Chapter 26: Know the Name of a Thing…

[My name?] - Manic Blade

[Yeah, I can't keep calling you Manic Blade or old man afterall.] - Rose

[I... It's been so long since I used my name I...] - Manic Blade

[What? You can't remember it?] - Rose

[No... No it's just strange to use it after so long. I left it behind long ago.] - Manic Blade

[Well I want to know it, if you're going to be my 2nd "sensei" I need to have something to call you. Master Lao Shi wouldn't forgive me for not paying my respects afterall.] - Rose

[Hmm? Lao Shi?] - Manic Blade

[Oh right! He was my martial arts instructor in my previous life.] - Rose

[Lao Shi huh...] - Manic Blade

[Is something wrong?] - Rose

A look of confusion and recognition crossed his face at the mention of Lao Shi but it quickly reverted back to the look he gets when he doesn't want to talk about something so I let it go. It probably wasn't all that important afterall, I'm sure in his 2000 years he's met at least 1 Lao Shi before and it might be a bad memory.

[No don't worry about it, I'm sure it's nothing. Ahem anyway you were asking about my name right?] - Manic Blade

[You know that already! Are you so old that your memory is going bad or are you just stalling.] - Rose

[Hah... I'm sure no one would recognize my name after this long anyway so it won't cause any harm.] - Manic Blade

[.......] - Rose

[Gilgamesh. My name is Gilgamesh of the city Uruk. Not that I expect anyone to care about that last part since that city was reduced to rubble nearly 1500 years ago. You can call me Gil if you must.] - Gil

[Hmm... Uruk? That sounds familiar.] - Rose

Pinching my face up as I tried recalling nearly 15 year old memories I thought about why Uruk and Gilgamesh sounded familiar. Wait wasn't there a Gacha game with a Gilgamesh character in it? That arrogant golden dude right? What was his story again? Something to do with immortality and being a king or something like that right?

[Are you okay? You look like you just ate the most sour thing imaginable.] - Gil

[O-Oh! Well your city and name sound familiar to me, I vaguely remember learning about some kind of story about a quest for immortality in school in my previous life. It sounded so similar to me that I thought it was a bit strange.] - Rose

[That's certainly strange but is most definitely possible. I'm sure if reincarnator's can come to this world from yours they can do the opposite too. Regardless are you satisfied now?] - Gil

[Yeah I guess so... So what's the plan now?] - Rose

Nodding my head at his question I banished any thoughts of what was now ancient history regardless of how it made it back to Earth. It's not like the story had a hint to getting back there and regardless I doubt a giant snake lady would fit in all that well on Earth even if it did. I'd given up on going back to Earth long ago and the presence of Karen in this world made it mean even less to me. I just hope that Mary came over as well and is somewhere in this world waiting for me to find her. Hope she's easier to find or even comes to me though cause it was hard enough finding Karen.

It took me a full 3 days to recover completely from my Demon God's Wrath form and begin training again. Our day started out normally with a breakfast of warm rabbit soup and as always we began with Candle practice.

[Hup! Great dodge! Keep your eye on you mana output! Ha! You're getting better at this!] - Gil

[I thought... <swish> ...that you... <swish> ...were going to... <swish swish> ...go easy on me dammit!] - Rose

Dodging each of Gilgamesh's blows with increasingly less margin as they got progressively faster I complained about the continuing difficulty level that had not decreased in the slightest. I mean wasn't that what the whole conversation the other day was supposed to be about?

[If I lowered the difficulty level it wouldn't be training now would it? Now DODGE!] - Gil 1Piccolo would be proud... lol

[Ow ow ow! Dammit that hurts! Why'd you have to hit me so hard?] - Rose

[Well you wouldn't work so hard at dodging if it didn't hurt now would you? Plus only one of them hit you so I'd say it's working. Hahahaha!] - Gil

[Tch!] - Rose

Truthfully I understood the need to increase the difficulty so I wasn't too angry at him, especially since he was actually encouraging me instead of treating me like shit. However, I wasn't a masochist so getting hit like that would still make me irritated regardless of the reasoning.

Luckily however my skill at dodging strikes was increasing as well and if it hadn't been for a momentary lapse of vigilance when I reached the last 10 minutes or so I wouldn't have gotten hit at all. To top it off my ability to infinitely cast Candle had reached the point where I no longer used any mana at all while casting it, pulling mana out of the air to fuel it instead.

