Lord Ota's aggressive gamble, coupled with Katsuie's unflinching and merciless execution of his orders, had completely destroyed the invading army in one fell swoop. Thanks to the death of their leader, all of those fleeing soldiers would keep on running right back to their homes, with no chance of forming up again into a cohesive army. To be honest, I was still a little uncomfortable to be working for such bloodthirsty bosses, but at least I seemed to have hitched my wagon to a rising star. 

Some day, when I had a little more influence, I could try to steer our policies in a more humane direction. For now, though, I had to keep my head down and work on building up social capital for the future. I hoped that, at the very least, my competent performance during the fighting would outweigh any bad odor that might attach to me as a result of my overzealous finish to the fight with the enemy daimyo.

Since the fighting had gone on long into the night, we were given the morning off to rest. I appreciated the chance to restore myself. While I could use magic to put off the need for sleep it wasn't something I enjoyed. Trying to stay active for longer than twenty-four hours at a stretch would drain me quickly.

First thing in the afternoon, I was called in for an audience with Lord Ota. I knelt in front of him the way that I had seen others do. Katsuie sat off to the side, together with several of the sword saints who had fought with us the previous night. For a moment I had the panicky impression that I was on trial, but I pushed the thought away and did my best to appear unruffled.

"The echoes of yesterday's battle will echo across the whole of Yashima," Lord Ota said. "I don't expect any further fighting to take place for months."

I nodded. I understood at least that much about the situation. The daimyo whom I had slain had put together his army on the strength of his control of several provinces. That control had let him wield a great deal of power, but it wouldn't survive his death. For the next little while Lord Ota would be courting his former followers, attempting to claim the spoils as a reward for his actions. Naturally, having only recently joined his forces, I wasn't qualified to take place in such negotiations.

"I would like you to consider training some of my men closer to your standard," he said. "I have narrowed it down to a dozen who are qualified."

I glanced over the watching swordsmen. It seemed I wasn't the only one who had noticed that their performance wasn't up to par. It was a little irritating to be saddled with training newbies, but naturally a polite request from the daimyo wasn't something I could just turn down.

"Of course," I said. "In a matter of months, there should be at least some improvement."

Looking on the bright side, I was being trusted with a task that didn't involve directly trying to kill anybody. This was an important step up from being a front line soldier. If I could prove myself as a teacher, that would naturally lead to being entrusted with other administrative duties in the future.

I was a little worried about the fact that I had never really taught anybody before. Well, I'd taught Kana, but that had been a gradual process over the course of many years. In order to get results in a timeframe of months rather than years, I might have to be a little rough with my trainees. Well, they were tough guys, they'd probably be fine.

Lord Ota and Katsuie exchanged a significant look. I was a little worried that asking for months of training time had been too much, but much to my relief Lord Ota finally nodded his approval.

"I'll be training them in the nearby mountains," I said, "if that's acceptable."

My understanding was that martial arts masters generally did their teaching off in the wilderness. At least, both Mama Matsu's bedtime stories and the movies I'd seen in my previous life had agreed on that point. Also, I wanted to eliminate the possibility of Katsuie sitting in on a lesson and realizing that I was making it all up as I went along.

Lord Ota nodded again. "Be aware that there are bandits in the region."

I bowed. If I wanted my training time, it looked like that I would also need to do a little bit of bandit hunting. That shouldn't be too hard. I didn't think bandits had many magic users among their ranks.

With that, Lord Ota dismissed me and I wandered away, thinking over the task ahead. One thing that really worried me was the fact that my students would have a history of formal, normal training. My own homebrew methods that I had developed through trial and error might not reach the same level of sophistication. If these guys had gone through a higher level process and come out at this low level of competence, I might not be able to raise their performance that much. I could only hope that by acting as a role model and, if necessary, figure of intimidation, I'd be able to squeeze better performance out of them.

Before we headed out on our training trip the next day, my first order of business was to meet my students. I was able to commandeer a few soldiers to help me cut down a tree and cut it down to a training post roughly the height of a person. I buried it in the ground in a small clearing a little ways away from the main army camp and sat down to wait.

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Determining the appointed hour was a little tricky when nobody had a watch to tell precise time, but everybody made it well before noon. I took it as a good sign. I was a little worried about establishing my authority over a group of rough and ready military men. 

