Coincidentally, it was on the first day of Adelaide’s training that a flying monkey came to find Dorothea’s party.

The monkey, speaking human language skillfully, perhaps due to the effect of the monocle-shaped magic tool hanging around its neck, bowed politely.

《This is a letter that the new master, Lady Franka, asked to deliver to Lady Dorothea.》

Dorothea, who received the letter from the monkey with a suspicious expression, asked, “But how did you know where I was?”

《With the help of the Sky Island scholars, we calculated the approximate current location, and for the lacking parts, we borrowed the power of this.》

Saying so, the monkey took out an animal compass identical to the ones Dorothea and Gale had.

Dorothea was dumbfounded to see such an item, which would be impossible to find again if lost once, being casually entrusted to a homunculus, but on the other hand, she became curious about what the contents of the letter could be that it needed to be delivered to such lengths.

The letter’s content, true to Franka’s style, was full of various flowery phrases and boasting, but the core summary was as follows:

As previously agreed, I started integrating various forces within the Witch of the West’s workshop. However, due to the necromantic structure you left behind, some local forces have become religionized, causing difficulties in assimilation. To resolve this, please give the leader of said force a “name”.

“…What nonsense is this now?”

Dorothea was simply bewildered.

First, she had a rough idea of what the “necromantic structure” might be.

After completely wiping out the society of those ridiculous creatures called civilized horses or whatever, she had carelessly thrown something as a substitute to the humans who followed her because they were being so annoying. That must be what it was referring to.

But a religion arose from that? Moreover, its leader asked her to give them a name?

She wanted to grab Franka by the collar and demand what on earth was happening there, but with so much to do in the north, she couldn’t go back to the west.

She thought about just ignoring it, but seeing the phrase [If this is refused, the contract to properly perform the succession of the Witch of the West’s legacy and transfer part of the rights obtained from it cannot be fulfilled] made her hesitate.

She had become quite aware of material desires after buying a new carriage, and it was hard to give up on income that came in without much effort.

“Hmm, seems like you’ve been doing some interesting things?”

“…Hey, want me to remove your head?”

Somehow having approached without notice, Gale peeked over Dorothea’s shoulder to steal a glance at the letter.

Dorothea was irritated by the closeness, close enough for their skin to touch, but Gale was nonchalant.

“Naming a child, congratulations on becoming a mother at a young age, Dorothea. Ah, by rural standards, maybe it’s not such a young age?”

Bwoong!

Dorothea tried to strike Gale’s face with her palm, but Gale easily avoided the attack by bending her body backward as if doing the limbo.

While Dorothea had some knowledge of martial arts from traveling alone before meeting the Tin Knight, it was only at the level of light self-defense.

That level was too low to deal with Gale, who was superior to even most warriors in hand-to-hand combat.

Dorothea growled, “Do you want to keep spouting nonsense next to me!?”

“If you don’t like mother, let’s go with godmother. So, what name are you going to choose?”

At Gale’s nonchalant attitude, seemingly not even minding being attacked, Dorothea frowned deeply and then sighed, “I don’t know? I’ll just send several candidates and let them choose.”

“In that case, won’t they come back asking, ‘I don’t know which name to choose among these’?”

“Tsk.”

Dorothea seemed to ponder for a moment, then as if something came to mind, she swung her right hand.

As the power of the Gloves of Haider was exerted, a book appeared from thin air and fell onto her lap with a thud.

The book’s condition was quite crude, just a bundle of papers tied together with string without a proper cover.

“What’s that?”

“Sophia wrote it herself, saying she’d try to make a book that guy could read too. She said she gathered various fairy tales and legends circulating in the world to make it easier to learn writing.”

While the Tin Knight could hardly be called an excellent teacher even as lip service, Sophia’s learning ability was at a level that could easily cover for that and more.

With the effect of the “Voice of Guidance” that conveyed will itself, Sophia was already skillfully handling the new letters the Tin Knight had taught her.

Even Dorothea, who as a witch had acquired quite a few different characters and languages, had skimmed through it once, but it was a completely different type of writing from anything Dorothea had known before.

Dorothea fell into thought again about the identity of the mysterious characters and the Tin Knight who used them, but soon scattered those thoughts.

There was something else she had to do now.

Looking through the book with two types of languages written in parallel, she eventually stopped at a certain page.

“This will do.”

“Isn’t that a bit too simple?”

“If you have complaints, why don’t you name it yourself?”

“Naming has been an honorable role since ancient times. It’s not right to usurp someone else’s honor.”

While grumbling that she was good at talking anyway, Dorothea took out new paper and pen, wrote something, and handed it to the golden monkey.

The monkey received the letter with a polite attitude, then flapped its wings and flew far into the sky.

Clang! Clang clang! Clang clang clang!

Dorothea turned her gaze towards the open space beyond.

The continuous metallic sounds and overflowing bloodshed.

Dorothea stared blankly at the fierce battle that could be mistaken for a real situation rather than training if seen by someone who didn’t know, then eventually stood up.

“…I guess I’ll make some food.”

“Ah, that onion soup from last time was delicious.”

“Eat whatever you’re given. Or help out.”

***

Holy power healed the body.

And training that used the body often came with the risk of injury.

In that sense, the idea of, “Why not set up a priest’s waiting room next to the training ground and receive healing with holy magic every time you train?” wasn’t particularly special.

However, this common idea was rarely realized because the gap between supply and demand was too large.

Almost all priests on the continent belonged to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the few priests dispatched to the ground were busy just treating the upper classes of each country.

One might ask why there was so little room when people didn’t get new diseases every day, but even if there wasn’t a big illness right away, there were more than enough uses for holy power.

