SIAW Vol. 2 Chapter 5
Chapter 5 – Tenma-Style Training Begins
Now that I had confirmed Misha’s intentions, all that was left was to make preparations for her training. First off —
“Okay, can you give me back the bracelet, then?”
“Eh!?”
Misha looked shocked to hear my words, and instinctively covered the bracelet with the other hand.
“Eh? No, don’t hide it, give it back.”
Misha looked like she was about to cry.
“But it’s the first present you gave me!”
“I just let you borrow it, actually…”
Misha, her eyes brimming with tears, shook her head and tried to keep the bracelet as far away from me as possible.
Well, if she liked it that much, fine. But not being able to use Mental Message was a pain…
“I made another bracelet, with a different design, but if you like that one so much…just let me have it for a while, I want to add some functions to it.”
So I proposed, while showing Misha the new bracelet I had crafted for her. After seeing it, Misha quickly handed me the bracelet she was trying so hard to hide until seconds ago.
“Trade!!”
She took off the bracelet and put it in my hands. Her eyes were fixed on the new bracelet I was holding.
“Hm? Trade?”
I repeated her words, and Misha nodded furiously.
“If I can trade with that, no problem!”
I was getting tired of reacting to the weird stuff she did, so I let Misha have her way and let her switch bracelets.
“Remember, I’m just letting you borrow it, okay? If you give up during training and go back to the village, you’ll have to give it back!”
“I won’t go back to the village. So I’ll never give it back!”
Haah…whatever, do as you please!
“Let your magic power flow in the bracelet. If you do, only you and the person who crafted the bracelet will be able to use it.”
Misha promptly complied: the eyes of the fox engraved on the bracelet sparkled.
“Inside there are also some new clothes and equipment for you, so please go change. You should be able to find the underwear and training gear. You can put the clothes you’re wearing in storage, and —”
While I was speaking, Misha’s clothes suddenly disappeared. She probably stored them first, while listening to me…ending up wearing nothing but a white shirt.
Wow, she has more cleavage than expected! I guess she’s the type that looks thinner on the outside…?
The following second, Misha probably realized that her clothes were gone, and my eyes were fixated on her chest: she hurriedly hid her body with her arms.
“Tenma, you pervert!!”
A…a cute fox girl just called me a pervert! Aw yeah!!
“Listen to the end before you start doing stuff!! Anyway, go to the living room and change!”
I turned away and Misha ran off to the living room, hiding her chest with her arms.
O gods, I thank you for this marvelous, if stereotypical pervy event!!
I felt like I had at long last received my reward for those fifteen years of lonely training.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
Misha came back quickly. Her eyes were lit up, her ears twitching, her tail wagging left and right.
Oooh, she’s looking even better than expected!
She was naturally pretty, but her usual clothes gave her a kind of rustic, village girl aura. Now, however, she could exert her cute fox girl talents to the fullest.
Aah…I want to fluff her so bad!!
Holding back my primordial impulses, I checked her status.
Name: Misha
Species: [C] Beastkin (Fox Beastman)
Level: 15
Gender: Female
Age: 15
HP : [D] 84/84
MP : [B] 127/127
STA: [D] 93/93
INT: [C] 102
STR: [D] 107
SPD: [B] 141
SKL: [C] 118
LCK: 61
Title(s):
Skill(s): Lifestyle Magic LV3, Gathering [C], Sword Arts [D], Presence Detection [C]
At level 6, Appraisal could show the talent for each stat, displayed as [C] for example.
It also could show not only the skills that Misha had acquired already, but — with some concentration — also skills that she had not learned yet.
Misha’s talent for magic skills she had not learned yet was as follows:
Fire Magic [A] Dark Magic [B] Time Magic [C] Wind Magic [C] Water Magic [F]
The rest was all [D].
As it turns out, Misha was the rear guard magic user type. Depending on how she was raised, however, she could also become a scout.
