Sanctuary
I am enrolled in Cantabridge Academy’s adventurer training course.
It’s not my reason, but others are enrolled in it in order to become stronger.
Adventurers.
They are those who undertake jobs given by the Adventurer’s Guild.
Monster exterminations, collecting materials, escorting, and exploring dungeons are some of their jobs.
They also participate in wars, and take care of small requests.
They’re something like jack of all trades.
Human adventurers have something called classes.
Depending on their class, the weapons and magic they are good with differ.
Thus, when they train they’re divided up and choose what they want to do.
Train with various weapons, train your magic, or do some other research.
Therefore, there really isn’t an opportunity for everyone to train together or fight.
Today is one of those rare opportunities.
Everyone meets in the same place, and shows off the results of their training with a practice battle.
A joint training.
It’s not limited to A class, and people from other classes are also here.
The place we gathered at was like an old arena, with an audience stand attached.
“What is Ashtal going to do?”
Yufilia comes over here.
“I don’t have any plans. Can I just watch?”
“Nn, there are people like that, but it’s your first time doing this since you transferred right? Everyone wants to know your real strength.”
“Even in the last war, no one knows what you did or where you were.”
Holding her ax, Jamie *dosudosu* walks over here.
“I was doing a lot of stuff at various places.”
When I take a crude way of interacting, she narrows her eyes.
“Ah, that’s right. I was even considering you as war potential, but since you were nowhere to found, I went through some hard times.”
“Sorry about that.”
When we were talking about that, Vincent comes with elegant footsteps.
“Ashtal-kun, do you have a minute?”
“What is it?”
“I wanted to know if you’d like to do a practice fight.”
“With you?”
“No way. I meant with my follower.”
Vincent raises both hands, and shows a great reaction.
“I guess so, I don’t really mind.”
“Well then, please sign here.”
I try to sign the paper Vincent handed me.
“Wa,Wait, don’t sign without looking over the conditions! There are lots of different types of practice battles!”
Yufilia butts in, and takes the paper.
“Hi Yufilia, today’s weather is nice, isn’t it?”
“I don’t need your flattery. We’re just adventurers here.”
Yufilia is curt. Looking over the paper, she *wanawana* trembles.
“1 against 20? What is this?”
“He’s a member of the hero party. I thought this amount was just right.”
Vincent shrugs his shoulders.
“There are so many people from A class, there’s no way this is just right!”
“It’s not like they’re going to kill each other. If it gets dangerous, the referee will stop it.”
“Since weapons are OK, you don’t know what’ll happen.”
I grab the shoulder of Yufilia who’s getting frustrated, and stop it.
“Yufilia, it’s alright. I’m barehanded, and I’ll hold back.”
Hearing my words, Yufilia trembles.
“No, she’s worried about you right now. Worried that you’ll be tortured to death by 20 people.”
Amazed, Tiraiza explains to me.
“Ah, it was that.”
I make a bitter smile.
Before, there was nobody who worried about me.
Therefore, I’m not used to cases like this.
“In that case, there’s no need to worry. I’ll be alright.”
“Fufufu……that’s a nice attitude. I’ll see you later.”
Showing a suspicious smile, Vincent left.
Yufilia is explaining to me about practice battles.
There seem to be various conditions, but this time weapons, magic, and anything is free.
Of course, killing is prohibited, but if you get agitated, you don’t know what will happen.
The teacher is the referee, and will stop it if they judge it to be dangerous.
However, there is no guarantee they’ll make it in time.
“Are you really going to be alright?”
Yufilia asks that over and over again.
“He’s tasted that uselessly tough ax before. He won’t die.”
Jamie says while touching her ax.
“That ax wasn’t that tough, was it? I had a hard time repairing it.”
“No, that was because the wall was too hard.”
The other day, that ax broke. Getting scolded by Tiraiza, who repaired it, Jamie gets flustered.
While cheerfully watching that, I remember last night.
The night before the joint training.
In a room in the Dark Temple.
Called by the old man, I enter the room.
“What’s this ring?”
I take a long look at the new ring the old man the old man just handed to me.
“The effect of suppressing your jaki is the same, but this one has the effect of disguising your jaki as ninkijinki to a certain extent.”
When fighting seriously, humans will release ninjinkiki, demons will release maki, and dragons will release ryuuki.
Others are able to sense things such as someone’s amazingness, or race through their ki.
Naturally, the evil gods release jaki.
Jaki is an unknown power to humanity.
Of course, jaki will put the other party into a state of fear.
Then they’ll ask ‘What are you?’ will be asked.
Thus, I normally keep my jaki at 0 through the power of a ring.
Since my ki is at 0, will my appearance, people will think ‘Well, this guy must be human’ and judge me so.
Even more, they’ll think ‘This guy seems weak.’
However, since I can’t release my jaki, that can’t be helped.
“Up until now, it’s just been for a small moment that humans can’t notice. It’d be pretty difficult to live as a human that way, so we secretly developed this.”
The old man speaks carelessly.
“You should use the ring when you release for a few seconds, for a weak release.”
“Weak release?”
“We don’t know Ashtal-sama’s full power, but you should use about 3-5%.”
“Can you adjust it to clear those weaknesses?”
Too weak a force makes it hard to adjust.
“Even 1% is fine. The important part is to release ninkijinki and have everyone think you’re a human.”
“I guess that’s true. I’ll try it out tomorrow.”
“Yes, I’m relieved I barely made it in time for the joint training.”
I put on the ring, and leave the room.
I was staring at the ring.
This is a good opportunity to show my ninki to everyone.
“Is Ashtal here?”
The teacher for the joint training called me out.
Apparently it seems to be my turn.
When I enter the middle of the arena, the surroundings make a huge racket.
“What’s this? Are you planning to take on 20 people as your opponent alone?”
“Will he be alright?”
I hear such a voice from the surroundings.jinki
“Ashtal, is this really okay?”
“Yeah, there’s no problem.”
“What about a weapon, or armor?”
“Unnecessary.”
“Is that so……if you feel so confident, I’m starting the match.”
The teacher confirms with me, and gives the signal to start the battle.
“Begin!”