The second day of travel in Balthazar’s caravan passed with an almost suspicious calm. The rattling of the wheels and the murmur of the guards’ conversations had become a monotonous background noise, a constant pulse measuring their progress through the rolling hills.

Inside the main wagon, seated on bales of silk that smelled of distant lands, Paul and Hilda had turned their small space into a makeshift war room. There were no swords, only words.

“Alright, hypothetical situation,” Paul began, his voice low and focused, devoid of its usual laziness. “Three bandits block the road ahead. Two with swords, one with a bow. The path is narrow. First move?”

Hilda closed her eyes, visualizing the scene as he had taught her. Her face, once a mask of noble boredom, was now that of a strategist in training, every muscle tensed with concentration.

“The archer is the biggest threat at a distance. I need immediate cover. I would summon an Earth Wall to block his line of sight and give us a moment to assess.”

“Good. The wall goes up,” Paul continued, sketching the scenario in the air with a gesture. “But the swordsmen are smart. They split up to flank you, taking advantage of the fact that your vision is now blocked too. They’re coming from both sides of the wagon. Your response?”

She frowned, thinking.

“That’s a waste of mana. A wall for each of them is inefficient and slow. Instead, I’d use Soften Ground right in front of me, in a wide semicircle. Their charge would become slow and clumsy.”

“Good, you’ve taken away their advantage of speed. But the archer simply repositions, looking for an angle. He can still hit you.”

“While the swordsmen are splashing in the mud, my focus shifts to the archer,” she replied instantly, her voice gaining confidence. “I don’t need a wall. I need to neutralize him. A direct Earth Spear. Aiming for his legs, not to kill. An immobile archer is a useless archer.”

A smile of genuine, deep pride, one he rarely showed, lit up Paul’s face.

“See. You’re already thinking like a strategist, not a victim. You’re using the environment, controlling the battlefield, thinking two steps ahead.”

“It’s logical,” she said, though a faint blush colored her cheeks at the compliment. “It’s like a game of chess, but with more mud and the possibility of a horrible death.”

“A perfect description of an adventurer’s life,” Paul laughed. “Now, a harder one. You’re in an enclosed space, a cave. A single enemy, but it’s incredibly fast, like a shadow goblin. You can’t follow it with your eyes. What do you do?”

Hilda thought for a long moment, biting her lower lip. The answer wasn’t obvious.

“I can’t catch it, so I don’t try. I’d use Soften Ground on the entire cave floor. Not to trap it, but to track its movements.”

Paul’s eyes widened slightly, impressed.

“Go on.”

“Every step it takes will leave a print, create a ripple in the mud. I don’t need to see it, I need to feel where it is. Then, Earth Spear from below, at the exact spot of the disturbance. No aiming. Letting the earth do the work for me.”

Paul was silent for a moment, genuinely impressed. He leaned forward, his face inches from hers.

“Damn, Hilda. That was brilliant. Not even I would have thought of that tactic.”

“I’ve spent my whole life watching people at dances,” she said with a small smile, her gray eyes shining with a new light. “You learn to read subtle movements, to anticipate your partner’s next step from the tension in their back. It’s the same, just with fewer jewels and more murderous intent.”

The conversation drifted to more personal topics, the line between training and confession blurring. She asked him if he ever got scared.

“All the time,” he admitted, his voice losing all its arrogance, becoming a vulnerable whisper. “The day you stop being scared in a fight is the day you become arrogant. And arrogance is a quicker grave than any sword. Fear keeps you alert, it makes you sharper, it forces you to respect your opponent. It’s a companion, not an enemy.”

The lesson was interrupted by a violent, thunderous crack that shook the wagon. A huge tree, old and rotten inside, collapsed onto the road just ahead of the caravan, blocking the path with an impenetrable barrier of wood and leaves. The draft animals neighed, frightened, pulling at their harnesses.

“Ambush!” one of Balthazar’s guards shouted, his voice cracking with panic.

