“You’re going to the dungeon, but you want to practice before that?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Okay.”

 

The knight nodded as if he understood after hearing my explanation.

 

“Understood, I’ll help you as much as I can.”

 

‘Thank you.’

 

“A sloppy knight, know that it’s an honour for you.”

 

The knight confidently answered, grabbed a wooden sword, and headed to the training ground inside the training grounds.

 

“First, try attacking here, I need to see how well you’re doing.”

 

“With this mace?”

 

“Hit me with this weapon?”

 

“Yes.”

 

‘Are you serious?’

 

“Sloppy knight, are you crazy?”

 

The translation made the words sound a bit harsh, but it wasn’t wrong.

 

The knight was currently wearing the same cloth clothes he had worn when he was training earlier.

 

In fact, it would be okay to look at him as naked.

 

If I hit the knight with my mace without a single piece of armour, it would be a disaster.

 

The knight’s head would definitely be shattered like the wooden dolls I had been destroying.

 

Despite my bewilderment, the knight just smiled.

 

“Don’t worry, no matter how hard you hit me, I won’t get hurt, just swing once.”

 

The knight confidently shrugged his shoulders and told me to hit him.

 

There was no way a knight who had been through many battles wouldn’t know the dangers of a mace.

 

Was he really saying this because he was confident, he wouldn’t get hurt?

 

If we think about it from the game’s perspective, the knight is fine.

 

A knight of the Count’s family is an NPC of about level 50 in Soul Academy, and I’m a level 0 slacker right now.

 

It’s normal for someone to not be scared of a child no matter how desperately they hit you.

 

That’s what I thought, but when I saw a person in front of me, I hesitated.

 

The feeling of hitting a wooden doll and hitting a person were completely different.

 

Swinging a weapon at a person was much more burdensome than I had thought.

 

“If you can’t even do this, it’s difficult, you have to kill real, living monsters when you enter the dungeon.”

 

I made up my mind at the knight’s words.

 

Yes.

 

It’s not good to be scared to this extent.

 

If you think about the scenario of Soul Academy, you’ll have to deal with monsters as well as people, so you can’t hesitate over something like this.

 

If it really seemed like it was going to go wrong, you wouldn’t say something like that.

 

No matter how strong the knight is, he’s a human, so he might get hurt.

 

I raised my mace.

 

The move I’ve been doing tirelessly for the past few days.

 

A technique of slamming the mace down from above.

 

A head smash.

 

As I watched the mace heading toward the knight, I was convinced that I had perfectly performed the technique.

 

However, that confidence crumbled the moment the mace touched the knight’s skin.

 

It felt like I had hit a huge rock.

 

It felt like I had swung the mace at a rock that couldn’t even scratch it no matter how desperately I struck it.

 

In reality, the knight was still smiling as if it hadn’t really been hit, and instead, it was my hand that was hurting.

 

“See? Is everything okay?”

 

‘Are you a human?’

 

“Sloppy knight, Are you half monster?”

 

“That’s too much, I’m a pure human.”

 

Human?

 

Really?

 

Are all the knights in Soul Academy like this?

 

Then just how strong is Benedict, who leads those knights?! Next time you act up, I’ll just hold back a little longer.

 

“I was worried since you practiced alone, but your skills are pretty good, your mace swinging skills are better than those of an average soldier.”

 

‘Is that so?’

 

“Huh, of course.”

 

There really is a difference in efficiency between knowing the proficiency system and utilizing it and training normally.

 

If a knight can say something like that.

 

“But maybe because you don’t have much experience, you hesitate a lot when attacking.”

 

There’s nothing I can do about it.

 

I’m just an ordinary person living in the modern era.

 

There’s no way I’ve ever harmed someone with a weapon.

 

Of course, I’d hesitate.

 

“Keep attacking, until you get used to it but, this time, I will attack too, so be careful.”

 

‘Understood.’

 

“Do whatever you want.”

 

I continued to attack as the knight led me.

 

The mace I swung with all my might sometimes hit and sometimes missed, but it was no threat to the knight.

 

Dodging everywhere! Oh really, how can I not land a single blow?

 

The moment I thought that, the knight suddenly swung his wooden sword.

 

The moment I saw the attack, my mind went blank.

 

What should I do?

 

I have to raise my shield.

 

I must move my shield to block it.

 

As soon as I made that determination, a method to block the attack came to mind.

 

Not simply blocking the attack with my shield but intervening in the middle of the sword to interrupt the opponent’s attack and reduce its power.

 

“Oh.”

 

The movement was so excellent that even the knight who had launched the attack let out an exclamation of admiration.

 

I thought to myself that this wasn’t simply because my shield proficiency had increased.

 

Even though my shield proficiency had increased while running, it still wasn’t that high.

 

There’s no way I could pull off such an incredible move.

 

Perhaps it’s the effect of a skill.

 

The shield skill [Iron Wall] might be giving a beneficial effect.

 

I don’t know why a skill that used to reduce damage by 15 percent would change like this, but other than that, there was nothing else I could guess.

 

“It’s much better than I expected.”

 

‘Right?’

 

“Ha, a sloppy knight, what did you think of me? You don’t have much insight, do you?”

 

“You still seem relaxed, so I’ll go a little harder.”

 

Huh?

 

No.

 

Excuse me?!

 

I wasn’t the one who provoked you just now?

 

The Mesugaki skill translated it on its own?!

