Chapter 252

Fran As A Teacher

Today was the day after Fran decided to accept the three adventurers she met back at the guild as her temporary apprentices .

It was still quite early in the morning, but she'd already gathered them so they could start another day's worth of training .

「First, stretches . 」

「Stretches? What's a stretch?」

Liddick mulled over the word that he'd clearly never heard before, as if contemplating its meaning .

「I dunno, but I think it's probably something related to some sort of super training!」

「Are you sure? It sounds more like a spell to me . 」

Miguel and Naria answered him in turn, each with their own respective interpretations of the exercise .

It turned out that stretching wasn't actually something this world's people normally did . They did have warm-up exercises, but none of them were meant to increase one's flexibility . The concept of stretching, as I knew it, was completely foreign to them . In fact, Fran herself had only started stretching after I instructed her to and informed her that it was good for her . And now, she was taking that bit of information and spreading it .

「Warm up before exercise . 」

「Er, alright, but is there actually any point to it?」

Liddick began questioning the exercise before Fran could get to demonstrating or explaining .

「Nn . 」

「Huh, interesting . Could you explain what the point is?」

「Warming up . Many benefits . 」

「Many? Could you give a few specific examples?」

「Nn? Many is many . 」

Although Fran knew that stretching would improve her condition, she wasn't able to explain why . She had clearly forgotten all the theory behind it even though I vividly recalled explaining it to her not too long after we first met . As far as she was concerned, stretching was just another routine exercise she drilled into her body for the sake of getting stronger .

All three of her apprentices had initially reacted to her clearly incomplete explanation with a dumbfounded stare . It took them a few moments to shake their heads free of their doubts and begin following her instructions .

「D-Do we really need to do this?」

「Shut up and just do it, idiot! Look, even Teach herself is doing it . 」

Liddick continued asking questions, but Miguel silenced him with a shout .

「T-True...」

Though the spearman still seemed unconvinced, he felt that his party member's logic was both solid and believable .

「I'm sure she's doing it for a reason us lower rankers can't even begin to wrap our heads around . 」

Sensing that, Miguel appended another convincing argument to the end of his explanation .

「Y-Yeah, you know what, you're probably right . They're even worth Ms . Fran's time, so they're definitely worth ours too!」

Mentioning his lack of knowledge caused Liddick to re-evaluate his stance yet again . Recalling his own faults made him much more willing to accept the unfamiliar exercise despite its purpose still being shrouded in mystery .

「You're right . I'm sure these movements will lead to some sort of incredible effect!」

Like Miguel, Naria had also decided to abide by Fran's instructions .

「Yeah, it has to have something to do with why she's so strong even though she's really young!」

Miguel took the lack of an explanation as a prompt to begin theorizing why Fran wanted them to stretch .

「That's true! It might have something to do with making training more efficient . 」

The constant reinforcement his party members were feeding him eventually caused Liddick to come up with a more reasoned out answer .

「That has to be it!」

「Damn, do I like the sound of that . It's getting me hella pumped!」

Naria and Miguel both unhesitatingly latched onto his seemingly logical conclusion .

And surprisingly, despite being overglorified, it wasn't really that far from being the right answer . Stretching didn't have the sort of miraculous effect they were expecting, but it did reduce the chance of injury . Hence, it technically did have the potential to allow one to train more efficiently .

「Stretches, taught by Master . 」

「Your master, teach?」

「Nn . 」

「What kind of person was your master?」

「Amazing . Best master in world . Made me strong . 」

「Wow! He sounds really impressive!」

「Master is best . 」

Liddick paused to let Fran make a comment before continuing .

「And he was the one that taught you how to stretch? T-」

「See, I called it! This stretching thing's gotta have some sort drastic effect!」

Feeling validated, Miguel cut Liddick's comment off with his own .

「Let's give stretching our all!」

Neither of Fran's other two apprentices disagreed with Naria's suggestion .

They were all totally gung ho about it, and because of that, started off by trying to force their bodies as far as they could . Fortunately, Fran, who'd realized they misunderstood the exercise's purpose, stopped them before they hurt themselves . She patiently continued to instruct them until they started going about stretching the slow but thorough way one was supposed to .

Fran was doing her job as their teacher incredibly well . The three were moved by the fact that she, someone way stronger than them, was willing to carefully instruct them . Their respect for her had been bolstered many times over even though all she'd taught them to do was stretch .

「Next, sparring . 」

「Eh?」

「Seriously?」

「W-Who will we have to go up against?」

Naria, Miguel, and Liddick reacted in that order . The first leaked a sound to represent dumbfounded surprise, the second proclaimed his belief, and the third ended up asking a question in hopes of a favourable response .