[Hey Master Gil. I don't think continuing to use Candle is gonna benefit me any more. I barely had to pay attention to it by the end of our training.] - Rose

[I noticed as well but don't worry, I'll make it far more difficult for you in our next training session in three days.] - Gil

Fortunately one thing HAD changed since our conversation and that was the frequency of these crazy training sessions. Gil had agreed to only doing them every three days and in between we would practice various spells and martial arts on a technical level rather than the endurance training of our training days. Speaking of endurance training.

[Before that you have to complete your endurance training today and don't forget that on your off day I will be training you on controlling your Demon God's Wrath form. I'll keep you plenty busy for the next 5 months... hehehe.] - Gil

The next few days passed fairly quickly with Gilgamesh having me constantly learning new spells or reviewing the one's I'd already learned. On top of that we did a few sparring matches so he could get a feel for my martial arts experience. Luckily Master Lao Shi had taught me a style that used a lot of punches because I was basically unable to use my tail for it at first. Of course that changed with today's practice as I learned an effective way to use the massive amount of muscle in my lower body in combat.

[Take this! Guard! Now sweep!] - Gil

Taking tips from Master Gilgamesh I managed to find a way to incorporate my tail into my various strike as well as come up with some strikes exclusively for it. Turns out that using the muscles of my lower body to increase the striking power of my fists made it jump up by several times. On top of that I could use the end of my tail for grapples fairly easily as well as for blunt or sweeping attacks. At the moment I was awkward as all hell because of the newness of using my tail for anything other than movement but I was getting better at it.

[Okay so today is gonna be harder than you've gotten used to. We'll start out with our Candle lesson as normal. However! Today instead of maintaining a Candle spell you'll maintain a Firebolt at the ready position without releasing it nor letting it fade. Every hour you will add another Firebolt and continue maintaining it for the duration.] - Gil

[Wait seriously? That's an insane jump in difficulty from before!] - Rose

[You were complaining last week about the lack of challenge, I'd think this difficulty would make you happy...] - Gil

The shit eating grin on Master Gil's face made me shudder with terror, even if he was better than the first two days his sadism still led to moments where I questioned his sanity like I was doing now.

[Oh and if you fail this one I'll do a day long lecture on the history of Fire spells.] - Gil

Shuddering again as I imagined a whole day of him droning on about Fire spells and their history I readied myself. No matter how fantasy like the history of this world was a full day of it was pushing it.

The first 2 hours or so of my Firebolt training went fairly well all things considered but when I attempted to add a third Firebolt to the mix the first two immediately blew up in my face causing me to instantly fail the challenge. Irritated by my failure I again tried to cast three Firebolts at the same time only for the same thing to happen. I was about to try once more before Gil stopped me.

[Stop stop stop! You're going to hurt yourself if you keep doing that! And what did I tell you about trying to force phenomena on the world? Allow for the natural processes to take over most of the work and you'll have an easier time of it.] - Gil

[But it's so frustrating! I was doing so well and I just failed like that! DAMMIT!!!] - Rose

[It's okay, it's okay Rose. You're doing well. Honestly I've never seen someone as talented in magic as you in my entire life. Believe me on this but you'll get there... In the meantime however...] - Gil

The growing smile on his face destroyed any frustration I had left as a feeling of dread took it's place.

[W-Wait! Give me another chance! I-I'll do another 4 hours!] - Rose

[Hehehehe! Might as well finish up your endurance training today, tomorrow is gonna be a long one. HAhahahaha!] - Gil

[DAAAAAMIIIIT!!!] - Rose

[Ugh... so long...] - Rose

Holding my head as a massive headache pounded in my ears I lamented the horrendous day that I'd had. Images of historical uses of fire magic paraded in my head, melding into each other in a melting pot of insanity mixed with sheer boredom. True to his word Gil had spent the entire day going through every known historical instance of fire magic of the last 2000 years. Some had been interesting, especially any that he had personally witnessed, but most had been mundane and boring to listen to. Who cared that unknown farmer 1600 years ago used a fire spell variation to create a warming spell so that crops could be harvested later in the year or the first person to realized that fire and ice magic were actually the same kind of magic. Either way at least it was over and done with.

[Well now that that's over with let's eat up and get to sleep. Tomorrow is your first day of training to control your Demon God's Wrath form and you'll need your rest.] - Gil