I Can’t Run Away From the Girl Who Saved Me

36 – Corpse Pickup (3)

＊

Today, too, I slowly opened my eyes in a clear forest morning that made me feel good.

After yawning profusely and rubbing my sore eyes, I realized that Sylvia was not in the room.

Judging by the sound coming from outside the room, it seems that he did not leave the cabin at all.

Still in a daze, I slowly looked around Mr. Sylvia’s room and noticed a small potted plant by the window.

“There was something like this.”

The plant on top of the pot had long since withered and died.

It was a little strange that Mr. Sylvia, who grows a small field in front of the cabin, let the plants die, but growing ornamental plants and crops in the field is a different law.

Maybe it started to soothe the loneliness of living alone, but it might have been neglected because it was not comforting to the heart.

I slowly got off the bed, opened the door and stepped out into the living room.

“good morning.”

When Sylvia heard the sound of the door opening, she turned to me and greeted me in the morning.

She was removing the feathers and guts of the goose she had left yesterday.

“Heh… did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, what about you?”

“I slept much better than last time.”

“Huh, was it too irritating for Ash last time?”

“…if you know, don’t do it in the future.”

I was a little tick-tick for no reason, but I didn’t feel bad.

No, it was a good feeling.

It was because this morning’s Mr. Sylvia didn’t show the bizarre impersonation of the family that had been bothering me for days.

I felt at ease and smiled without realizing it.

“lol,”

“…what? Why are you laughing?”

“As expected, I like the usual Sylvia-san much more.”

“… oops,”

Sylvia-san turned her face and said.

“Noisy. Were you ashamed of me too?”

“Then stop quickly, I did.”

“Let’s say I did it because I was crazy.”

She sighed and wrapped the goose, which had only the flesh, wrapped in a cotton cloth.

I didn’t bother answering.

yea, that’s fine

Even though she looks normal on the outside, Sylvia-san is a person with a bit of taste.

Considering what she had been through, it was rather bizarre that she was holding on to her sanity this much.

The lean meat was not very neatly coated.

It looked like there were small torn pieces of flesh next to a large piece of meat.

There was nothing to be ashamed of.

Neither she nor I are professional cooks or butchers.

For me, the most difficult part of the cooking process was disassembling it.

It’s not that skinning and gutting is disgusting and difficult, it just means that it’s difficult.

Of course, I knew that there were many people who were disgusted with the work itself.

That’s probably why being a butcher is considered a lowly job.

Fortunately, both Sylvia and I had no objection to dismantling animals.

I am the son of a chef and a commoner. And Sylvia is a warrior who must have camped countless times.

If he was an ordinary nobleman, he probably would not have been able to hold back his nausea after seeing the scene of animal skinning.

In that respect, it could be said that she and I have some advantages of adapting to living in the outback.

I said as I picked up the lean meat she had trimmed.

“What shall we do for breakfast?”

“Oh, Ash, don’t use that meat this morning.”

“yes?”

“I’m not going hunting today.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have anything to do?”

I put the meat down again.

she asked with a nod.

“Do you have the dagger I gave you before?”

“Yes, of course.”

You patted my waist and said.

After being chased by a bear that day, I always wore this dagger around my waist when I got dressed.

Because the forest never knows when, where, or what kind of danger will arise.

Of course, after that day, he had never gone into the woods alone.

“good. Let’s train with it today.”

“Ah, training!”

Come to think of it, I haven’t trained since the last test.

There was a bit of commotion, but anyway, the ice blocks she threw were melted nicely, and the quick activation of magic was also quite familiar.

It was to the point where I could feel that I was growing in full swing, but I couldn’t stop training any longer.

I nodded my head in anticipation.

Training using a dagger, what kind of training is it?

Are you learning something like a skill that puts magic into a sword?

Sylvia-san looked at my face, smiled and said in a light tone.

“Starting today, you will compete with me with that.”

“… yes?”

what is this sound.

“Dalian…?”

“huh.”

“…”

Dalian?

Me, who was chased by a bear and trembled on a tree, and Mr. Sylvia, who cut the bear in half with just one knife?

“why?”

“Ah, no, I’m a wizard… I don’t have any more magic training…?”

yes i am a wizard

Of course, it was just a prejudice that all wizards were weaklings like me.

No matter how important theoretical study is to a mage, adventurers usually have some level of training.

An adventurer is literally an adventurous job.

Unexplored lands, suspicious underground dungeons, monsters’ dens.

It was a job that made a living from valuable treasures and materials found by risking their lives in such remote areas.

And the things that adventurers did the most were ‘walking’ and ‘carrying luggage’ after all.

So, even if you are a wizard, if you are an adventurer, you need to train your body to some extent.

However, that is only an adventurer’s job.

I am not an adventurer.

He was an expert in magic theory who was confined to a corner of the house and focused only on research.

And, of course, I had never fought with my older sister or younger brother, let alone learned to fight.

“I don’t have anything more to teach you about magic?”

“Eh”

“That’s because I’m not a wizard.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Sylvia said while wiping her hands stained with goose blood with a towel.

She had been fine until a moment ago, but she suddenly looked frightened as she was covered in animal blood.

“Ash, I didn’t mean to teach you magic, I meant to teach you how to protect yourself from danger. And to survive in this forest, you have to be able to use your body to some extent.”

It is verbatim the correct word.

However, it is unavoidable to be unwilling.

No, it was just my honest feeling that I was scared.

Even while wearing a bearskin, she felt the impact of being beaten with a giant club every time she gently threw the ice.

If I add a little bit of exaggeration, I feel that it is similar to the shock I felt when I was bumped around in the rolling carriage and at the time of the carriage accident.

