Chapter 66: Training

"Urgh! A-Ahh..." Nio’s chest is pierced by a trident-style spear, and before she can react, she feels a kick to her face that slams her to the ground. The spear is driven harder against her as she loses the fight.

"...Too slow, too predictable, too insecure," Nioh says as the spear vanishes and the dream world setting becomes a great stone arena. Nio lies bleeding on the ground, gasping in pain.

"Y-You’re the one who’s monstrous..." Nio tries pathetically to defend her honor. She asked Nioh to train her, because clearly Nio has zero real combat experience outside the game, and combat in reality is very different from a game.

But Nioh completely humiliated Nio, who barely managed to react to anything she did, which only shows how much Typhon was just toying with Nio the entire time during their fight.

"Then do better this time. This is already our tenth fight and all you’ve done is scratch my cheek. You fight like a mage, way too far back, but Typhon won’t give you space in a real fight. That’s why we took classes that help us in combat, to overcome that weakness. So why the hell is your movement so bad?"

"Sorry for never having fought in my LIFE. Unlike you, I was someone pretty ordinary. I didn’t have powers or anything like that," Nio says sharply as her wings spread open aggressively and her tail whips the ground.

"Well then, you’ll have a lot to improve. Your worst problem is that you’re slow and you overthink. In a fight, every decision has to be made in a fraction of a second. I won’t deny you’re a skilled strategist, but you’re way too sluggish." Nio feels humiliated as her newest wife completely humiliates her, even if she’s right.

"Let’s go again! But take it easy. How am I supposed to learn if all you do is humiliate me?"

"...Haa...fine. I’ll go easier on you. I’ll tell you what the first attack will be." Nioh tosses a sword to Nio while also creating a sword for herself. Nio’s wounds have completely vanished. Since it’s just a dream, it’s perfect for Nio to gain experience without actually getting hurt.

"I’m going to attack you head-on with a direct, simple slash, no feint," she warns as Nio holds the sword as if life were a game, which immediately takes a terrible toll, because when Nioh advances and delivers a vertical slash from top to bottom, Nio is split in two by the blade — a worse result than all the other times.

"..." Her body falls to the ground as blood spreads. The pain she feels makes her eyes well up with tears while she doesn’t die because it’s a dream.

"H-How?" she asks, tasting blood.

"Who the hell holds a sword so stupidly? Don’t keep it so high. Don’t turn the guard vertically toward you. The sword’s guard is literally meant to defend against strikes. Why did you rotate the guard like that? There’s no way you’ve never seen that everyone holds the sword with the guard horizontal!!"

"..." Her body regenerates as she stands up with difficulty, seeing the numerous pools of blood on the ground.

"This is really unfair, you know? I was never taught..." Everything Nio has done so far has been largely muscle memory, instinct, and game knowledge, except in the game you didn’t need to know how to use a sword to actually perform sword attacks.

"That’s why we’re killing you so many times, so you can learn." Nio holds the sword properly as Nioh readies herself.

"I’m going to do a horizontal slash across your belly," Nioh warns and then advances. Nio uses the sword to try to block the strike and narrowly avoids being hit, getting thrown far back.

"..." Nio points at Nioh, firing multiple beams of light that explode the upper part of Nioh’s body. As Nioh’s body restores itself, her expression fills with fury at Nio’s cheating.

"I said no magic!" she shouts, advancing on Nio and landing a kick to her stomach. She spins Nio and drives an elbow into her belly, slamming her against the ground. Nio’s body hits the ground and bounces upward, which Nioh uses to kick her body forward.

She’s thrown against the ground, rolling across the floor. As mages, the physical defense of both Nios is quite low.

’She dealt that much damage to me even with my magic resistance...’ Nioh looks at her own hands. Even if she won’t admit it, Nio’s natural mental aptitude for magic might be greater than hers. The way Nio shapes magic is far more efficient than the way Nioh herself, the original owner of the body, can.

Unlike a warrior who depends on physical aptitude, a mage depends on adequate mental aptitude. A mage’s mind shapes how much magic and the strength of the magic.

’Could it be because Nio is stuck within the mold of a game, making her imagination of what magic is much more stable than mine?’ Nio had descriptions, game explanations, details that showed her what magic was supposedly supposed to be.

"Y-You didn’t need to go so hard..." Nio curls up on the ground, clutching her stomach from the pain.

"You cheated. You can’t question being punished. If you keep cheating, I won’t be able to teach you how to deal with this." Nioh approaches Nio, kicking her in the stomach as punishment.

"U-Urgh..." She keeps kicking Nio. Although part of it really is to train Nio, another part is just for the feeling of having power over someone, something she hasn’t felt in many years because of Typhon.

"W-Wait... s-stop..." Nio curls up, trying to defend herself with her wings, feeling an overwhelming sense of injustice.

"Don’t cheat again. I need to make clear to you what comes if you cheat."

"S-Sorry!! I-It hurts so much!! It’s unfair!! I-I won’t cheat anymore." Nio starts breaking into a cold sweat, feeling terrible pain. Until now, Nioh had always removed all damage, wounds, and pain from Nio after three seconds of pain, but this time she didn’t, so Nio is feeling everything.

"I’m going to make two things clear to you about dragons. Dragons have two physical weaknesses. I learned this from Typhon in a very painful way. First is your anus. It’s a very fragile and weak part inherited from our giant ancestors who didn’t have scales there. Even in us humanoids, that part ended up more fragile, not very resistant, and sensitive."

"And the second is for female dragons. Our womb is extremely fragile, and blows to that region hurt a lot. Impact blows, of course. Since that area was made to hold eggs, it withstands a lot of impact to protect the eggs. In return, it hurts a lot to receive impacts there, since it absorbs them and redistributes them along its walls."

"So since you messed up badly and cheated, I’m punishing you with kicks where I know it hurts most." She keeps kicking Nio, who can’t fully defend herself.

"I-I won’t cheat anymore." Nio has never felt so weak before, and she really isn’t. She just can’t react because she’s inside the dream realm where only Nioh knows how to control things.

"...Okay." Nioh steps back, stopping the kicks. Nio is drooling and gasping in pain.

"But I’m not going to heal this. It’ll stay like this for today until our training ends and you wake up. And don’t ignore what I told you today. Typhon will no doubt strike you in that fragile part if she gets the chance. Now get up and let’s continue. I’m going to give you a battle hammer now and I’ll use a naginata so you can learn how to correctly measure combat distance between two different weapons."