It's morning, Arel!　Arel's favorite sister came to wake him up!

　Loud voices echoed in my room from the morning.
　My sister runs over to me as I sleep in bed.

'As usual, Arel has a weak morning!　All right, good morning, sis.

　Gong!

Morning.

　I got off the bed and left the room, biting down on my absent-mindedness.

'Hey, you just hit your sister as hard as you could!　And you're just going through it like it never happened!

　I head to the living room with my sister's voice behind me, holding her head with tears in her eyes and screaming at me.

''Oh, good morning, Arelle-chan,''
Good morning, Mother.
Breakfast is ready.
Thank you.
'Hey!　Don't leave your sister unattended!

　Mmm, your cooking is as good as ever.

"Are you?
'She's still asleep. Can you go wake her up, sister?
'Gugnu..........I understand!

　Me and Dad had few similarities, the only thing we had in common was that we were weak in the morning.
　Mom asked me to go, and for some reason, much to my chagrin, my sister went to wake Dad up.

　After breakfast, I went to the square yesterday.

　I think back to the game with the red hair.
　I lost.
　I couldn't capture that "double-blade slash" attack skill, and my blessings were reduced to less than half.

　But victory or defeat doesn't matter.
　Since the middle of the hand-to-hand combat, I had been concentrating on watching rather than preventing that skill.

"Double-blade slash!

　I wrap the straw around and into the large tree I always use to practice my striking, I try to do yesterday's technique as I see it.

　Gasp!

　Hmm.
　It's no good.
　That was just two strikes.
　You hit the left side of the tree, then the right side.
　That's it.

　A real 'double-bladed slayer' would have to slash at two places at exactly the same time.

"Do you need more sword speed?

　Next time I'm going to try to do it anyway with speed in mind.

　Gasp!

　It's no good.
　It's only two strikes.

The return of the wrist is important, too.

　After slashing the left side, you have to turn your wrist once to slash the opposite side next.
　This time must be shortened to the extreme.

　Gaga!

'Hmm. That one was faster than the one before. But not fast enough.

　The interval between the sounds has been reduced, but it still doesn't sound quite simultaneous.

Faster.

　Gaga!

I could go on and on.

　Gaga!

Not yet.

　Gaga!






It's been a month since I started practicing the Double-Blade Slayer.

　I've now come to the outskirts of town.
　In front of me is a forest of dense trees.
　I stepped into it.

　As I proceeded for a while, I encountered a creature.

''Gugiye!''

　The one who emitted a fearless cry was an ugly looking demon with green skin.
　It's a goblin.

　It's only as tall as my ten-year-old me, and it's not very intelligent.
　It was holding something that looked like a spear made from the bones of an animal or something else.
　I quickly drew my sword and intercepted the goblin that attacked me as soon as it spotted me.

""Double-bladed slash!"
Gah!

　The goblin's head flew off, and its torso cried out to be separated from its upper and lower body.
　Blood was splattered in a heap.
　Naturally, it was an instant death.
　Unlike humans, goblins, which have no protection, are demons that can be easily defeated with a decent sword skill.

''Hm. That worked out well.

　I just slashed the goblin's neck and body at the same time.
　This is exactly what the red-haired man showed me: a double-edged slash.

　This isn't the first time I've succeeded in this.
　He had already succeeded many times in practice.
　I came to this forest to see if I would be successful in a real battle as well.
　This is the first time I've succeeded against a moving creature.

　Since then, I've encountered goblins on several occasions and killed them with a double-edged slash.
　I tried various forms of slashing, including neck and legs, right arm and left arm, as well as neck and body, and all were successful.

　But still, goblins are a perfect opponent for a test slaying.
　They can be swarmed sometimes, though, so you have to be careful about that.

''So this is it.''

　Satisfied, I was about to turn on my heel and head back to town.

Ahhhh!

　A scream rang out from deep in the forest.

''... what?''

　It was definitely a human voice.
　And it sounded like a child's voice.

　I scrambled through the trees and ran in the direction of the voice.
　Eventually, I could see it.

　It looks like a person is being attacked by a demon.
　But that guy.....

d*mn it I never thought I'd see this...!

　I recognized that face, twisted in a hateful way.
　It was the red hair from the other day.

　He held a sword in his right hand, but his left hand hung slackly.
　A bone was broken or bent in a slightly odd direction.
　It seemed that he had suffered damage that exceeded his blessings.

　The one facing that red hair is a goblin - but it's huge.
　I wonder if it's at least 180 centimeters tall.
　It's an unusually large body for a goblin.

'A hobgoblin?'

　Hobgoblins are a higher species of goblin.
　They look like goblins in appearance, but their bodies are far larger and more monstrous.
　It has a club in its hand and a grimy smile on its face as it looks down at the red hair.

　Perhaps the red hair's arm was killed by this guy.
　He too had entered this forest for a real battle, and I assume he had the misfortune of meeting a hobgoblin.

　It's dangerous for a child to enter the forest alone.
　No, that's not something I could say.

'Fortunately, they haven't noticed you over here.

　I jumped out from behind the grass where I was hiding and attacked the hobgoblin from behind.

""Double-bladed slash!"
Huh?

　The hobgoblin's neck was slammed with two slashes simultaneously from both sides.

　The flesh of the neck is much harder than that of a goblin.
　But, thanks to the "double-blade slash" that was released as if to pinch it, it was cut cleanly, and the head fell to the ground with a whirl in the air.

''Ah........''

　The giant crumbles down.

'Hmm. It's been a while.
Nah....

　The red hair was wide eyed.

'What do you mean?　How can you use a double-bladed slayer?