Chapter 28 : She deflated

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She deflated at that development with a sad note appearing on her face, a flinch-worthy scene. But instead of letting her remain this saddened, I decided to sprung into action to try and mend the mistake.

The girl tensed up a little, much like Asia did earlier that day as my hand patted her head. I expected her to react badly, maybe even pummel me right away if I had mistaken her signals and appeared to be too aggressive with this action, and yet…

Koneko didn't reply at first, abandoning herself to the head-pat for some seconds. Then she sighed.

"W-Why?"

There was a light stutter, a very adorable one too.

"I think you did good," I replied without hesitation. "You put yourself on the test and got one of the highest scores possible. That is nothing to scoff at and, once again, good job, Koneko-chan."

The young girl slowly turned around and looked up right at me.

There was a minor blush in her cheeks and her eyes were wide open.

"You..." Koneko started, her voice lost after few moments of careful head-patting. "You aren't going to tell anyone about this, right?"

A quick but decisive threat. "And I get to reward you like this from now on?"

She didn't reply, trying to pout a little at my 'price' but failing to hide some hints of genuine happiness appearing on her face.

The situation lasted five more minutes and we parted for our respective ways, my hand still feeling quite fuzzy at the fact I had head-patted someone so adorable.

Today was sure looking up great for me!

I've jinxed myself. Again.

The first training session with Azazel was supposedly an 'introductory' one, something that was just meant to prepare me with the kind of hellish nightmare I had to go through with was going to be the first steps in a new lifestyle.

The man had offered a brief schedule about the three days he was going to spend by teaching me about… everything that came up in his mind. It sounded fairly disappointing from a certain perspective, but Azazel was someone that had plenty to teach about even without a truly coordinated idea.

The standard session was structured in a simple pattern:

First, we had training with swords as the Fallen Angel wanted my skill with the Lightsaber to be top notch. The sword itself had been handy to attack Raynare in yesterday's fight, but I've used it so badly that the Governor-General himself had to point out how pathetic my swordsmanship level currently was.

Then there was Magic training, which was a mix of exercises to increase my already-growing Core in raw magical potential, learning new spells and practicing what I had learned during spars. It would be the most important bit of the lessons since I had long decided to give a major focus on the magical growth…

Yet the final part of the training got me confused, doubtful, and somewhat interested enough to give it as much attention as Magical training. The last section was in fact focused bare-handed fighting, something that I was completely ineffective about as I had little experience about close encounters and... the man did have some mad experience about being close and personal against people.

But while said regime looked fairly simple in terms of the planning, the truth was completely the opposite of this idea.

When practice started, I felt the need to shiver… and there was a good reason for it.

The leader of Grigori had come prepared for the occasion, bringing in more than forty small bottles with a clear green liquid in those.

Azazel was quick to reveal that those were very expensive health potions called 'Tears of Phoenix', something that was sold primarily by the Phenex family.

Kind of a dreadful reminder of the things that would have to happen in a month from now.

The reason of the insane price was based on the fact that those could heal quickly, erase bodies' fatigue, recharge Magical Cores to the fullest, and that multiple potions can be used repeatedly without facing any dangerous after-effects.

A powerful thing that ended up being the main tool of my tortured mind for the next four hours hours of utter pain I had to go through with the first session.

The Governor-General wasn't holding back with his punches, nor was he with his sword's strikes… and his magical nuking. And there was a lot of nuking happening around the training room.

Something did seem to change for the best for me the moment I was left to and practice about two new spells he had left me to learn. Light Mining and Light Barrier.

The L. Barriers created cushioned shields between the attack and the caster, giving me some edge in either deflecting or block some of his attacks while I tried to lure him by making use of the Mining spell.

Obviously, it was a minor improvement compared to a couple of hours earlier but, as the fist-fight resumed for the 33th time, I managed to get some dodging done while hitting his guard more than once.

It was refreshing and would have been awesome if…

THUD

...he hadn't been holding back for the first two hours of the session.

Groaning on the floor, I noticed that there was only two potions left and I dreaded the fact that the last round was going to be the 34th of all numbers.

"Now that did sound like an interesting round," The man chuckled as he pulled me off the floor, sighing as he looked around the damaged arena. Since he wasn't sparing any blows, I wasn't certainly holding back anything, the combined effort resulting in the undeniable devastation now visible all over the place.

"I got my ass kicked," I dryly pointed out.

"But you lasted longer than the first time," He giddily rebuked. "I would say 20 times better than your first attempt."

I frowned at his attempt to cheer me up. "D-Didn't I last like... a minute the first time?"

He snorted at my tired reply, my ears catching what seemed to be a that's what she said, further irking my strained brain as I downed the content of the penultimate of the bottles left.

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