Is this what they called ‘Show, don’t tell’?

I can’t say I like seeing my headless body falling on ground.

When my head reappeared on top of my body with turquoise particles, I shook my head and put my hand on my neck. It hurt like hell.

“Now do you understand why you should not be afraid, my lord?”

“I already know I shouldn't be afraid!”

“But you are still afraid.”

“Because it hurts!

Also, you are stronger than me, you are faster than me and you're more experienced than me. Not to mention you're five times bigger than me.

Why do you use steel while I use wood?

Where is the balance?”

Nazir plunged the steel long sword into the earth and looked around at the field of flowers around us. It was early morning and slightly cloudy. So, with his words, it was a great day for training. And I was a brat in the middle of my seventh year, hadn't even learned how to do magic.

“It doesn't make much difference that I'm five times your size, my lord. If there is a disadvantage, there is an advantage, your advantage is that you're agile and… durable.

What was our rule? If you can hit me once, you win, and am I not the biggest target here?

And about the steel, your immortality gives you an advantage that noone else can have, both in this training and in the future. I believe that we can turn you into a really great warrior in as little as 5 years by killing you every time you make a mistake.

And about the wooden sword, unlike you, I can get hurt and more importantly, there is no way you can lift a steel sword.”

I threw my head back and rolled my eyes.

“This is not fair.”

“Life is not fair, my lord.

And by the way, even if you don't put it into words, what's going through your mind is true.

It is impossible for you to defeat me.”

“Then how will I-!?”

Ooh…

As Nazir was raising his sword, I remembered a small point that I had not noticed before.

I didn't have to beat him, the rule was simple, if I could hit him once, I won. In all my previous attempts I've tried things like running around him or throwing my sword, but I've always failed. I still couldn't use magic , but I was right on top of one of the elements that can really help me. If there was no way I could beat him in a fair fight, I shouldn't have fought fair. After all, I didn’t need to beat him, I need to 'win'.

Before I got up, I slowly filled my left hand with some dirt. I stood up and pointed my sword at him, then straightened my shoulders and took the one-handed stance he had shown me. One of my legs was forward and my left hand was close to my chest.

“My lord, as I said before, if you don't have a shield, it is better to hold your sword with both hands and I've shown you that stance in case you want to use a rapier in the future.”

“I can't beat you in a battle of strength anyways, I want to try this.”

He sighed, “Alright.”

After his words, he grabbed his sword with one hand too and started to approach me.

“One, one, two, three.” As Nazir swung his sword swiftly, he was saying the numbers like we had practiced before, so that I could defend myself more easily. One meant the right side, he was going to attack either my right shoulder or my right arm or my right hand. Two meant the left side, and the three meant my stomach and chest. But I had to figure out exactly where the attack would come at.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

This time when he attacked, he swung his sword first at my right arm, then at my right shoulder, then diagonally at my left arm and finally at my stomach. I deflected them all and dodged the attack on my stomach, swung the sword at his arm but Nazir said, "One, three," as he parried my attack and swung his sword at my chest.

What I was going to do next was going to hurt like hell, but it was the only thing I could do if I wanted to win.

I purposely did not avoid the sword that was coming at my chest, and as it pierced me, with incredible pain I threw the dirt in my hand in his eyes. As Nazir backed away in surprise, I swung my wooden sword at his arm and...

I hit him… I really hit him.

Nazir raised his left hand and took two steps away and as he wiped his eye I asked him, "Are you okay?" Nazir chuckled at my question and looked where I had hit him.

“Yes, I'm fine my lord, but next time, strike somewhere fatal.”

“I don't think I can reach your neck.”

After the wound on my chest healed, I put my hand there. The pain was gone. It was really weird. If I had gotten a wound like that before, I would definitely be dead. Even if I didn't die, it would take years for the wound to heal, or maybe it wouldn't heal at all, and I would be crippled. It was going to take me a while to get used to this.

I shook my head slightly to clear it and looked at the wooden sword in my hand. All jokes aside, I was actually training with a sword, if I did something like this in my old world, maybe I could have fun with my close friends, but it would be a completely awkward sight for people looking from the outside.

Anyway, now I had something to do besides hiding in corners and scaring my mom.

I raised my head and looked at Nazir, he was obviously restricting himself so he could train with me. Because he was much taller than me, whenever he came close to me, he would put some distance between us so that we could clash swords as if it were a real battle.

“Are we going to continue?” After looking at the sky, I asked Nazir and he shook his head.

“I think maids are starting to prepare breakfast,” he looked behind me and when I turned around I realized that a maid was passing by. That was Olga. She was wearing the long cream-colored dress that all maids wore, and her long brown hair was tied up in a bun. As we were walking home, Nazir called out to her, she turned and came to us.

“Can you prepare the lord's bath?”

Olga nodded and held out her hand to me and I handed my sword to Nazir and started to follow Olga. I was still not used to being bathed by someone, but my mom won't let me do it by myself, so there wasn’t much I can do and there was no need to act like a rebellious teenager too.

“Altevia.”

