Black Haired King

Chapter 13 - Sword Styles

I draw the sword that I got from Helen-san, the blade is a bit shorter than the one I got from mother, but even then it"s still around 80cm long. It"s been awhile since I"ve last held a sword, I can"t help but show it on my face. (TL: It"s about an inch longer than a standard knight sword, the double edged ones)

「What, are you that happy to be holding a sword again?」

「Yes, The first and last thing I got from my mother was a sword. After that, I tried self learning, I was happily swinging the sword daily.」

After saying such, I swing my sword vertically. Every time I swung the sword, it would release a *Shun Shun* sound, cutting through the air felt so nice!

「Mmm, There"s no hesitation, it"s a good swing. With this, teaching you should be worthwhile. To start off with, I"ll teach you about the different sword styles on this continent. You can divide the swordsmanship on this continent among 3 different sword styles. 1. Fierce Flame Style, this school doesn"t care for defending, it"s the type of style that focuses only on pushing through and cutting everything before you down.」 (Retsuen-ryu)

While saying that, Mistrea-san lifts her sword above her head, and swings down in one breath.

*Boom*! *Rumble*!

And so, the ground exploded. ……Eh? Just when I thought the ground exploded, a sword wave dozens of meters long gouged out the ground. T-This is kenjutsu?

「Well, it wouldn"t be this extreme. At best, it would leave a 1 meter deep crater, and release a 10 meter long sword wave. 」 (think getsuga tensho, or wind scar from inuyasha)

No no, even that is amazing.

「Also, this is the sword style that Helen uses, remember that.」

When I was thinking Ehh?!, I look over at Helen-san

「W-What, is it badthat I use this sword art?」

「N-Nope, nothing bad at all.」

True, everyone has their own affinities. Still, being able to throw out a sword wave huh. That sounds so cool. I want to try and throw out a sword wave. I want to swing down my sword, release a sword wave and cut down my enemies. Mmm, that"s good.

「On this continent now, this is the sword style with the most students. The 2nd sword style is Whirlwind Style. Compared to Fierce Flame Style, this one lacks power in comparison, but it"s widely known for it"s agility. Well, you can think of it as them placing a priority on speed.」

Mistrea-san draws back her right hand that was on her sword, and pointed her left hand towards me, as if she was going to use a bow. …..

「*fwoosh*」 (teleporting/moving really fast sfx)

Right when I was thinking that, Mistrea-san instantly appeared in front of me, stabbing forward with extreme speed. *shing*！The sound of the sword piercing through the air comes from near my left ear.

………Drops of cold sweat slowly flow down my body. It was so fast I couldn"t even see it. That"s too amazing. Then, Mistrea-san goes back as if nothing had just happened. Please say something.

Still, using your speed to toy with your enemies, defeating them by making them drop their guard doesn"t sound too bad either. While my enemy might be able to throw out 1 attack, during the same amount of time I"ll be able to throw out innumerable amounts of attacks at them, that doesn"t sound half bad?

「The last one is Bright Water Current Style. This style focuses primarily on defensiveness, and it would be very rare for you to actually attack yourself. Basically, you"d wait for your opponent to attack you, and then reflect their attack back at them. Helen, attack me.」

「Yes, Obaba-sama」

Helen-san lowers her center of gravity and draws her sword, then gets in an overhead stance.

「Haaaa!」

Helen-san slashes towards Mistrea-san, despite releasing such a powerful strike, she still wore a calm expression. Helen-san continued to attack repeatedly but, let alone hitting her, I don"t even see so much as a scratch on Mistrea-san.

Claang!

Helen-san"s sword was repelled. Before I realized it, Mistrea-san"s sword was pointed at Helen-san"s throat.

「This is the Bright Water Current Style. You focus on warding off enemy attacks, then look for an opening and counter attack. It sounds simple, but in reality it"s actually quite difficult. Because of that, it"s the style with the least users. 」

Ohh, This seems to be a difficult to use technique. Warding off an enemies attacks isn"t something that"s easily done, Receiving attacks is simply a defensive technique, it"s almost impossible to avoid everything.

