Chapter 40

It’d been three days since I came home. I couldn’t help but slack.

Still, when I was at the training camp, there were many times when I got up early to attend morning training.

“It’s good.”

I didn’t feel the need to live diligently now without training.

I’d been pushing Blandis to live a regular life, but I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I felt guilty, but I tried to ignore it.

I’m sorry for this sister.

I apologized briefly and rolled back on the bed.

How long have I been doing that?

Knock, knock.

Someone knocked on my door.

“Yuria, are you in your room?”

I heard my mother’s voice in front of the door.

“Yes?”

I jumped out of bed and opened the door.

My mother, who was smiling kindly, was unusually light-hearted.

A black shirt and pants. It was like clothes that trainees would wear. I scanned her carefully and made excuses.

“I’m just… I was thinking about world peace and the future as always.”

“You must have been lying down.”

“…”

I couldn’t fool her either.

“What are you doing?”

I asked her inside.

Even the clothes she was wearing were extraordinary.

My mother looked at my room, which had become colder than before, and said,

“Yuria, do you know how much Mr. Huran praised you while you were at Agelisk?”

“Praised?”

Mr. Huran was an unusual character. Especially because he had a lot of affection for me and Blan.

I can’t believe he praised me.

I was a little afraid of what he said, so I was anxious.

“He’s been raving about Yuria as a genius who appears only once in a hundred years.”

Of course, I had skills that were comparable to Leniana, but…

Geniuses were common in Agelisk. Mother.

I tried to answer that… but I quit because I felt bad about it. Parents just wanted to believe their children were special.

“So you want to check my skills?”

“There’s that, too.”

“Does mother really want to have a match with me?”

My mother was lightly dressed, with a wooden sword around her waist.

“What do you mean? I’m teaching you a lesson.”

It was the first time in years that my mother held a sword in her hand. At least not in my memory.

Maybe she gave birth to me and put her sword down. As do all noble women.

So I was willing to accept my mother’s skills even though I knew they weren’t good enough to teach me.

“Okay. If you teach me yourself, I’d be honored.”

* * *

Only my mother and I were left in the indoor training ground.

My mother swept the sword by hand for quite a long time, as if it were strange to hold a wooden sword after a long time.

I waited for my mother leisurely.

Whether it was body or mind, you needed warm-up exercises.

“Honestly, I feel a bit unfair. Yuria is my blood, and it is going to finish Agrad’s sword art before Grenta’s.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

I stopped learning Grenta’s swordsmanship. I thought maybe it could feel that way from my mother’s point of view.

“If you ask a hundred people, they’ll tell you that Agrad’s swordsmanship is much more sophisticated and superior than Grenta’s. In fact, my family’s swordsmanship is not very popular.”

“I don’t think so. Look at Blan. What an excellent swordsman.”

“Maybe if Blan had learned other family swordsmanship, he might have been stronger than he is now.”

I didn’t know my mother’s intentions.

What do you want to say?

“But you know,”

Mother slowly extended her sword to me. I also took a defensive position accordingly.

No matter how strong I was, adult swordsmanship was definitely different from children’s.

First of all, our heights and physique were different. I had to lift the sword higher than usual to deal with my mother.

“Grenta’s swordsmanship is basically light and sleek, so it’s good for attacking.”

It was basic common sense that all knights who knew the Grenta family knew.

I’ll start, my mother jumped at me in a low whisper.

Her sword rushed at me. She hadn’t held a sword for a long time. A slender arm, and a thin body that was hard to balance. Her attack seemed too weak to me.

I avoided it lightly.

“I know, too.”

I responded, striking back at my mother with the same Grenta sword art.

Before I went to Agelisk, I could easily follow Grenta’s basic sword technique because I had learned it from Huran for a year.

My mother narrowly avoided it.

“But it’s not too serious. That’s why it was criticized as weak.”

As her mother said, with Grenta’s swordsmanship, she could become a great knight, but she couldn’t become a top predator.

In fact, the Knights of the Zeos were not considered to be a great power within the Empire.

My mother had since tried several attacks. But it was all blocked. Rather, I had several opportunities to attack, but I pretended not to know.

For the first time, I faced my mother with a sword because I didn’t want to end it easily.

But my mother didn’t give in.

Rather, it was full of relaxed smiles.

“When I was in the academy, I beat Shiro.”

“Leniana’s father?”

“Yeah, Shiro was the strongest man in the academy.”

Did he let you off the hook because he was in love? Then I think I’d be really impressed. To lay down the honor of undefeated for the woman you love.

“I think I know what you’re thinking. You thought Shiro let me off the hook, didn’t you?

“Wasn’t it?”

“Shiro is a knight. I’m a knight, too. That’s no way to let the knights go against each other.”

Mother stopped the attack for a moment, apparently out of breath.

You’d have noticed that I’m letting you off the hook.

What the hell does that mean?

Did you really want to see my skills?

But you can check your skills without lifting your own sword.

“How did you win?”

For some reason, I thought what my mother said would contain her intention. Did she really win with her skills?

“You don’t have to go easy on me now. Yuria.”

My mother urged my attack instead of answering.

“I can’t commit a crime. Mother.”

“Don’t say anything funny.”

“Yes.”

In the end, I raised the sword again to defeat my mother, and my mother was in a hurry to block my attack, so she couldn’t even show proper swordsmanship.

And, finally, I dropped my mother’s sword and tried to win.

“Unfortunately, the competition is over… What?”

But at that moment, my mother’s sword came at me in a completely unexpected direction.

“What?”

And in the blink of an eye, she poked me in the chest and stepped back.

My sword flew shabbily in the air.

“If it was a real sword, it would have stabbed the heart.”

My mother’s gentle voice pierced my ear with a rough breath.

“How did you…?”

“How did I do that? I just used Grenta’s sword technique.”

Mother was feeling exhausted, so she sat down and continued to speak.

“Everyone thinks that. Grenta’s swordsmanship is powerless. In other words, you can make steady attacks, but you don’t have a big shot. They’re all wrong.”

I sat in front of her. Although she was not interested in swordsmanship, mother’s face was more serious than ever, and her eyes were alive.

Oh, my mother was a real knight. So I wanted to listen to her story more by my mother’s side.

“Grenta’s swordsmanship, handed down from generation to generation, is just a prelude. For the last shot.”

“Last shot?”

“Yeah, if you try to attack with Grenta’s sword, there’s a gap. Grenta’s swordsmanship, now known, is a sword made to find the gap. As time went by, the process remained, and everyone forgot about the final technique.”

“Wow… I didn’t know.”

“We were born in a time when we didn’t have to know that.”

The Empire was peaceful. Until Evelian appears as the villain Roziel, it was going to be peaceful, so you didn’t need a shot or a skill to kill anyone.

“How do you feel? Are you proud of your family?”

“Yes, enough to want to change my last name to Greta, not Zeos.”

“That’s a relief.”

Mother wrinkled her brow as if she was in pain and rubbed her shoulders.

“Thank you, mother.”

“What?”

“When you tell me this, it means to be proud of yourself.”

My mother smiled softly at my words.

“Then, don’t be discouraged.”

I have already reached the top of the sky, so you don’t have to worry. Mother.

But were parents all the same?

I want to do one more thing for my child who would be a long way away.

“Hehe. Of course.”

I’m my mother’s bloodline!

I spoke vigorously on purpose.

We laughed for a long time afterward facing each other.

Being a warrior who will save the world was good, but before that, I was my mother’s daughter.