Thinking that it all depended on how I trained her, I became even more excited for the future.
“Let’s talk about the training then, shall we?”
Misha looked unhappy for some reason, but nodded and sat down at the table.
She probably wanted me to tell she looked pretty, but there’s no way I knew the right words to say in a situation like this!!
I continued, as calmly as I could.
“First, you should know that this training is going a lot harder than you imagine. If you have any questions, you’re welcome to ask anytime, but you’re going to be following my instructions. Is that clear?”
Misha’s expression turned to serious mode and she nodded.
“Good. First, drink this poison and paralysis potions.”
Misha, surprised, looked at me and the potions, in turn. A pretty normal reaction, after being told to drink poison.
I proceeded to explain the reason.
“After drinking these, you will be affected by the status ailments “light poison” and “light paralysis”. But your life will not be in danger, obviously: you should just find it hard to move, that’s all. Training in this state will let you learn skills and raise their levels faster; on top of that, it’s difficult to maintain your concentration when you have status ailments, so you’ll be able to learn the Concentration skill too. Once you do that, your training will produce even more results. Ah, you’ll also learn Poison Resistance and Paralysis Resistance.”
“Got it.”
Misha nodded and downed both potions in one gulp. I was worried she didn’t fully understand my explanation, but her expression was completely serious.
I looked at her drink, then turned towards Sil.
“You drink these too, Sil.”
“Wouf!?” (“Eh? Me too!?”)
Sil, clearly not expecting to be involved, was taken by surprise.
“Sil, you are as important as family to me, so I want you to become stronger. If you were ever hurt, or…killed by another monster, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
“Woof!!” (“I’ll work hard!!”)
Sil replied with enthusiasm. He still drank the potions begrudgingly, though.
Now that I think about it, I should check his status too.
Name: Sil
Species: [A] Silver Wolf
Level: 1
Gender: Male
Age: 13 days
HP : [B] 240/240
MP : [B] 240/240
STA: [B] 240/240
INT: [C] 180
STR: [B] 240
SPD: [A] 280
SKL: [C] 180
LCK: 72
Title(s): Tenma’s Familiar
Skill(s): Leadership [C] , Intimidation [C], Night Vision [B], Presence Detection [B], Presence Concealment [C], Physical Boost [A], Wind Magic [B], Magic Power Detection [C], Magic Power Manipulation [C]
My boy, you’re pretty damn amazing!
He was going to get a lot stronger than I imagined. He was born with all those skills, I assumed.
But wait, if I train him too much, won’t he get too strong? What if eventually I end up becoming his familiar instead…?
Furthermore, despite not having Poison Resistance or Paralysis Resistance, Sil wasn’t afflicted by any status ailments. Every species had different natural immunities to negative statuses, maybe.
The potions I had given to Misha and Sil were made by diluting the original essence to one tenth; I tried doubling the density and having Sil drink it again, but nothing happened. I tripled it, and finally he was affected by the status ailments.
After drinking so many potions, Sil’s ears and tail were both drooping down: he looked a little bit in pain.
We thus moved to ALA, and I started by giving Sil an order.
“Sil, go run wherever you want. Don’t come back until you’re completely exhausted!”
“Woof.” (“Okay.”)
Sil started running, but moved rather awkwardly, probably because of the paralysis.
Whoops, he fell!
(“Are you okay?”)
(“Y-Yes, okay.”)
Sil wobbled back on his feet, much like a newborn deer would. It was almost funny, but he was doing his very best, so I couldn’t allow myself to laugh.
After somehow getting back on his feet, Sil ran off and disappeared inside the forest.
After watching him go, Misha and I went to the Throwing practice grounds.
I took out some magic power recovery potions and lined them on the table.
“Today you are going to use up all your magic power several times, in order to raise its capacity. At the same time, I want you to raise Lifestyle Magic to level 4. To do that, you need to raise Sleep to level 1, then Fire to level 3. First of all, cast Sleep until you run out of magic power!”