First, receiving holy power in the body slowed aging, and it was effective even for symptoms that were ambiguous to call “diseases” such as shoulder stiffness or mild chills.

Even if not used for such condition adjustment purposes, there was a tendency to always keep a certain amount of holy power in reserve in case of sudden deterioration of one’s own or family’s health, so “using holy power for training” was close to the realm of fantasy.

Unless the trainee was one of the top-ranking individuals in the area or their direct child, that was.

However, even while enjoying such luxury, Adelaide couldn’t be happy at all.

After all, her teacher was a person who had reached the realm of squeezing people to their limits.

The result was obvious when someone who could burn 99 out of 100 stamina was given a recovery item on top of that.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says the momentum of the attack is too loose!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that while it’s important to dodge the opponent’s attacks well, focusing too much on defense gives the opponent a chance to swing, which ultimately becomes more dangerous!]

I understand what you’re saying, but…!

Adelaide inwardly grumbled that actually executing it was a different matter.

She didn’t voice it out loud, partly because she was out of breath, but also because she had to block the Tin Knight’s sword that was approaching as if to split her upper body right away.

Clang!

Adelaide gripped her sword with both hands, and the Tin Knight swung a one-handed sword.

Nevertheless, Adelaide’s sword was pushed back, and part of her forearm was cut by the sword strike that she couldn’t fully block.

It wasn’t just a matter of pure strength.

As a result of repeatedly training steadily and becoming accustomed to drawing out the power of the belt, Adelaide was already overwhelming the Tin Knight in terms of physical specs alone.

However, when the two actually clashed swords, it was Adelaide who was continuously pushed back and injured.

The reason was clear.

Distance.

The power of swinging a bat in a wide area with a full swing and swinging it in a narrow space was bound to be different.

The power of throwing a punch with the whole body free to move and throwing a punch with only the arm moving while the upper body was fixed was also bound to be different.

The Tin Knight exquisitely poked at the distance, position, and timing where Adelaide couldn’t properly use the “power” in her body, and Adelaide tried to escape this somehow, but those attempts repeatedly failed.

There were three ways to break through this situation.

One was to catch the opponent off guard with technique, but using this against the Tin Knight was out of the question.

Two was to break the flow even if it meant getting injured by striking back, but the Tin Knight reacted as if predicting even that attack, only increasing Adelaide’s damage.

In the end, only one option remained.

To further raise the specs that were already superior, widening the gap to a point where it would be difficult to respond with technique.

Crack!

Violet lightning-like mana burst from Adelaide’s body.

The next moment, Adelaide’s body moved at high speed as if in fast-forward.

Boom!

For the first time, the Tin Knight’s body, which had been continuously advancing forward, was pushed back.

And before the Tin Knight’s back foot could touch the ground again, Adelaide’s consecutive attacks swept in as if to slash him.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses admiration, saying it’s quite a fierce attack!]

It was as the Tin Knight said.

Usually, Adelaide’s attacks might have fighting spirit but mostly lacked killing intent or hostility, but after drawing out the violet lightning, each of Adelaide’s attacks contained raw, unrefined killing intent.

Her deep violet eyes were slightly out of focus, making her look as if she had entered a half-trance state.

Snap!

Following the trajectory of Adelaide’s sword swing, a thick nearby tree was instantly cut in half.

Even the trees behind, which weren’t directly touched by the sword, were sliced in a fan shape.

The sight of her devastating the surroundings wherever her feet touched looked almost like a small calamity.

Just as that overwhelming attack seemed about to cut the Tin Knight in half.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that still, one must swing one’s own sword with one’s own will!]

The Tin Knight’s “economy mode” ended, and the mana contained in his body was instantly activated.

He deflected her sword with his, received a kick with his shield, struck her abdomen with his elbow, and brought down the pommel of his sword on her descending head.

Crack!

Adelaide’s head was buried in the ground, creating a small crater around it.

The Tin Knight, who subdued Adelaide in just four exchanges, was about to lift Adelaide’s body, but seeing blood flowing from her head, he called for Sophia.

As white light flowed through Adelaide’s body, her limp body reacted with a twitch.

Adelaide, using her sword as a support to raise her body, said while trying to suppress her trembling legs, “T-thank you for your hard work.”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ greets his pupil, saying good work!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if her memory is intact!]

“I got a bit dazed from the middle, but the memories remain.”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ evaluates that the risk is quite manageable for a berserk mode, seeing as she didn’t completely switch to a different personality!]

“But every time I use it, it feels like my whole body is exhausted…”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that’s because there’s a lot of unnecessary waste!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses that if normal mana enhancement is like placing the cursor where you want with a mouse sensitivity of 5, that violet lightning is like placing the cursor where you want with a sensitivity of 50!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that in actual combat, you should be able to control it swiftly like playing an FPS and even snipe in that state!]

“…???”

“Hmm, it’s harder to peel an apple with a large sword than with a small knife. But you should be able to peel an apple with a large sword as if it were a small knife. That’s the context.”

“Ah, so that’s what it means.”

Adelaide understood the Tin Knight’s metaphor only after Sophia’s additional explanation, but her expression was dark.

She realized again how difficult this power was to handle, and how high Hilda’s level was to manipulate it so skillfully.

And the Tin Knight was a true teacher who didn’t leave his pupil’s gloomy face unattended.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that since she seems to have recovered enough to have idle thoughts, let’s resume training!]

“Uh, no, wait a moment. I can barely stand, eek!?”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ shows enthusiasm, saying he’ll burn off any wasted stamina before starting mental training!]

***

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