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A knife grazed horizontally over the head of a crouching Kino. Several strands of her short black hair danced in the sky.

With her lowered posture, Kino raised the black knife she was holding in her right hand overhead. She aimed at the wrist that just passed above her head towards the left, and exerted both of her legs to reach it with the pointed end of the knife.

But Kino’s knife passed through empty air. The moment Kino realized that her attack did not get through, she retreated immediately to the back. A thin dust rose from the ground beneath her feet.

Kino positioned her knife while glaring at her opponent. The leather gloves covering up her wrist made a sound from tightly clenching the knife.

Kino wore green cargo pants and a gray sweater with pads stitched on the elbows and shoulders. On her feet were rubber-soled sneakers that are easy to move in, and there were goggles strapped tightly around her eyes. Sweat ran down her forehead, hit the frame of her goggles, and slowly scattered.

Kino’s opponent was a tall man with an athletic build. He was middle-aged, and the hairline of his short brown hair had receded considerably. He wore dark sunglasses that concealed his gaze. The deep blue short sleeves of his shirt covered the steel-like muscles of his thick-as-logs upper arms. His short pants exposed his similarly thick thighs. His simple appearance was accentuated by the thick socks and black short boots on his feet.

The man’s right hand grasped a blunt, long and narrow, silver knife.

“Yes, that low dodge has a good feel to it, Kino,” the man spoke kindly. His breathing was perfectly stable; he was calm, as if he was sitting comfortably in a couch in his own room.

“Thanks…” Kino replied curtly, still glaring and confronting the man. Then, she exhaled once or twice, steadying her breathing.

“You should at least look sincerely happy when you’re praised!” Hermes, who was parked on his center stand beside the road where the two stood, spoke without a drop of tension in his tone.

The road flanked between the trees stretched straight ahead. Behind the roadside where Hermes was propped was a log cabin with the dense forest serving as its backdrop. All of its windows were slightly open, and the sheets hung to dry over the terrace shook gently with the early summer breeze. Inside a stable beside the cabin, there was a horse gazing peacefully at the two.

“Now then,” the man spoke, quickly curling his back like a cat. He drew back his left foot lightly, bent both knees gently, and held the knife in his right hand in front of his body. The knife looked exactly like a real one, but it was only made of hard rubber for training purposes, with its blade portion painted in silver.

“…”

Still silent, Kino tightened her grip on her rubber knife. The one she was holding was neither long nor short. She also readily assumed her fighting stance.

As the man approached little by little, Kino glared at the eyes behind the sunglasses.

Without drawing back, Kino maintained a similar stance to the man’s, and waited for her opponent to come closer.

The man flexibly swung his right arm, the edge of the blade dancing and drawing a circle. While moving his upper body limply, he took one more step, approaching with his feet sliding forward.

When the distance between the two has become shorter than Hermes’ overall length,

“—Hup!”

Kino exhaled sharply and charged forward. From her initial posture, she thrust her body forward with immense force. She stretched out the knife’s blade, targeting the man’s right wrist.

The man bent his elbow and pulled back his right arm. He folded his left knee and lowered his body, throwing it to the left at the same time. His right arm brushed inwards, reaching out with the knife to the back of Kino’s right knee.

“Haah!”

“Ooh.”

It was Kino’s yell, and the man expressing his admiration.

As preparation for a side kick, Kino gave her right knee a big bend and raised her feet. The man’s knife was underneath the rubber soles of Kino’s shoes. With Kino’s stomp kick, the man’s knife flipped away to the border of the road and the forest.

As a backlash of her kick, Kino’s left leg half-turned to the back. At the same time, the man turned to the opposite direction and returned to his original stance, immediately taking some distance away.

“Oh, not bad.”

Before Hermes finished expressing his amazement, Kino plunged towards the unarmed man. Joining her left hand with the right hand that gripped the knife, she pressed her arms against her belly and hardened the pit of her stomach.

“—Hyaah!”

Along with a yell and a frantic form, she charged her body towards the man.

“Could this be her win?” Hermes let out his thoughts.

Only three steps were needed for the rushing Kino to clear the distance between her and the man.

With Kino’s first step, the man’s lips formed a broad smile; in the middle of her second step, the man, with a backhand, pulled out a different rubber knife from the pocket of his short pants. On the third step, while drawing his body in rhythm with his right foot, he thrust the rubber knife towards the right flank of the charging Kino.

