My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

The lessons continued on way into the early evening. Unlike our first training session, today's schedule didn't just revolve around one central gimmick like trying to punch my girlfriend in the face on the admittedly dubious premise that it'll net me more experience overall.

First, Irene did another one of her check-ups on me. I felt fine, honestly, but she insisted, so after a while of my muscles jerking and twitching with every touch of her fingertips, she got her confirmation on what I was already trying to tell her.

That my breathing was fine, that my bones were as sturdy as ever, and while mentally, perhaps a therapy session or two wouldn't hurt—ultimately, I was me to a tee.

But I get it. I didn't see what she saw—that zombie-husk shell of myself. The procedure's really more of her own assurance than mine.

Maybe that's part of the reason why the rest of our session became more theoretical than practical.

The hours stretched and Irene would speak and I would simply quietly listen, as diligently as I could, hearing her go into extensive detail about the fundamentals of magic that you couldn't get me to give a basic recap on even if you put a gun to my head so just go ahead and pull the trigger. I'm already dead.

She was doing double work too. On one hand, she was giving handy advice on how to efficiently channel magic without waste, and on the other, she went section to section across the outer edges of the glade, applying that same helpful tidbit to restoring whatever mess I had made of the place to a somewhat semi-pristine state.

Adalia, meanwhile, retreated under the shade of a tree that managed to survive and laid herself to rest. I suppose it's just a habit at this point even if she didn't necessarily need it.

I did my best to just pay attention to Irene's lectures, following her pace and watching her mend the forest with the kind of ease and finesse that I could barely fathom.

But my focus just wasn't there, not completely anyway. Not after learning that Grieven shared the same type of magic as I did—an all-encompassing, all-conquering type of magic.

Such a limitless, dangerous tool in the wrong hands. In his hands. It was unnerving in all the worst of ways. I didn't want to believe it, but it just simply made too much sense.

He summoned Ash, brought down Blightfall to pour all over the world, implanted a piece of his soul onto another, and don't even get me started on how much trouble that singular piece wound up being on its own.

I knew he was strong, formidable… but only now did I know what exactly he was capable of.

But that goes the same for me too, doesn't it? In terms of experience, and skill, he clearly has quite the headstart on me. That just means I gotta do better than him.

I will be better than him.

"...then once you've learned to manipulate the composition of different entities, you'll be able to do stuff like this—" We stopped before a fallen tree that had been violently ripped off from its base. It was one of those big, oak ones you'd need some sort of equipment or machinery to move. Yet with one hand holding on to the bottom, Irene effortlessly lifted the tree back upright and set it back into place. "—of course, the more intricate the object, the harder it is to manipulate. Fortunately, trees are one of the more simpler things to master."

That was probably the sixth or seventh time I watched her lift a giant log as if it was made out of styrofoam, and each time it just doesn't get any less baffling a sight.

"So, that's really not just you giving yourself super strength?" I asked.

"Not an elf," Irene replied, leading us to the next tree over. "Though it is possible to amplify your physical abilities, it's not a very viable approach. You'll have to keep a current of magic flowing continuously. It's a waste. You'll empty yourself quickly. It's better like this. See?"

Once again, she fitted the broken part of the tree into place like a jigsaw piece, sealing close the cleaved ends with I assume the same bit of healing magic Adalia had used prior.

"Like I said, it's all in learning the composition—melding your magic to some object in order to manipulate it in some way. Like the roots of the tree, get it? In this case, while the log retains its same weight and mass, through the connection I made with it, for me it becomes as light as a feather."

I shook away the shower of leaves that came pouring down from the scattered gaps of orange sky and sunlight peeping from above. When I cleared my vision free of falling greenery, I spotted Irene suddenly bent over right in front of me.

I took a second to breathe… and to stare.

Don't judge me.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Your new task," Irene stood back upright, spun over, and presented me with a bundle of sticks in her hands. "Meld your magic with them."

I let her drop the pile into my palms.

"You want me to make them lighter?"

"Stronger, actually," she said. "Easier to do. Just apply what I taught you. Do it correctly, and the results should churn out something stronger than an average stick."

"And how do I know if I did it correctly?"

"Well, you could try snapping them for one," she said, stifling a smirk at my inquiry. "Oh, and if you need another line in the dirt to reach for—then a perfect meld would make any one of these sticks stronger than any metal you'd find around here."

I glanced down at the collection I held in my hands; tiny, flimsy twigs with their ends bent in all sorts of crooked angles. I felt like I could so much as lightly ball my fist and there goes at least two or three of them just like that… and I'm supposed to turn such brittle toothpicks to goddamn vibranium?

"What's the passing grade?"

"Mine? Stronger than the average stick. Yours?" Her lips formed into a small, knowing smile. "Who really can say?"

And with that, she had me scurrying back to my seat in the classroom while she headed off deeper into the woods to reverse more of my rampant deforestation.

Most of the lights had long dissipated already, those splintered fissures of glowing black in the earth returning to just regular ol' patches of grass like they were never there to begin with. The open field looked just like an open field again.

Looking down though, I could still see the faintest impression of my hands from when I was practically having a pushing match against the entire planet over and over again for some time.

I got comfortable on the dirt, gently rolling the bundle of sticks onto the grass, and randomly, plucked one twig out of the bunch to be the first unfortunate guinea pig in my science experiment.

If throwing a tennis ball and making it disappear was imbuing magic into things, then making a stronger stick was to fuse magic—make it become an extension of one's self. Or at least, that's the logic of the process.

Applying that logic though was another story.

I held and melded with the stick for as much as I hoped I was able to, but when it came to the bend-and-break test… let's just say the effort it took to toss away the now recently broken halves was considerably much less than it took to snap the damn thing itself.

The second and third followed the same tragic story. I made a breakthrough on the fourth, instead of snapping right away, it needed a little more force before it finally gave to the pressure… although that might just be a fluke now that I think about it… it was a pretty thick stick.

I kept snapping sticks for a little while longer, to the point that I had to put it on hold for a bit to go and scour about for more sticks to add to my rapidly increasing kill count.

By the twentieth, I could feel the strain in my muscles, see the flex in my arms before it too ruptured into a pair from its center. Now that I think about it, haven't I already seen something like this before? A stick made unbreakable?

That time back home, when Dad sparred with Ash. I remembered him picking up a random stick for his weapon, and with that same flimsy bit of lumber, he matched and withstood blows from the impact of her blade, her overwhelming strength.

Meanwhile, I'm still easily breaking mine with nothing more than a little bit of elbow grease.

Stronger than any metal, huh? With what Dad had on display that day… I can believe that easy.

Guess I found my passing grade.