 

It’s not my fault! So, calm down!

 

Ugh! I blocked the sword that was swung again with my shield.

 

I didn’t have time to think.

 

If I didn’t follow the instincts that came to my mind, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the sword’s speed.

 

Stop it!

 

Stop it!

 

This isn’t sparring, it’s harassment!

 

Be honest with me!

 

You’ve been getting annoyed by my Mesugaki behaviour!

 

You’re just letting it out now!

 

Complaints arose naturally, but they could not come out of my mouth.

 

I was so overwhelmed by blocking the wooden sword swinging by the knight that I could not find a chance to raise my voice.

 

As the sword swings by the knight became fiercer and fiercer, I missed what my intuition was telling me.

 

The shield stopped, losing its place to go, and the sword flew straight along its path without any obstacles.

 

It would hurt.

 

I closed my eyes without realizing it at that thought, but I was not shocked.

 

When I slowly opened my eyes, I saw the wooden sword stopped right in front of me.

 

“You are talented in shield-wielding, if this is the level you are at when you first start handling a shield, I can’t even imagine how good you will be when you practice.”

 

The knight was clearly praising me with his words, but his eyes were different.

 

His eyes looking at me were clearly reprimanding me.

 

“However, it is disappointing that you gave up on defence and closed your eyes at the end, which was the worst thing you could have done. If this had been a real fight, you would have died for sure.”

 

‘I’m sorry.’

 

“Huh, what do you want me to do?”

 

This was clearly my fault, so I tried to apologize obediently, but the Mesugaki skill said something else.

 

Even at a moment like this, I’m sorry.

 

I’m sorry.

 

Can’t I apologise?!

 

Rather, the knight’s eyebrows furrowed slightly at my appearance of getting angry

 

“Let’s try again, come.”

 

The training the knight gave me maintained a certain intensity.

 

So, it was consistently tough.

 

There was no room to swing the mace.

 

If I didn’t focus on moving the shield, I didn’t know when the sword would go past the shield, so I had to focus all my nerves on the shield.

 

Thanks to this, my shield proficiency was increasing rapidly, but it was difficult to feel it with my body.

 

When I became better at moving the shield, the knight swung his sword more fiercely. After desperately blocking the increasingly fierce wooden sword strikes, I was exhausted after thirty minutes.

 

It wasn’t that I had reached the limit of my physical strength.

 

Compared to my usual running, this level of difficulty was nothing.

 

What exhausted me was the knight’s attacks.

 

The attacks were so unseen that I couldn’t even see them, and if I missed even one of them, the sword would reach my neck.

 

Even though I knew that the opponent wasn’t going to attack me, the threat contained in the sword was eating away at my nerves in real time.

 

That’s because the sword contained a clear murderous intent that even a beginner like me could sense.

 

I have a rough idea why the knight keeps training like this.

 

He probably wants me to get used to the attacks.

 

He’s helping me respond without closing my eyes to any attacks.

 

I had a vague idea of that, but I couldn’t help but feel angry.

 

It felt like I lost a bet with a friend and kept playing around for thirty minutes, wondering if I should hit him or not.

 

I couldn’t help but feel angry.

 

“Are you giving up already?”

 

I won’t deny that it was good training.

 

It’s true that my shield handling skills have improved a lot thanks to it.

 

I’ve also gotten used to seeing you attack.

 

But you know, after getting hit over and over again, I’ve started to want to hit you once.

 

‘Are you really having a hard time, you knight? Saying things like giving up.’

 

“A sloppy knight, is it because it’s hard? If it’s hard, you can give up, if you’re a sloppy guy who’s less physically fit than a girl, then-”

 

I laughed at the knight’s words directly, and his expression hardened.

 

It was effective when I spoke with the intention of provoking him in the first place.

 

For a guy who usually wouldn’t budge no matter what I said, his face hardened to that extent.

 

“I’m not having a hard time at all.”

 

‘Really? Then let’s do it again’

 

“Then let’s do it again, I never gave up, you sloppy knight.”

 

“Do whatever you want, I’ll be with you until the end.”

 

The moment the knight made that firm statement in a firm tone, I felt strength rising in my body.

 

Are you really angry?

 

Right?

 

You’re pissed off, right?

 

Otherwise, there’s no way the Mesugaki skill would activate.

 

The only buff effect of the skill is a penalty.

 

The angrier the opponent gets, the higher their stats go.

 

I don’t even know how much the stats go up.

 

I don’t know if it’s a fixed number or a percentage.

 

I don’t know much about the Mesugaki skill.

 

But I do know one thing for sure.

 

If I keep making this sloppy knight angry, my stats will go up even more, and then the probability of landing a hit on him will increase.

 

(Notice that inner name for knight has changed to sloppy knight)

 

Even if my physical specs go up, the difference between me and the sloppy knight is still overwhelming.

 

The difference in physical ability.

 

The difference in battle experience.

 

That’s why I have to provoke him even more.

 

I have to make this sloppy knight lose his senses.

 

I have to make the Mesugaki skill work at its best.

 

I never thought I’d say this with such sincerity.

 

You really can’t predict what’s going to happen in this world.

 

“Sloppy Knight-You didn’t say something to your lady just now, did you?”

 

“No.”

 

“That’s so sloppy, a knight who talks back to his master is disqualified as a knight”

 

With each word he uttered, he felt his body fill with more strength.

 

Mesugaki skill.

 

The provocation effect is no joke?