I was confident that I could defeat them in an actual fight, of course, given their inept use of magic, but they still stood noticeably taller than me and generally outweighed me by a great deal. Subconsciously, that sort of thing could have a significant effect. I was glad to see that they were at least professional enough to get things started on the right foot.

Looking around the gathered group, I saw that half of the men were from my squad in the battle. That was good. They could at least attest to the others that I knew what I was talking about. Even so, I thought a demonstration was in order.

"Welcome. I'll be your teacher," I said, standing and gesturing at the post. "To start, I'd like to assess your abilities. Please come up one by one and give it your best to strike at one of the painted marks."

I had daubed lines across the most convenient strike zone for a swordsman of average height. Each line was an inch or so apart from the rest, so all together they covered about two feet. If the men couldn't hit a target with that level of precision, then some remedial lessons would be in order.

The men looked at each other for a moment before the first volunteer stepped up. He gave me a formal bow.

"Kinoue Hideyoshi. Thank you for your instruction."

He drew his sword and took up a stance. His magic moved sluggishly as he struck forward with a yell. The blade embedded itself in the wood, perhaps reaching twice the width of the blade in depth. I held back a sigh.

"Thank you," I said, before holding out a charcoal stick. "Please sign your mark."

He took the charcoal and followed my direction, marking his attack point with his name. If this was to serve as a useful record it needed to have more than my memory to back it up.

Now that the ice was broken, the rest of the men came forward one by one. None of them exceeded Hideyoshi's performance, though a couple matched and a few others came close. They were all at least able to sink the blade up to its width into the wood. Nobody broke their sword, either, so they were at least a little bit competent.

"All right," I said. "That's a good start."

I took my sword and swiped it through the trunk just above the top notch and then again just below the bottom notch. A bump with the flat of my sword was enough to topple the upper part of the  post to the ground. I grabbed the section with notches for later reference.

"Everybody pack up and meet back here ready to go first thing tomorrow morning," I said.

Once they'd acknowledged the direction and left, I sat down and began to meditate. I wanted to take a little time to make some lesson plans. I also wanted to indulge in the pure joy of working with magic for the fun of it, rather than any practical purpose. I didn't know if I would have time for that kind of thing once the lessons began. After all, that playful attitude towards magic might well be looked down on by my students. When it came to lessons for soldiers, what really mattered was results.

They started to trickle in shortly after sunrise. While I was meditating, I had extended my magical awareness to cover the whole courtyard. I noted the position of my students, generally skirting the edges of the yard and attempting to avoid bothering me, and continued meditating. Once everybody had arrived I opened my eyes and hopped to my feet.

"Good, you're all here," I said, clapping my hands together. "We'll start with a little warm up."

I kicked the notched section of post up into the air and tucked it under my arm, then set off at a jog. I had a satchel with a change of clothes slung over my other shoulder, but it wasn't nearly enough weight to slow me down. The men fell into step behind me. They were wearing armor and carrying swords as well as their food and possessions, but they were at least able to match my pace to begin with.

I kept up a steady pace as seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours. I could hear the men around me beginning to labor in their breathing, but none of them complained or fell out of line. At least the base level of discipline was acceptable.

The base level of ability, on the other hand, worried me. These guys had barely been able to cut into the post I had set up for them, and now they were struggling to maintain a light jog. I wasn't going anywhere near my top speed for a long run, let alone any kind of short distance sprint, but they were already having to push themselves to keep up.

I sighed and slowed to a walk, taking pity on my charges. I needed to maintain a positive attitude. These were my students, after all. I could push them when it served a larger purpose, but I shouldn't just bully them for the fun of it. 

I had to wonder just what was holding them back. I knew from working with Kana that different people had very different natural abilities when it came to detecting magical power. Between the two of us, my ability had been on a much higher level than hers, but now I had to wonder if it was me who was the outlier between the two of us. If these guys just couldn't feel what they were doing with magic, then it would explain how they could have gone through top tier training and come out of it so inept.

We made camp once the sun set. It was a nice day, so it was mostly just a matter of rolling out our bedding. For this one night it was rice for dinner. I'd start making them catch some meat for our meals starting tomorrow. I had pushed them a bit today, after all, so it would be a good idea to let them rest.

Now that the task was upon me, I was worried about my ability to bring these guys up to snuff. My training methods were mostly designed to produce small incremental gains over a long period of time. To show results in just a three month span I would really have to up the intensity of the exercises.