Her strength far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Her broad shoulders and small muscles wrapped around her like armor are not decorations.

As I stood there blankly with a puzzled expression, she raised the corners of her mouth and said,

“don’t worry.”

“… eww,”

“I will not kill you.”

“…yes?”

After wiping her hands, she took out the blunt knife she had used to groom the goose and wiped it away.

Of course, Sylvia-san will control her strength, but she can’t help but be scared.

Because I knew that if she put her mind to it, I would be cut to pieces in an instant, like that goose dismembered on the table.

Besides, my weapon is only a dagger.

A long sword would have been able to spread the distance, but a short sword like this would not be able to parry her attacks.

“Me, Mr. Sylvia.”

“hmm?”

“Isn’t there a bigger sword?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ah, no, if you think about it, with a dagger like that, even if animals attack, it’s difficult to counterattack properly…”

Sylvia looked at me and said.

“For now, there’s nowhere to get a longsword.”

“…ah,”

“And, even if you pick up a long sword, you probably won’t be able to wield it properly?”

“Is it that heavy?”

It might be heavy for me, who had never lifted a sword in my life.

Still, the thin sword that was used for the decoration in the past wasn’t that heavy.

“A normal longsword is usually about 3 kilos, and the one I use is about 8 kilos.”

“8…?”

I remembered the scene where she killed the bear.

She closed her eyes at the crucial moment, so she couldn’t see properly, but she knew that she had cut the bear in half vertically with just one shot.

Even if I had my eyes open, it must have been so fast that I couldn’t see properly.

It is said that Sylvia swings an 8kg lump of iron at such a speed.

“It’s crazy.”

“what?”

“Oh, no.”

It seems that it came out of my mouth that I was only thinking about it without knowing it.

Fortunately, Sylvia didn’t hear it because she was scrubbing the blood off the knife.

I asked her cautiously after she finished cleaning the kitchen knife she used.

“When do you train?”

She said holding up the knife she used.

“now.”

It seemed to me that I would become that goose.

＊

After training, after the sky was covered with a beautiful sunset, I came into the cemetery to take care of Layla’s grave.

Fortunately, apart from some muscle soreness and great fatigue, I didn’t have any problems.

I muttered, turning my sulky neck from side to side.

“I never thought I could even wield a sword.”

The reason I was fine was because I hadn’t sparred with Silvia-san.

Sylvia, who saw me stance awkwardly holding a dagger, sighed and stopped the sparring, saying that if I stayed like this, I could ‘accidentally’ kill myself.

In the end, I was trained for several hours focusing on basic posture and how to use my body.

There was no such thing as a different posture for using a dagger, but

Basically, there were several theories, such as the shape of the feet and other ways to move the body, to be alert to the opponent and lead directly to evasion or attack.

To be honest, until now I thought that swordsmen and warriors overwhelm their opponents with their instinctive fighting spirit and trained physical strength, but when I listened to her explanation and carefully watched her demonstration, it was a little different from what I imagined.

It has a very calculated mindset than it looks, predicting the opponent’s next move and determining its own stance.

At the same time, he had to pay attention to whether he was in the right posture.

The head is just as busy as the body.

Maybe the fight between two highly trained knights is not simply measuring which one is stronger, but like chess, it might be close to meticulously predicting the opponent’s next move or how many moves back.

Sylvia replied that I was right.

Swordsmanship is originally a skill to subdue humans with a sword, so it is often not used when hunting monsters or wild animals, but techniques that predict movement or induce attacks are not necessarily only applicable to humans, she said.

In fact, it is said that the bear that day was also what prompted her to attack him.

Contrary to the first impression, which was just repulsive, the training was unexpectedly interesting.

“Lyla, I’m here… Huh?”

I looked at Laila’s tombstone.

Layla’s tombstone had white bird droppings.

It was because a lot of flowers were planted near the grave, so bees and butterflies flocked to it, as well as a lot of small birds that wanted to eat the bugs.

I sighed and muttered as I wiped Laila’s tombstone with a handkerchief.

“… Well, nothing in the world goes the way you think. yes?”

I planted these flowers because I thought Laila would like them, but I never thought this would happen.

It was ridiculous, so I laughed a little.

A sudden thought came to me as I was cleaning Laila’s tombstone.

“Wait, I see…”

I stopped for a moment and looked around.

Among the numerous tombstones, only Laila’s tomb stood with a wooden tombstone.

At the time, I thought I was going to leave this forest soon, so I cut it roughly with a tree because I prepared informally, but now that I’m going to stay in this forest forever, it might make a great headstone for Layla.

“…Well, I should be good to you when I’m there, but my brother is not good at it, so now I’m working hard. hahahaha…”

I said as I touched Laila’s grave marker, which had been polished clean.

“I miss you. Lila.”

I vowed to make a proper tombstone for Layla.

No, not only tombstones, but also decorate the graveyard more properly, bring a small platform in front of it, and put burial items on top of it…

Wait, a treasure trove?

I was lost in thought.

I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this yet.

Burial items meant things that were buried with the dead or placed in front of the tomb.

Usually, items cherished by the deceased or items with memories that the family wants to give away are often selected as burial items.

Of course, I couldn’t come and get Layla’s prized possessions now.

However, you may be able to find the last thing you used or the last thing your parents gave you.

“That carriage…”

The carriage we rode and ran away from.

The wagon that eventually overturned and took Laila’s life must have contained some keepsakes.

Things like the ring my father gave to my siblings who ran away as an emergency fund, or my mother’s necklace.

It’s not like I need money now, but there’s nothing better than Lyla’s grave goods.

“Are you still… lying there?”

.