My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

Trial and error was a familiar game. From personal experience, it wasn't exactly a very good game. At times it just tends to get tedious, and nothing too interesting really happens for the most part.

It was a slow, steady, and sometimes infuriating pace of failure until you get lucky at some point and find some margin of success. When? That's the point, the main objective of the game—once you've reached that 'when' you've won.

And me, right then, I was having a tough time trying to reach it. It's hard. It almost usually is. But putting it in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing that I haven't already been through before.

A couple countless more tries, and I managed to reach past the first threshold in the dirt. Then a bit more after that was when I first felt it happen… rippling alongside the cracks of black light; faint, feeble vibrations brushing the skin of my palm. The attempt I made immediately right after, the feeling was even stronger.

"Getting the hang of it," Irene said with a commending nod. It seemed even she felt that one too from where she was standing. "Keep the momentum going, alright? You're stronger than that."

After a while, I was practically on a streak of breaking milestones. On each attempt, I was gaining more mileage than the last. A few inches, a couple of meters, sometimes maybe even more than that.

Alas, I couldn't take all that credit. If not for this mystical field and its innate ability to keep replenishing my magical reservoirs, I wouldn't be able to keep rapid-firing attempts one after the other without at least having a couple of hours of rest in between.

Finally, at attempt 200 millionth or something along those lines, I did it.

Didn't even notice it happen at first, what with my retinas scorched to all hell by all the mini-light shows of my own making and nerve-endings frayed and sandpapered to a perpetual numbness. Irene pointed it out to me, hastily marching closer over through a single wave of tremors surging beneath her feet.

"That's the second line reached," she proclaimed, stopping just short before the thin groove in the dirt. A slight smile was on her lips, breaking into brief applause, seemingly nonplussed as if she had already expected the results all along yet nevertheless, still looking very much impressed. "Well done. That's… what? Months of training for fledgling sorcerers that you've managed to condense into an hour-and-a-half session. Had you been enrolled, you'd have been made a top student… nothing short of being decorated as a fellow Seliquir."

I relaxed my hand, my body, and when I straightened my back, I swear the crack of my bones could be heard from a mile away.

"Seliquir?" I repeated after her. "What's that?"

"A title adorned only to students that are proven exceptionally talented," Irene explained. "Named after the illustrious individual herself. The first known descendant of a Divine. And the first to herald the title of a Magus."

I know I probably should be proud of myself after what I just did. In Irene's own words, the feat I pulled was seriously nothing to scoff at, and yet… when I glanced over at the final, throwing my gaze all the way out to the farthest edge of the glade… the feeling of victory, that euphoric surge of triumph just wasn't setting in just yet.

"I know what you're thinking," Irene said, catching the direction of my gaze. "I won't stop you from trying to reach for that one. But my advice? Don't bother. At least not yet. Not until you've worked on yourself a bit more. Even for someone of your caliber, getting to that point will prove quite the challenge."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that," I said. "But still, Adalia could—"

"Adalia's a Matriarch. She's strong," she quickly cut me off. "And so are you. But she had time and experience, lots of it. You don't. But you will. Still, if you want to try, then try. Like I said, we're here to test your limits, after all. If you truly believe you can do more, by all means, do more."

With that, she allowed me the right of way to keep going. But she remained in place, didn't budge a single inch from behind the second line, and from there, she simply stood and watched… once again, as if already knowing the coming results.

I focused up once more, repeating the same routine, the same process as I've had for the umpteenth time now.

The swelling of my magic, the coalescing, the discomfort, and finally the release—black shafts of light rupturing from the earth, the shudder and shake from deep beneath—I watch the 200 million and one attempt snake across the grass blitz past the first line, slow down halfway toward the second, before coming to a dead stop right before the tip of Irene's heels.

Hmm, actually, that one might have been just a little bit further up… maybe?

"Try again," Irene encouraged. "Even just getting an inch further would be a remarkable improvement."

Same routine again. I pushed, pushed harder than ever I had or at least hoped I had. The tremors, the lights, they cascaded along to another eventual stop… this time, there was no maybe about… it ended at the same exact spot, meeting the line to the exact millimeter, but never actually crossing over it.

This time, I didn't wait for permission. I went at it again, striking the ground hard with my palm—as hard as I could, as much as I could—again, and again. I watch it ripple, I watch it stop, and I watch it fail… and then I'd go again.

"I'm telling you, you'll pass this point, I guarantee it," Irene said, watching each attempt run its course to no avail. "You're just really impatient."

"No, I know… I just," I gasped—the first time I ran out of breath, feeling the pulling heft fatigue in my bones before the magic of the place quickly cleansed me of it. "I just feel like I can make it, y'know? A few more tries, and—"

"Oh, absolutely," Irene smirked at me, giving her head a shake. "Just bullhead and will your way to victory. You're good at that, aren't you?"

But she didn't try to stop me. At some point, I expected her to put her foot down and put an end to my blatant display of arrogance. It hasn't happened yet, no matter how many attempts I made to the point that I'm not even sure anymore if she ever will.

The whole point of this regime was to find out the limits of my abilities, wasn't it? Maybe that's why she's so patient. Maybe she already has. Maybe now she's just waiting for me to find out too.

Unfortunately for her, I'm simply much too dense to be that quick on the uptake.

Suddenly, there was a ringing in my ears—and truly, how quick I was to immediately assume I finally went overboard with the whole thing and burst my eardrums. Turns out, it was just Irene's phone.

I saw her answer a call, and I watched her demeanor instantly shift, the way her lips pulled into a leering smile, hearing her voice so sweet and fluttery… I knew at once who had to be on the other end.

"You really are such a sweetheart, you know?" she said, her tone practically oozing with honey. "I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to you—going out of your way for something so silly and selfish. Maybe one day, I'll finally have the chance to make it up to you."

A while longer of sweet words and titillating whispers before Irene finally ended the call. And with that firm push of the red button, that lovely mask of hers evaporated in the heavy breath of a long, weary groan.

"Pizza's coming," she declared. "Ken's already coming up to the cabin, I'll go now and meet him there. You just keep at it, I suppose."

"Woah, hey, what?" I stepped out of my spot, striding up to her and hailing her back just as she was turning to leave. "I thought I was gonna go out and meet him. Right?"

"Change of plans," she said matter-of-factly. "Remember, you're only as springy as you are for as long as you're cooped up in here. The moment you step out of the vicinity, you'll faint. That's what you get for pushing yourself so much."

Try as I might, there was simply no refuting that. My body was pretty much a dead battery plugged into an endless surplus of power. The moment I stray too far, unplug myself, and the only quake I'll be making then is my brain bashing around the inside of my skull.

"I'm just picking up the food, alright?" Irene said, stating the obvious as explicitly as she could as if it was even necessary to. Was it? "Unless you think that's somehow a bad idea to. Is it?"

I shook my head. "No, 'course not, no… I just, y'know?"

Does she know? Do I know? I don't even know anymore.

"Or what?" Irene said, suddenly scoffing, suddenly grinning. "Does it bother you that I'm meeting with a nice, handsome man alone in the middle of the woods?"

My face was stinging, burning. Which was very weird. Because I don't remember conjuring up any magic in my cheeks.

"Oh, just the thought of it, right?" Irene spoke, walking up to me, her voice trailing with a shiver. "My significant other… going into the arms of someone else… kissing the lips of another. What a scary, scary thought, right? So unbearable."

"Irene…"

"Kidding," she flashed another smile, a kinder, more gentler smile, and she placed a hand on my face before turning once more to leave. "You really are cute when you're jealous, you know?"