Even just considering the possibility of sparring with Fran had caused the colour to visibly drained from all three of the trio's faces . They clearly remembered getting totally creamed by her just the other day .

None of them wanted to fight her . They all hoped that she would have them spar with one another instead .

A hope she mercilessly crushed .

「Nn . Me, one by one . 」

「...Alright . 」

Resigning himself to death, Liddick nodded and acknowledged the idea .

「I can let you go first if you want . 」

「Nah, you can go right ahead, Miguel . 」

「Sorry Naria, but I'm with Miguel . Ladies first, you see . 」

「Damn you Liddick, you traitor!」

Fran was getting tired of seeing the trio's pitiful argument, so she raised one of her arms and pointed in Miguel's direction .

「Swordsman first . 」

「S-Seriously...?」

「Hurry up . 」

「G-Got it, Teach . 」

「Do your beeest . 」

「Don't die out there bro . 」

「O-Oh shut up! You two are going to be following me straight to hell in a few seconds anyways . 」

Miguel stepped up, his face dyed in a shade of hopelessness .

「You attack . 」

「H-Here I go then! Oraaaaaahhhh!」

Miguel came right at Fran with his sword in motion . There wasn't even the slightest bit of hesitation in his movements; he swung to kill because he knew just how much stronger than him she really was .

The nearby sailors, however, didn't . All they saw was a hulk of a man viciously lunging at a little girl with his greatsword in hand . Not all of them had watched yesterday's battle unfold, so most judged based off of appearances and assumed that Miguel was way stronger than Fran .

They'd found the sight of her teaching him, the thing they'd been watching up until now, entertaining and humorous . That was precisely why the sudden change in activity had caused them to start screaming in panic .

But their concerns were needless . The tragic event they'd expected to see simply never happened .

「Wind-up too big . 」

「Toryaaah!」

「Power important, but no point if can't hit . 」

「Shiiit!」

「Smaller swings . 」

「Haaaah!」

「Too rushed . 」

「Grgghhh!」

Fran basically didn't bother retaliating . She instead spent her time dodging while giving him advice . She would also lightly tap him whenever he exposed an opening in order to show him what he needed to work on .

Watching the two caused the sailors to freeze up; they were completely dumbfounded .

As far as Miguel was concerned, however, things were going roughly as expected . The only thing he didn't account for was that Fran wasn't actually going to retaliate . He was glad to see that she continued instructing him as opposed to just totally wrecking him .

He ended up sinking to the floor completely exhausted after maintaining his all out assault for approximately 10 minutes .

「Nn . Last attack, not bad . 」

「T-Thank you very much!」

「Next, spearman . 」

「Sure thing!」

Liddick took Miguel's place and began a second vigorous assault on Fran . He tried to strategically angle and shift his attacks such that they'd hit, but she totally saw through all of his tactics and maintained a flawless defense .

「Thinking too much before attacking . 」

「Kuh!」

「Too easy to read . More variation . 」

「Haaah!」

「Not bad, but too slow . 」

She more or less treated him the same way she treated Miguel . She dodged all his attacks and occasionally pressed her palm against his body to demonstrate that he'd made a mistake that would've lead to his death . In the end, Liddick, like Miguel, ended up collapsing out of sheer exhaustion .

Last up was Naria . Firing projectiles from a bow was quite dangerous given that we were on a ship with a bunch of people on it, and Fran wasn't really able to offer too much bow-related advice in the first place . Hence, she instead focused on teaching Naria how to use her short sword .

Her methods remained the same, but she made sure to attack a bit more frequently since she wanted Naria to get more used to blocking than anything else .

「More attention to blocking . Less to attacking . 」

「Got it!」

「Dodge if can't block . 」

「Ow!」

「Use dagger for control . Feints . 」

Naria ended up yielding a bit faster than Miguel and Liddick . I didn't really blame her . She was using a weapon she wasn't used to, and the need to block Fran's strikes had drained her of her energy really quickly .

But either way, Fran was satisfied . She'd proven herself capable of functioning as a teacher .

「Archer, keep practicing with short sword . 」

「Got it!」

「Swordsman, spearman, focus on offensive footwork . 」

The three nodded after Fran gave them some feedback . She'd successfully managed to root out their weaknesses .

「Archer, can also keep practicing with bow . 」

But despite that, she continued to call them by their weapons as opposed to their names, and not because that was just how she wanted to refer to them . It was instead something that needed to be attributed to one of her bad habits: forgetting everything she wasn't really interested in . In other words, although she was interested in having them as her apprentices, she hadn't actually taken to any of the three individuals themselves . I couldn't help but wonder whether or not any of them would be able to get her to remember them by name before the Algieba reached its destination .