Chapter 24 – Back to Home (5)

It was very early in the morning, but Aleen was already training in the courtyard.

Currently, he was the only one outside. Claire was still asleep due to staying up late the previous day. Apparently, she was too worried to sleep easily and the only reason because she was able to fell asleep, was because Aleen was beside her.

Ten days had passed from the day he participated in the game and today was time to participate again. The game was scheduled to begin around 5pm, so Aleen decided to use the time left to increase his possibilities of surviving as much as possible.

The previous day, he asked for a leave from his college. Fortunately, the teachers knew about Claire’s situation, so they misunderstood it as a problem with her illness and allowed the leave easily.

Aleen considered the possibility of dropping college temporally, at least until resolving the situation with the game; but at the end, Claire convinced him of continuing it. She said that it could help him to relax and forget about the game, even if limitedly.

He could not use his skill at home, so Aleen dedicated more of his training during the ten days to manipulate mana and left training his skill to the moments when he went to the forest with Claire.

After ten days, his mastery of mana was much greater than before. He was already able to reinforce his body completely and move mana outside his body. It took Aleen ten days to raise his standard to an acceptable level. On the other hand, Claire’s mana manipulation was already at an incredible level. Aleen even saw her making figures of animals with her mana.

But today, Aleen was planning to do something different. So, after moving the mana around his body a pair of times, he took the sword he bought in the game and began to swing it.

With a meter of length, a two-edged blade, and without any decorations; the sword seemed the typical weapon of a knight of old. The only difference was probably its weight, it weighed around fifty kilograms.

Aleen remembered Leona saying that the sword was created using material-compressing technology, thus its great weight. At the same time, it made the sword harder and sharper than normal. According to Leona, this sword can cut steel easily if the wielder possessed enough strength.

Aleen doubted that he was capable of cutting steel, though. He was only able to lift it thanks to his increased strength and the mana inside his body.

Activating the bracelet on his wrist, Aleen used it to search videos about how to use swords on the internet. Yeah, the bracelet was able to use wi-fi. When Aleen asked jokingly if it could, Leona disdainfully said that such primitive technology was so old that nobody used it anymore before configuring the bracelet to be able of receiving it.

Browsing through the different options, Aleen finally selected a video that seemed useful. It spoke about the basic moves and stances of the sword and showed how to use a sword to hack. Aleen analyzed the man’s posture carefully and tried to imitate it while hacking with the sword; but after practicing for half an hour he could not find the advantage of using those movements, so he stopped practicing.

‘Though this posture makes it easier to hack with the sword, it requires that the wielder stays still. It probably will not be useful for the next game…’

Scratching his head, Aleen decided to see other videos about swords, but even after seeing five others, he was unable to find a satisfactory one. All the videos were about using postures to wield a sword, and though Aleen thought that they seemed useful, they were unable to help him at short term.

While he was practicing, Claire finally woke up. She washed her face and ate breakfast before coming to the courtyard. She was already used to do morning training with her brother, so she directly came here.

But when she saw Aleen waving a sword around, she could not help but tilt her head.

“Brother, what are you doing?” She asked.

Aleen smiled wryly before showing the videos at his sister.

“I’m trying to see if I can learn something about swords before going to the game. My mana manipulation will probably not improve any more in the near future, so I thought about learning to use the sword and see if it can increase my possibilities to survive.”

“Is it so?” Claire said while looking at the videos briefly. “It’s a good idea. What are you going to learn?”

“I don’t know.” Aleen shook his head. “Though some videos seemed useful, the movements depicted in it are not suitable to use in the game; but I cannot find something better so I don’t know if learn them or search for another thing.”

Claire furrowed her brows after hearing Aleen’s words and thought for a moment. Then, she took her cellphone out and began to type something.

A moment later, she raised her head and showed the screen to Aleen.

It was a site describing each sword movement detailedly. Claire was signaling a specific stance; ‘Thrusting’.

“I think that you should practice this stance, brother. Your skill allows you to move very fast, so you can use the weight behind the charge to thrust the sword. I think that it’s the strategy more suitable for you now.”

Aleen analyzed his sister’s words for a moment before agreeing to it. Claire was very clever, so she immediately thought about associating the sword moves with his skill to bring the best of both things.

Quickly, he and Claire saw some videos about thrusting with a sword and Aleen tried to use them to practice. He quickly got the hang of using the sword to thrust with Claire’s help, so after an hour, his thrusts already seemed a bit decent.

But Aleen quickly noticed a problem; the sword's weight was a bit bigger than he needed. Though it was not a problem when carrying it, Aleen got tired easily when using the sword to thrust. Fortunately, his stamina recovers quickly thanks to the enhancement he received in the game, making the situation better.

The pair continued practicing the sword until noon and then they went to eat lunch. Aleen wanted to continue practicing after lunch, but Claire said that it was better if he uses the last five hours to relax, so he decided to see a movie with his sister.

After it, the siblings continued speaking about different topics while seeing the movie; Claire tried to avoid speaking about the game, but Aleen could notice that she was worried.

Finally, when the clock was ten minutes before reaching five, Claire could not endure anymore and began to cry.

Aleen simply hugged her without speaking.

“Brother… please, don’t go…*sob*”

“…”

“I’m afraid, brother… What if something happens…”

“Don’t worry, little girl. I’m going to be fine. Besides, I don't have a choice, I must go.”

“Liar! I know that you are going because of me! Please brother, don’t go.”

“Claire…”

“Please, please *sob*”

“I’m sorry.”

“Uahhhh*sob*!!”

Aleen continued holding Claire in his arms until the clock hit five. Then, he stood up and walked to the center of the living room.

Claire tried to grab him, be he evaded her hand. Before leaving, he smiled at her briefly and spoke.

“I’ll be back.”

Finally, an interdimensional portal appeared behind Aleen and swallowed him.

The game was going to begin again.