes widened slightly.
She clearly hadn’t expected me to give her an instruction quite that serious right from the beginning.
For a brief moment, I could see a little hesitation in her expression, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Her expression soon returned to one of concentration.
She wasn’t backing down.
That was good.
"Alright," she said while gripping her weapon more firmly.
Her voice was steady, and the determination in her eyes was obvious.
I could already tell that she wasn’t planning to treat this like some friendly practice session.
She was going to take my words seriously.
That was exactly what I wanted.
If I was going to figure out what they were capable of, then there was no point in asking them to hold back or pretend that they were stronger or weaker than they actually were.
I needed to see their real abilities.
I needed to see how they moved when they were under pressure.
Most importantly, I needed to see whether they were actually prepared to fight when the situation became dangerous.
Sakai seemed ready to give me that answer.
So, with her weapon in hand and her attention completely focused on me, the first test of their training was finally about to begin.
***
I stared at her for a moment, taking in her stance and the way she was gripping the sword in front of her.
She looked completely ready to take a swing at me, and judging from the serious expression on her face, I could already tell that she intended to take this training session very seriously from the beginning.
The blade in her hands also looked like it was made to an extremely high standard, which honestly wasn’t surprising when I remembered that Lilia had apparently gone out of her way to get them some kind of premium equipment.
If she was willing to spend that much on their equipment, then I suppose it was only natural that their weapons would be just as high-quality as everything else they had received.
Still, that didn’t mean I needed to use one myself.
I reached over and grabbed a wooden sword from somewhere nearby, giving it a quick look before deciding that it would be more than enough for what I had planned.
The moment Sakai noticed what I was holding, her expression changed, and she looked at me with obvious confusion.
"Um... shouldn’t you use an actual sword?" she asked, glancing between my wooden sword and the much better weapon in her own hands.
"This will do," I told her casually. "I don’t think you’re strong enough yet to earn the right to fight me with a real sword."
I knew that sounded rude, and if I were being completely honest, it was probably harsher than it needed to be.
Still, that was genuinely what I thought about the situation, and there wasn’t much point in pretending otherwise just to make her feel better.
Right now, Sakai simply wasn’t strong enough to take me head-on, and I wasn’t going to lie to her about that just because the truth might hurt her feelings.
I wasn’t saying it because I wanted to insult her or make myself look superior, either.
I was telling her because she needed to know where she actually stood.
If she couldn’t accept something like that as useful information, or if she immediately became offended just because someone pointed out a weakness that she needed to work on, then she simply wasn’t ready to train with me yet.
Training wasn’t supposed to be about receiving compliments whenever someone did something reasonably well.
It was supposed to expose weaknesses, make them uncomfortable, and force them to improve until those weaknesses stopped being weaknesses in the first place.
Sakai seemed to understand what I meant, because she nodded without arguing with me or trying to defend herself.
She tightened her grip around the sword afterward, wrapping her fingers firmly around the handle as she prepared herself for the attack.
Her expression became more serious, and the uncertainty that had been there a moment ago seemed to disappear as she focused entirely on me.
Then she suddenly dashed toward me without saying anything else.
She was fast.
She was considerably faster than I had expected her to be, especially after seeing how seriously she was taking the stance she had assumed before attacking.
In fact, she was much faster than anything I had imagined she would be capable of when I first saw her pick up the sword and prepare herself.
Since coming to this world, their physical abilities had improved significantly, and it wasn’t limited to their basic strength alone.
Their overall capabilities had increased as well, including their agility, speed, endurance, and various other physical attributes that would obviously be useful in combat.
Considering all of that, Sakai was actually quite powerful by normal standards.
An ordinary person probably wouldn’t have been able to defeat her in a straight fight, especially if they had no experience dealing with someone who could move that quickly.
That was precisely why it made sense for them to require someone considerably stronger to train them.
Their physical abilities had already reached a level where simply teaching them basic swordsmanship wouldn’t be enough to prepare them for an actual battlefield.