Pain did not fade.
It settled.
Suguru learned that as the days passed.
Bruises turned yellow, then green. Cuts tightened into thin lines. His ribs stopped screaming with every breath, though a deep ache lingered when he twisted too quickly. The wound on his arm closed slowly, leaving behind a mark he avoided looking at.
Garron called it recovery.
Suguru called it continuing.
They met before sunrise each morning. No one else came that early. The yard belonged to silence and cold air.
"Stand," Garron said.
Suguru stood.
"Lower."
He bent his knees.
"Breathe."
He breathed.
At first, it felt pointless. There were no swords. No striking drills. No heroic techniques like the ones he'd watched from afar.
Only posture.
Balance.
Stillness.
But stillness was not easy.
His legs trembled after minutes. His shoulders burned from simply holding position. Sweat slid down his spine even in the chill.
Garron circled him slowly.
"Your body wastes movement," he said. "That's why you fall. That's why you get hit."
He tapped Suguru's hip with his boot.
"Here. Too loose."
A shove at his shoulder.
"Here. Too stiff."
Another minute passed.
Then another.
Suguru's breathing grew ragged.
"Again," Garron said.
Work filled the rest of the day.
The tannery. The river. Carrying loads that made his spine protest. Scrubbing until his fingers numbed.
But something had changed.
His footing.
He noticed it first while hauling water. The buckets swayed, but his steps didn't stumble as easily. His weight stayed centered without him thinking about it.
Later, when a man bumped into him hard in the market, Suguru shifted automatically—absorbing the impact instead of toppling sideways.
The difference was small.
But it was there.
That night, behind the stable, he tried the footwork he used to fail at.
Step.
Shift.
Turn.
His heel didn't lift too soon. His balance didn't collapse forward.
He still looked clumsy.
But he didn't fall.
Suguru exhaled slowly.
"…Aura," he murmured.
Not power.
Structure.
On the fourth morning, Garron handed him something.
A stick.
Rough wood, cut unevenly, barely shaped.
Suguru stared at it.
"This is not a sword," Garron said.
"I know."
"Good. Then you won't pretend it is."
Garron stepped back.
"Show me how you stand."
Suguru lowered his stance the way he'd practiced. Feet apart. Knees bent. Spine straight. Breath steady.
Garron struck.
Not hard—but sudden.
The wooden stick hit Suguru's shoulder and slid off instead of knocking him sideways. Pain flared, but he stayed upright.
"Again," Garron said.
Strike. Adjust. Breathe.
Strike. Shift weight. Don't lock the knees.
Strike. Step back without crossing feet.
Suguru lost count of how many times he was hit.
But he didn't fall.
By the time the sun rose, his arms felt like stone and his lungs burned.
Garron finally lowered his own practice blade.
"That," he said, "is the beginning of Aura."
Suguru blinked sweat from his eyes.
"I didn't feel anything."
"Exactly."
Later that day, while washing hides in the river, Suguru watched a pair of older trainees crossing the bridge.
One laughed. The other shoved him lightly.
The one shoved didn't move.
Not even a step.
Suguru understood now.
It wasn't strength.
It was rootedness.
That night, exhaustion wrapped around him like a heavy blanket, but something else lay beneath it.
A quiet certainty.
He was not chasing magic.
He was building something slower.
Something his body could carry.
And as Suguru Tenshi drifted into sleep against cold stone, legs aching, shoulders throbbing—
For the first time since arriving in this world,
his progress had weight.
Not the crushing weight of mana.
But the steady, earned weight of steps that did not slip backward.