Happy times are indeed very short. After imprinting the beautiful sight of the two little lolis into her mind, Jean Stardust returned to her room and slept until the next morning.
Because she had made an appointment with Akame to learn swordsmanship, Jean Stardust woke up early and entered the woods outside the village. While doing her morning exercises, she also prepared to find some small animals.
Possessing keen five senses allowed her to assist in searching for nearby wind elements, and her high speed meant her Wind Blades left prey with little chance to react. Hunting was not difficult for Jean Stardust; it was basically a game of luck.
Luck was on her side today. When she returned to the village, Jean Stardust was already carrying two small rabbit-like beasts in her hands.
She sent the two catches to the kitchen, asking them to process them. Although she had drained the blood on the spot, other tasks were truly overwhelming for Jean Stardust.
Especially watching the chef use skillful techniques to gut them, remove the internal organs, and strip the fur, Jean Stardust memorized the steps, but she still felt she didn't want to touch these things.
After leaving the fur as a thank-you gift, Jean Stardust took the processed meat and some seasonings, left the kitchen, and returned to her own courtyard.
She casually gathered some dry branches as firewood and found some tinder to start a fire. Using matches provided by the village to light the fire, she began a simple barbecue.
By the time the Akame sisters arrived, Jean Stardust was staring blankly at the two servings of food in her hands. Clearly, the campfire could only cook one serving of roast meat at a time, yet she had unknowingly made two, and both were steaming hot as if they had just been finished.
"So what kind of magic is this exactly?"
However, seeing Akame's eyes light up as she stared at the roast meat, Jean Stardust stopped dwelling on it and invited the two of them over to eat together.
Taking advantage of the time to digest after the meal, Akame began to explain the moves and essentials of the Assassination Swordsmanship to Jean Stardust. Both Akame and Kurome had been trained in this set of swordsmanship.
The content of the entire Assassination Swordsmanship set was not as complicated as Jean Stardust had imagined; it wasn't strictly divided into stages, and there were no flashy move names.
Although there were several basic stances, they were merely fundamental postures for better execution of moves.
The true core of Assassination Swordsmanship was to strike when the opponent was unaware and deliver a lethal blow in one hit.
In practical application, this manifested in three points: how to discover, create, and hit the opponent's openings.
After Akame gave Jean Stardust a few more practical examples, about half an hour had passed since the meal, and the two began to formally practice against each other.
Akame held her wooden sword pointing down, staring calmly at Jean Stardust's position. Not a trace of emotion could be seen in her eyes. Just as Jean Stardust subconsciously swallowed, Akame suddenly exerted force and charged straight at her.
A piercing killing intent focused on the tip of the wooden sword as she lunged toward Jean Stardust.
Initially, due to panic, Jean Stardust instantly lost track of Akame's shadow, but her brain unexpectedly calmed down. Time seemed to slow as she began high-speed thinking.
First, she would likely be hit in the next instant. With her left foot forward, there wasn't much room to dodge to the right, so she should retreat to gain more reaction time.
What seemed like a long thought was actually completed in her mind in an instant. Then, her center of gravity shifted backward as she raised her wooden sword to protect her front, observing Akame's position as much as possible.
As expected, at this moment, Akame was swinging her sword toward the right side of her body. Next, as long as she used the wooden sword...
"Ah, it hurts..." Before the movement in her mind could be completed, her right arm had already been struck by Akame's wooden sword.
"Although your thinking and decision-making were fast, you still thought too much. Your body didn't move at the same time as your mind."
Instructor Akame was very strict, showing no pity whatsoever.
Of course, this was exactly what Jean Stardust wanted; this kind of training was what she needed most right now.
What followed was a journey of being beaten for Jean Stardust. Throughout the entire morning, she only managed to barely parry twice, tried to counterattack once, and never once managed to hit her opponent.
However, Akame was quite surprised because Jean Stardust's rate of progress completely exceeded her expectations. But considering she possessed physical fitness beyond that of an ordinary person, it was understandable that she progressed a bit faster.
In the blink of an eye, it was almost lunchtime. This time, Akame led the team deep into the forest again. After tracking various strange marks, Akame successfully found a wild boar about the size of a person, then quickly turned it into fresh meat.
The rest was happy barbecue time. However, by the time Jean Stardust snapped out of it, Akame was already happily gnawing on a large boar leg, while in Jean Stardust's hand was an almost identical boar leg.
Observing that neither Akame nor Kurome showed any surprise, Jean Stardust pushed her questions to the back of her mind again. She then carved the meat off the boar leg and shared it half-and-half with Kurome.
Kurome couldn't eat as much as her sister, but she ate with great relish, whispering at the same time: "It really is delicious."
Then she turned her head and saw Jean Stardust, who had fallen into a doting smile because of her particularly keen ears; her face turned slightly red and she turned away again.
Returning to the courtyard, they began the afternoon training. According to Akame, the training shouldn't have been so intensive, but there were simply too many missions. She could only impart the knowledge she could teach to Jean Stardust first; the rest could only be improved through practice and actual combat.
However, just as Akame was about to pick up the wooden sword, Kurome walked over and snatched it away.
"Let me do it this afternoon. Because Sister has used her Teigu for a long time, the trait of being able to kill with a single hit has made her swordsmanship adapt to the Teigu's combat style. Now, let me show you what true Assassination Swordsmanship is."
The clearly petite and lovely Kurome-chan showed no mercy at all when she struck. If she hadn't been holding a wooden sword, Jean Stardust suspected she would have been sliced into pieces by now.
But within these attacks mixed with killing intent, Jean Stardust's level was also rising rapidly.
It wasn't that she had understood some great truth or attained some state of enlightenment; rather, she had become accustomed to the thing called combat.
Finally, in what seemed like an instant, like a thread passing through the eye of a needle, she realized something. With a beautiful arc, she sent the wooden sword in Kurome's hand flying, ending today's training.
Before leaving, Kurome also left a tsundere comment: "It's fairly decent."
---
The following days maintained roughly this pattern. Occasionally, she would go on missions to hunt demons, which were all scattered Demon Soldiers. It seemed the Governor's Mansion intended to spread out its forces to prioritize gathering intelligence.
This did not come as a surprise to Najenda. After all, the power at the level of a Demon Soldier was less of a free asset and more of a liability that consumed food. If they could detect information about the Demon Slayers through the losses incurred after casting a wide net, it would actually be a gain.
This gave Jean Stardust a chance to farm points. No matter how few 10 points were, it was still something. That's right, a single Demon Soldier could only provide a little more than ten points, but no score below 10 had appeared; perhaps there was a minimum guarantee.
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