"Yaaaaaah!"
Early in the morning, a spirited woman's voice echoed across the area.
She held a spear in her hands.
It was a weapon Gimekara had prepared, but a cover had been fitted over the spearhead so that even a direct hit wouldn't cause a fatal injury.
Given that the woman was throwing her full weight into a forceful charge, though, it was inevitable that even with the cover, she would sustain at least some injury if it landed.
...Though that assumed it landed at all.
"Too slow."
Elena murmured the words briefly and gave Mirage a light flick. Just like that, the spearhead was entangled, and in the next instant, the spear the woman should have been gripping tightly was swept upward and sent flying through the air.
Before the woman even realized what had happened, the tip of Mirage was hovering right in front of her eyes.
"Eh?"
Utterly baffled, a small gasp escaped the woman's lips.
Withdrawing the blade from the woman's face, Elena pointed out what she had noticed in that exchange.
"Thrusting with a spear is fine, but if your speed is lacking, your weapon gets snatched away this easily. To keep that from happening, you need to move faster."
"...Yes."
Among the women who had been forced into prostitution, this one had a reasonable aptitude for combat.
Of course, that was only relative to the other women. If asked whether she could truly hold her own against real adventurers, the answer would be no.
However, the adventurers serving as escorts for this group had been hired with more emphasis on having a trouble-free personality than on raw skill, so in a mock battle against them, she could hold her own to a degree.
Because of that, some of the women had developed an unfounded confidence... and in that sense, the woman sparring with Elena was one of them.
Turning her gaze away from the dejected woman, Elena surveyed the others training nearby.
Every single woman being utterly dismantled by Elena, Vihera... and even Byune was someone who had grown arrogant during their recent training.
To shatter that arrogance.
That was the request Rei had received from Rocks two days after reuniting with his group.
With Rei's party having rejoined them, the women suffering from what could only be called Set-deficiency had bounced back, and ever since they started traveling by carriage, the journey had proceeded smoothly without any particular issues.
What the women were most thrilled about, unsurprisingly, was Rei's Sand Ship.
No longer having to sleep outdoors or crammed into tight carriages was truly wonderful news for them.
Moreover, with Rei around, the Misty Ring allowed for meals beyond preserved rations. This time he had also brought a substantial amount of things the women would enjoy from Gilm as supplies—fresh fruit and dried fruit with concentrated sweetness.
Calling it a blessing from heaven wouldn't be an exaggeration.
"Hmm. At this rate, they won't be called amateurs by the time they reach Gilm. Though becoming overconfident is another matter entirely."
"Th-thank you very much."
At Elena's murmured comment as she held Mirage, the spear-wielding woman bowed her head.
Yesterday—no, right up until the training began—she had thought fighting wasn't all that difficult. But having her own ability shown to her this vividly, reduced to only that level, left her with absolutely no desire to talk back.
She quietly bowed her head at Elena's words.
(Getting beaten by me... I suppose she was luckier than getting beaten by Byune?)
In the direction of her gaze, she caught sight of a woman being freely peppered with attacks by Byune, who was wielding not her usual Hakumo but an ordinary short dagger—and one still in its sheath at that.
The woman was desperately trying to block Byune's strikes with a longsword, but in terms of pure physical ability, she was absolutely no match. What's more, while Byune's weapon was a short dagger with less reach but superior maneuverability, the woman was stuck with a longsword.
If the woman had superior strength, she might have been able to wield the longsword as freely as a dagger. Unfortunately, her strength was merely average.
Thanks to ongoing combat training, it had improved somewhat compared to before... but ultimately, it was still only that much—not enough to handle a longsword with any real finesse.
As a result, she somehow managed to deflect Byune's attacks, until...
"Kyah!"
Reaching the limit of what she could block, she let out a small yelp and tumbled onto her backside.
"Mm."
Byune delivered her usual single-word verdict, but unfortunately, with Vihera not present, the woman—who hadn't known Byune long—couldn't understand what was being said.
She did seem to grasp that it wasn't praise, though, and reflected on having gotten ahead of herself.
Vihera, who could fully comprehend Byune's speech, was—unlike Elena and Byune—handling several women at once by herself.
"No good. Completely no good. You need to train your body a bit more, you know?"
The women launched attacks one after another, but not a single one so much as grazed Vihera.
She was wearing an outfit like the ones the women had worn back in Mejougo—no, even more extreme and revealing—and it fluttered in the wind, yet their attacks couldn't even touch the fabric.
On top of that, Vihera showed not the slightest sign of alarm, keeping a perfectly cool expression as she dodged.
Her movements were better described as dancing than evading an enemy's attacks.
Vihera, dancing like that beneath the summer sun, possessed an almost ethereal beauty.
"Haa, haa, haa..."
"Why... why won't any of them hit!"
"Just a little more, just a little more and..."
The women attacking Vihera eventually hit their physical limits, slumping onto the ground and panting heavily.
"If you want to lay a finger on me, you'd better get a bit stronger first, all right?"
Seeing Vihera, who hadn't broken a single breath, the women watching her came to realize just how arrogant they had become.
A short distance away from Vihera, a somewhat different scene was unfolding.
"That's right. When you draw the bow, pull it back in one smooth motion. If you try to draw it little by little, it'll only take that much more strength."
Beside Marina, nearly twenty women held bows, aimed at a wooden target, and loosed their nocked arrows.
However, while simply using a bow was one thing, consistently hitting the target was quite another.
For women with barely any training, it was a considerable challenge.