As I tiredly walked home, I paused when I heard a charming voice. I looked back, and stared at this woman who seemed to get more and more beautiful every time I saw her. The woman whose voice I heard was Lady Eralith.

Eralith was a beautiful woman, that's the first and most important thing I can say about her. Her long blonde hair was loose as usual and this time, I think because the weather is a bit cold, instead of wearing one of her long thin dresses, she was wearing long brown trousers and long boots and a white thin shirt and a brown coat on top. And I have to say that these clothes suited her better than her thin dresses.

Eralith took quick steps to my side, then leaned over and caressed my cheek.

“You've grown so much!”

Sometimes I liked being a child... Before I didn't have a problem talking to women, I had a problem talking to all people. I don't like to chat with people, but I'm not an animal, when in work or someone shows interest in me and wants to talk, I try to have a conversation.

And I loved talking to Eralith, she was a really easygoing and sweet person.

I looked at Eralith's face and after meeting her turquoise eyes, my gaze shifted to her hair, a little black mixed in with her naturally blond hair.

“You dyed your hair?”

“Have you noticed?”

Eralith stroked my cheek once more and then sat up “How is it?”

I nodded and said, "I think whatever you do will look good on you because you're beautiful," and Eralith looked at me with a smirk, “You're becoming very dangerous.”

When she finished, she turned around and waved to Nazir, who merely nodded and walked away to leave the swords in the area at the edge of the training ground.

As I looked at Eralith in silence, Eralith said "May I?" and reached for my hand. I looked at Olga once, then Olga walked away and I took Eralith's hand.

“Looks like you've started the trainings,” said Eralith as we walked home.

“Yes, and I'm sweaty, I need to take a shower.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“If you want to.”

“I’m pretty sure there are lots of girls who’d want to do lots of things with you, if you weren't too young for me I might consider it, but… I don't want to anger your mama.” After she told me these things, she winked at me and I said, "You can do lots of things to me, I won't tell mama."

Eralith paused for a moment and then laughed, "Look at this little monster!" She chuckled as she played with my hair and tickled me briefly.

"So, what kind of weapon do you want to use? You were practicing with a sword just now, but I wanted to ask."

I raised my head slowly and looked up at the clouds. What kind of weapon did I want to use? Actually, I've never thought about that before. In almost every medieval themed game, I've played with broadsword and shield, classic but fun. Though, I was leaving this duo whenever I found a magical greatsword. Ah, I wish I could find a moonlight greatsword. Especially something like the one in the Bloodborne.

Actually even if I find it now, I didn’t think I can be able to lift it before I became 16 or something, but I could hang it on my wall.

If I think realistically, spears has always been the easiest and best weapons in history or maybe I could try to be a little different and use a mace, but I don’t know...

A scythe maybe? No, too anime.

Maybe in twenty years or so I would use a halberd, but I think I wanted to use the good old longsword.

“I haven't decided yet.”

“What about the element?”

Right, I had to think about that too… In this world, anyone who decided to master magic could use all the elements, but they usually focused on 1 or 2 elements they chose. This was something they called elemental mastery. When you started practicing on an element, your mana started to merge with that element and away from the others.

“I think it's the air.”

“A good choice, but why?”

“No particular reason.”

As you could guess, fire was the most popular element, and since this world didn’t have a periodic table like ours, I assumed they weren’t very knowledgeable about things like oxygen. I thought I could use that to my advantage.

It was also an element I could protect myself with, and it was pretty versatile.

“Which element are you using? I know you're a sorcerer, but I've never seen you fight,” When I turned to Eralith and asked her this, she looked at me with a smile.

“Lightning.”

“Lightning? I'm curious, how do you practice that?

I read an encyclopedia about the elements and magic-”

“Encyclopedia?” She raised one eyebrow and looked at me with a funny smile.

“Yes, the encyclopedia talked about elements like fire, water, earth, air, lightning, ice, light, and some special magics like telepathy, telekinesis and time.

There were also 2 different ways of practicing: understanding and imagining. But no matter how much I try both of these methods, I can't use them.”

Eralith chuckled “It is almost impossible to use both methods without someone showing you how to feel and use your mana first, and children are not usually taught how to cast spells because of the imagination method you mentioned yourself.

You can cry all you want, but at this age your imagination is really dangerous.

But don't worry, they will probably start teaching you next year.”

I sighed. I thought maybe she'd show me, but she was much more responsible than she looks.

We walked for a very short time and then we entered the house and saw my parents in the hallway. My mother was surprised for a moment when she saw Eralith, but she came to us without saying anything.

They started to have their usual daily conversation and then mother invited Eralith for breakfast and we sat at the same table. We were in what I would call the dining room of the house, there was a long table in the center of the room, glass wall with a view of the sea on the right side and pictures on the other walls. The room didn't have a lot of furniture.

There was nothing much different at breakfast, almost every day there were tomatoes, 2 types of cheese, eggs, milk for me and tea or coffee for my parents. One thing I liked about this world was that they called coffee 'Kafe' and although the taste of kafe was very similar to the one in my old world, the color was purple.

Eralith got kafe, as did my parents, and I got milk.