Over fifty boys and girls with dreams of armed acrobatics lined up in a training field a little removed from the school proper. Half of them arrived one by one, but the rest came chatting in pairs or small groups. Gusts of wind crept inside Ioha's clothes and each one carried fine sand. He already had occasions to wipe his eyes clear of the irritation. Of yesterday's lingering scent of sweat, leather and metal only the bitter taste of metal still remained. It tasted a little of blood and crunchy saliva in his mouth. He spat out yet another batch of sand and hugged himself closer in a futile attempt to get warmer. Today's main item on the menu was the spellsword admission test.
He certainly looked like an idiot standing there like a lumbering bear among the other sinewy boys and girls. For the first time Ioha understood why the graduates were called cats.
A greybeard crossed the gravel with the comfortable ease that decades of hard training had given him and approached from the barn, or dojo, that walled off one end of the gravel. Low fences lined two more, and the training field opened up to a road without even as much as a gate along the fourth.
"This is the admission test for spellswords. Joining the knightage training? Head for barn seven now," he said, and his voice carried all over the training field despite him never raising it.
Two boys shrugged and left. They stuck to the pretence they had planned to go to the wrong place from the very beginning. One boy with the same superb sense of time and direction came walking in the opposite direction on the road. Soldiers of fortune didn't need to pass an admission test, and Ioha assumed those students were commonly looked down upon by everyone else.
"I'm Rede. When it's important I'm Sir Rede Ironsnake." He looked at them with eyes that told how he didn't really care for his knighted name. Still it placed him among those gifted with a second name even though he was no lord. "The first test measures magic aptitude. Most of you have already taken it but we want to make certain. For your own safety."
Another old-timer arrived, this time a woman with a sphere floating beside her like an obedient dog in a leash. It looked similar to the one Ioha saw during registration the day before. Since he belonged to the 'most of you' category he wasn't worried. His latent magic affinity was enough to give him a place in a school for applied magic had he ever been interested. He wasn't. What serviced as a capital in the federation lay weeks away, and all magic schools worth their salt sat clustered in the city outskirts.
Ioha found a place in the queue, waited for everyone ahead of him to touch the sphere and pass, placed his own hand on the ball when it was his turn, watched the woman's eyebrows rise a little when he passed himself and walked to the fence where he waited for the rest of them. Everyone passed. It was expected after all.
"Good," Rede said. "Now I start the real tests." He motioned for them to gather in a semi circle around him. "First basic strength. Status displays set on public. Everyone, one hundred push ups. Now!"
Ioha mentally adjusted his status display to be shown to others, went down on all four and started pumping. While he was a lot stronger his body weighed in at an extra thirty kilograms compared to what he was used to. After fifty his arms burned, after the required one hundred he was in trouble but he could probably have forced another fifty if he wanted to spend the next half an hour feeling like overcooked spaghetti. During the entire ordeal the woman walked among them and took notes on a display only visible to her. As with the magic aptitude test everyone passed. After that followed running around the training field, jumping, climbing a pole and crawling under heavy nets. Each and every of them passed the tests. Applying to become a spellsword might prove you had some kind of obscure brain disorder, but it was the kind of disorder where you made certain you were very, very fit physically.
Morning gave way to mid day and the combination of exercise and rising temperatures saw most of them discarding their blazers. A few boys even went as far as to strip shirtless. One of the perks of being male. More than a few girls shot them envious glares, which proved to Ioha that this world shared basic clothing sensibilities with the world he came from, and that in turn made him relieved. Training with bare chested girls would have been distracting to say the least.
"Federation prudes," the old woman grumbled and shattered Ioha's beliefs. "Well, maybe you be able to learn anyway. Pride in ones body help a lot," she added with a growl.
"Verina!" Rede said.
"Yes, dear?"
"Don't bully the kids."
She shrugged. "You be no dear of mine if I hadn't taught you. You learned to disregard absurdities. You dislike training naked together?" Her sentences sounded oddly chopped off.
Ioha hid his grin when the greybeards face coloured slightly. "We wouldn't teach here if we didn't respect them," he said silently.
"See, you agree," she said, voice rising and her eyes glittered with mirth.
Rede smiled and shook his head. "Never said I didn't," he admitted. "Anyway," he continued and his posture changed from one half of an old couple to a skilled and experienced arms-man, and Ioha had a flash of the younger man who received the Ironsnake name, "this ends the pass or fail tests. Take a break, eat something and return here no later than sunset. We'll try out your weapons." He turned as if to leave.
