The morning sun shone brilliantly across the vast, open plain, bathing the lush green grass in a warm, golden light. The air was peaceful and gentle—though the intense friction between the two warriors standing before me was anything but calm.
"So, who exactly goes first?" I asked, shifting my gaze nervously between the two girls.
"I will go first!" Alira and Valkira shouted at the exact same moment, instantly snapping their heads to glare at each other.
"Zacken was originally summoned to this world by our royal master, so naturally, it is only right that he be trained by us, the demons," Valkira declared, puffing out her heavy chest plate with supreme confidence.
"Do not be so narrow-minded, demon," Alira shot back, her tone sharp. "Yes, he might have been brought here by Verixa, but since he is highly respected by the elven race for saving our Heartwood, we have earned the right to train him first!"
Their raised voices echoed across the plain, the tension growing so thick you could slice it with a dagger. After a long, agonizing pause, they both whipped around to face me, their expectant, predatory gazes locking onto my face.
"So, who do you want to learn from first?" they demanded in unison, their eyes flashing with terrifying intensity.
Feeling entirely cornered, I let out a forced, incredibly nervous laugh. "Uh... look, maybe it would be a lot better if we decided the turn order with a simple game of rock-paper-scissors?"
"Rock... paper... what now?" Verixa asked from a few feet away, tilting her head in complete, childlike confusion.
"Bring it on! Whatever kind of bizarre duel it is, I am more than ready!" Valkira shouted, completely misinterpreting my words as she drew her greatsword and brandished it aggressively toward the elf.
"If you are truly that eager to taste defeat, then I am ready as well!" Alira countered, instantly notch-drawing her bow and aiming it right back at Valkira's chest.
"Hey! Calm down, you two! Lower the weapons!" I yelled, hurriedly throwing myself right between their respective lines of fire. "Rock-paper-scissors is just a harmless children's game from my world!"
After I spent a couple of minutes explaining the basic rules of the hand gestures, Valkira squinted her eyes, looking thoroughly skeptical. "I see... but isn't a game like that entirely based on random luck?"
"I must agree," Alira nodded thoughtfully. "It is a mere fifty-fifty mathematical chance to achieve victory."
"Well, maybe it is," I said, a confident, half-baked grin crossing my face, "but back home, we believe luck is just another part of a person's power. If I've got enough luck on my side, who knows? Maybe I can even defeat a legendary dragon without lifting a finger!"
"Hmm... put that way, I agree to the terms," Alira said, crossing her arms. Valkira nodded along as well, her fiercely competitive smirk returning to her lips.
A few minutes later, the two of them began stretching intensely, cracking their knuckles and warming up as if they were preparing for a mortal martial arts tournament. On the other side of the clearing, Verixa was happily chasing a wild horned rabbit around a bush, completely checked out from the adult conversation.
"Um... you two did fully understand that this is just a hand game, right?" I asked, a cold sweat beginning to form on the back of my neck.
"Of course we do!" Alira said proudly, giving me a smug look. "We elves are naturally intelligent beings—we grasp new concepts with incredible speed. Unlike a certain someone whose people only know how to violently smash and destroy things."
"At least my people don't emotionally depend on a oversized, dying houseplant!" Valkira shot back instantly, her demonic aura flaring.
Their fierce glares locked together again, practically creating a physical static charge in the air.
"Can you please... just not?" I muttered, already deeply regretting my life choices.
They took their combat stances, standing a few paces apart. I stepped right between them, raising my hand high into the air like a referee.
"Alright! This will be a best-of-three rounds match! Whoever wins the majority gets the absolute honor of training me first. Got it?"
Both of them nodded sharply, their focus laser-locked.
"Then... begin!" I brought my hand down.
"Rock!" I shouted the cadence.
"Paper!" Valkira roared, thrusting her hand forward.
"Scissors!" Alira counter-claimed, slashing her fingers through the air.
The moment their hands extended, the literal ground beneath our feet trembled. A violent gale of wind swirled out from their collision point, kicking up dust and loose grass. When the blinding light of the impact finally cleared, I gasped. Valkira was brought to one knee, groaning, while Alira was jumping up and down triumphantly.
"Alira chose paper, Valkira chose rock—round one goes to Alira!" I announced, wiping dust from my eyes.
"Victory is mine!" Alira cheered, tossing her golden hair. Meanwhile, Valkira was wiping a tiny trickle of blood from her nose, her eyes burning with newfound fury.
"Are... are you actually okay?" I asked Valkira, staring in absolute horror. All of that structural damage just from a single round of rock-paper-scissors?!
