Episode 9 It Seems I Passed

「Extra fire!」

「A-a-a, hot!」

A giant fireball comes flying my way, its speed is tremendous and its temperature is high enough to melt iron. Following right after, a woman with a sword comes at me with unexpected speed.

「Complete barrier」

I held the sword in my right hand and raised my left hand to erect the barrier. It looks like a sphere, it completely envelops me. It almost looked like I was inside the transparent ball.

The fireball lands as soon as I set up the barrier. It radiates enormous heat. The grass around us was even vaporized instead of being burned. My whole body receives the shockwave. I was almost blown away, but I somehow managed to stand my ground. And then, the sword swiftly approached me, slicing through the smoke. It’s Eril.

Gakiin!

There was a sound of glass shattering. Although I managed to stop the attack, the barrier crumbled right afterwards. As if expecting this outcome, she immediately swung her sword towards my head.

Right after, I swung my sword towards Eril. The target was her arm. I tried to knock her sword down. But Eril let go of her sword, spread her arms and dodged. For a moment, my stance collapsed. Eril won’t miss this opportunity. She caught her sword again and attacked me again.

Bashii!!

Her sword stopped right before me. Of course, she didn’t give up on the attack. Right after my posture was disrupted, I deployed thin but sturdy barrier.

「Hey, Falco! Why did you stop attacking with your magic? 」

「This is impossible, my lady. Once a barrier was deployed, it’s difficult to break it」

「Tsk!」

She stared at me intensely and lowered her sword.

「Well, isn’t it fine?」

「I think so too. Congratulation, Rinos, you passed」

「Thank you very much, lady Eril, teacher」

I bent my knee and lowered my head, even more careful than usual.

「Uryaa!!」

Eril suddenly slashed at me. I couldn’t react at all. Her sword stopped before reaching me again, the barrier was still in place.

「Damn it, I can’t relax with you around. You aren’t adorable at all」

「I would have lost a few lives if I was cute. I don’t plan to part with my life until Elsa-sama permits me」

「You are speaking more and more like an adult right now. So annoying」

「Well, well, my lady. You can break my barrier that even I can’t. You can feel proud」

「That’s why I hate men. You don’t understand anything」

Eril returned to her room.

「Still, it seems we can’t afford such mock battles anymore. Else, the mansion will turn into the desert」

Despite being far from the mansion, the land is full of sand, rocks, and craters. Originally, it was a grassy plain.

Since Eril joined my training sessions, it became increasingly severe. There was teacher’s fire magic at full power (LV4) as well as the sword attacks from Eril.

Besides, these two people were perfectly coordinated. They were hitting the weaknesses in my barrier for sure. Although she had a wooden sword at first, gradually she started to use the real one. I lost count of how many times my barrier was broken by her. There were times when I received some serious injuries, almost being one step in the grave.

Besides that, the teacher told me to maintain the barrier at all times. Just like that, I’m using the barrier even in my sleep right now. Of course, the barrier was consuming MP, but it seems that my regeneration during the sleep was keeping up with the drain, although there were some losses in resilience. Although I said that, the barrier will disappear if I completely lose my consciousness. Therefore, Eril came attacking me at night from time to time. This was pure madness. On the bright side, she only used the wooden sword. Of course, she still swung at full power. She broke my face many times.

I was desperate, my sleep was interrupted and I received some serious injuries. As the result, I somehow managed to keep my barrier active for the whole night. As a side effect, I gained an ability to detect presence and mana. Right now, not just Eril, but even teacher were attacking me at night. Nevertheless, thanks to the presence and mana detection, I was able to put up a barrier unconsciously.

When we just started the training, I often ended up with zero MP. So the teacher forced me to learn, with flaming arms clutching my chest, the MP absorption and leech off him.

「Is it hot? This fire is made from mana. Suck this fire out of me! Hahaha! 」

….And I got the skill quite soon. Also, the level of my recovery magic was raised.

Eril too, I thought that she will teach me properly, but she forced me to roll around trying to dodge the incoming attacks. At first, I was tormented badly and received severe muscle pains. I do not particularly like pain, so I tried my hardest to dodge.

One year passed and I turned 10. I learned to dodge their attacks and received much fewer wounds.

By the way, my current status is like this:

Rinos (Slave Barrier Master, 10 years old)
HP: 77
MP: 213
Barrier Magic LV4 (Teacher’s fire magic (LV4) doesn’t work anymore! I can deploy the barriers however I want!)
Fire Magic LV2（I can fire large fireballs! ）
Water Magic LV2（I can create large amounts of water!）
Earth Magic LV1 (I can dig and bury holes!)
Recovery Magic LV3（I can heal severe burns and wounds! I can also heal diseases!）
Life Magic LV1
Chanting LV3
Appraisal Magic LV3
Sword Arts LV2
MP Recovery LV2
Presence Detection LV2
Mana Detection LV2
Mana Absorption LV1
Body Strengthening LV1
Evasion LV2
Etiquette LV1
Liberal Arts LV3