Villainess and Grimoire - Chapter 126 – Training Arc

Year 5009 after the system day 90 of the flowering season inside the dojo.

“Your posture is becoming a bit better overall,” he uses the wooden sword in his hand to adjust my body like a mannequin pushing my elbow slightly to the front along with a harmless hit on my back forcing me to stretch it.

“Looking good more 100 swings let’s go,” I gulp hearing the number but I do as I’m told.

Charge my hands and legs and take strong left steps while waving my wooden sword from above my head to the front of it while imagining one of those skeletons.

‘Thanks to my imagination I was able to acquire the unique skill illusion, even though I haven’t had a chance to try it out due to all this hardcore training. I did speak with my teacher about it, it could be categorized as a balanced type of combat skill. Should allow me to trick my opponent in many ways, but he’s never heard of anyone having it. I’ll have to try it for myself after today’s training where Ray promised me he’d help with it, thus I’m extra motivated.’

‘Even after 30 days of swinging like this, I can’t seem to get anywhere close to the natural wind slice Ray sword did, he told me it took him practically his entire life, so I shouldn’t feel pressure from it. The truth is that I just want to be able to do everything he can right away, but sadly my body can’t keep up, so training the bases it is,’ I let out a suspire and then my head receives a harmless hit by the teacher.

“Focus blondie or I’ll turn you bald next,” cold sweat ran all over my body upon such threat as my mother would be extremely sad if that were to happen.

I do my best to concentrate and keep swinging proportionately faster than the one before.

“Slower, no need to rush we have time, the better each and every single of them is, the faster you’ll attain a close to perfection form.”

I ready the stance while inhaling deeply and then swing while exhaling curving the sword in a very good art right on the top of the skeleton head.

‘It almost looks like the girl has an opponent in front, is it the illusion skill mentioned earlier? If she could deceive herself to be fighting someone, it would be quite faster to train her, since combat experience is everything in this world. This is actually a great idea, I’m a genius, a true wise teacher,’ Ray started laughing randomly making my concentration be damaged slightly.

I stare at him coldly and silently for making my life harder,” sorry sorry, here I have an idea Iris try to use that imagination of yours while using the skill Ilusion into thinking of a particular monster you’ve had a hard time against, see how that works out for you.”

‘The strongest ones I saw were the shiny skeleton and the goblin warrior, though that green one looked too dangerous…’

“Can it be a certain skeleton that beat me before?”

“Try it, if it works we won’t need to find sparring partners for you or even have you go to the annual tournament for the experience.”

“I’ll attempt it, even though I’d still like to go to the tournament since you once won a title from beating it.”

‘Most kids her age only want to receive the recommendation letter, but all she wants is to get the title to become slightly stronger, what a girl.’

“I want to use unique skill illusion.”

Notice: Suggestion to use appraisal.

‘Right, sometimes I forget I can use that skill to see how things work, appraise the skill please.’

Notice: 500 mana has been deducted.

[Illusion of the unique tier, due to the low level can only be used either directly on an enemy with low brainwash resistance or on yourself through the use of a reflection, can bypass resistance when higher level.]

‘Can bypass brainwash resistance? Well, that’s pretty amazing since that passive skill is maxed, I can do what my teacher asked, otherwise it would be impossible, as to be expected of a unique tier!’

“Mirror,” as soon as it appears I stare at it seeing my reflection in it, the appearance of it startles Ray on the side who looks at the size of it.

“That’s quite a big mirror, is it part of that illusion skill of yours?”

“It seems I need a reflection to make it work on myself so yes, it is, unique skill illusion!” I sense my brain focusing a lot along with my mana being slowly drained and then I think on a skeleton making one leave the mirror with a sword in the hand, similar to the one that died as I no longer remember it entirely well.

“Can you see something teacher?”

“Somehow I can see a skeleton? It looks quite real, are you sure that’s an illusion?” I make a panic expression upon those words, and then start running and grabbing a real sword while mana coating it, and then I turn around and notice that the skeleton was chasing me, our shining swords then clash once he attacks me, causing some weight to be felt on my left hand.

“Ugh, this skeleton is quite strong,” I gaze at him and see some distortions appear on and disappear repeatedly,’ that tells me this is not real,’ I sigh and then focus some strength pushing him away while regaining my composure.

System: The title Trickster has been received.

‘Seems like it is truly an illusion alright with this I’m 100% sure,’ I charge my mana which gets copied by the skeleton-like the one at the ruins did, and our swords clash.

‘This time my weapon didn’t break,’ I take a step to the side and attempt a body blow which gets blocked by a vertical slash.

“Focus on your opponent moves, dodge, and counterattack like I taught you in the beginning.”

“Yes, teacher!” I start taking small steps to the left circulating around him and then he slashes horizontally towards my hip where I take a step backward avoiding it, and then once the sword goes through I take a step charged with mana forward while waving my sword from top to bottom cutting diagonally the skeleton in half till the supposed liver location.

