A Test of Skill II

“So, uh, where are we going, anyways?” Noel looked around in excitement. It was her first time out in the city, after all. A faint sea breeze blew through her hair as I led her through the streets.

“Right now, we’re in the Royal District. It’s the only part of the city that’s aboveground.” I walked with newfound confidence. I just needed to show off her talents as a hero, magic be damned. “I’m taking you to go see a… an acquaintance.”

Outside of the academy, this district contained all of the fancy governing buildings, where each of the various ministers managed the country’s affairs. I led her through a large park on the east edge of the city, overlooking the ocean. It was the only part of the district open to the public, as we passed by some couples and families.

Noel stared fascinated at the rough waters. It was a familiar sight for me, but I figured if her world didn’t have those it would seem pretty exciting.

“First time seeing an ocean?”

“Oh, no. It just… reminds me a bit of home.” There was a melancholic tinge to her voice.

“Oh. Sorry about that.” It had been a full day. It’d make sense for homesickness to start kicking in by now. I thought taking the scenic route and seeing the sights would’ve been nice, but...

“Nah, I haven’t been home for years anyways. Nothing to do with the whole summoning stuff.” She flashed me a smile, probably an attempt to comfort me. It didn’t help much. Even though I didn’t know anything about where she came from, I still felt a twinge of guilt for dredging up bad memories. But it wasn’t my place to pry.

She was unusually quiet for most of the trip, as she continued to stare out into the ocean waves, deep in thought. But before long she perked up again, bouncing along as we finally reached our destination.

We soon arrived at an imposing looking structure with an emblem of two crossed swords hanging over the front entrance. The Royal Military Academy of Fieran was situated on one of the highest overlooks this side of the city. A waste, if you ask me. That sort of view should be something everyone can enjoy.

We made our way inside with not much trouble. There were a few side-eye glances at Noel as she gawked at all the soldiers and fancy decorations inside, but I was still wearing my royal mage robes so no one stopped us. The inside was lavishly decorated, with the walls adorned with antique weaponry, paintings of long dead commanders, and stands of polished armors.

Finally, we arrived at one of the academy’s training facilities. By the sounds of it, the place was empty. Good.

“We’re here.” I say, slamming open the door and striding in. “He’s not here yet, so feel free to make yourself comfortable.” It was a large, spacious room with a great view of the ocean, covered in straw mats for way too sweaty soldiers to swing their swords over and over again. A few racks of training gear and weapons lined the far wall. Racks of training gear and weapons lined the far wall.

“I’m… right here…” I heard a voice grunt out from behind me. There, hanging shirtless above the door frame like a monkey, was the guy we were waiting for. He did a few more crunches before jumping down and greeting us with a smile and wave. “I thought this whole thing was canceled, so I was getting some more training in.”

“Course you were, you damn musclehead.” I sighed. It was always a pain in the ass to deal with him. “Put a shirt on and let's get this over with, Nashir."

“Straight to the point like usual, huh?” He laughed, before extending his arm in greeting to Noel. “So then you’re the lady I’ve been hearing so much about. It’s nice to meetcha. You can call me Nash. I’m an officer around here, which just means I’m here to whip new recruits into shape and organize patrols. But I’m sure my best bud Aster’s already told you all about me!” He winked at me.

Noel jumped up from her seat on the ground, and shook his hand. She gave her own cutesy introduction topped off with a little bow. “Yeah, nice to meet you too! This is actually the first I’ve heard of you, though.”

“Oh, how cold!” He feigned heartbreak, clutching his chest with his hands. “I can’t believe you’d forget to mention lil’ old me.” Before I could react, he slid right next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “I mean, the two of us were practically joined at the hip when we were kids!”

“All I remember is you dragging me around everyday on your little ‘adventures’.” I retorted, wriggling my way out of his grasp. Ugh, I can still remember all the bruises and scratches I got back then.

“Well that’s because you kept holing yourself up in your room all day! I didn’t want you to shrivel up.” He grinned, ruffling my hair. I hated it when he did it. Though, while I didn’t want to admit it, he was too tall for me to really do anything about it. So I just glared at him instead.

“I was busy working on my studies. Something you clearly haven’t done enough.” I scoffed. This was taking forever. “Now then, can we finally get back on track?”

“Alright, alright. Let’s get this started then.” He picked up some robes off a rack, draped one around her body, and threw one to me and Noel. “Put these on. Those clothes don’t really look that great to move around in.”

“Oh, okay!” She chirped, staring at the robe trying to figure out which limb to put through which hole. “So, um, what sort of test is this gonna be? I… don’t think I’m really good at these.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’ll just be testing how well you can handle yourself in a fight.”

“Well…” She stared at her feet for a few moments, a concerned look on her face. But she quickly shook it off and returned to her usual smile. “I haven’t been in too many fights before, but I’ll try my best anyways!” She said, before reaching to pull her top off.

“Woah, what are you doing!?” I shouted, leaping at her and trying to grab her hands. Was she really about to strip right in front of us? She was surprisingly strong as she resisted my attempts to restrain her.

She raised an eyebrow at me, like I was saying something completely incomprehensible. “I’m just changing like he told me to.” She wrenched free of my futile attempts to stop her.

Nash whistled. “Ah, so you have that kind of relationship. I see, I see.”

“Could you quit it with your little comments and help out?”

“Fine, fine. I’ll get in trouble if I let people do indecent stuff in the training halls anyways.” He shrugged, then went to place his hand on her shoulder. “It’s best not to change here. Otherwise, Aster might lose control, y’know. There’s a changing room across the hall you can use.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” She gave me a strange look before walking out of the hall.

“Could you have resolved that without making me out to be some sort of pervert?” I sighed.