“Guh—!”

With the rubber knife plunged on her side as the fulcrum, Kino was blown by her own force. Her body soared in the sky for about two seconds before dropping on the ground and rolling, her face ramming the grass by the roadside.

“Oops.”

“Gack—!”

Along with Hermes disappointed voice, Kino let out a gasp. Kino vomited a copious amount of saliva on the grass, and rolled over the road two or three times while moaning in pain. Her face, head, and body turned brown from the dust.

The man who did not break a single sweat picked up the knife that flew away and put it back in his pocket. Then he went to Hermes’ side and waited for Kino to get up.

After about thirty seconds, the ragged Kino slowly got up from the ground. She brushed away the dust all over her body, wiped off the mixed sludge from her sweaty face, and removed her goggles.

“…”

Without fixing her unkempt hair covered in dust, she walked up in front of the man and bowed her head.

“Thank you very much.”

“Mhm. Today’s practice is over.” The man’s smile showed below the sunglasses.

“That crouching dodge at the beginning was really good. That time, I was thinking of going for your throat, but you dodged it well. And the succeeding low-cut backflip with your leg, did you plan that right from the start?”

Kino nodded. “Yes. I knew that I wouldn’t cut the wrist from my first attack. And from my previous defeat, I anticipated that you would aim for the back of my knee. Once I got rid of the knife, I thought I should try charging forward.”

“Pretty good. ―And after that?”

“And then, as I was taught before, I put all of my weight and charge with a deep stab for the final blow, but…”

“You did not expect that I’m hiding another knife?”

“… I never considered it.”

“That is another reason why you are defeated this time,” the man said frankly, and slapped his big palms together.

“That’s everything for today. As usual, I’ll come the day after tomorrow. ―But if this were a real fight, there will be no next time.”


—

“You ‘died’ again, huh? If that fight’s for real, you’re a goner, Kino.”

“I know, Hermes.”

Kino and Hermes saw off the man who left on horseback. Kino’s appearance was still dirty from her training, but now there was a holster wrapped around her hips, and a hand persuader (Note: A persuader is a gun. In this case, a pistol), a large-caliber revolver hung inside it.

When the man was already out of sight, Kino pulled out the revolver from her hip. With her left hand she quickly raised the hammer and fired one shot just above her waist. The bullet hit a frying pan hanging from the branch of a tree a few meters away. After that, she fired five shots in a row, and the sound of lead bullets piercing steel was heard five times.

“Great. You still hit perfectly even though you’re angry. Good job,” said Hermes.

“…”

Kino silently returned the revolver in the holster.

As if the gunshots were signals, an old woman with long silver hair tied neatly on her back came out from the log cabin. She wore an apron, with a short revolver suspended inside a holster behind her waist. From the terrace, the old woman gently called out to Kino.

“‘Dead’ again, Kino?” Well anyway, wash your face and change your clothes, then let’s have some tea.”


—

A round wooden table was placed on the log cabin’s spacious terrace. The laundry sheets were put away and the rope used to hung them wound up.

The old woman and Kino sat in front of their teacups while the scattered, white clouds floating in the sky hid and revealed the sun.

“Smells good,” the old woman said cheerfully as she lifted the cup with blue onions painted on its white background, and took a sip.

“…”

She returned the cup on the top of the saucer while looking at Kino’s disappointed face.

“I did not win…,” Kino muttered. “Before this, I lost fifty-four times already. I ‘died’ fifty-four times.”

The old woman put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her joined fingertips. She gazed amusingly at the person before her, Kino, whose hair was still a little bit dirty with the dust.

“This training is such a good thing. If it were not, I wouldn’t have had fifty-five Kino’s to accompany me to tea.”

“Somehow, imagining that there are fifty-five of Kino gives me a bad feeling. But that would make polishing my wheels a breeze,” Hermes said while parked on the raised slope at the edge of the terrace.

Kino easily ignored Hermes’ remark, and stared intently at the old woman’s face. “I did not win… But someday, will I be able to defeat that knife-user?”

The old woman nodded with a smile. “Yes, you will, Kino. You can win. If you challenge him with your own knowledge and experience, and demonstrate your skill, you can win anytime.”

“But…”

“Look for something in your defeat, something with more value than winning.”

“… Yes.”

“If you are not capable of defeating that person, it will be impossible for you to travel like I have done in the past.”

“…”