Training

"I remember it being like this..." Sebastian loaded the arrow into the bow and pulled the bowstring back though he had a little difficulty in doing so.

The result was that the arrow flew towards the ground directly in front of Sebastian.

"..."

—*snicker*

"Did you seriously just snicker at me?!"

—It's only your imagination. I am incapable of displaying emotions.

Sebastian fell silent. He hadn't seen a single emotion on Balanos' face before after all. But, he felt that she really did snicker at him.

Sebastian sighed, "can't you teach me how to use a bow?"

—I'm no less experienced than you are. There's no point in me teaching you.

"So neither of us can use a bow... What's the point of me sneaking out?!"

He couldn't wait to train himself and snuck out in the spur of the moment but without even knowing the basic form left him at a slump.

Balanos sighed.

—I suppose I can try to remember how the people from the past wield a bow. Don't be too excited though, I'm only going to remember how they shoot an arrow.

She immediately turned silent after that. Sebastian didn't disturb her.

—Turn your body to the side. The foot opposite of the one near the target has to be ahead of the other foot. Straighten your elbow holding the bow and hold the arrow between the index and middle finger but use three fingers to hold the bowstring. The chin has to rest on the hand holding the arrow and bowstring... That's about all I remember.

Sebastian quickly followed her words. He had confidence in his memory so it wasn't that much of a problem but it was better to do so sooner, he didn't have all the time in the world to leisurely practice after all.

Once Sebastian pulled the bowstring back, he breathed in deeply then released.

Whoosh

Accompanied by the sound of the arrow piercing through the wind and the bowstring thrumming, Sebastian's hand accidentally released his grip on the bow which hit his hand.

"Ouch!" it didn't really hurt but Sebastian cried out in reflex. It would've been fine if he was alone but Balanos was here and he could somehow feel her judging stare.

Sebastian coughed awkwardly and held the bow in his hands. He looked at the target which was a marked tree and didn't see the arrow anywhere near.

It was on the floor a few meters away but it didn't pierce anything. Leaning the bow on another tree, he ran over to the arrow and picked it up.

—You are quite horrible.

"Shut up, practice makes perfect."

Although he didn't know how to interact with Balanos at first, she always speaks up in a way that Sebastian could retort to and he unintentionally does.

Now he felt that rather than not having emotions, she just had difficulty in expressing them.

"Guess I have no choice but to head to the main estate after school every day," it wasn't that the main estate was far, it was just that he had to come back to the dorm after going there and that would increase the number of times he needed to ride the carriage.

"I guess I'll fix my schedule so I can walk back and forth," as Sebastian muttered to himself, he picked up the bow one more time. It wasn't difficult to find the arrow even though it was black because it had a lustrous shine. The same went for the bow.

—Do you always talk to yourself? If so, I think you need to get your head checked.

"What is with you and all these insults?!"

Balanos was nothing like she was in the tree. Now that he thought about it, she probably really did snicker earlier.

There was nothing Sebastian could do though so he focused on practicing the bow. It wasn't until three in the morning did he stop and go back to the dorm.

...

Sebastian yawned as he got out of the carriage. He planned to walk every day to the main estate but his mother had told him to take the carriage.

Baritos was assigned as his driver because his mother was told to stay in the house due to her being pregnant.

"Young master, you haven't slept well?" Baritos asked as he saw Sebastian yawn when he got out.

"I was up late reading a book. You can just come back here at nine in the evening," Sebastian told Baritos and quickly went inside.

"Young master," a young maid about Sebastian's age quickly greeted Sebastian as he walked through the doors, "I was assigned as your personal maid in the mansion, feel free to order me to do anything you want."

Sebastian was surprised at seeing a maid so young assigned to him but after remembering his older brother's tendency to lay a hand on the young maids, he smiled wryly.

"Then, lead me to the place that father had given to me."

The maid bowed and turned to walk. Her pace wasn't slow but neither was it fast. Sebastian didn't feel the need to slow his steps because of her strides matching his.

"What's your name?" Sebastian asked. She was his personal maid so he at least had to know her name after all.

"It is Kathrina... Brandy, young master," she seemed hesitant to speak her last name but as she was asked by her master, she had no choice.

"Alright, Kathrina, I'll be counting on you for the future," he meant those words to make her feel that he didn't plan to do anything bad but Kathrina's body twitched in response.

Sebastian smiled wryly and didn't talk any further. Who knew what kind of circumstances this girl had grown up in to become a maid at this age? He hadn't heard of her family name before but that wasn't uncommon, there were only thirty-odd family names he knew after all.

