88 – Handmaid and Bocchan (2)

what is this doing now?

Haley sighed as she saw herself standing in the center of the arena, doing nothing.

There is still a lot of time left before dawn.

Considering her duties as a maid, she should have gone back to bed and slept.

If you stay up all night with your eyes open, you never know what your physical condition will be the next day, so no matter how sleepy you are, you should have forced yourself to close your eyes and lie in bed, and not come out here.

But now Haley’s body is outside.

Even if she said no to herself, in the end, the place she was now was not in her bedroom, but in the gymnasium. Haley is standing here, neither entering nor leaving the room to do anything.

She was already aware of what had driven her out.

If the room was cramped and wanted to come out, there would not have been a need to come all the way to this place far from the bedroom. It was just that Hailey herself wanted to come to this place. Ever since she ran into the knights the other day, no, long before, she had always wanted to stand here.

It’s just that I’ve been holding back and suppressing that heart.

I can say that the maid has something to do with the sword, but

Hailey Hartman.

Before she was Elena’s maid, she was the daughter of the Hartman family, a vassal of the Duke of Edelweiss.

As can be seen from Wilhelm Hartman, who is currently the leader of the White Rang Knights of Edelweiss and is still counted as one of the best knights in the empire, the Hartman family was a warrior family that could be said to be one of the few prestigious in the North.

How could she, the eldest daughter of the Hartman family, have no connection with the sword?

It was Hailey who learned how to hold a sword from her grandfather and father even before she finished writing.

“You have no talent.”

In the empty gymnasium, the voice of someone who couldn’t be here rang in her ears. It is a very common and obvious story as to why she did not train to become a knight while remaining in the family, but became Elena’s maid.

The existence of a knight is a superman.

Those who are closest to the legendary heroes who can cut mountains and rivers with one sword and drop dragons. Just like a wizard, a knight holds an arsenal in his hand and performs miracles that cannot be accomplished by humans.

And for such knights, the proof that they can perform miracles is the power called Aura, but Hailey did not have the talent to contain this power.

It is not an exaggeration to say that all of the knight’s abilities come from aurors.

It was an aura that transformed the sword they held into a master sword that could cut anything, and it was also an aura that perfected their physical abilities beyond humans.

This aura is the same as the karma of martial arts that the person has accumulated so far, but even so, a certain level of quality was required to put it in the vessel called the body.

Haley has been very smart enough to understand all of Wilhelm’s sword moves since she was a child, but unfortunately, unlike her outstanding intelligence, the size of her vessel was less than that of ordinary people.

It was true that if you continued to train, you would have excellent skills in the martial arts you learned, but it would be a long way from reaching that level to a knight who runs at the same speed as the wind and vibrates the ground with force.

Strictly speaking, her constitution was more suitable for a wizard than a knight.

Unlike knights who store power inside their bodies and use it as a driving force, wizards are those who perform miracles by moving power from the outside and completing the laws they have created. was sufficiently qualified to walk in magic.

Knowing this, the Hartmans no longer let Hailey hold the sword.

Coincidentally, the Duke of Edelweiss, which they serve, was one of the most famous magic houses on the continent, so they sent Haley there, hoping that the duke would become an excellent teacher.

Like this, she wasn’t sent to be used as a court lady from the beginning, but Hailey herself decided what she wanted to do there.

Hailey did not have a heart for magic, so unlike her original purpose, she decided to remain at the Duke’s house as Elena’s maid.

Even if Hailey hadn’t met Elena that day and hadn’t made up her mind to become her handmaid, if she hadn’t let go of her sword, she would have ended up being sent to be used as a handmaid, like any noblewoman. Haley chose to act on her own rather than make a decision for herself.

“It’s been a really long time.”

As she lifted the sword she had taken out of the storage rack, Haley let out a faint smile, as if this feeling was awkward for the first time in a long time.

While living in the Edelweiss family, Elena had often invited her to become a wizard. The words she gave to Hailey at that time were not words she said because she knew her situation, but pure kindness as a friend, but Hailey did not accept it.

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Magic and martial arts are paths that are incompatible with each other.

