Chapter 123, Training and Practice

Translator: Barnnn

 

The wide grasslands stretched beneath an open sky, scattered with tall trees.

Leaning against one such tree, Ize sipped water from a bottle, her gaze fixed on the scene unfolding before her with unwavering focus.

 

“Right, right, down,” Fieda called out sharply.

“Hah!” Hal responded with a grunt, executing a quick strike in the indicated direction.

“Left, down, up.”

“Haah!”

“Up, up, up!”

“Ghh!”

 

With each command, Hal reacted instantly, his sword flashing through the air in precise arcs. Where once his balance would waver even with a single thrust, now he moved swiftly, incorporating footwork and rotation with growing confidence.

His progress was unmistakable. Hal liked to laugh it off as the perks of youth, but Ize knew better — it was persistence.

Every day, without fail, Hal ran laps, did push-ups, and practiced his sword swings. And by his side, Fieda offered sharp, measured guidance honed by his Sword Mastery skill. Ize, who used to spend years immersed in single-minded pursuit herself, recognized the chemistry at work — raw effort, sharpened by capable instruction. When those two elements met, people grew. Just like Hal was growing now.

 

“Down, right, behind!”

“Yagh!”

 

Fieda threw in the occasional wicked direction, forcing Hal to twist on his heel and strike at a rear target. A few more calls followed, until at last Fieda gave a curt signal.

 

“Good. That’s enough.”

“Thank you, sir!”

 

Hal lowered his sword and gave a deep, sweat-drenched bow. He’d once blushed furiously at formalities like this, but now he could perform them with ease, and Fieda had grown used to accepting them with a nod.

 

“Cleanse and sports drink, coming up!” Ize called cheerfully.

 

She stepped over and cast a quick Cleanse to rinse away the sweat clinging to their bodies under the lingering summer sun. Then she handed them both a flask of sports drink that Hal had chilled earlier with his magic. Notably, these weren’t flavored with Sato’s bathwater — just the classic balance of salt, sugar, and citrus. Hal had first concocted it on instinct, and over the summer, the recipe had evolved with input from the whole group.

 

“Even with Cleanse, I’m sweating like crazy,” Fieda chuckled as he drank.

“It’s way too hot. My arms and legs are fried,” Hal groaned, just about ready to collapse onto the grass.

“Hey! Don’t sit down yet,” Fieda barked. “Stretch first.”

“Yessir…” Hal muttered, obediently shifting into a straddle stretch, drink still in hand.

 

Even after Cleanse, the heat was relentless enough that their bodies still steamed post-exertion.

 

“At this point, I’d say you could go thirty minutes surrounded by Undead without magic,” Fieda remarked.

Hal deadpanned, “Yay. I’m thrilled.”

“You’re merciless, Fieda,” Ize teased, giggling.

 

But thirty minutes — that was no small feat. In all their Dungeon runs, battles that lasted longer than five minutes were rare. The longest, come to think of it, had been Ize and Hal’s first run-in with the Blood Bear. And even then, they’d deliberately drawn the fight out to wait for reinforcements rather than deliver the finishing blow.

 

Fieda trained them to prepare for those exact moments — when their strength alone couldn’t win the day, and they needed to hold the line and buy time. Today’s training had emphasized that: striking from a fixed point without relying on steps, using only the upper body and precise wrist motion to fend off imaginary attackers.

 

“So, how’s it going on your end?” Fieda asked, glancing toward Ize.

“I found it,” Ize replied with a sly grin. “We’re in ‘combat’ right now.”

 

She raised her hand, and a map shimmered into view before them — her newly evolved Perception’s feature.

 

◆

 

It had started about a month after they left the Capital. Like today, Hal and Fieda were training together. Ize, meanwhile, had been deep into her own regimen — intense practice with her light and dark magic.

Specifically, hide-and-seek with Sato. Yes, it sounded like a game. But it was a real, structured exercise.

Sato would vanish, blending into the environment, and burrow underground. Ize, in turn, extended her dark magic through the soil to locate it.

Sugar Mandragoras like Sato were Mystic Plants that specialized in disappearing into their surroundings. Their presence was nearly imperceptible, which made them ideal for this kind of precision training.

 

At first, though, it had been a disaster.

 

“I can’t take this,” Ize had groaned, her eyes squeezed shut in pain, sweat pouring down her brow. “The Map info in the back of my eyes and the dark magic feedback — it’s all tangled up. It’s nauseating.”

 

The mental strain had been brutal, the confusion between sensory inputs leaving her dizzy and sick. Still, she pushed herself, increasing her endurance and precision little by little each day.

And then, it happened.

One day, just like invoking “Status Open,” a window materialized in front of her eyes.

 

“Wait, what?” she gasped.

 

Fieda and Hal had noticed too, halting their practice.

 

“A window?” Hal asked.

“That’s… is that your Map?” Fieda observed.

 

From their reactions, Ize realized others could see it too.

The display hovered in the air like a hologram, bright as crystal. Ize reached out, touched the small green dot that marked Sato — and a faint ripple passed through it. A blue line shimmered across the map, pointing the way to the creature.

 

“A route? Whoa, you’ve even got a navigation function!” Hal exclaimed, practically nose-to-glass.

 

For now, the path was a straight line, but if obstacles cropped up, it might generate alternate routes.

From that moment on, they began testing it: Could only party members see it? Would the path update if the target moved? How would it handle obstacles?

 

“This is clearly groundwork for teleportation magic,” Fieda muttered, staring at the map.

“Groundwork?” Ize asked.

“Yeah. You fuse light and dark magic, link it with your map, and you’ll unlock teleportation. Right?”

“Mm-hmm…”

 

Ize nodded. Indeed, that was what the Goddess had told her during the Coming-of-Age Ceremony.

