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I give her a thumbs-up to show it’s okay.

“Next is that rabbit girl over there.”
“Eek!!”

Filia steps forward, trembling, wooden sword in hand. She’s clearly scared, but it doesn’t look like she intends to run away. For someone so timid, she’s got a surprising amount of guts.

“…It’s fine. I won’t counterattack, so come at me without holding back.”
“Y-y-yes! Y-yaaah!”

Whether she’d steeled herself or just been cornered, Filia swings her wooden sword with all her might and charges at the instructor.

My assessment… for Filia’s honor, I’ll refrain from commenting.

“Even though you’re scared, you’ve got decent arm strength and nerve. You might be better suited to blunt weapons.”
“Y-yesh…”

Probably because the tension doubled her fatigue, Filia is breathing hard through her shoulders. Looking down at her, the instructor seems a little relieved. You don’t run into abnormal cases like Sufi and Noche that often.

“Last one is… you over there.”
“Alice, is your fever okay?”
“Just a little fever… can I… abstain?”

The ground is a little cold, and my temperature has started going up. While Sufi helps me up and supports me, I ask the instructor, who looks completely baffled.

“Well, it *is* supposed to be a trial of strength…”
“I can’t. I’ll die.”
“You’re aiming to be an adventurer, right?”

Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here.

“Well… I guess we’ll mark you as ‘unmeasurable’ for now.”

So this is that classic overpowered-protagonist trope—*ability cannot be measured*, huh.

I already thought this world had a lot of game- and manga-like elements, but looks like I’ve finally debuted as a fantasy protagonist.

■■■

“All right. I’ve got a rough idea of your levels now. To move up to E-rank, where you start getting requests outside the city, there’s also a simple combat power test, but that one isn’t very hard.”

In the training ground—packed dirt under a blue sky—we sit quietly and listen.

“Damn it… this is a human city, you demi-beasts…”

The butcher’s kid had been quiet while he was exhausted, but now that he’s caught his breath, he’s muttering insults again. He’s tough, I’ll give him that—but he’s definitely not the listening-to-others type…

Luckily, Sufi and the others seem focused and aren’t hearing the noise.

“The real problem is D-rank. That’s what people call the first real wall for adventurers. Building up job completion records isn’t that hard, but combat skill is another matter. Adventurers who travel and sometimes have to fight terrifying magical beasts and monsters need a minimum level of fighting ability, no matter what.”

The instructor stops there, draws the sword at his waist, and stands before a row of straw-wrapped posts used for training.

“One of the required conditions is this.”

He swings his sword down with force. With a *clang*, the blade bites halfway into the straw-wrapped post and stops. The inside seems to be fairly hard wood.

“Watch closely—*Slash*.”

“Ah…”

A green light ignites along the instructor’s sword. The blade is swung through, leaving a trail of light as it passes through the post and cleanly cuts off the upper section.

The color is different, but the phenomenon is the same.

“This is a martial art—an *Art*. It’s a kind of finishing move that those who train repeatedly and are acknowledged by the War God can acquire. To learn one, you train your body, understand the principle, and repeat the motion until you can trace it unconsciously. There are countless types, and sometimes people even get techniques unique to themselves approved.”
“Excuse me.”

I raise my hand to ask a question. Seeing it clearly for the second time in bright light, there’s something I noticed.

“What is it?”
“Is saying the technique name mandatory?”
“Yeah. They say it won’t activate otherwise.”
“Th-thank you… *cough*.”

If you focus carefully, you can feel mana flowing into the arm and sword during the brief charge before it’s released.

It’s very similar to the magic I know.

You learn the principle, convey your imagined phenomenon to the ether in the air, cause it to occur, and control it by manipulating mana.

In alchemy as well, the so-called *trigger phrase* is a safety device to prevent all techniques from misfiring. In magic, the *chant* that specifies the desired phenomenon and the *trigger phrase* that activates it are a set—if either is missing, the spell won’t activate.

Long ago, the gods who ruled the world could freely alter the world and its laws. The Demon King imitated those miracles and tried to incorporate them into the world in a form anyone could use, plotting rebellion.

The gods were driven from the land, but they created a great barrier over the world… and imposed many restrictions so that the miracle-working techniques spreading on the surface could not be used freely.

That became the prototype of magic. Through research, countless varieties were born, and even now new spells are still being created somewhere.

Martial arts are probably one of those, too—a type of magic that requires mana control through training, bodily motion as a “chant,” and a trigger phrase to activate.

That clears things up a bit.

“Here! How do you learn it, nya!?”
“Well, first you train your body, one of the forms of physical—”
“There’s no way dim-witted demi-beasts could ever learn that! Don’t get cocky!”
“…I’m asking the old man, nya.”
“For you beastfolk, you unconsciously—”
“I’m telling you it’s pointless! You really are on the level of animals if you can’t even understand that!”

The butcher’s kid, who’d been muttering while glancing our way, starts up again. He was quiet during my turn—why now?

Is betting your own reputation at full throttle just to attack someone you don’t like some kind of Western-continent trend?

“You’ve been yapping nonstop, you’re annoying, nya! We can’t hear the old man’s explanation!”
“Demi-beasts don’t need to hear it! You animal knockoffs!”
“Cut it out already, Vade! You’re always like this!”
“Why is the only thing you’re good at is bothering others, Vade?”
“You’re the ones getting in my way! And those demi-beasts too! With that freakish hair color like monsters! It’s disgusting!”
“What did you say!?”

Noche, who had been holding it in the whole time, finally exploded. Filia and Sufi are angry too—he insulted something their friend is sensitive about.

That twisted sense of privilege and discrimination isn’t something you develop overnight. And the reason the malice I feel from him is so strangely thin is probably because those words have been drilled into him daily by his family or people close to him.

To be blunt, he doesn’t look smart enough to fully understand the meaning of what he’s saying.

If he were, he’d have noticed.

What kind of situation he’s in right now—

And why Instructor Barnaby is smiling so gently.

At some point, the oppressive atmosphere he pinned on us made the shouting match die down on its own.

“…You’re Vade, was it? You seem to have quite a bit of excess energy… how about staying behind for some extra training?”

Apparently, teaching kids like him a lesson is also one of the purposes of these training sessions.

Though, unfortunately, they didn’t tell us how effective it would actually be.