Iron-Blood Marine Lady (Dropped) - V1 Chapter 18
Chapter 018: Poking A Bush, A Demon Came Out
A month passed without much incident, almost surprisingly quickly.
Well, strictly speaking, it wasn’t entirely without incident.
The long-delayed matter of the engagement with William was officially decided, under the king’s name, to be “terminated.”
For Alicia, it was within her expectations, and she had no particular emotional reaction to it. In fact, if someone were to suggest that she should reconcile with William at this point, she would find it more troublesome than anything else.
Rather, it was her father, Klaus, whose reaction was much more intense.
“Those palace schemers…! Do they truly wish to incite a civil war…!!”
“Father (Your Excellency), please calm down!”
Upon receiving the shocking news akin to a bolt from the blue, Klaus had completely lost himself in anger, even to the point of changing his tone.
But that was inevitable.
What was the Royal Capital thinking? Despite the extensive exchanges they had with Klaus, they decided to terminate the engagement without any prior notice. It likely also had to do with crushing the dignity of the leading noble faction, but Klaus’s anger may have been intensified by the realization that the political center was spiraling out of control.
As a result, Klaus was so furious that he seemed ready to immediately incite the noble faction to rebellion. Surprisingly, Alicia and Abel, who were closer to being directly involved, found themselves trying to calm him down with all their might.
Alicia thought that this was one of the reasons she managed to remain calm in the midst of the engagement termination.
After all, she had no room to openly express her emotions.
“…Are you okay, Lady Alicia?”
At a random moment, Abel asked her in a very abstract manner.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Thank you for worrying, Abel.”
She was able to respond with a smile that felt so genuine that even she could clearly see it.
It was a significant national matter, but for the person involved, it was more like a chaotic comedy that made one want to say, “I don’t care.” Nevertheless, Alicia was able to enjoy a somewhat peaceful everyday life.
Yes, for her, it was her cherished “daily life”…
“Hmph!”
A surge of determination cut through the cool morning air. Along with it, Abel’s sharp kick, aimed at closing the distance with Alicia, flew towards her.
Alicia tried to deflect the hurricane-like blow with her left arm, but her movements were read swiftly. The redirected kick struck her raised arm, causing her muscles to flex, and a strong jolt ran through her bones.
“Ugh!”
Despite the sharp pain, Alicia attempted to take advantage of the opening created by the kick and pushed her way into Abel’s space. Simultaneously, she swung a combat knife held in her right hand sideways. However, Abel had already adjusted his position, and with a slight step, he easily avoided the knife.
In fact, in the next moment, he smoothly moved into Alicia’s blind spot.
Realizing the danger, Alicia tried to retract her right arm, but she was a tad too slow.
“What’s wrong? You’re awfully slow, Private Second-Class!”
Abel, now known as “Instructor,” shouted. He watched as a camouflaged snake pattern wrapped around Alicia’s extended right arm, and it felt as if a weighty metal block had been dropped on her.
With no way to handle the unexpected weight, Alicia’s balance was thrown off, and her vision swirled, making her lose her sense of equilibrium.
“Ugh!”
Receiving a thrusting impact from her back, Alicia realized she had been thrown onto the grass.
She attempted to quickly get up, but Abel, who had lightly pressed her down, returned to his usual expression and shook his head.
“Today’s training ends here. Oh, and it’s dangerous if you move right now.”
Feeling an unfamiliar object against her side, Alicia glanced to see a rubber-coated training knife poking at her. Abel smiled slightly at her astonishment and removed the knife, moving away from her body.
“I’m just… no match, it seems…”
Having accepted her defeat, Alicia let out words tinged with frustration as she lay on the grass, catching her breath.
The tension had subsided, and the smell of the grass drifted into her nostrils.
“Today was good. I got to use throwing techniques.”
“Well, despite that… I’m not even out of breath. It’s like I’m being toyed with…”
As Alicia’s sweat turned into steam beneath her camouflage outfit, rising from her body, she pouted slightly.
Although it had become a daily routine, engaging in intense combat training after running laps around the mansion’s grounds turned her into this state.
Nonetheless, Alicia felt that it was much easier than the boot camp and the intense training she had gone through during the late summer.
Furthermore, any aversion she may have initially had, as a noblewoman, to this kind of training has long since disappeared.
“In all honesty, you’ve improved a lot from before. At the very least, you didn’t go down from the first kick.”
Abel quickly offered a reassuring comment in response to Alicia’s muttering.
While the words didn’t provide much comfort, Alicia accepted them graciously. Abel never inserted any insincere flattery into his feedback during these times.
…Maybe my breathing is finally getting back to normal.
“Still, it’s hard to feel it when it’s like this, especially when it’s the same every time.”
Alicia complained with a slight pout, and Abel responded with a somewhat troubled smile.
That expression seemed remarkably fresh to Alicia.
“It can’t be helped. Improvement isn’t guaranteed just because you put in the effort… Besides, if I lost to you too easily, there’d be no point in being an ‘Instructor.'”
It was a perfectly reasonable argument.
“Or should I plan a special course for all your future long vacations that’s even harder than the new recruit training boot camp? You can rank up from Private Second-Class to a Lethal Weapon in no time. How about that, Private Second-Class?”
Abel’s smile, which was more like a smirk—at least in his eyes—accompanied his words. As he heard the final words from the “Instructor,” Alicia felt a fresh wave of cold sweat mixed with perspiration forming on her body.
Due to the last words from her “Instructor,” memories of the boot camp for new recruits that had been ingrained as something of a trauma resurfaced like a flashback.
“…Sir… Ah, um, please let me think about that for a moment. For now, I’d like to take a bath.”
She had dug herself into a hole, and even though she wanted to refuse outright, Alicia thought it wouldn’t be dignified. So she chose to postpone the issue for now.
For that day’s training, Alicia continued to suffer defeat until the end.