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—William’s Perspective

My name is William. This year I will be turning 25 and I am a middle rank adventurer. I had earned the iron rank a few years earlier, but I had struggled to improve more since then. Recently I heard that this country was building training schools, so I traveled for a long time from my home country to arrive in this city.

Apparently monsters were appearing at much higher rates, so the whole country began building them as a countermeasure. They accepted anyone there, it did not matter if one was an adventurer or a guard, or commoner or noble, not even age or race mattered, so it was the perfect opportunity for me.

The recently built training school was on the outskirts of the city and boasted quite a decent size. More than a few farms would fit without problems inside the training grounds. There were multiple departments for any branch of skills imaginable, sword and spearmanship ones were obviously there, but they also had ones for magic or large scale war tactics. They all had ample space reserved for them so no one would feel constricted by their surroundings when practicing.

I was currently enrolled in the spearmanship course. When I began working as an adventurer I used a sword, but I never excelled with the blade, so I switched over to a spear. That way I had a longer range than with a sword, and I could switch between thrusting and swinging when I needed to.

But even then my skills were average, whenever I encountered a strong foe I lacked the ability to land the decisive blow. I wanted to improve myself and reach one class above my current one, that was the reason which brought me here.

There were other adventurers just like me in the same classes, though some of them looked young enough to be beginners, while others were older men equipped like guards, there were also guards of the same age as me. They separated the classes depending on skill level, so there would be no danger of a lesser skilled adventurer facing a ridiculously experienced one on mock fights.

Either way, the instructor was late today… the class should have begun a long time ago, but there was still no sign of him.

“Don’t tell me he’s forgotten about us, did he?”

“Well… This school was barely founded a bit ago, so they’re probably still ironing out the schedules. Just wait a little longer.”

“I came because I heard I would get stronger without having to pay much, so I guess I should be easier on them. Though if the instructor turns out to be weaker than me I’mma go home.”

We had already been waiting for a while, so many of the adventurers ran out of patience and began voicing their complaints. I had not said anything yet, but I was also somewhat annoyed. At around the same time, I saw someone leaving the large building that housed the offices of the school, who then ran at an incredible speed literally leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

I doubted my eyes, no matter how strong someone’s legs were it was impossible for a human to run that fast. When that person reached our class, they stopped with a cloud of dust and sand still covering them.

…Such a cloud of dust? Maybe a large monster would cause that, but there’s no way a human would have the momentum for it just by running, is there? I was baffled by what I saw, then when I took a closer look at that person standing there, I saw their feet were dug into the ground just to stop her movement. As much as I wanted to doubt it, her left foot was clearly more than halfway inside the ground.

“I’m truly sorry for being so late! I mixed up my schedule a bit!”

The girl vigorously bowing to us was surprisingly beautiful. Not even amongst elves who were the materialization of beauty I had seen someone like her. Her hair was disheveled and there were specks of dirt on her cheek, but even those looked like ornaments on her face.

“Ah…err…are you our instructor?”

“Yeah- I mean, yes. I’m Lapis, I’ll be in charge of honing your skills with the spear for the next two weeks. I’m looking forward to working with you all.”

Saying that, she quickly bowed. At the same time, I could hear unrest spreading amongst everyone in the class. I understood how they felt, nothing about her suggested she could keep up during a fight, even if she was actually an adventurer, at most she would be a spellcaster and not someone who fought from close range. Was there anything a young girl like her could teach us?

I took another look at her. She was wearing short skin-tight pants, the ones called short leggings in the capital, where they were becoming gradually more popular. Her hair was tied behind her back, so it would not interfere with her movements, and she held a training spear on her hand. She was obviously prepared to teach us.

“Wait a damn second! I came all the way here from my home country because I heard an experienced instructor would teach me all the secrets of spearmanship here! Why should I listen to a pitiful girl who’s weaker than me here? I’m sure everyone else thinks the same, right you all?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“We came to have actual training here! If you’re just messing around we’ll go home!”

Half of the people present began voicing their complaints, though the girl remained calm with a smile on her face. I also felt the same way as them, but I did not think it was correct for anyone to shout at a young girl like that. If they wanted to complain, it would be much better if they did it directly with whoever ran this institution from the guild… Thinking that, I turned around to look at the rest of the students. The ones who were not complaining stood frozen, their faces pale. It was weird, they were acting as if someone had roused a dangerous beast.

“Either way, I won’t be listening to you! Go and bring us a proper instructor now!”

“Go away before you get hurt, you little-?!”

When the worst mannered adventurers got to that point, an overwhelming feeling of dread came over everyone from the girl who had been smiling until just a few seconds before. My body was unable to resist the fear that ensued, my legs and hands shaking non-stop and my teeth clattering. I could not believe it, people who had gone through close encounters with death until then were frozen in fear and could not utter a single word! Just who was this girl?!

“…Would you please stop judging me by my appearance? I’m confident I’m far stronger than any of you. But if you don’t want to believe me, I can always convince you first hand if you want to spar… What do you say?”

All those people who were complaining so loudly shook their heads from one side to another at the same time. It was obvious why, their bodies themselves were rejecting the idea as all alarms went off indicating she was an opponent they should never face. That also explained the behaviour of those who did not complain, they were aware of how strong she was. That was why they looked so pale, they were afraid they would also get punished together with the rest if she was angered too much.

“Alright then. Let’s begin your training. First, let’s start by splitting the class into three groups, beginners, intermediate and experienced students. I’ll train each of you in a slightly different way. You can choose for yourself which group you see fit, and you can always switch from one group to another during training, so keep that in mind. Now, to form the groups, beginners can form up on that side, experienced ones on the other side, and intermediate can stay here in the center.”

Saying that, she clapped once and everyone promptly moved to one group or another without missing a beat. They had all been turned into that girl’s- Miss Lapis’ obedient students.

“Now, beginners, are there any of you who didn’t bring a spear? …Looks like all of you have one. Let’s get you started with posture exercises then, hold your spear ready and run thirty laps around the field. Once that’s done we’ll move on to the next exercise.”

Posture exercises include running thirty laps…? Before I noticed, I had taken pity on the beginners, their faces pale. The field allocated to the spearmanship course was rather large. If I ran with all my strength, one lap would take me at least ten minutes, but they had to run thirty laps. On top of that, they also had to hold their spears ready, if they tripped like that or messed up somehow, it was very possible casualties might turn up. It seemed completely over the top for me, but Lapis kept smiling as she added:

“Don’t worry. If you collapse, I can heal you right back up. I can heal wounds and recover your energy, though I can’t do anything about your determination, so good luck. Use all your strength and power until you can’t move, then I’ll heal you and repeat everything all over. That’s basically all there is to the part of the course aimed at beginners, but it’ll help increase your strength tremendously in an instant. You’re all lucky you can improve like this!”

She’s a demon. If someone told me the devil was controlling her body, I would believe it in a jiffy. But wait, I should worry more for myself instead of pitying the beginners, if they already have to do so much, what are the intermediate and experienced ones supposed to do?! I turned to Miss Lapis in silent fear, my ears refusing to believe what she was saying as her everlasting smile never left her lips.