An Old Country Bumpkin Finds a Way Through

“Hah!”

Twice, then a third time, Fissel stepped in and swung her wooden sword.

Each time, a surge of mana streamed from its tip and hurtled toward me at tremendous speed. And since she was closing the distance at the same time, the targets and area I had to watch expanded all at once.

“Hyah... Whoa?!”

I deflected one of the incoming magical slashes with my wooden sword.

The impact was a level or two above what I’d felt when blocking her sword strikes earlier, and a numbing shock ran from my wrist up my arm.

I could tell instinctively.

This is bad. I can’t block this head-on. She can attack from outside my range, and the speed and power are on a whole different level. Put simply, it’s pretty damn unfair.

Still, she seemed to be holding back in her own way, or at least understood that this was a practice match.

Otherwise, the magic would’ve cut the wooden sword in half. The fact that the impact still felt real showed just how skilled she was...