“I agreed to you training her, I agreed to you taking her away from here.” Archibald said. “I do not remember allowing you to torture her.” he finished icily, causing Lock to finally look up at him from his position sitting on the wooden walkway of the main house, from where one could watch the training yard.

“Torture?” He asked, confused, and quickly looked back to the scene of Kamin clutching the dimiterium shackle tightly in her hands, while trying to avoid Harald's incredibly slow sword swings. Swings using the wooden practice sword naturally, not a real one.

The torture Archibald was referring to was likely the fact that whenever she failed to dodge, Harald would lightly thwack her with the tip of his stick.

She was doing quite well actually. Likely because he'd only recently charged the ring that was fastened onto the wooden sword and thus she was able to 'see' it more clearly. Given previous progressions of the same exercise he expected her performance to drop sharply very soon however, as the ring lost its charge.

“What else would you call it?” Archibald groused and Lock couldn't help but crack a joke.

“Enhanced interrogation tactics?”

He received a glare for his efforts. Accompanied by the words. “You will stop this at once and find a more humane training method.”

“She's been going at it for almost half an hour without a single complaint. Which I find odd considering everyone I've met has commented on her supposedly lacking motivation. Suffice to say, considering she hasn't said anything, I would feel bad to stop here simply because someone else did.” Lock replied and saw Archibald mouth the words 'half-an-hour' out of the corner of his eye.

The father seemed to swallow whatever emotional instability was ailing him for a moment and phrased an oddly polite question. “What exactly is the method you're using?”

“Dimiterium shackles to bring her mana to the lowest possible level, coupled with an electrically charged ring that is meant to shine like a beacon of light in her awareness. The ring slowly loses its charge, making it harder to discern. She will know that she has improved as the time she can dodge the sword for increases.” Lock explained succinctly.

“Has she improved?” Archibald asked.

“We've gone through four sessions. First real one lasted a minute before I called it off, the second one lasted three minutes, third one lasted seven minutes, and this one has been going on for about fifteen minutes now.” Lock said without any sort of pride in the supposed of achievement.

Archibald seemed slightly bitter, but impressed nonetheless. “I will allow this method if she continues to improve.” He said.

Lock bit his tongue from replying that there were countless other variables that made the supposed improvement going on much less impressive.

Instead of simply becoming more aware, the biggest factor in the increasing time was that Kamin was becoming better at dodging and anticipating Harald's simplistic attack patterns.

But Archibald didn't need to know that, and neither did Kamin. While he had yet to see the girl truly demotivated it would be better for her to assume that she was making steady progress. It would make further participation likelier.

A thought suddenly struck him.

“If I may ask.” He started. “How were you attempting to help her train beforehand?” He asked.

“Meditation to concentrate on the skill, while inside the room where we practice our magic.” Was the answer.

Lock refrained from cringing. “I imagine a child would find that method slightly boring, I think mine has potential due to the involvement of the body.”

Archibald remained dubious. “Well, if it fails she will have still spent some time in the fresh air.” He said, before abruptly turning around and leaving.

Lock sighed at the man's back before turning back to the two clowns he'd reluctantly started to call pupils. They had stopped with the exercise while he'd been talking it seemed, Kamin had let go of the shackle and was bent over, hands on her knees. Harald was standing around awkwardly like a muppet.

“Come over here.” Lock shouted, both of them immediately perking up and walking in his direction. More stumbling in the case of Kamin. When they came over Harald continued standing while Kamin sat down beside him with some fumbling. Lock gripped her hand roughly to check her pulse and listened to her breathing as she grew redder and redder in the face. She seemed sufficiently exhausted. “Congratulations, you've held out for almost twenty minutes, and it wasn't even your awareness that gave out, but rather your body.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Kamin smiled in his general direction and made to speak but Lock cut her off. “However the only reason you improved so quickly was because your mastery of the skill was low in the first place.” He said, and the girl closed her mouth with a click, smile slipping slightly.

“I hope you will continue to show the admirable spirit you did right now in future training sessions.” Lock finished.

The smile was back.

Lock turned to Harald, who was frowning and moodily staring into space. “Next time go a bit faster. We'll continue to escalate until the training method becomes unviable due to her physical inability to dodge, rather than an inability of awareness.” He said, and Harald nodded shortly.

“What will we do afterwards?” Kamin suddenly piped up with a question.

To be frank Lock didn't know yet, he'd come up with something when it was time but at the moment he didn't feel like bothering. It was the first day. “Telling you would take away attention from the current exercise. So I'll refrain.” He said instead of admitting that however. She nodded. Lock turned to Harald. “Your turn.” Harald gripped the sword he was still carrying tighter and glared at him, already applying his killing intent.

He suddenly lost it though, and seemed to have an idea. “What if we stick the ring on your sword and keep it charged? That way she can watch.” He said, bringing up a legitimate idea.