“Ha! Come on, be more honest with yourself. You can’t seriously tell me you didn’t feel a single thing there.”

“O-of course not. She’s from a different world you know, and is a bit oblivious about our norms and what’s acceptable to do in public. Sometimes she does something weird, but that’s just part of the job as her summoner.” I said, half trying to convince myself. Purge my mind of everything I saw. She just needed some time to adjust to living here. Nothing more, nothing less. Just ignore how red my cheeks were.

“Yeah, sure buddy. A word of advice though: ladies hate it when their man tries to play dumb.” He had this absolutely smug look on his face. I wanted nothing more than to wipe it off.

“Like you’ve ever had any experience.” I muttered.

Before long Noel returned, beaming as she gave a little twirl to show off her clothes. It was a simple, white cloth robe fastened together in multiple points to cover her entire body, but she had adjusted it by tying the bottom half up so it hung short, exposing most of her legs, and if it were any shorter I would definitely be able to see her-

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat, looking away. “Should we begin, then?”

“Great! Let’s start with a warm up first. Five laps around the building should do nicely.” he broke out into a jog as he gestured for Noel to follow.

"Great. Have fun you two." I sighed. The sooner we get this over with the better.

"Hmm? You're coming too, y'know."

"Yeah, it'll be fun!" Noel beamed, grabbing my hand and yanking it along.

"Wait, wait, I'm not prepared for this sort of thing! I said wait!" I protested, but my words fell to deaf ears. That bastard just laughed at me as I was dragged outside.

But it's fine. I was expecting something like this. He was always dragging me around all over the place when we were kids, and this was no different. It was just a little run, after all. Not like he was asking to spar or anything.

—

“Can you… slow down… a little…” I panted, continuing to stumble forward. My heart was threatening to rip out of my chest. Beads of sweat poured down my face, blurring my vision. How did people willingly subject themselves to this torture?

“...Just one more lap!” I heard a voice call out to me. I could barely see who was in front of me. I reached out, using what energy I had left to surge forward. If I couldn’t finish this little thing, then I would never hear the end of it.

Finally, the torment was over. I flopped on the ground as soon as I stumbled back inside, splaying my body out onto the training room floor. My entire body was covered in a thin layer of sweat, seeping into all of my clothes.

“Man, you really need to get out more.” Nash feigned concern as he looked down at me. He hardly broke a sweat.

“I… feel like… shit…” I gasped out in between pained breaths.

“Come on.” He prodded my sides with his foot. I winced. It felt like he just kicked me in the ribs. “I know your research and all that sorta stuff is important, but you can’t neglect your body.”

I knew he was right, but I would never say it to him.

Noel looked a bit out of breath, but much better than how I fared. She squatted down beside me, taking a few deep breaths. “Phew. I haven’t been this tired in a while!” She smiled, a satisfied look on her face. Even though she seemed genuine, seeing people be happy about subjecting themselves to this torture only rubbed salt in the wound.

“Well, good to see you’re in good physical shape.” Nash patted her roughly on the back, grinning ear to ear at me. Alright, now he was intentionally trying to rub it in. I wanted to curse him, but I couldn’t even muster the strength to stand up. The best I could do was to prop myself against a wall. “Let’s do a few stretches while he catches his breath, shall we?”

After a bit of rest my body started hurting a bit less. Enough to form coherent sentences at least.

“Alright. As you can see, Noel’s in peak physical shape. So can we finally begin the test?” I cleared my throat, interrupting some weird stretches Noel was showing off. I- what muscles are those supposed to even stretch?

“Oh. Right. Um, I’ll try my best!” Noel quickly bounded to attention, looking like a bottle of nerves. I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

The tester sighed. He walked to one of the weapon racks adorning the walls, and pulled a weighty longsword from it. “Fine, let’s skip to the main course.”

“Feel free to take whatever weapon suits your fancy.” He gestured to the walls, filled with racks of weapons of various shapes and sizes.

She nodded. After much deliberation, staring somewhat dumbfounded at all the weaponry, she picked up a small shortsword. “Well, don’t blame me if you get hurt!” She said, giving the weapon a few practice swings. A lump formed in my throat. I didn’t know much about swordplay, but even I could tell she didn’t have any proper swinging form.

“Oh, don’t you worry. These blades are dulled and for practice.” He chuckled. “Besides, you couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”

He paced to the center of the room, where a large circle was marked on the ground in chalk, and instructed Noel to stand on the opposite side of him.

“This test is very simple.” His voice took on a more authoritative tone. Looks like he actually could act official and proper if he felt like it. “Your goal will be to either land a hit on me, or force me outside of this circle. You fail if you leave the circle yourself, or are unable to continue fighting.” He sighed, and his voice softened. “Now, I did say earlier that these blades are for practice, but they still hurt like hell. Feel free to drop out whenever you’d like. There’s no shame in it.”

“You should worry more about yourself!” Noel beamed, suddenly filled with confidence. “I thought this test would be harder, but this is easy peasy!” She spun around her sword in a fancy flourish.

“Too much confidence isn’t good for you, y’know.” He took a deep breath, then readied himself in a low stance, dragging his sword behind him. Both hands were placed on its hilt, primed to slash upwards at a moment’s notice. “We’ll begin once you step inside the circle. Whenever you’re ready.”

Noel stood at the very precipice. As if anticipating something. The blade seemed light in her hand. Even though she had no idea how to hold a sword. Even though it was obvious she had no experience in combat. Even though…

She moved as if her blade was an extension of herself. As if it was an old friend she had finally reunited with after so long. Stepping into the ring as if this was just an ordinary occurrence.

Then, before I even had a chance to breathe, their blades crossed.