Fieda pointed to the outer edge of the map.

 

“But here’s what’s strange — your map’s range is limited to five kilometers. Probably because it’s based on your Perception skill. So even if you master teleportation, you’d only be able to jump five kilometers at a time.”

“I see… It’s not useless, but it does mean I’d have to teleport repeatedly to cover long distances.”

“Exactly. In one jump, you could cover the distance it’d take an hour on horseback. But if you were hoping to leap straight from here to Lazulseed in one go, well, forget it.”

 

Ize’s lips tightened slightly in disappointment. That wasn’t quite the vision she’d had of teleportation.

 

“But,” Fieda went on, tapping the path line again, “with this new ‘navigation’ feature, things might be different.”

 

Fieda pronounced the unfamiliar term with slight hesitation, as if tasting it for the first time.

Since horsebuses running set routes were the norm in this world, the concept of navigation still seemed foreign.

 

“Because the route shows your destination?” Hal asked.

Fieda gave a small nod. “At the very least, this map gives us direction. But to use teleportation, you’ll need to be able to perceive what lies beyond the end of that route.”

“Perceive beyond the route…” Ize frowned, the abstract idea hard to grasp.

 

Hal, meanwhile, took a more optimistic view.

 

“Well, the Goddess did say it would take, like, ten years to learn teleportation magic. Maybe the map will expand over time, too? Even doubling the range to ten kilometers would be huge.”

“That’s true,” Ize conceded, though she sounded unconvinced.

“From what I can tell,” Fieda added, pointing at the map, “Your teleportation won’t be location-based. It’ll hinge on the people you’re linked to. So from now on, if there’s someone you want to see again, make sure you remember their magical energy signature.”

“Right!” Ize’s face lit up with renewed purpose.

 

It made sense — after all, her map didn’t depict geography or terrain, only traces of presence. At times, that had felt limiting. But being able to track someone she wanted to see again, no matter how far, filled her with hope.

Cradling Sato in her arms, she gently stroked the soft leaves on its head, her thoughts brimming with possibility.

 

◆

 

Eyes fixed on the projected map, Ize quietly extended a web of dark magic toward the area where she believed Sato was hiding. A faint resistance tugged at the edge of her magic. There — she’d found it. Carefully, she wrapped it in the spell, delicately coaxing it upward.

 

“Ghh…” she hissed softly, clenching her teeth as she directed her magical energy with pinpoint control.

 

She’d once overdone it and launched Sato clean out of the ground like a turnip, flying through the air with a startled squeak. Funny as it had been, it defeated the purpose of the training.

This time, she was gentle. When Sato was fully raised from the earth, the map gave a cheerful ping, lighting up with a tiny blue signal.

 

Ize let out a breath and relaxed her shoulders. “There.”

“Oh, nice,” Hal said. “Let’s go pick it up.”

 

They kept this hide-and-seek exercise within a one-kilometer range. Any farther, and it got risky. Sato had also been trained to burrow immediately when anything went wrong, like if it ran into a predator.

At a glance, Sato looked like a harmless bundle of leaves, but it was in fact a rare Sugar Mandragora — a Mystic Plant species. It couldn’t sing, but it could dance, and it understood everything they said. A small genius in leafy form.

 

“I wonder if I should teach it a song next…”

“Don’t,” Fieda warned immediately.

“Hey, what about that Frog Song? That might work,” Ize said with a grin.

“Kero, kero, kero kero?” Hal sang softly.

“Kekyo, kekyo, kekyo,” Ize added. “Heh, that’d be adorable.”

 

Despite Fieda’s protest, the two of them launched into the silly song.

 

“Kero, kero, kero kero!”

“Kekyo, kekyo, kekyo!”

“Gegyo, gegyo, gegyo!”

“Oop! Found it!” Hal said.

 

From beneath the earth came a muffled voice, humming along with the rhythm. Hal jogged over and brushed a large leaf sticking out of the soil. It twitched once, then flopped down flat as Sato’s round body slowly slid free of the dirt. Once fully emerged, it gave itself a brisk shake, using its leaves to pat the soil from its body before standing proudly upright.

 

“Thanks for helping, Sato. You didn’t get hurt, did you? Was the dark magic too much?” Ize asked gently.

“Kekkyon!” it chirped, clearly fine.

“Good, good,” Hal said with a nod.

 

Relieved, Ize cast a healing spell as a reward. Sato glowed happily, rustling its leaves and nestling close to her.

Ize had always been worried that Sato, whose sustenance was healing magic — a type of light magic — would suffer damage from dark magic.

That did not seem to be the case so far, but just in case, she had been exceedingly careful with her handling of dark magic. As a result, it seemed the precision of her skills had improved quite a lot.

 

“Well,” Fieda said, stretching, “that’s enough for today. Let’s get back to Hiro and Take.”

“Where are we stopping next?” asked Hal.

“Just a small village between here and Speraniessa. It’s mostly a stopover for travelers who miss the city’s gate hours.”

“So after that, we’re going straight to Speraniessa,” Ize added.

“Right. But be on your guard — once we hit the outskirts, the crowds will pick up.”

“Got it. I’ll summon the horsebus once we’re near the main road.”

“No baths for a while, huh,” Hal groaned.

“That’s… unfortunate,” Ize muttered.

“Right? It’s still hot out…”

“Get over it,” Fieda said flatly. “We’ll have to make do with Cleanse.”

 

He tried to sound firm, but even Fieda, who had grown accustomed to soaking in a warm bath every evening during their travels together, looked a little disappointed.

Still, until they reached the safety of the city — and found a secure place to set up the bath and container house again — they had no choice.

Hal and Ize both wore matching grimaces, nodding reluctantly.