Then his sword cuts my arm off making me scream loudly to what Ray reacts cutting the skeleton in many pieces and then the illusion disappears as I lose my concentration due to the shock.

“Are you alright kid? Your arm is fine, look at it, was just an illusion, a very good one at that, but it shows that you can’t let your guard down against any opponent. Sometimes they can come with quite a set of tricks to defeat you, faking death could easily be one of them.”

I look at my arm breathing hard while trying to inhale and exhale deeply as that scared the hell of me,” that was something…”

Ray starts laughing loudly which strangely the sound helps me calm down,” that was good practice, once you adjust yourself to the usage of that skill, we can make you fight all kinds of beasts and monsters, some stronger, others faster, small, big, the possibilities are endless, which means you’ll definitely improve.”

“I’ll do my best, but for now I’ll take a quick break, need to calm myself,” I give the sword back to him and he takes it gladly.

“Go for it kid, you did well.”

“Thank you, Ray,” I move away from him outside the dojo and let myself be bathed by the sunlight and the soft breeze.

‘Unique skills are terrifying, to even show my arm being cut like that, I literally stopped feeling it for a moment there, I suppose it shuts down a part of my mind to allow those things to happen that smoothly.’

I take a deep breath and look around,’ between this dojo and the house there’s a small well in the middle, and then wooden old walls around, the only exit leads to a hall that is composed of two different houses which lead to the main road, it even has a door that while closed makes outsiders think it’s a wall. Sometimes they may think it’s a dead-end unless of course they jump over it or climb it somehow, but it’s 2 meters tall, so I don’t think many would be able to. We generally keep it closed so that outsiders don’t barge in as Ray allows the house and the dojo doors to be open. He often says it’s for the place to be able to breathe, often mentions that if we take care of nonliving things as living ones that we’re granting them a space for a soul to reside, gibberish in the end, like him naming the swords. Mother did say that allowing windows to be open helps the air circulate and the bad smells to disappear, so at least that much I’m willing to believe, even though I wouldn’t go as far as to call it breathing, that’s just silly. Okay, maybe if it was haunted by some spirits or ghosts, there was a story in the system library skill about it, it’s a shame I ended up reading every book maxing the skill, this world doesn’t have that many books, but it was worthwhile, hopefully, in the future, someone writes something new, or maybe I get to use it in a different way, after all, this world always comes with a way to surprise me. Like this illusion skill, it sure paid me off quite the scare, however, if it made me fearful then my enemies depending on what I imagine, could end up quite marvelous.’

I rub the back of my head softly letting my hair wave randomly, it reaches a bit deeper than the shoulder line,’ a shame it was cut, a blessing to have it like this during the flowering season, and even better when the sun comes as it’ll be too hot, it’ll have time to regrow by the last one.

“Hey, Omar…”

A man suddenly appears to my left,” yes?”

“I forgot to ask but I remember someone telling me that the seasons and the gods had some correlation, do you happen to know about it?”

“It’s pretty simple really, the flowering season was named in the name of Aria, Sun season in the name of Lutes, decaying season in the name of Hathus, and moon season in the name of Luna.”

“Oh alright, that’s actually simpler than I initially thought it would be, it’s interesting how the human race uses all the seasons but hide the fact of the other god’s existence.”

“Well, it would be a direct conflict to the beliefs of the church under pope Klaus.”

“The day we met, you mentioned something about people being tortured and killed just for having the disgrace class, does that still happen even in these days by the pope?”

“I believe he inherited some of the necessary skills for it, however, they stopped those practices and started exiling our kin from Lumen kingdom after a certain event.”

“A certain event? Someone stopped them or so?”

“There is a certain being similar to you, we of the dark robes call her witch of the south, even though I’ve never seen her for quite a long time now, it’s known that saying her name can get you cursed, so we don’t mention it, and she killed a bunch of priests as revenge for being exiled.”

“A person to be feared…”

“Exactly, she was the second person inheriting the cursed version of the Saintess oracle skill, like that twin from the old tale I told you and Ray the other day.”

“A twin thing again?”

“Indeed, since the goddess never said anything about such a skill, we take it as being a good thing meant to help humans, so we made use of it through the generations keeping on believing the prophecy up to this very day.”

“Shouldn’t that Saintess twin be part of you guys?”

“Sadly, I couldn’t find her when that event became known, so didn’t get the chance, even though one of our five dark masters, Balthazar the one holding the highest power between them, believes its best to stay away from her, as it is possible she’s no longer sane due to her class.”

“Becoming insane might be something that will affect me eventually…” I look down sad, and Omar noticing this places his hand on top of my head patting me softly.

“I’ll see if I can find something to help you with the class side effects, thus I’ll be gone for a while, make sure to stay close to that old beast, he’ll make sure to keep you safe.”

“Really!? Thank you so much, Omar, I’ll become even stronger by the time your back!” I make a big smile while staring at him joyfully.

“I’m counting on that, you wouldn’t be able to complete the prophecy otherwise,” he smiles under the mask then disappears from my sight, I feel him pat me a bit more and then I feel the hand departing from the top of my head.