Small Sword (Kodachi)
I was told that I could take the sword I chose with me as it was. I tried sticking it in my belt, but it still didn’t feel right. When I asked, I was told that they would provide me with something like an obi, so I hoped for the best.
Since it did not take much time to choose a weapon, I was told that I would be shown how to use the weapon in the first room. Since I didn’t seem to be at a level where I could use magic in battle, it would be a good idea to learn how to use the weapons of this world. But, Karimah-san can use a sword, too? That’s amazing.
While I was reviewing Iaido forms in the room, Karimah-san brought a large melon-like object that looked to be about one meter in length. He set it on a stand with a kenzan-like device attached to it.
“This is the fruit of a plant that is used for the cutting test. The hardness is said to be just right, so it can reproduce the sensation of cutting low-level monsters.”
I see, so it is similar to cutting a straw bundle.
“If it’s a low-level monster, you can cut it with just the sharpness of the blade, so let’s give it a try.”
“Yes…Hmm? Low-level? If it’s a medium-level monster, can’t you cut it with just the sharpness of the blade?”
“That’s right. At a certain level, you need to be clothed in magic power, so the sword that cuts needs to be covered in magic power as well.”
“Magic power… Huh? Then it’s tough for me…?”
“I don’t know. It is more of a technique to cover the sword with magic power, so let’s … try it.”
Since there were not enough of these melons to use as many as I could cut, I was told to try it from the top, cutting a little at a time using a slashing motion. First, I was told to try it as it is, and I held up the small sword and slashed it diagonally in the manner of a straw slash. I had never tried straw slashing with a small sword before, but I felt quite comfortable swinging it through the air. The blade was well made.
“Oh~. Wonderful. Vinegar didn’t move a bit. Yes, yes. Now let’s see if you can pass some magic power through it.”
By “vinegar,” do you mean this melon? That being said, I somehow feel that I smelled something sour from the cut. Karimah approached the melon, bent down at the waist and gently touched its lower part. Passing magic power would mean letting it flow directly from the hands.
“Please don’t cut me.”
He laughed, making a little joke. Well. I only sliced a melon, so there’s no mistake. But it’s better to be careful. Again, I assumed the posture again and quickly raised the small sword. With a “humph”, I swung it down so that it hit the melon with the weight of the sword.
Gosh.
A sense of resistance, clearly different from the previous test cut, stopped the small sword. I looked and saw that the small sword had not bit into the surface a centimeter and stopped at the surface.
“This is… magical power.”
“Yes. Try your best to cut this.”
“By letting the magic power … clothe it?”
“Yes, that’s right. I heard that you turned on the lights in your room yesterday, so you know the feeling of magic flowing through you.”
“Oh, yes. Now that you mention it… that feeling.”
“Yes. Shall we try again?”
As Karimah told me to do, I tried to channel magic power into the small sword. Thanks to the hard work I did yesterday, I have some idea of what magic power felt like. I knew that the magic power I had used up in the morning had returned after lunch. In order to unify my mind, I slashed with my small sword, letting the magic swirling inside my body flow into the sword.
Suuuuu.
This time, I was able to slash with much less resistance.
“Oh!”
“You did it. Wonderful. Now let’s increase the amount of magic power to flow a little more, and let’s explore your limits.”
In this way, I asked him to increase the resistance magic power little by little to test how much I could cut down. As a result, I was assured by Karimah that I could slay even intermediate-level monsters.
However, just because I could slay a monster did not mean that the monster would not move. If an intermediate-level monster appeared, I was told to think of escape first and foremost.
While cleaning up the scattered pieces of melon, Karimah-san asked me with a bit of consideration.
“… Speaking of which, Shigeto-sama has some skills that you carried over from your previous world, don’t you?”
“Yes, it was Swordsmanship and Concentration.”
“I see… Concentration? I was a little curious because you were able to cut far beyond the point where I thought Shigeto-sama’s amount of magical power would not allow you to do so.”
“Huh? Is that good?”
“Yes. I think that the magic power that surrounds the blade is very strong. I think that the skill of Concentration allows the magic power to be concentrated in that one moment… This is just a guess, though…”
“Concentrate magic power? …Certainly, this kind of test cutting is done in our world in a training called straw cutting, but we do it in such a way that the mind is focused during the moment of cutting…”
“Yes, I think that’s good. Let’s continue to practice. Ideally, you should be able to channel your magic power even unconsciously.”
I see … that Concentration skill might have more to do than simply concentration of the mind. It was just, well… I suppose it’s just that it could be more effective than my magic power level. Domoto and the others claim to have quite a bit of magic power, if I have too high expectations, I’m going to have a hard time later on.
After that, Karimah said that today’s training was over and left. Since there was a little more time before dinner, I decided to test the feeling of the small sword a little more.
“Fuuu…”
Lightly kneel on the ground and slowly exhale. Concentrate your mind and synchronize your awareness with the small sword in your left hand. At the same time, I raised my awareness toward the outside. In my family’s Iaido, which stresses the importance of staying ahead of the enemy, it was necessary to grasp the target’s every move and every action. Although I had been slacking off for a while, I still managed to retain some sense of it… While concentrating, I calmed my mind in a Zen-like manner. Before practice, I used to be forced to stay in this state of mental concentration for nearly an hour. In my mind, which had been cut down to the bare essentials, I suddenly had a flashback of miscellaneous thoughts.
In the midst of them, I remembered my grandfather who had passed away when I was in college.
He had no sons and was prepared to lose the art of Iaido, which had been passed down from generation to generation. In the midst of all this. When my father passed away early, his daughter, in other words my mother, decided to take me back home with her. My grandfather tried to make me learn all of his techniques, hoping that I would be his successor.
I enjoyed doing it when I was a child, but from puberty onward, I began to feel that I was being forced to do it. So when I entered university and moved to Tokyo, I stopped practicing Iaido myself. My mother told me at my grandfather’s funeral that it was quite a shock to him.
At the time, I didn’t care because I was living my own life, but as I got older, I still regretted rejecting my grandfather’s wish.
“… I never thought I’d end up coming to … another world.”
I laughed to self-mockingly.
Raise my spirits, concentrate, and rage. Yet, my spirit is like the surface of the water, with no wind or waves.
I quickly cut the scabbard and drew my small sword.
“Aah!”
It was a basic sword drawing technique. I was repulsed, but I liked my grandfather’s swordsmanship before his death. I liken such an image of my grandfather with myself. Thanks to the fact that I had repeated the sword drawing a mind-boggling number of times, I had no problem with the movement.
…But I didn’t think my speed compares to those days.
Lack of exercise and practice. The moment I frowned at my own sword drawing, which came from there, I was struck by dizziness… What? It was the same feeling as when I almost ran out of magic power during the morning’s magic practice.
The amount of magic power can be grasped by oneself with one’s senses. Surely, I had more than half of my magic power left. I kneeled down and while trying not to fall down, I confirmed that my magic power was about to be depleted.
The amount of magic power was much less than when I had the sword covered with magic power when I was with Karimah earlier.
What?
… Maybe.
…More.
Did you mean I could concentrate more…?
(TLN: I have added some Illustrations from the Light Novel version to previous chapters.)
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