Still, unlike the other areas, this wasn't a sparring format. Marina was properly teaching them how to handle a bow.
The difference was simple: the women learning archery here didn't have the combat talent of the ones being beaten down by Elena and the others.
...More precisely, they lacked talent in close-quarters combat with weapons like longswords or spears.
But this group numbered nearly a thousand.
It would be a waste not to take advantage of those numbers, and so Gimekara had prepared bows.
Naturally, assembling enough high-quality bows would have been difficult.
But since everyone here was picking up a bow for the first time, cheap beginner models were more than sufficient.
And so, they were now in the midst of training with a large supply of gathered bows.
(With bows, while practice is necessary, it doesn't require talent the way close combat does. Sniping might be a different story, but for laying down a volley with a mass of arrows, just being able to draw the bow is enough. And the arrows needed for training aren't a problem as long as Rei is here.)
While offering archery instruction, Marina stole a glance at Rei, who was training Rocks.
If the women on the protected side could all attack simultaneously with bows—even if not at a professional's level...
...and do so from inside carriages, firing through windows and from the coachman's seat.
If only one or two arrows came flying in, someone with decent skill could dodge or slash them away.
But if the number reached the hundreds, that was a different story.
A small handful of powerhouses like Rei might manage, but the average bandits out there had no means of dealing with that.
(If we didn't have to worry about arrow consumption, they might actually be able to make a living as a mercenary company. ...No, that's still impossible.)
Marina immediately dismissed the thought.
Operating as a mercenary company required all sorts of supplies beyond just arrows.
The only reason they could currently provide everything was because Gimekara and Rei... because the Zorgeh Merchant Guild and Daskar, the lord of Gilm, were backing them.
It was something that could only be done by completely disregarding profit.
(Though, it's probably just the bandits who attack them before they reach Gilm who'll end up suffering. Until then, there's no need to worry about arrows.)
With that in mind, Marina returned to instructing the women on their bow practice.
Some distance away from Marina and the others...
"Nuoohhhh!"
With a spirited shout, Rocks swung his longsword at Rei.
The act of swinging a longsword was the same, but the speed, the sharpness, the power behind it—everything was on an entirely different level from the women training off in the distance.
Seeing the edge of Rocks's longsword, anyone could tell that what the women were doing still wasn't far removed from amateur hour.
But at the same time... even Rocks's swings couldn't break through the defense of Rei's Twilight Spear.
It was a scene playing out as the exact opposite of Elena's complete shutout of the spear-wielding woman using Mirage in longsword form.
Though whereas Elena had entwined her blade with the spearhead and effortlessly stripped the woman of her weapon, Rei was simply deflecting Rocks's longsword with the Twilight Spear.
If told to pull off the same trick as Elena, Rei could probably manage it even against Rocks.
But that wouldn't give Rocks the training he wanted.
Hence, their exchange had taken its current form.
"More, pick up the speed! You should be able to throw a faster strike than that!"
"Damn it, saying whatever you please... nuoohhhhh!"
Pulled along by Rei's words and actions, the speed of Rocks's longsword swings climbed.
It was only a little at a time, but in actual combat, that little bit could mean the difference between life and death.
A shift of a few centimeters could turn a missed strike into a hit.
That was why moving even slightly faster and landing even slightly more blows became a tremendous asset.
...Of course, that didn't mean he could raise his attack speed right away.
That was why Rei deflected Rocks's attacks at well-timed moments, called out to him, and—without Rocks noticing—incrementally raised the pace.
Rocks likely understood what Rei was doing, but even so, drawn along by Rei's lead, his speed kept climbing.
Yet Rocks's attacks still couldn't reach Rei.
No matter how skilled an adventurer he was, he couldn't keep up a full-power assault forever.
The attacks he'd been raining down on Rei eventually caught up with him—his stamina, and more than anything, his breath gave out.
The speed of his longsword swings dropped sharply, then ground to a halt...
"Zehaa, haa, haa, haa..."
His face flushed crimson from oxygen deprivation, Rocks couldn't even stand. He collapsed onto the ground, hacking and gasping.
Those ragged breaths were proof that he had pushed his body to its absolute limit.
"Your sword strokes are reasonably sharp, I think. But if you deepened your lunges a bit more..."
"Haa, haa, haa... Don't lump me in with a monster like you. That was all I had. ...Haa, haa."
Forced out before his breathing had fully settled, the words cost him, and Rocks resumed heavy panting to steady himself again.
"If you're an adventurer in Gilm, you'd better learn to manage at least that much."
"S-since when... haa, haa... did 'adventurer in Gilm' and haa, 'inhuman' start meaning the same thing... phew."
His breath finally catching during the exchange, Rocks pushed himself up into a sitting position.
At that, a burst of cheers rang out.
The voices belonged to the women watching from a short distance away, who had been observing the mock battle.
While many of them harbored a deep aversion toward men because of what happened in Mejougo, not all felt that way.
What's more, while Rocks spoke and acted like any other man, he almost never directed lustful gazes at the women.
...The fact that it was "almost" and not "never" was simply because Rocks was a man, after all.
"Come on, you've got people cheering for you. Push a little harder."
"...You stamina monster..."
Even so, Rocks hauled himself to his feet.
At the end of the day, the chance to spar with an Alias Holder didn't come around often.
With that in mind, his honest feeling was simple: there was no way he was letting a golden opportunity like this slip away.
And so, the combat training would continue until Rocks couldn't move at all.