If you choose one, you must discard the other.

Even though it is difficult to tell where this place is hidden by the darkness and only the light from the small lamp, the fact that you are standing in the gym now makes you feel that your emotions are more intensified than ever.

The feelings she thought she had already abandoned while living as a maid still remained in Haley’s heart. No, even though there were ample opportunities, she had no intention of abandoning her sword from the moment she did not set foot in magic.

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Maybe it’s because I haven’t trained systematically in the past. The weight of the sword in his hand felt heavy. It was as if a stone was sitting on Haley’s heart as well as the weight, but more than that weight, she was glad that she was holding the sword now.

At first, I thought it was a short-lived deviation, but when I raised my sword, I began to focus my mind to the point where I wondered if there was ever a time in the world where I could be so serious.

Although the sword had been put down for a long time and her body had hardened to the point of being stone by comparison, Haley never forgot what she had learned. I took the jockey ceremony and moved my feet.

Hailey’s sword was very slow because there was very little internal power circulating in her body, but there was no disturbance in its movement.

The moonlit sword body shimmers in the dark as if it were wrapped in a sword.

It was like a fleeting illusion that only lasted for this moment, but Hailey liked it. It’s fake, but I couldn’t hate it because the sword wrapped in moonlight seemed to make me a real knight.

The Hartman family sword she had learned was originally a powerful sword full of power, but it was difficult for her to recreate the sword in her memory now, so she simply unfolded the sword as it was easy for her to unfold. If it was simply a weak sword, it might have looked sloppy, but her sword wasn’t like that.

It was to the point of creating an illusion as if the surroundings had become brighter as the graceful sword filled the space with the moonlight.

Haley’s sword dance continued for a while under the moonlight.

At the end of the downward slash that signaled the end of the sword ceremony, Haley let go of the sword.

“Haa…haa… I guess it’s been too long since I caught it. It’s heavy.”

Her voice was full of regret, but Hailey’s face as she said so was relieved.

As soon as she let go of the sword, Hailey’s body, which had never been shaken while swinging it, stumbled back and forth. It’s been a long time since I haven’t trained, so there’s no way I’ll have the same stamina as before. Even if she wielded it with less strength, carrying and moving a heavy piece of metal was a difficult task for a maid to handle.

“But I think I’ll sleep well now.”

Now that the strength of the body has been lost, if you lie down in bed, you will fall asleep on your own, regardless of regrets. I can’t be sure what will happen the next day though.

Is it because I’m out of power? It was difficult to keep my balance and stand still.

Because of her staggering body, she almost rolled forward, but Hailey solved the problem by quickly driving her sword into the ground. The body, which was about to fall forward, was able to stop at a precarious distance from the ground, using the sword as a support.

“Huh? I think I just heard something…”

Haley turned her head to the other side of the gymnasium. The lamp’s light did not reach, and there was only darkness. Soon, she turned her head again and began to concentrate on catching her breath.

***

A little boy moves in the dark.

The boy’s feet were quick to walk away from the gymnasium, but no footsteps could be heard.

Until now, the practice of running to the gymnasium without people noticing was now shining. As soon as he seemed to have moved away from the gymnasium, the boy, Alphonse, stopped and looked back.

Fortunately, no one was seen following Alphonse.

“Whoa…you haven’t seen it, have you?”

Alphonse let out a long breath, relieved that Haley hadn’t found him.

After finishing the sword dance, Hailey staggered and tried to fall forward, and my body moved without realizing it.

If it was as before, I was going to go back to the room after checking who was in the gymnasium, but was it because the person standing there was so unexpected, or was it because I couldn’t take my eyes off the sword she showed me?

Contrary to what I initially thought, I watched everything from beginning to end.

The moonlight dancing with the sword would have felt mysterious to anyone who saw it. It was not a waste to say that she was beautiful as she drew a sword in the moonlight and drew a picture in the air with that light.

Alphonse inadvertently recalled Hailey dancing under the moonlight in pajamas. I keep remembering her face as she teased the sword while talking about what was good for her.

At that moment, he felt heat rushing to his face, but Alphonse thought it was the heat caused by his running and ignored it.