I Was Abandoned Because I Was Told I Had No Talent, but Four Incredibly Strong Yet Clumsy Older Sisters Took Me In. Even the Sword Saint and the Great Sorcerer Insisted on Me Being Their Top Disciple. As a Result of Raising Me in Such an Overprotective Way, My Ultimate Talent Finally Awoke.

Wooden Sword and the Clumsy Master

Real training had been going for half a month now. My palms were covered in calluses.

They burst, hardened, then burst again. There was no time to wrap bandages before Reizel Master said,

“Stance.”

Short. Always short.

I gripped the wooden sword again. It stung. The base of my fingers hurt the worst, and the feel of the wooden handle against the blood-stained cloth made me hate it a little more every morning.

But I never said I hated it.

If I did, I felt like it would all end. Like I wouldn’t be allowed to stay here anymore.

“Swing.”

I swung. It should have been the hundredth time, but my arm stopped halfway.

Everything from my shoulders onward felt heavy, like it wasn’t mine anymore.

“Stopped.”

Reizel Master stood three steps in front of me. Arms crossed, blue eyes watching me. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or fed up—her face gave nothing away.

This person didn’t praise.

She never said “good” or “bad.” Only “stance,” “swing,” and “stopped” came down on me.

I clenched my teeth and swung again. On the seventy-sixth swing my knees gave out. The wooden sword stabbed into the ground, and I fell forward just like that.

The smell of earth. The smell of grass. At the edge of my vision I saw Master’s leather boots.

“…………”

She was going to say something. She was going to say I couldn’t do it anymore. That it really was impossible for me after all—

“Water.”

I looked up toward the voice.

Reizel Master was holding out the leather pouch. She wasn’t looking at me. Her face was turned sideways. Her silver hair swayed in the wind, and I thought her ears looked a little red.

“Drink. Five minutes rest.”

Still lying on the ground, I took the leather pouch with both hands. My hands were shaking, so some water spilled down my chin before it reached my mouth. It was cold. Really cold.

Master didn’t say anything else. She just sat down on the tree stump.

She kept her face turned away the whole time until I finished drinking.

＊

A little way into the forest from the cabin.

From inside a small tent pitched in the shade of the trees, golden eyes watched the scene closely.

“…What the heck, getting all beat up like that.”

Riene Arcrest muttered, hugging her knees.

Her frontier investigation mission had ended long ago. Normally she should have gone straight back to the capital to give her father a detailed report.

Yet here she was, camping at the entrance to this forest.

—It was just a coincidence I passed by. It was just a good spot for camping.

She kept making that excuse to herself, and three days had already passed.

She wasn’t interested in the mukoku boy. She was only curious about the true identity of that silver-haired female swordsman. She had to tell herself that, or she couldn’t explain her own actions.

“…No talent, and yet he looks like an idiot.”

Even while she grumbled like that, for some reason Riene couldn’t look away from the boy who kept standing up no matter how many times he fell.

＊

In the evening, when training ended, I sat on a log outside the cabin and cooled my palms with cold well water. It felt nice and cool and eased the pain a little.

The sky was red. The sound of insects rose from around my feet.

From inside the cabin came a soft scraping, scraping sound.

Curious, I peeked through the gap in the door.

Reizel Master was carving the wooden sword.

In the light of the lamp, the small knife’s blade peeled thin shavings from the wood’s surface. It was the wooden sword I used. This morning I’d thought the grip felt too thick—but I hadn’t said anything—that wooden sword.

Master carved in silence. Little by little, bit by bit, she made the grip thinner to match the size of my hand.

Every now and then she stopped, placed her own little finger against the handle.

It was like—she was remembering the small hand of some young child.

I quietly moved away from the door.

I felt like I shouldn’t have seen that face. That profile was different from any expression she ever showed me. It wasn’t strict, it wasn’t blank—it was looking at somewhere much farther away.

＊

The next morning.

When I woke up and looked beside my pillow, the wooden sword was there.

I gripped it.

—It fit perfectly.

The sharp edges that had been digging into the base of my fingers yesterday were now smoothly rounded. The balance was shifted just a tiny bit toward my hand. So it would be easier for my arms to swing.

My eyes grew a little hot.

But I decided not to say anything. This person didn’t want to be noticed doing it. Probably.

When I went outside, Master was already standing there. Arms crossed, in her usual spot.

“Stance.”

I gripped the wooden sword. The calluses still hurt. But it felt a little more comfortable in my hand than yesterday.

“—Yes.”

I swung.

Just a tiny bit faster than before.

Master didn’t say anything.

But her crossed arms loosened for a single instant—then quickly crossed again.

That day’s training went up to a hundred and twenty swings.

My knees gave out again. But it was forty-four more than yesterday.