You try to drain your opponent, all the while making use of their attacks you ward off to counter attack. True, it does seem difficult.

「Fierce Flames of Aggression Style, Speed of Whirlwind Style, Protection of the Bright Water Current Style. These are the greatest sword styles on this continent, Any other sword styles that appeared after are simply derivations of these.」

While saying that, Mistrea-san has a displeased look on her face. Is something wrong?

「What"s wrong, Mistrea-san?」

「Nn? Ah, just something small. Before, any style would properly teach cloaking, but lately, they haven"t been teaching it in detail. You also knew nothing about cloaking, but knew how to do body strengthening, right Redius?」

Since Mistrea-san asked, I nodded. True, when I was learning magic from elder sister, I didn"t hear the word cloaking even a single time.

The only thing I learned from her about this was that by releasing mana around my body, my bodies physical abilities would rise. After that, I learned that if you increased the amount of mana released, your physical abilities would rise along with the increase.

「The reason is because learning cloaking is difficult. At most, it would only take a week to learn magic armor, what everyone calls body strengthening. From there, learning something like magic fist wouldn"t even be kenjutsu anymore.」

If you just learned that, you"d be able to become much stronger, is what she"s saying.

「Then, what are the different styles teaching now?」

「The different styles are now teaching elemental magic.」

Elemental magic? What exactly does she mean?

「For example, If you"re using Fierce Flames Style, you could wrap yourself in flames instead of magic amor, a so called flame enchant.」

While saying that, Mistrea-san performs this so called flame enchant. When she does so, flames sprout out of her sword. After that, she slices with her sword and *boom*, the ground explodes. I see…..

「In this case, learning magic is a lot faster, see?」

「I see, well, since I can"t use magic, this doesn"t matter much to me.」

Instead of that, please quickly teach me various things. I still don"t know which style would be best suited for me, but learning any of them would be good for me.

「That"s true. To Redius, this has nothing to do with you huh. Later, after you learn cloaking, mana consumption is a lot less in comparison to enchanting, and it"s activation speed is also superior.」

It uses less mana huh. True, that does seem important, After all, your mana reserves would go down when you use it. If you use it, the limit to your mana capacity will go up, but there"s still a limit to that.

Elder sister told me that if you go above your limits, you"ll fall unconscious.

It"s activation speed is also faster than enchanting, isn"t it obviously advantageous during battle?

「When comparing it to enchanting, how big of a difference is it exactly?」

「In terms of mana consumption, it uses around half as much as enchanting does. Activation speed is also around that much. The reason being, Cloaking, Magic armament, simply spreads your mana over your body, while enchanting requires activating a magic spell to do the same, and you would have to do it another time if you"re using a weapon.」

Hmm, I see. I feel like that will be important in the future, so I"ll remember it. Memo memo….

「Despite that, the reason why they teach it is obviously because it"s easier to learn.」

True, when Mistrea-san wrapped her sword in flames earlier, it was really cool. If I was able to use magic, I"d definitely want to learn enchanting. Still, cloaking interests me more for now.

「So, let"s move forward with teaching you a style, redius. Is there any specific style you"d like to learn? I have full mastery over all styles, so I could teach you any of them.」

……Huh? She said it so simply but, isn"t that supposed to be a really amazing thing? Fully mastering all styles? I"m sure if she opened up her own dojo, there would be a bunch of people gathering up.

「Obaba-sama"s amazing right! She"s mastered all 3 styles, completed various requests as an adventurer, and nowadays she"s referred to as the 『Magic Sword King』!」

Helen-san came back from retrieving the sword that was repelled, puffing her chest up with pride. True, If I remember properly, when I first met Helen-san, she told me this was the Magic Sword King Mistrea-san"s home.

Still, if she"s able to teach me any style…

「In that case, the style I want to learn is……」