An instant later, arrows hissed from the thicket of the forest. Paul moved with a blinding, inhuman speed. Before Hilda could even process the sound, he was already in motion. He drew his sword in a fluid arc and, with a series of precise movements that seemed to defy physics, deflected three arrows aimed directly at her, all without getting up from his seat. The sound of the arrows’ wood splitting against his steel was sharp and final.

A group of six bandits emerged from the trees. They were dirty, poorly armed, but their eyes shone with the desperation of hunger, which made them dangerous. They were led by a burly man with a matted beard and a two-handed axe that looked like it had seen better days.

“Well, well!” the leader said with a smile full of rotten teeth, his voice a harsh croak. “A fat prize and easy prey. Get out of the cart and give us everything you’ve got, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you live!”

Paul leaped from the wagon, landing with the lightness of a cat. His sword rested lightly on his shoulder, his posture relaxed, almost insulting. Hilda followed him, her face pale but her hand already on the hilt of the sword he had given her. The weight of the steel was a solid comfort.

“What’s the plan?” she whispered, her heart pounding against her ribs. “Do we flank them?”

“No. There’s a better plan,” Paul replied, his eyes assessing the bandits with the cold calm of a veteran. He saw the fear in the eyes of Balthazar’s men, the poor stance of the bandit leader, the way the other five clustered too closely together, like a nervous pack.

He turned to Hilda, his expression serious and without a trace of a joke. His gaze met hers, intense and demanding.

“This is your real first lesson, Hilda. The wolves were beasts. These are men. Fighting them is different.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, a knot of dread forming in her stomach.

“I mean I’ll take care of the leader.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “You will take care of the other five.”

Hilda’s jaw dropped, the color draining from her face. The air seemed to escape her lungs.

“What? You’re insane! There are five of them! I can’t… they’ll kill me!”

“No, they won’t,” he said, his voice as firm as a rock, an unbreakable command. “Because I’ll be watching every move you make. I won’t save you unless you’re about to actually die. I want you to feel the pressure. I want you to use what you’ve learned in a real fight. Trust your training. Trust yourself. And trust me. Show me I wasn’t wrong to buy you that sword.”

Without waiting for a reply, he advanced languidly toward the bandit leader, leaving Hilda alone to face her terror and five desperate men.

“I take it you’re the boss,” Paul said with a lazy smile, completely ignoring the other five. “Why don’t we let the children play among themselves while you and I have a more civilized conversation?”

The bandit leader laughed, a guttural, unpleasant sound.

“I like your arrogance, swordsman. Boys, the girl is yours! Have some fun before you kill her!”

The five remaining bandits lunged at Hilda, seeing her as an easy target, a prize. Panic paralyzed her for an instant. There were too many, too fast. The world became a tunnel of grimy faces and rusty weapons closing in. Her mind screamed at her to run, to hide, to be the noble she had always been.

“Hilda, don’t just stand there!” Paul’s voice boomed from the other side, where he was already engaged in a casual duel with the leader. “Move! Remember the cave! Use the terrain you control!”

She reacted. His words were the anchor she needed in the storm of her fear. She moved backward, creating distance, her mind racing, reviewing the lessons, the hypothetical situations. Don’t look at the men, look at their feet.

“Oh, earth, soften and yield, Soften Ground!” she shouted, her voice trembling but clear.

The ground beneath the charging bandits’ feet turned into a thick, unexpected mud. They stumbled, their boots sinking, their coordinated charge turned into a clumsy and furious splashing in the mire.

“Good!” Paul shouted, parrying a brutal axe swing with a fluid Water God Style defense that sent the leader’s axe harmlessly wide. “Now divide the pack! Use the wall, like we practiced! Don’t ask the earth, command it! Impose your will!”

My will. The phrase resonated within her. She thought of her father, of Philip, of the gilded cage. A surge of cold, pure anger coursed through her.

“Oh, earth, rise and protect, Earth Wall!”

A wall of rock and dirt erupted from the ground with a roar, isolating one of the bandits from the rest. Now it was four against one, and their advance was completely broken. The surprise on their faces was a small victory that fueled her determination.

