The World Is Mine For The Taking

I pushed her backward before she could follow through with another strike.

The moment I forced her away, she immediately used the distance between us to dash backward.

She didn’t waste even that small opportunity.

Her movements suggested that she was already thinking about where her next attack would come from before she had even reached her new position.

She wasn’t merely moving quickly.

She was moving with purpose.

Her attacks were efficient, but they weren’t completely lacking in strength either, because she was putting a considerable amount of power behind every strike instead of relying entirely on speed to overwhelm her opponent.

She was combining speed, strength, timing, positioning, and instinct into a single fighting style that seemed surprisingly well developed.

She had clearly received proper training, or perhaps this was simply how her natural battle instincts worked.

Either way, she was quite proficient.

However, proficiency had its limits.

There were certain opponents she simply couldn’t overcome yet, especially people who were significantly stronger than her in terms of raw ability and combat experience.

People like me.

No matter how efficient her movements were, she couldn’t completely bridge the gap between her current strength and someone who simply possessed far greater physical ability.

She could attack efficiently, move quickly, and strike with excellent timing, but none of those things would magically allow her to defeat someone who could overpower her whenever their attacks actually collided.

That didn’t make her useless, though.

Far from it.

On an actual battlefield, someone like her could become extremely valuable.

She didn’t necessarily need to fight the strongest enemies directly.

Instead, she could slip through enemy formations, move around the battlefield quickly, and eliminate foot soldiers before they even realized what was happening.

Her ability to make her presence difficult to detect would be especially useful for that kind of role.

If she could maintain that level of speed and precision during an actual war, she would probably be extremely effective at disrupting enemy formations and eliminating weaker targets.

She could potentially move behind enemy lines, strike vulnerable targets, and disappear before anyone had enough time to properly react.

That was considerably more useful than simply throwing her into a fight against someone far beyond her current ability.

When it came to fighting intent, at least, she was already among the best of the group.

"You are good," I told her honestly while keeping my eyes fixed on her.

She remained several steps away from me, still holding her sword firmly in her hands while watching me carefully.

"However, with the way you are right now, you’re still not strong enough to fight on the very frontlines."

I gave her another quick assessment before continuing.

"Your traits are similar to what I’d expect from an assassin, and that’s something you could make excellent use of, especially if you learn how to exploit your speed and ability to conceal your presence even further."

I briefly glanced at her sword before returning my attention to her.

"At your current level, though, I’d rather have you fighting the foot soldiers instead of throwing you against the strongest people on the battlefield."

I paused for a moment, making sure she understood what I was saying before finishing my assessment.

"You have the skills, instincts, and efficiency to become useful during a war, but you still need more strength and experience before you can safely stand on the frontlines against opponents who are actually on my level."

Morishita didn’t say anything in response, but from the look on her face, it was pretty obvious that she was at least satisfied with what I had told her. She probably wasn’t the type to openly express her feelings about praise, but I could tell that my words had reached her in some way, which was good enough for me.

I still thought it would be better if she trained alongside the Shadows, mainly because she was already similar to them in terms of her abilities and overall fighting style. She would probably fit in with them better than the others, and having people around her who understood that kind of training would probably make things easier for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, the Shadows weren’t exactly what anyone would call good teachers.

They were strong, sure.

They were reliable in combat, certainly.

Teaching someone else how to become strong, however, was an entirely different matter, and apparently that particular skill hadn’t been included in their impressive collection of abilities.

Most of them could probably explain how to kill something far better than they could explain how to properly hold a sword.

Because of that, I still had to teach Morishita myself, which wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for, but I supposed it couldn’t be helped.

"Now then..." I said while looking around.

I lifted my eyes toward the sky for a moment before slowly looking back at the group.

There was still one person who hadn’t shown me what she could actually do yet.

Kaori.

Just thinking about her brought back memories that I hadn’t really bothered thinking about in a long time.

Back on Earth, Kaori and I had been childhood friends.

We had grown up together, spent a lot of time together, and knew each other for years before everything eventually changed.

I had liked her back then.

Actually, I had liked her quite a lot.

I eventually gathered enough courage to confess my feelings to her, but things didn’t exactly work out the way I had hoped they would. She already had someone else she loved, and there wasn’t really anything I could do about that.

Getting rejected had hurt at the time, obviously, because I was still young and stupid enough to believe that confessing your feelings was somehow supposed to guarantee a happy ending.

Reality had other plans, apparently.

I eventually moved on from those feelings, and after being reincarnated into this world, I started living an entirely different life. I had new experiences, met new people, and became someone completely different from the person I had been back on Earth.

Because of that, I didn’t really consider myself connected to Kaori anymore.

Whatever feelings I had for her back then were already gone.

They belonged to another life.

So while I did think it would be cruel to deliberately hurt her simply because I could, I wasn’t going to treat her differently just because we had once been childhood friends.

That wouldn’t be fair to the others.

They had all come here to prove themselves, and Kaori would have to do the same.

"You," I said while looking directly at her. "Come forward."

Kaori swallowed nervously before taking a careful step forward.

She looked tense.

I could understand why.

Being watched by everyone while knowing that you were about to fight someone who was clearly stronger than you wasn’t exactly a comfortable situation.

Still, she didn’t back away.

Instead, she reached for the sword at her side and slowly unsheathed it.

The moment the blade came free, I immediately felt something familiar.

Mana.

She was channeling mana through her sword.

So she already knew how to coat her weapon with mana.

I hadn’t expected that from her, but it made sense when I thought about it.

Someone had obviously taught her the basics.

"You specialize in magic swordsmanship, I assume," I said while observing the way the mana flowed through her weapon.

"Y-Yes," she answered, sounding a little nervous.

I figured as much.

Some magic knight had probably taught her how to fight.

It wasn’t particularly surprising, considering that most magic knights were essentially magic swordsmen anyway. Combining physical swordsmanship with magic was practically a standard part of our training in the academy, after all.

"Well then..." I said while raising my wooden sword and settling into my stance. "Come at me."

Kaori took a deep breath.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, almost as though she were gathering whatever courage she had left before finally committing herself to the fight.

Then she opened her eyes.

She dashed toward me.