They had walked out of the building and into a place with several courtyards. Each courtyard had about a ten-meter space in between and each one was almost as large as the gymnasium from the academy.

Sebastian had been here once before but he never really took into consideration the sheer size of these training rooms. He had once more been reminded about how powerful and rich the four major houses are.

"Here it is young master," Kathrina stopped in front of the courtyards at the very front causing Sebastian to have a strange expression on his face.

"Who owns the courtyard opposite of mine?" he asked while shooting it a sideways glance.

"It's the eldest young master's courtyard. The rest of the courtyards are split between young master Sebastian's other siblings and uncles," Kathrina answered while giving gestures at the other courtyards.

"Young master's funds are kept with me and transactions are also recorded by me. If young master wishes to take any money, then please inform this one and I shall immediately prepare it," she lowered her head as she spoke.

"Then, I know it's sudden but can you find an archery instructor for me?" Sebastian needed to learn how to use a bow. All he managed to do in the few hours this early morning was to learn how to shoot an arrow and find out that pulling the bowstring without a proper finger guard hurt the hard way.

"An archery instructor?" Kathrina repeated.

"Yes, I want to learn archery," having a 『Inheritor』 choose to become an archer wasn't strange but it was definitely uncommon.

"But young master can simply use the flames—ah, I apologize! Please punish me for my insolence!" Kathrina suddenly yelled and knelt on both knees to prostrate.

"What are you doing...? It's fine, I'm not really offended," Sebastian didn't know why this girl was so scared of him.

After hearing that Sebastian didn't intend to punish her, Kathrina hesitantly began to stand up but her expression was still that of terror. "Thank you for your mercy, young master. I swear I won't let it happen again."

"Let's go back to the previous topic, can you find me an archery instructor?" Sebastian didn't intend to force the maid to like him, it wasn't necessary.

"...There are very few archery instructors available in the city so it might take some time to find a suitable one."

Sebastian didn't have the leisure of waiting so he quickly asked, "then, how long do you think it will take to find one?"

"If young master were to give out about 50,000 Aur as a monthly salary, then there might be a few outstanding ones but that would take a month of waiting at the least."

"A month? Seriously?" Sebastian furrowed his brows. 50,000 Aur was a lot of money for him. It might be faster if he were to offer more but he still didn't know what he needed to buy in the future. Having half of his funds spent was already pushing it to the limit.

Seeing Sebastian ponder the matter quite seriously caused Kathrina to look at him in confusion. "Is young master pressed for time?" she asked.

"Yeah, I only have a little more than two months left to learn archery at the level of being able to use it in battle," needless to say, Kathrina's eyes widened in shock.

"Young master, with all due respect, archery isn't something that can be learned that easily. It would take years of practice to use it in battle..."

Sebastian knew where Kathrina was coming from so he didn't berate her. "I know that. But, I have no other choice. I am utterly useless when it comes to fighting in close range. Though my skill in archery probably isn't all that good either, I've only managed to hit the center of the target once in four hours."

She seemed somewhat surprised, "young master hit the center of a target within four hours of using a bow? That's very amazing. How far were you from the target?"

"About thirty meters, I guess? Anything below that seemed to easy so I tried increasing the distance, is it too near?"

The one with him at the time was Balanos and her criteria for a good archer would be to match the founder's soldiers but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Neither of them knew the standards for archery but when Kathrina heard that, her eyes nearly popped out of her sockets.

"Young master... did you ever miss?" she asked a little hesitantly.

"A lot for the first hour but I suppose I stopped missing altogether at two hours. Did I take too long or something?"

He couldn't quite understand that the expression on Kathrina's face wasn't that of someone looking at a hopeless person, it was the face of someone looking at a monster.

—She seems surprised. I was too, I didn't realize that you were so bad.

Sebastian almost couldn't help but retort. He didn't know how much willpower he used to stop himself.

"Young master... If it's alright with you, I can teach you archery. I've been learning it since I was a child and I can shoot up to 250 yards."

Hearing that, Sebastian quickly followed, "then, how much of a salary do you want?"

Kathrina shook her head repeatedly, "I'm already being paid to serve the young master..."

"But this and that are different matters. I really need the money but I can spare 25,000 Aur for you. Is that alright? If it isn't then I can increase it—"

"No need! 25,000 Aur is plenty..." she quickly accepted, afraid that Sebastian would give her more money. It wasn't that she was shy to take the money, she was worried because who knew what her young master would do after she gets the money?

The eldest young master of the house, Sebastian's elder brother was infamous for harassing girls, what kind of things would his younger brother do?