"Rock! Paper! Scissors!" we shouted again for round two.
This time, a massive blast of concentrated demonic flame burst violently from Valkira's hand as she threw her gesture, the concussive heat nearly knocking Alira completely off her feet.
"Alira chose scissors, Valkira chose rock! Round two goes to Valkira!"
Valkira let out a wicked, villainous laugh, adjusting her armor. Alira wiped a smudge of soot and blood from her forehead, her emerald eyes glaring back with lethal intent.
This looks significantly less like a harmless playground game and way more like a high-budget fight scene from a shonen anime, I thought, trembling.
"Fi-final round!" I squeaked out as the surrounding air grew thick and heavy with raw magical pressure.
Their dual auras flared to life at maximum capacity—vibrant green currents of compressed wind swirled violently around Alira, while blazing crimson flames erupted around Valkira. The sheer kinetic force of their power leaking out physically pushed me back several feet into the grass.
"Rock!"
"Paper!"
"Scissors!"
Before their massive elemental energies could violently detonate and take out half the plains, Verixa suddenly leaped directly into the center of the blast zone.
"Rock!" the little queen shouted proudly, smashing her tiny fist forward.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave erupted. Both Alira's wind and Valkira's fire slammed directly into Verixa's unexpected move, resulting in a massive magical backlash that sent both warriors flying backward, crashing heavily into the distant treeline. Clouds of thick dust filled the clearing as the entire forest shook from the impact.
When the dust finally settled, Verixa stood perfectly untouched, smiling smugly with her hands on her hips, while I just stood there in absolute, dead silence.
How... how does literally everything I do in this world escalate into a natural disaster so fast?
After a few moments of processing the trauma, I cleared my throat loudly. "So, as the Queen's intervention has technically decided... the first thing I'll be learning is archery from Alira."
Alira emerged from the bushes with a victorious smile, immediately stepping over to give a smug Verixa a warm hug, while Valkira sat cross-legged on the dirt, aggressively scratching at the grass like a sulking, defeated child.
"Alright, let us begin your education, Zacken," Alira said, stepping forward and handing me a beautifully crafted elven longbow.
I grabbed the smooth wood, took a deep, centering breath, and hooked my fingers around the bowstring. I gave it a firm, confident pull.
The string didn't move even a single millimeter.
"Hmm... Arre?" I grunted, my face turning a slight shade of pink as I planted my feet and pulled with both hands. Nothing.
"What exactly are you doing?" Alira asked, tilting her head in pure confusion.
"I'm trying, but this string is completely impossible!" I panted, my muscles straining to the absolute limit. "I can't even pull it halfway!"
"This isn't difficult at all, look." Alira gracefully took the bow back and pulled the string all the way to her ear with a single fluid, effortless motion, showing absolutely zero strain.
I grabbed it back, gritting my teeth and putting every single ounce of my human strength into it… and still failed miserably to even budge the wood.
I let out a heavy, defeated sigh, slumping my shoulders. "After all that dramatic buildup... I still can't even shoot a single arrow."
From right behind me, a dark, wicked grin appeared.
"Well, looks like it's my turn then," Valkira said, resting her massive iron greatsword casually over her armored shoulder.
She stepped up and handed me the heavy weapon. My arms instantly sagged under the weight—it felt like lifting a solid block of concrete—but somehow, through sheer desperation, I managed to keep it off the ground.
"Good," Valkira nodded approvingly. "Now, hold the hilt firmly. No, not like that—your grip is completely wrong!"
Before I could even attempt to correct my clumsy stance, the sheer weight of the blade caused it to slip right out of my sweaty palms. The sword spun wildly through the air like a lethal propeller before stabbing deeply into the soft ground—a mere inch away from Verixa's left foot.
"Hey!" Verixa yelped, hopping back in absolute terror, her eyes wide. "Are you trying to casually assassinate your own queen?!"
Valkira froze completely solid, her face turning a ghostly shade of pale. "Uh... that was... obviously an advanced part of the coordination training, My Queen?"
I stood there right beside her, sweating bullets as I forced a weak nod. "Yeah... totally a calculated part of the survival training..."
Verixa crossed her arms tightly, glaring daggers at the both of us. "Next time, maybe practice your 'coordination' with something slightly less lethal?"
The three of us stood there in a thoroughly awkward, agonizing silence as the little horned rabbit from earlier hopped right between our legs, pausing to look up at us as if it were openly mocking our incompetence.
And that was exactly how my official combat training in another world began—with localized explosions, elemental chaos, and a accidental assassination attempt on royalty.
Just a typical day in an isekai, really.