"Dear!"
He froze mid step, but with so theatrical a gait that Ioha couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, I almost forgot. You all passed. Congratulations!"
"Dear!"
Ioha guffawed and sauntered over to the fence where he had slung his blazer. Old geezer! Fun one. Think I'll like the training. He decided against wearing it, rolled it into a bundle and aimed his feet to where he could wash off the morning's grime. It should be close, and he followed the sound of running water until he stood in a short queue waiting for his turn to use what almost looked like showers. It was, plumbing and all, made of the ever present dark hardwood. While early autumn still offered warmth of sorts Ioha got himself a nasty reminder summer had definitely given up on them for this year when he undressed and wiggled his toes in a cold puddle of water. He had ample time to freeze while he anticipated his turn to wash up in something that most certainly didn't include hot water.
He still shuddered from the cold long after he dressed, but a brisk walk along dirt road turned street eventually lessened his discomfort. This far from the central cluster he got a better picture of how the academy was planned. Across several training fields, some lined by trees, he noticed how each of them had a one story dojo, or barn as they were called here, attached. Behind them buildings one through three towered over the central school yard. Crossing it he'd reach the gaudy administrative monstrosity, and on the other side of that one the avenue that ended in the red iron gate. From there a dirt road temporarily turned into a street through the attached oversized village some local master of words named Schooltown, and continued all the way to Isekai a full day on carriage away. The Clevasti estate and Werkalin Rinna, the town it overlooked, sat almost midway between Spellsword Academy and Isekai, but you had to take a different road to get there. Following the local rules of superior naming abilities the name of the local capital translated into 'wheat market by the river' making everyone happy almost no one knew what the name meant.
One day, almost enough to reach reality. Ioha let his thoughts wander to memories from when he arrived in a fantasy theme-park on steroids a year earlier; the madness that was Isekai. Out here the fantastic took on a more mundane tone, and he guessed that the farther from the gate hub he got the more he would have to look at strange cultures for the fantastic rather than the flashy, in your face, magic show that dominated Isekai. People visited the place for weekend trips and returned back home with tall tales differing from the reality that started as close as a few kilometres outside the town. Isekai represented everything a small kid wanted fantasy land to be. In difference this school almost represented normalcy compared to the world of his first year here.
He grinned. A few birds flew screeching above him and he followed them with his eyes as they veered away over fields farmers still hadn't given up on. Crop yields close to the academy were, as far as he knew, worse than atrocious. There probably was a reason they didn't give up on farming the land but at least it proved that Wergaist was rich enough to spare people doing work that couldn't feed them. With both hands he tried to pull his blazer, his glaringly green blazer, closed across his chest when another gust of wind carried yet one more reminder of colder weather as well as a tint of earthy dirt.
A little later he frowned at Ai's absence in the mess hall and felt more sour than he expected. He absent-mindedly raked in a tasteless lunch before he returned the long way to the training field. Bored and alone he used the time to open his status display whenever he stopped to get a better idea of where everything was located in the academy and its surroundings. Walking around with the display open was a bad idea. Door frames, other people and once a carriage heading his way taught him that the hard way. Sheer luck had him bounce back rather than trying to impersonate a spilled plate of Swedish meat balls.
Quite a few new abilities since he arrived here a year earlier. Most of them concerned knowledge about this world, a few helped him in the wilderness, but as for his general abilities nothing much happened. Stamina a little higher, a marginal increase in strength and fine motor skills. Whatever changes he noticed pretty much mirrored living a physically more active life than what he was used to from his old home. For the year spent in Isekai his measurable growth was rather mundane, almost dull. All in all a far cry from the rapid advances associated with the heroes he watched in shows or read about. Ai might be an avid consumer of anything fantastic, but that didn't mean he hadn't helped himself to his fair share of those stories – there was a reason for him moving here after all. Also, the status display couldn't be used as a planning tool. In difference from the few games he played there were no greyed out abilities he could try to learn later. It only showed what he was right now, which in itself was plenty helpful Ioha admitted to himself when the road took a turn and a familiar training field invited him. When he arrived there was maybe a stiff hour left of sunshine.
"If you wait a little I'll just finish up with this student, kiddo," the greybeard greeted him.
