Chapter 59: Chapter 58: Training and Surveillance.

Fencing class was held twice a week and lasted an hour.

Takeshi already knew his combat level was low. He didn’t need anyone to tell him. His own stats confirmed it.

[Strength: 1]

[Speed: 2]

[Magic: 49]

[Endurance: 4]

[Precision: 9]

The problem was that he relied too heavily on magic. If he ever ran out of energy during a real fight, his physical options would be practically nonexistent.

That morning, while the instructor explained the day’s exercises, Takeshi made a firm decision.

’I’m going to use every fencing class as the starting point for my training, beginning now.’

The instructor split the group into pairs for basic technique practice. Takeshi ended up with a partner of similar height, with no visible special abilities. That was fine, since he didn’t need a difficult opponent yet.

The exercise was simple: advance, attack, retreat. The instructor wanted the students to drill the pattern until it became automatic, which for Takeshi was exactly what he needed.

He repeated the pattern thirty times in a row. During the first ten, his movements were clumsy and his feet didn’t respond to the rhythm he was trying to establish.

During the next ten, he started to find the timing between the advance and the attack.

During the final ten, the problem was still the retreat, since it took him half a second too long to move his feet backward after attacking, leaving an obvious opening.

He made a mental note of it.

When the instructor came by to check the pairs, he stopped beside Takeshi for a moment.

"Your attack is well aimed."

He said.

"The problem is your foundation. When you retreat, your weight shifts forward before your foot moves. Start the retreat from the hips, not the shoulders."

Takeshi nodded and repeated the pattern another ten times while applying the correction. The results weren’t immediate, but during the last three repetitions, he noticed the timing improving.

After that, the instructor changed the exercise. This time it was reaction speed: one person attacked at any moment, and the other had to block. No warning, no fixed pattern.

Here, Takeshi lost consistently.

Not because he couldn’t see the attacks. He saw them. The problem was that between seeing them and moving his arm, there was a delay his partner didn’t have. It was a physical response speed issue, not an attention issue.

Takeshi let it go for that class. There was no point getting frustrated over something that wouldn’t be solved in an hour, but he logged it as the second thing he needed to work on: response time between perception and movement.

When class ended, he approached the instructor before he closed up the room.

"Are there any exercises I can do on my own to improve reaction speed?"

The instructor looked at him for a moment.

"Outside of class?"

"Yes."

"Object drops."

The instructor replied.

"You take something small, drop it from shoulder height, and try to catch it before it hits the floor. Sounds simple, but if you do it properly and increase the speed at which you release it, you train response time without needing a partner."

He paused.

"As for strength, your problem isn’t muscle, it’s stability. Slow squats, not fast ones. Go down slowly, come up slowly. That builds the foundation you’re missing to maintain posture in combat."

"Thank you."

The instructor nodded and left the room.

Takeshi mentally repeated the two exercises while packing his bag. Object drops for reaction speed. Slow squats for stability. They were things he could do in the apartment without equipment and every day if necessary.

That was enough to start.

The rest of the day was quiet.

That was the problem.

Takeshi stayed alert throughout all his classes. He looked toward the hallways whenever he passed near a window. He kept track of the routes Ophélia used between classrooms. He watched students he didn’t recognize near her. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Nothing happened.

Ophélia attended her classes without incident. During break, she stayed in the courtyard acting completely normal, talking with a few students who approached her. No one tried anything or behaved suspiciously near her.

At lunchtime, Takeshi ate in the cafeteria with Aoi while discreetly scanning the area without her noticing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Ophélia ate at another table with Elina, who was still talking at a speed Ophélia was probably still trying to process.

When afternoon classes ended, Takeshi walked Ophélia to the shrine, and the trip passed without incident. Ophélia went inside, said goodbye, and that was it.

Takeshi walked back alone.

In that silence, he started thinking about what it meant that nothing had happened.

The first possibility was that the killer had abandoned the plan. Takeshi dismissed that almost immediately.

The second possibility was that the killer didn’t know where Ophélia was that day. He dismissed that too.

The third possibility was the one that made the most sense: the killer was waiting.

Not just for any opportunity, but for a specific one. A moment when Ophélia was alone, or when the protection surrounding her showed a visible gap.

That explained why, in the previous timeline, the attack had happened during the return trip to the shrine. At school, there were always people around, witnesses in the hallways, and dozens of people in the cafeteria, but out on the street, at a certain hour, with the group scattered or distracted, the exposure was greater.

The killer was watching.

Takeshi arrived at the apartment and dropped his backpack in his room.

He picked up a small object from the desk, an eraser, and held it at shoulder height with two fingers. He let go of it and caught it before it even reached halfway down.

Too easy from that height, so he raised it to ear level and dropped it again.

This time, he reacted a little slower. He caught it near the end, when it was already close to hip level.

He repeated the exercise twenty times in a row.

After that, he pushed the chair aside and started doing squats. He lowered himself slowly, counting three seconds on the way down. He stopped at the lowest point. He came back up counting three seconds and repeated the motion fifteen times.

By the end, the lower part of his thighs burned more than he expected for an exercise without additional weight. The muscles were there, but they weren’t used to working that way.

He sat on the edge of the bed and checked his stats.

[Strength: 1]

[Speed: 2]

[Magic: 49]

[Endurance: 4]

[Precision: 9]

The numbers hadn’t changed.

’They weren’t going to change after a single afternoon.’

That wasn’t how physical training worked, and Takeshi knew it. It was a process of weeks or months, not hours.

But the process had started.

Takeshi stared at the ceiling for a moment before standing up again.

Another set of squats, then he’d mentally review the next day’s routes.