“That’s it! Control the battlefield!” Paul’s voice was a constant stream of orders and encouragement, all while he held off the leader with a series of effortless-looking parries and deflections. “Now, on the offensive! The spear, like in the clearing! Visualize the obsidian! Focus on the tip! Make it hurt!”

“Oh, earth, rise and pierce, Earth Spear!” her voice gained a sharp confidence.

A spear of black, sharp rock erupted from the ground and stabbed cleanly through another bandit’s leg. He fell, screaming in pain and surprise. The other three hesitated, their confidence shattered as they watched the “noble lady” dismantle their group with a brutal and efficient magic they didn’t understand.

Paul’s battle, in contrast, was almost a humiliating dance. The bandit leader was strong, but crude. Every axe swing was predictable, telegraphed. Paul didn’t attack; he simply flowed around him, using the Water God Style to frustrate his every move, waiting, watching Hilda with a divided concentration that was a feat in itself.

Hilda, emboldened by her success, felt something new blossom in her chest. The fear wasn’t gone, but it was now mixed with something else: a wild euphoria. Adrenaline was a liquid fire in her veins. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t a pawn; she was a player. She was dictating the terms of engagement.

She took a step forward, her own sword in hand, no longer an ornament but a tool. One of the remaining bandits, a man with a scar on his cheek, charged at her with a clumsy swing.

Hilda remembered Paul’s lessons with the sword. Guard high, don’t watch his weapon, watch his shoulders. The direction of the shoulders tells you where the strike is going.

She parried the blow, the clash of steel vibrating up her arm to her shoulder. The bandit was stronger, and the brute force of the impact pushed her back, making her stumble.

As she regained her footing, she faced the last two standing henchmen. They looked at each other, then at her, their bravado gone.

“Now it’s your turn, cowards,” Hilda said, her voice steady and cold.

With a cry, they charged her together. The last of the henchmen saw his chance as she focused on the first. He lunged for her back.

Hilda was trapped. Drained, her mana nearly gone, and with two opponents about to overwhelm her. Panic threatened to return.

It was then that Paul decided the lesson was over. His time as a coach had ended; now it was time for the swordsman.

“Class dismissed,” he said with a deadly calm, his voice barely a whisper that the bandit leader hardly heard.

His style changed. The fluid, reactive defense of water vanished, replaced by a blinding flash of the Sword God Style. In a single motion, too fast to be seen, his sword moved. There was a flash of light and the sound of metal striking flesh and bone. He disarmed the leader, struck him on the nape of the neck with the hilt of his sword, leaving him unconscious in the mud, and appeared beside Hilda like a ghost.

With two precise, non-lethal strikes, using the pommel of his sword instead of the blade, the last two bandits dropped to the ground, one with a blow to the temple and the other to the solar plexus.

The silence after the battle was absolute, broken only by the groans of the defeated bandits and Hilda’s ragged gasps. She stood in the middle of the chaos she had helped create, her sword trembling in her hand, her chest heaving with effort.

The adrenaline, that glorious fire, began to fade, and the weight of what she had just done hit her with its full force. Tears of relief, shock, and overwhelming pride welled up in her eyes, tracing clean paths on her dust-covered cheeks. She had done it. She had fought. She had protected others. She had won.

Balthazar and his guards stared at her with absolute awe, as if they were seeing a goddess of war instead of the woman with whom they had shared bread.

Paul approached her slowly. There were no jokes in his voice, no arrogance, only a deep, overwhelming pride that was more intimate than any kiss.

“I told you.”

Hilda looked at him, her gray eyes shining through her tears, reflecting the blue sky.

“I… I fought. I really fought.”

“Yes, you did,” he said, wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb, his touch surprisingly gentle. “And you won. You’re not a runaway noble anymore. You’re a battle mage. You’re my partner.”

He put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him, completely exhausted but filled with a new, hard confidence forged in the fire of her first real victory. She had tasted power, not the kind that is inherited, but the kind that is earned with sweat, fear, and will. And she had liked it. She had loved every terrifying, glorious second of it.