Thinking about it for a few seconds he saw no flaws with the idea, but suddenly had one of his own. Making a frowning face he pointed at the oblivious Kamin, at Harald, and made a talking gesture with his mouth.

For all his flaws Harald seemingly picked up on what he wanted perfectly and derisively added. “If the lady feels up to it of course. Wouldn't want to overburden her.”

“I can!” Kamin said, obviously insulted and Lock took her side.

“Of course she can, and should, it’s not like electro sense is a physical skill. It’s a mental one.” He said, feigning an insulted tone. “Dickhead.” He added for personal emphasis.

Kamin gasped at his crass language and Harald rolled his eyes before handing him the ring that had been attached to his sword.

He mouthed something at Lock as he did so.

Something along the lines of 'unt', likely starting with a 'c'.

-/-

After beating up Harald into a bruised mess on the ground again Lock turned his attention back towards his fiancée. She'd watched the entirety of the two hour long mess that was training apparently. There was no real way Lock could check to be honest.

He sat down next to her, saw her twitch her nose, as if smelling something unpleasant, stuck his nose under his armpit, and left to get a bath. “I'll be back in an hour or so, try to think about what I asked you yesterday.” He said as he left.

After some searching around and asking he was directed to a bathhouse, a communal one. Built on top of a hot spring. It was... nice. His ego was fed by the fact that he was by far the most well sculpted male in attendance, although he didn't try to let anyone notice his thoughts. He was suddenly disturbed by a presence dropping itself into the water next to him.

He opened his eyes from where he'd been previously relaxing them and turned to the man who sat down on the underwater stone bench next to him.

“Ino.” He greeted with a nod, and received one in return.

“Heard you've been making progress.” his future brother-in-law replied, to which Lock simply nodded.

“Despite all efforts against it.” He eventually said, and felt more than saw the boy next to him wince.

“You'll forgive my father, Kamin has always been a special sore spot for him.”

“At least he had enough presence of mind to delegate matters pertaining her to someone more suited for the task. Although his attempted interference speaks of a deep inner struggle.”

“That's what I'm here for actually.” Ino said, and Lock averted a bit more of his attention from the effect the hot water was having on his muscles to the wizard. He seemed, tired. His brown hair hung limply off of an exhausted face and his eyebrows were drawn together in worry. He seemed like he was on a one-way-street to an early heart attack to be honest.

“I see.” Was all that he ended up saying instead of commenting on anything that he'd seen.

“I watched your little training session today, although you probably didn't notice. I liked what I saw.” Ino started, before pausing. “Kamin, has been, treated way too much like she'd break from the slightest breeze for the longest time. Which is fine, she's a girl. However, improving one's self on the path of glory requires a certain amount of sacrifice, which she was never allowed.” He sounded weary, and proud. An odd combination.

“You sound like you have personal experience.” Lock decided to comment, to which Ino nodded.

“You know a bit about how our magic works by now. Let's just say that electricity can be a harsh mistress.” He replied.

“A fair one however, I hope.” Lock said.

“Most of the time.” The wizard said with a certain amount of bitterness. “I talked with my father.” He suddenly said, changing topics. “He realizes that he's being more obstructive than constructive with his behaviour, but doesn't want to simply let it go out of his hands. He's afraid that there will be no one else to stand in Kamin's corner if he leaves her at your mercy.”

“Brave of him to admit that, although I feel as if you weren't supposed to tell me that.” Lock interjected with a chuckle.

Ino barked a short laugh. “Perhaps not. Back to the topic at hand however. Well, we were able to reach a compromise. Father doesn't want to leave the situation entirely, but as it turns out, he is not the only one who loves Kamin. There's also me.”

Lock sighed and sank a bit into the water.

“You don't seem very happy about it.” Ino remarked cautiously.

“It's nothing. It just seems to be like I've been attracting hangers-on like a piece of shit attracts flies recently. I was honestly planning on having my adventurer career be a lot more solitary.” Lock said, submerged, and blew some bubbles out of his mouth.

“I don't know if I should be insulted or not, on the one hand you called me a fly, on the hand, you called yourself a piece of shit.” Ino said in an amused tone. “Also, don't call me a hangers-on, I'll be winning your admission to the magic academy in the tournament, have some respect.” He jokingly added.

Lock snorted. “You being able to actually enter the tournament means that I shouldn't respect you, you low-level scrub. Also, seeing as Harald is also participating, I'm not sure how wise of an idea that is.”

“We can make a temporary party, we'll be set up in different brackets, which means we'll only meet each other in the finals. If you want I can forfeit at that point.” Ino casually said.

“Alright. You'll be accompanying me to the academy afterwards as well?” Lock asked, at which he felt the boy sitting next to him shrug.

“We'll see.” He said.

“Hopefully all of us at the end of it.” Lock replied jokingly.

Ino laughed.