Book 1: Chapter 23: Sudden Strength Gain (part 2)

Nagahide looked at her blankly for a moment, but how could he refuse the request of such a beautiful girl? He was willing to help her even though he felt troubled in his heart. That’s why he said, “Then you wait here, I’ll go fetch it.”

As soon as Nagahide left, Taro approached Lily, “I say, Miss Kagami, why do you insist on learning swordplay when you are so beautiful…”

Lily avoided him and went to the backhouse to wait for Nagahide. She wasn’t willing to talk to Taro too much.

“F***! Not even giving me back is it! If you really dare to come on the day of the compet.i.tion, look at how the great me beat you until you call your papa!” Taro cursed with a grin.

Nagahide retrieved the wooden case and guided Lily to a hill away from the residence.

The Slash Force Sensor was summoned again with a “Poof!”

Lily felt that the roly-poly lookalike magic tool looked a little comical. It had a face that made people want to hit it. Was it made like this on purpose to increase the tester’s strength? Or could it be that Lily also had a hidden violent tendency?

“Miss Kagami, I still have matters to attend to, so you can stay here and train. When I get back, I will ask Kimura Tetsuo to come and retrieve the Slash Force Sensor. It will be fine if you just come back with him later,” said Nagahide.

“Sorry for troubling the elder.” Lily sent off Nagahide with a respectful bow.

After Nagahide left, Lily lifted the long wooden sword.

The reason she chose this sword at the time was most likely due to the influence of that silver-haired female samurai.

But now, the wooden sword felt weightless in her hands. It looked quite thick, and the wooden sword was not short either. However, it didn’t feel any different from when she was empty-handed.

“So light!”

“This is too light, I won’t be able to exert all my strength into the slash if it’s like this!”

“I need a heavier katana, one that is made out of iron! As for the length, I guess about this long should be enough if I take the iai technique1 into consideration. If it is as big as the tachi that silver-haired female samurai used, I won’t be able to use iaido.”

Different swords naturally utilized different sword techniques. It mostly depended on the individual’s habit and preferences. Since Lily felt that this length was most suitable for her, that was already enough.

Lily lifted the wooden sword in front of her as she adjusted her breathing and looked towards the weird-faced Daruma Egg.

Two weeks ago, her penetration force was 72 kan. It was 8 kan away from the samurai’s standard.

Then how about now?

Lily’s body was already filled with abundant spirit energy.

“Spirit power employed!”

“Whoosh—!”

On the hill with other presence, invisible flow of air curled up to Lily’s body. The surrounding air was affected by the operation of spirit power. Lily’s long hair was blown by the light vortex and fluttered gracefully in the air as though they were black silks. Her l.u.s.trous hair glowed under the bright blue sky. Even her white yukata flapped a little bit.

Lily closed her eyes and cleared her mind. There were only herself and the flow of light blue spirit power between the sword, the rest were erased from her mind.

In the mountain woods and ponds all around the hill, the eyes of various creatures were looking at her curiously. Perhaps it was due to the changes of the beautiful girl who left quite an impression on them several tens of days ago.

The spirit power that scattered to the surroundings allowed these kind-hearted creatures to sense her existence. It was as though she was one with nature and had initiated a link with their mind.

And for some reason, even the wicked creatures didn’t find her repulsive. A faint trace of unworldly element seemed to be hidden deep in her Spirit Power.

“Hah—!” Lily let out a shout as her eyes flashed with a divine light. The strong wind blew violently on her white yukata as her slender leg stepped on the gra.s.sy meadow with wooden sandals on.

“Swish—!”

Lily changed into a streak of beautiful white shadow as she charged into the Daruma Egg.

The sword was inching ever closer to the overly widened eyes of the Daruma Egg that seemed to be expressing an excess amount of surprise.2

“BANG!!!!”

The gra.s.ses in the surroundings were waving with ripple-like motions due to the strong wind.

The ringing sound resonated throughout the mountain woods!

That Daruma Egg was blown high up into the sky, then it fell onto the meadow and started to roll. After rolling for quite a good distance, it finally stopped and rocked to and fro.

“Phew…” Lily let out a breath as she brushed her long hair. After putting away the sword, she calmly waited for the result.

That Daruma Egg gradually came to a stop. An indistinct dent was clearly visible in between the brows of the Daruma Egg.

“Oww! Pe~ne~tra~tion Fooooooorce—”

“Two hundred and seventeen kan!”

Lily was in a daze as she heard the weird voice of the Daruma Egg announce, did it say 217 kan?

Though she knew that her strength had increased dramatically, Lily didn’t expect… her slender arms that anyone would have wanted to lick if they laid their eyes on it, actually contained so much power! The power increased by no less than 140 plus kan!

It should be mentioned that the penetration force increased very slowly. For most of the martial artists, just increasing it by a dozen or more within one year of arduous training was already an excellent result.

Only when one trained their spirit power would their body be able to break through the boundary of mortals and rapidly headed towards the realm of shikigami, demons, fairies, or even reaching as high as the realm of G.o.ds!

Naturally, the reason Lily improved this much was because of a cheat. After all, in normal circ.u.mstances, only a high-level samurai would be able to improve this much. One would only be able to afford a spirit training manual when they reached the same height as them.

As the cool breeze blew past, Lily raised her pretty face. Her long hair was fluttering in the direction of the mountain woods. She somehow felt that the mountain wind today was very refreshing. It was as though a big mountain had been lifted from her heart.

Lily looked towards the Matsuda Clan’s residence as she thought to herself, ‘The penetration force of most samurais barely reached a hundred. Since I have reached two hundred, then maybe I should have enough power for self-defense in this otherworld by now.’

“Senior sister, your Lily is going to lift her head high and conduct herself with dignity!”

Looking at the picturesque rear view of the white-clothed girl holding a wooden sword in high-spirit, that Daruma Egg —with its still as lifeless painting eyes as before— slowly let out this one word:

“-aye…”3

1. In case anyone’s not familiar with this term, it is a j.a.panese martial art that emphasizes being aware and capable of quickly drawing the sword and responding to a sudden attack.
2. I swear this author must have some kind of grudges with these Daruma Egg, he was using so many excessive denominators to describe how big, how excessive, how exaggerated, and how round the eyes were.
3. Well ok, I honestly have no idea how to translate this. This Daruma Egg always end “his” sentence with a “的说…”, kind of like how Pochi from Death March always ends her sentence with -desu. I normally leave that out in the actual translation, but in this case? I have no idea what to do with it…