Faust followed Leona out of the castle. Many of the castle’s inhabitants greeted her as they passed through the narrow, bustling streets. ‘She seems to like the attention.’ Faust thought and chuckled. She waved at many of them and even called some by their names.

“I have a place a bit outside of town where I usually practice wrestling, it’s a small open patch of grass in a group of trees. I’m telling you. I might be a woman, but as of now I’m still stronger than you.” She teased him.

“Don’t get any weird thoughts during practice or I'll tell my father.” She added and Faust laughed nervously.

“You might be stronger now, but in a few weeks that will change, mark my words.” He laughed.

‘She’s pretty, but why is she talking about getting funny ideas? Has it happened before? Couldn’t be. Schenk would have murdered that guy… she couldn’t be flirting… no. Probably not.’

He snorted.

“I will focus on learning.” That made her chuckle.

‘What now? Is she not satisfied with that either? What’s with her?’ he couldn’t understand Leona’s intentions.

His reaction left her a bit lost. She didn’t consider that Faust just had his mind elsewhere, not seeing her the way most other boys his age did. She was used to getting stared at. This was new for her.

Of course, Faust knew nothing about her thoughts. She gulped and realized why he didn’t look at her that way after a while. His mind was on training already. She smiled inwardly.

‘He might just be the kind of freak I always wanted as a training partner. Let’s see if he is any talented.’ She giggled and Faust looked at her questioningly, but she just smiled and shook her head.

‘Weird woman.’ Faust concluded but had to admit he was thankful she would teach him.

It felt weird to learn fighting from a woman, but he laughed at himself and decided to throw his pride out of the window.

‘I have to learn how to fight. I have to. The faster the better!’

They arrived at a small group of trees 10 minutes later. They walked another 2 minutes until they reached an open space large enough to wrestle. The ground was soft and dry. Perfect.

“This is it. Let’s get ready, shall we?” Leona exclaimed as she cracked her neck and slowly started to remove her shirt right in front of him.

Faust’s eyes grew wide, and he hurriedly covered his eyes. His face was beet red. ‘Crazy girl! Why would she undress in front of me? Schenk will kill me!’

After a few seconds of silence, Leona laughed out loud. “Faust… what are you doing?” He could hear her laughing sweetly.

“What do you think I’m doing? I’m covering my eyes, so your father won’t hang me off the castle walls!” Faust exclaimed a bit helplessly.

She said nothing, but he could hear her coming closer. He gulped.

‘What is she doing?’

Then he felt her hand on his arm that covered his eyes.

“Why don’t you take a look?” she whispers into his ear. His thoughts spun.

‘What do I do? I can’t…’ the voice of reason tried to argue in his head, but it was drowned by his hormones.

He slowly removed his hand and looked at Leona who stood right before him with a smirk, her hands crossed in front of her chest. She had bandaged her upper body and chest tightly for practice. He could see her flat stomach, perfect shoulders, and collarbone, yet everything indecent was covered.

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“Let's practice.” She said with a telling smirk. Faust’s embarrassed expression quickly turned into a wry smile.

“You're evil. I was ready to sacrifice my life for a peek and I was disappointed.” He put a hand on his chest and dramatically proclaimed.

Leona blinked a few times. She hadn’t expected this kind of reaction. Then she chuckled as she caught him staring.

“Don’t eye me like a hungry lion! We’re here to fight!” she laughed, very satisfied with herself.

Faust shook his head with a grin.

“Let’s start with the practice. Enough fooling around.”

'I never knew she had this playful side to her.' he marveled.

He removed his shirt to not dirty the linen unnecessarily after a moment of hesitation. His upper body looked healthier already. No longer as skinny, yet one could still see he was malnourished.

Then Faust noticed a change in Leona's expression. All her playfulness was gone in a flash. She was in fight mode.

“Have you ever wrestled before?”

“Sometimes, with my father.” He admitted. Then both got into a wrestling stance, bowing forwards, lowering their upper bodies. Faust had to gulp. Leona's eyes could give one chills when she was fighting.

She calmly analyzed his stance and how he reacted if she reached out for him. She easily dodged as he tried to grab her wrist. She then quickly pulled the hand he had reached out for her, and she brought him off balance before tripping him.

Faust was confident he could at least put up a bit of resistance, but he noticed, that she didn’t even use a lot of strength. Her technique was just much more refined, and her speed was ridiculous in his eyes.

‘Her skin is so soft… she looks awesome when she’s fighting.’ He marveled before turning his attention back to practice after catching his thoughts wandering. He needed to focus.

“Your basic stance is decent. But as soon as you act you lose your balance. Look, I'll show you how to do it.” She calmly explained.

In the next 2 hours of practice, she patiently pointed out many mistakes and Faust gave his best to follow her instructions. After applying some of her advice his movements already felt much more natural and stable. They only tried to make each other lose balance and fall, no more no less.

Faust hit the ground dozens of times. Maybe even hundreds of times. Yet not once did he curse. He was focused on the task at hand. Improving. Whenever his mind wandered, he brought it right back to the practice.

‘How come he isn’t complaining? I’ve been throwing him around for hours!’ Leona wondered. His progress was good and amazed her. She had seen many more talented people, but they had come from soldier families. She chuckled at her thoughts.

‘It is his first day. He can make up for a lack of talent with hard work. Just like you.’ She told herself and thought back to when she started. She had been thrown around like a ragdoll, yet she spent a crazy amount of practice to perfect her technique.

By now she was able to take down men slightly heavier and stronger than her, which was already an incredible feat for a woman.

‘If only I could obtain the strength a man could.’ She sighed to herself. She was a hard worker. But hard work could only do so much in the face of biological differences. Weapon combat wasn’t much better.

Faust was focused on the techniques she had shown him.

‘Bend my knees slightly, keep my center of mass low…’ he repeated what he had learned. What frustrated him was, that he sensed that she was still holding back. On the other hand, he was glad she was. He didn’t want to know what she would do with him if she went all out.

After 2 hours they sat on the grass exhaustedly.

“You… You’re a quick learner.” Leona tried to motivate him.

“If you want, I can teach you more often when you’re free.”

Faust smiled. “You’re a good teacher. I would love to learn more from you.”

Faust was surprised and humbled by the incredible prowess she had shown.

‘She must have spent so much time on this. It's incredible she could reach such a level at her age.’

He mustered her body. She was completely ripped, yet elegant. Her muscles showed though it didn’t make her appearance more masculine.

She noticed his stares, raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“I’m starting to get the feeling you only want to practice more often since you get to spend time with me.” She teased.

He smiled drily.

‘I'll give her a taste of her own medicine.’

Faust then leaned back, smiled at her, and with a smug smile replied:

“What if you were right?”

He looked at her face and triumphantly snickered when she blushed and hastily looked away.

“Don’t say things like that if you don’t mean them.” She replied. He could hear a tinge of shyness in her voice and the situation turned awkward. They sat there in silence.

Faust could feel his heart beating. She was Schenk’s daughter. He couldn’t say such things to her, could he? He looked over at her one more time before standing up and walking over to her. He had made a decision.

She looked up at him with an awkward smile. He offered her his hand and she took it, letting him help her up.

As she was about to say something he gathered his courage and stated:

“I meant what I said. I’m looking forward to making our practice a regular thing.” he smiled, and Leona blushed, but he could see a happy smile on her face.