Among Misha’s Lifestyle Magic spells, Time was level 2 and Sleep was still unleveled. Everything else was level 1, so the first step was to raise Sleep to level 1, so all Lifestyle Magic spells were at least at the same level.
The reason why I told her to raise Fire to level 3 was because she had high talent in Fire Magic. Once the Fire spell was level 3, it was very likely that she would acquire a new Fire Magic spell.
I had never trained someone with an [A] natural talent, so this was going to be an experiment as well.
Misha followed my instructions and casted Sleep multiple times, eventually running out of magic power.
She looked in more pain than expected, though…
Now that I think about it, I had started training by exhausting my magic power while in a status condition only after learning Magic Depletion Resistance.
After some time, however, Misha seemed to be getting used to the ailments: her complexion looked better than before.
I noticed the change and gave her a potion.
“Once you’re ready to move again, drink this magic power recovery potion. I made it especially for you. You can find the same potions stored in the bracelet too.”
The ideal potion filled magic power to the max: to achieve that, I made potions for each magic power quantity, so drinking one would fill it back to the max. There was going to be a lot of potion drinking during training, so this kind of minor adjustment was going to play a pretty huge role too.
Misha drank the potion and her face visibly regained color.
I then asked her a question.
“Your magic power’s fully recovered, right? Go use it all up again!”
We repeated the training for 3 sets, then I made her use up all of her magic power again — but did not give her any potions this time.
I waited a while, making sure that Misha’s complexion looked a bit better, and we moved in front of the Throwing practice targets.
While waiting for her magic power to recover naturally, I was going to have her train her physical abilities.
“I’m sure it’s hard, but if you train in this state, your skills will improve faster. Start doing Throwing practice, now!!”
Misha somehow managed to take a pebble from the bracelet’s Storage and used Throwing.
Her movements were lax, however, and lacked strength. She was not focusing, clearly.
“Concentrate more! You’ll never learn any skill that way!! You’ll have gone through all this pain for nothing!”
I continued to motivate Misha this way, and she began to throw every pebble with more care.
She couldn’t produce much speed or aim, but she showed more guts than expected.
“If your dominant arm gets too numb, use the other one instead! Once you’ve learned Throwing, you’ll be able to use both arms with no difference. The more you throw, the closer you’ll be to the skill! Do your best!”
Misha continued practicing, until she couldn’t raise her arms anymore.
I used Appraisal, and noticed that her STA was below 20%.
It was time to move to the next step in the training menu.
“Ok, let’s go running now!”
I thought she was going to say that she was tired and she wanted to rest a bit, but Misha didn’t say a word and started running.
I followed suit and ran alongside her.
We crossed the grasslands and entered the forest: the training involved running while dodging the trees.
Misha was already tired by the Throwing practice; after a few minutes, she fell to her knees.
“When you run out of stamina, take a training potion from the bracelet storage and drink it. You should be able to move again immediately. Once it’s back, start running again!”
Misha followed my instructions to the letter: she took a potion from the bracelet and drank it.
Her stamina was instantly healed, so she stood up again and started running.
I looked at her go, sincerely surprised.
Was she really the Misha I knew? Who would think she’d take training so seriously…
～
After one more set of dash training, we went back to the grassland.
It was about that time that her magic power recovered fully.
“This was basic training, and you’ll have to repeat it many times. I have to go work on other things, but call me if anything happens,”
My opinion of Misha had improved.
I had gone through similar training on the island, but only because I had no idea what kind of world I was going to be reborn in, feared I could lose my life or not be able to live normally if something went wrong.
Misha, however, knew that she could live in peace in her village, even without working so hard. There was no absolute necessity for her to undergo such grueling training.
If she could put out this much effort, it had to mean that her wish to become an adventurer was that strong.
I decided that her training was probably going to go well even if I didn’t watch her at all times.