Ioha leaned against the fence and watched. The student in question, a tall sinewy girl, had just left a training dummy and advanced on her teacher with two wooden swords in her hands. One long and slender and a short designed for parrying and dirty work at brawling distance. She swung and stabbed in a flurried but disorganised attempt to score a hit. Rede, despite having left his prime behind him, turned away all her attacks with economic flicks of his wrists and lower arms, and Ioha admired how he gathered strength from slightly turning his lower abdomen. Long, long years of experience told a tale of how less physical strength was needed to yield the same results, but faster and deadlier.
"Good!" Rede jotted down a few notes on a piece of paper after he disarmed the girl. "As close as possible to this and you'll have a set that will serve you well during training." He placed the note in her hand. "You're still growing so we'll adjust in about half a year. Sell this set then and it's cheaper."
The girl nodded and bowed. Then she placed her training swords in a rack and left.
With large hands he slapped dust from his shirt and then the greybeard turned to Ioha. "Grab a pair of weapons from the rack and swing a few times at the dummy. I want to see how you move."
Ioha hung his blazer on the fence, walked to the weapons rack and picked up one sword short enough to be called a parrying dagger and a slender piece of wood looking the most like the rapier he wanted to master. The set was too light for him, but he went up to the dummy nonetheless. He settled into his preferred fencing stance and lunged. Wooden tip met dummy and the sword shattered. Ioha stumbled as he regained balance. Look like an idiot now. He turned and faced his teacher.
"What are you waiting for? Get a new set!"
Ioha muttered curses in five languages and slowly lumbered back to the weapons rack. OK, something sturdier. He grabbed a proper parrying sword and the thickest of the rapiers. This time the rapier didn't shatter, it merely broke.
"Longsword and buckler?" Rede asked. From ear to ear his grin widened until Ioha wondered if it would split his head in half.
With a shake of his head Ioha returned to the weapons rack. The suggestion was an odd one to begin with. He kept the parrying sword and slid a traditional Japanese bokken from the holds. Heavy oak felt familiar in his hand. Back home he needed both hands for wielding it, but here, in his absurdly bulky body, one was more than enough. "Better than a longsword at least," he muttered and went to work on the dummy. Weapon and dummy both survived his attacks while he adjusted to the awkward feeling of using two weapons. A few times a mental nudge flashed alive from his dormant status display, but Ioha didn't open it. The new abilities he gained or improved were rather obvious.
"Enough! Come at me!"
The bokken was still too heavy for proper fencing, and the kendo he was familiar with also required a two handed grip. While he closed the distance to his teacher Ioha frantically tried to decide on a compromise that would still allow him to retain some use of his training in both disciplines. He held the parrying sword close to his body and slashed while lunging. Too fast for him to fully see Rede side stepped and slipped inside Ioha's guard. Ioha's attack went wild, but he almost parried the short sword aiming for his neck. In the end he was too slow and he felt cool wood touching his skin.
"Absolutely certain you won't try longsword and buckler?"
Ioha shook his head. "I came here to become a spellsword."
"Spellswords come in many shapes." The teacher grinned again. "And sizes," he added.
Ioha shook his head again.
Rede shrugged. "It's your sword craft." Then he tore a side from his notebook and gave it to Ioha. "The parrying sword is standard issue, so it'll come cheap and well made. However we don't know how to forge those katana your kind love so much." He grimaced. "I recommend the cavalry sabre I've specified here," he waved the slip of paper, "or you'll have to order one of those katanas from Isekai. They have a weapons smith who can make them." Then he smirked. "I'm pretty well paid, but I can't afford one," he finished.
Makes sense, Ioha thought and bit his lip. A master craftsman gating from Japan could charge whatever he wanted. "You wouldn't have one of those sabres lying around? I'd like to know what it feels like."
"Verina, dear?"
The old woman from the morning had left the dojo in advance and already stood waiting with one sword in each hand. One was a longsword and the other he recognised from nineteenth century depictions of British cavalry. He stared at the longsword and hoped his disdain didn't show. While it lacked the knuckle guard traditional on Earth the sabre rested easily in his hand. Maybe a tad too light, and it lent itself to cutting rather than thrusting, but Ioha grudgingly admitted that it probably was the best compromise he could get. "Thanks," he said and returned the weapon. Bastards knew all along. She's been waiting with those two swords.
"Sabre still needs a special order. Want me to place it with the Clevastis? I'll get you a good price."
"Thanks, yes please."
Both greybeard and Verina beamed. A compromise from both sides. At least they hadn't insisted on the longsword and buckler set.