Effort Won’t Fail Me —I Was Not Rewarded In My Previous Life, But I Was Reincarnated In A Different World And Obtained An Ability That Will Always Reward My Effort— V1: Chapter 3 Part 2 – A Blacksmith’s Daughter

Today, I also thought of going to the city immediately. There was also the promise with May, and above all, I still didn’t know anything about the city myself after all.

This would be today’s plan.

First, training at home in the morning; I couldn’t miss training with dad, and I also would need to study with a private tutor for education.

And then to the castle town in the afternoon; just as I would be receiving education as a noble, May would be training to be a blacksmith in the morning. We couldn’t go play all day long with one another.

Today, I was thinking of having May to show me around the city. I practically never had gone outside of home until yesterday, and I figured May would be more knowledgeable about the city than I was.

Well, it’d be a 10-year old kid showing me around in the end, so it looked like it’d be just slightly better than ‘Hajimete no Otsukai,’¹ though…

Anyway, the morning would be hectic. So, I’d like to finish my training quickly and enjoy my plans for the afternoon.

“RAAAARRGH!!”

“Oh, you got the spirit there. You wanna show a girl your cool side?”

“THERE’S NO GIRL HEEEEERE!!!”

No matter how many times I struck, It’d either be dodged, or caught without even budging in the slightest. I couldn’t imagine defeating dad at all. Just, the heck is going on? Is he really human?

Speaking of what I was doing right now, it was swordsmanship training with dad. A bit different from the all-out mock battle of a few days ago, it was a training of a secret martial art called ‘North General Godly Martial Art Style,’ which had been handed down in our House of Margrave Fahrenheit.

It seemed there were two kinds of North General Godly Martial Art Style: ‘surface’ and ‘undersurface.’ Right now, the training was the ‘surface,’ where the main focus was on the form, body movement, and fundamental supporting magic such as body strengthening magic. As for the ‘undersurface,’ not even documents had been left behind, and dad wouldn’t tell me about it. Probably it meant it was still too early for me. I was secretly suspecting that the secret behind dad’s abnormal strength was lying behind this ‘undersurface.’

Returning to the topic, the training of the North General Godly Martial Art Style was extremely harsh even for the ‘surface.’ Without even a time to catch a breath, I had to mimic and learn the movements of dad who was coming to attack me all the while sending out counterattacks somehow.

Our house’s training was in the form of actual combat. I wasn’t detailedly and thoroughly taught the movements of the form. The basic principle was to let the body learn it all in battle.Of course I was given advice during the battle, though.

“RAAARAARAARAAH!!”

“Hold back from unnecessary yelling. It’s gonna drain your stamina.”

While very easily fending off my continuous thrusts, dad caught my wooden sword with his own in a mysterious twisting movement. Just how did you do that!?

“Damn!”

My wooden sword got caught, so now I became barehanded. However, North General Godly Martial Art Style was a highly varied and comprehensive real combat martial art. Not only swordsmanship and magic swordsmanship, but also archery, hand-to-hand combat, and even a vast array of magic for combat.

“Hmmph!”

It was a no-motion fist-throw technique in the North General Godly Martial Art Style, Flicker; in the state of having applied non-attribute magic: Body Strengthening, accelerating the arm with also non-attribute magic: Psychokinesis.

Currently, among the offensive techniques in North General Godly Martial Art Style, this was the one I was best at. This technique itself had a high degree of difficulty to learn, but not that difficult as long as you got a good control over your mana, and it was very easy for me as I’d spent my time earnestly in mana control since birth. Well, on the flip side, it’d be very difficult to learn if you didn’t have control over your mana, though.

So, even though there were similar techniques in the world in general, their spread wasn’t that high. Even if you could imitate the concept, putting it into practice would still be hard. I’d also heard that it was feared as a ‘first-sight killer’ at matches between martial art schools and such.

But even then, that was in matches between martial art schools; in a match between fellow students, and between a master and student in addition to that, the story would be completely different.

