The bane of my existence, throughout all of my time living in this world, has been Head Maid Sophie’s swordsmanship training.

For the past four years, five days a week, for five hours straight, I’ve been subjected to the most rigorous training I have ever done.

Sophie starts by having Esther wake me at four in the morning, and sprinting two laps around the border of the entire kingdom, which is fuckin huge by the way. Throughout the entire run, I have weights strapped to me, and perhaps the worst part is that I’m forbidden to use any recovery magic during the run.

The run was just the warmup by the way. After that, she has me thoroughly run attack and defense drills with both the sword, the dagger, and hand to hand, even though I’ve already memorized the techniques already.

After drills, I’m made to do intense body training involving multiple sets of sit ups, crunches, side crunches, planks, push ups, and burpees.

After all of this, it’s two more laps around the castle.

And all of this is before six, when class starts.

The twins are always completely exhausted after Sophie's training, so they usually ask me to cast advanced recovery magic on them before class, which I happily oblige.

After class, it’s magic lessons with Everett, who is looking brighter and brighter everyday.

Well, I suppose it’s only natural for him to be this bright considering he just got married to Liara about a month ago.

The wedding was beautiful. The attendance of the event was massive, it really shocked me how popular the two were in the kingdom. By the way, the twins and I attended as well, Sylvia surprisingly deciding to tag along with me.

Anyway, after Everett’s magic lessons, it’s back to Sophia’s boot camp, where we simply practice technique and occasionally spar.

I slash my dagger downward with one hand, then thrust and backstep. I repeat this motion several times to ingrain the combination into my head.

I don’t really have any enthusiasm in swordsmanship to be completely honest. My skill in the art is around rank D, even though I constantly drill combinations.That’s probably due to my disinterest in the art.

At first, I was excited to train my dagger and teleport simultaneously. However, Sophie strictly forbids magic to be involved in anything related to blades in her class, much to my dismay.

“Raine!” Cassie jogged over to me enthusiastically wearing a flexible black training suit and jacket with a sword strapped to her back and a dagger strapped to her left calf.

“What is it Cassie?” I stop the combination mid slash and turn my attention to her.

“Well, you know,” She fidgets a bit while looking down, “As you know, Casey and I just attended the geas ceremony, and we finally got our geas…”

She beats around the bush with a nervous expression.

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Speaking of the geas ceremony, the twins recently got their geas’ and had their aura fully awakened, allowing them to fully utilize their magic capabilities. I went with them considering I’ll be attending within the next two years.

The geas ceremony is held every two years and is for nobles that have both reached age ten and completed at least four years of combat training. That way, the noble’s body is well off enough to handle the strain from unlocking your aura while also having the skills to wield your geas.

“So… uh, did you maybe want to spar me while I use my geas?” Cassie asks meekly, in contrast to her usual tough girl attitude.

“W-well…” I hesitate for a moment, cause I know how dangerous a geas can be, however, I quickly brush it off considering it’s Cassie, “Yeah. No problem.”

Together, we move to an open area within the gym to spar, Casey, Esther, and two other maids all watch along expectantly.

Sophie then moves over to us and casts a shield on both of us, “Alright Young Masters, the rules for the spar are simple. No use of magic is allowed. You may only use your weapons and your skill. Second, you will continue until one of you either loses consciousness or surrenders. Am I understood?”

Cassie and I nod simultaneously.

The restriction on magic is a bit concerning, however, I should be fine. I’m thinking I should’ve pulled a weapon from ‘War God’s Perfect Arsenal’ to use instead of this simple dagger, but oh well.

Cassie draws a long, one-handed sword from a sheath on her back and faces it toward me, her face one of confidence as she gets into her stance.

I smile as I hold out my dagger and get into my stance.

“Begin!” Sophie shouts.

Cassie shoots forward with blistering speed, a blast could be heard as she moved.

A split second later, she’s right in front of my eyes, slashing her sword downward in a fluid and controlled motion.

I swiftly sidestep to her left side before pivoting around her and slashing at her neck, which she easily steps back and leans away from while twisting her sword to slash at me.

Unable to step back, I duck under the slash. Anticipating this, Cassie attempts to throw a sidekick, however, her leg locks up, causing her to grip it in pain.

“Ow, cramps out of nowhere?” She looks confused.

That must be ‘Perfect Causality’ in effect.

I quickly take the opportunity to rush forward and take the left side of Cassie while she’s off guard and raise my dagger for a slash attack.

Her eyes widen at my movement and she quickly moves to guard against my dagger, however, I switch my attack to a leg sweep at the last moment.

My leg stops when it meets hers, it feels like I just kicked a metal pole.

With a slightly pained expression, look to see where I kicked to find my shin pressed against her sheathed dagger.

She gives me a small smirk as she quickly draws the dagger faster than my eyes could see and stabs it toward my chest, sending me flying far backwards.

I flip in the air and roughly land on my feet, gripping the area where she stabbed me.

Cassie then stands up with both her weapons drawn.

I see, she drew her second geas at the last moment. How sneaky.

It was a fact I had forgotten, but members of the royal family are permitted to choose two geas’ from the vault, unlike other nobles.

I slowly stand up, thankfully, the shield Sophie casted protected my chest from getting a hole blasted through it.

Cassie, even faster than before, rushed toward me and thrusted her sword at me. I try to sidestep to her left, but she has her leg in the way, causing me to stumble a bit as I’m moving. While I’m off balance, Sophie attempts to slash at me with her dagger, but I bring mine to meet hers.

I use my dagger to deflect hers and thrust it toward her neck, however, she twists her body to the side, avoiding the strike and thrusting her sword to my neck to counter. I move my head slightly, causing it to miss.

Cassie then pulls the sword back and brings the dagger forward, a small shockwave shoots from it pushing me back and disorienting me slightly. She then jumps forward with even more speed and brings her sword to my neck.

“It’s my loss.” I raise my hands and drop the dagger.

“Eh?” Cassie looks up surprised, pulling her sword from my neck, “Really?”

I nod in confirmation.

“Yayyy!” Cassie drops her weapons and jumps up in joy.

My pride has been hurt a little. My big sister just whooped my ass, this is terrible. The humiliation. Well, it’s really not that bad, Cassie was literally the best swordswoman in the novel, plus, peeking at her stats, her swordsmanship is rank A already. My rank D swordsmanship would’ve never stood a chance, even without her second geas.

“Still…” I sigh and look down.”

Noticing my downcast mood, Cassie stops celebrating and moves closer to me.

She places a hand on my head and smiles, “It’s okay, you’ll beat me someday, Raine.”

For some reason, instead of cheering me up, that made me incredibly angry. I hold in my anger and return a smile to Cassie.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I reply, “I’ll work harder from now on.”

She removes her hand from my head and goes to pick up her two geas’. I sheath my dagger and sigh.

I’m gonna take swordsmanship more seriously from now on.