“Looks like your Flicker has considerably improved, but it’s a technique to catch an opponent off-guard, or used in combination with a feint. It’ll get counter-measured immediately if you use it wildly like this.”

The master, dad, very easily caught my Flicker I was proud of having a fairly high degree of proficiency, and sent back a Flicker to boot. In addition, to send a finishing blow at me who had taken the return Flicker and broken my posture, he fixed me mid-air with Anchor, a magic derived from the non-attribute magic: Psychokinesis, and sent Crucify, a technique that would hit the opponent with all of damaging energy. Relentless.

“MMRAAAARRGH! BARRIER!!”

Of course, there was no magic such as Barrier. This was a non-attribute magic with a difficulty of C-rank that would create a mana enclosing wall to protect from enemy’s attacks called Shield. It was just me calling it that way. It was amusing because the ‘Barrier!!’-tone sounded like something out of elementary school. All the more so since it would actually put up a barrier.

⸻BAAAAMMM!⸻and then I was blown far backwards with a sound that shouldn’t be coming from a 10-year old kid. No matter how many Shield I put up and how much Body Strengthening I applied, I still did think it was dangerous, though.

There was only one rule in this training. ‘Don’t use anything except techniques from North General Godly Martial Art Style.’ Using techniques other than from the style might turn this into combat training, but probably wouldn’t become training for North General Godly Martial Art Style. So naturally, I couldn’t use my forte, inherent magic: Shock.

If I were to use Shock, I believed it’d turn into a slightly better match, but well, I also fully understood the importance of North General Godly Martial Art Style, so I wouldn’t complain. Well in fact, dad, who’d mastered North General Godly Martial Art Style, was stronger than Shock after all.

“That hurt…”

“Hmm, I attacked reasonably seriously, but only a graze, huh. Not bad.”

Although I somehow managed to get by with only grazes thanks to me giving my all into defense, I’d undoubtedly suffer serious injury if my timing had been even just a little off. Geez, a noble’s education is indeed rough with daily training so hard like this.

That said, everyday little by little, I got the confidence that I was definitely getting stronger, so my morale wouldn’t be diminished; a huge difference from my previous life, where I essentially hadn’t got rewarded no matter how much effort I’d put in.

“Looks like it’s almost noon. Let’s wrap it here,” dad said and released his posture as the combat had reached a stopping point. The tense air also relaxed at the same time, and I flopped onto the ground with a thud.

“Ugh, so hot.”

“Don’t complain. Also, there’s this much difference now, but you’re definitely stronger than I was when I was your age. Eberhard, you’re more talented than I am by far.”

“Hnng, I’m not sure.”

“It’s me the father saying it so I’m sure. You’re a genius at giving effort.”

Genius at giving effort. I couldn’t have said it better myself. What hadn’t been rewarded in my previous life, I could feel it was being firmly rewarded in this life.

“But you still have ways to go with Body Strengthening. Your Psychokinesis is also slow. Far from being ‘first-sight killer,’ with that much it’ll get seen through at first sight and get countered, you know?”

“Ugh… I’m troubled if you expect that much from a 10-year old kid.”

“I’m saying it because you’re stronger than a 10-year old kid,” so dad said, but his expression was very bright. He must be happy that his son got good prospects. I’d never had any expectations from my parents in my previous life, so I felt a little embarrassed.

“Alright, let’s go back, wash the sweat in the bath, and have lunch. You’re gonna go play in the afternoon, right? Let’s get going.”

“Okay.”

Getting into the bath with dad was also quite enjoyable. Fellow men sure got to have hanging out naked.

＊

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Chapter 3 Part 1

ToC

Chapter 3 Part 3

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TL notes:

^1. A variety show/picture book about a documentary-style portrayal of the struggles of children who, for the first time in their lives, take on the challenge of going on an “errand” by themselves.

Other note:

Some of you might be wondering why so long and so few words; the answer is simple, I’ve been busy

Playing

a game

haha

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