## Chapter 249 – 249. Sparring
#249. Sparring
The priestess had a duty to offer prayers to the divine statue five times a day: dawn, morning, noon, evening, and night.
Naturally, she couldn’t skip a single day.
It wasn’t a simple, perfunctory ritual; each time, she had to kneel for nearly an hour. There were more than a few times she wanted to quit being a priestess altogether.
Especially since she hadn’t become one by choice in the first place.
Within the tribe, every girl with the potential had to become a priestess candidate without exception.
She was just one of them.
At first, she planned to fail gracefully, but perhaps her talent was too outstanding?
She was chosen by the previous priestess and became a priestess almost against her will.
On the day of the succession ceremony, when the flower crown symbolizing the priestess was placed on her head, she couldn’t help but wonder what was happening.
But when she was struck with a switch for needing to learn proper conduct as a priestess, it hit her like a bolt of lightning.
She had to escape from here as quickly as possible.
But she was caught before long. The previous priestess was a monster.
Her life after inheriting the sacred orb and becoming a priestess against her will was best described as terrible.
Handmaidens constantly watched and interfered, telling her to be careful with her words and actions. The priestess made her study until dawn, claiming she needed to learn about the tribe’s traditions and history.
Nothing was easy.
But as mentioned earlier, the most grueling part was having to pray to a god she didn’t even believe in five times a day.
The god worshiped by the tribe was just a local deity that the ancestors who settled in this land long ago had arbitrarily worshiped.
She didn’t know what it was like back then, but now it had degenerated into a trivial god that couldn’t even bestow meager blessings.
Naturally, she couldn’t develop any faith.
If there really was a god protecting the tribe, it would have helped when her parents were killed by monsters.
Unable to bear it any longer, she pleaded with the previous priestess to at least reduce the number of prayers, but all she got in return was a sharp switch.
‘Hmph…!’
She stroked the stinging wound on her calf and headed to the prayer room.
Oh well, she had to do as she was told.
Being weak was a sin.
Just as she was leaning against the wall, pretending to be engrossed in prayer and dozing off…
*Ting-*
A strange sound came from somewhere.
At first, she thought someone had dropped something outside the prayer room, but she soon realized that wasn’t the case.
“What is this…?”
[A contract has arrived.]
[Would you like to view the contract?]
[Y/N]
***
“A contract?”
“Yes, shall I write it down for you?”
Noel rummaged through her memories and transcribed the contract onto a suitable piece of paper.
The completed contract, which took only three minutes, stated that she had to help a lost traveler.
Other than that, it was an ordinary contract with nothing particularly unusual. If anything, the only thing was that there was no contract period.
‘Could it be…’
A hypothesis suddenly came to mind.
The fact that there was no contract period meant that the app knew from the start that Noel would become my summon, didn’t it?
Or maybe it made a contract with Noel with that in mind.
Of course, there was no evidence.
“No, but what made you sign a contract without knowing what would happen?”
Even if the other party was human, you couldn’t help but be suspicious if they suddenly handed you a contract.
Especially if you weren’t familiar with the concept of a status window like me, who had read various novels and webtoons.
Noel avoided my gaze at my question.
“A priestess’s intuition?”
At this point, I wasn’t just speechless, I was at a loss for words.
Was she fearless, or did she have something to rely on?
“After that, it’s as Master knows. I appeared in a bunny girl outfit and recited the lines written in the contract exactly as they were. Of course, I felt cheated when I was registered as a summon.”
After finishing her words, Noel rested her head on my lap as if she felt relieved.
“No, wait a minute. Is that all?”
“Is that all?! Do you know how anxiously I was talking?!”
I wondered what kind of great secret she was hiding that she avoided talking about the app so much, but when I finally found out, it was nothing special.
In summary, all it meant was that she made a contract with the app and appeared in front of me, right?
When I first met her, she seemed like someone who knew something, but now it turned out to be all bluff.
“Then why did you tell me not to try to find out about the app?”
It wasn’t a request that someone who didn’t know anything about the app would make.
Noel hesitated for a moment at my question before slowly opening her mouth.
“Actually… I was asked to stop Master as much as possible from finding out about the app. But if you really begged me, I could tell you everything I knew…”
“…What?”
“Even if you make that face, I really have nothing more to tell you. I really don’t know anything.”
Noel waved her arms and made a troubled expression. It didn’t seem like she was lying about not knowing anything.
A sentence from a mystery novel I read a long time ago suddenly came to mind.
-The more I dig, the more the case seems to fall into a maze.
That was exactly how I felt now.
At this point, I even doubted whether the dating app was really my ability.
Normally, it ignored my words completely, but it was possible to have a conversation in certain situations. Of course, even that was more of an exchange of intentions than a conversation.
‘Is it a divine being like the constellations of the tower?’
Even so, there were many points that I couldn’t logically accept.
Especially since I already knew that the existence of a god wasn’t omnipotent.
“Then why did you threaten me strangely when we first met? Did the app tell you to do that too?”
“That was just to gain the upper hand… Hehe…”
I couldn’t even laugh anymore.
Was she completely hopeless?
“If you hadn’t done that in the first place, you wouldn’t have become a summon.”
“…I don’t think so?”
As if she had never been aware of my mood, Noel looked at me with a playful smile.
The serious atmosphere was gone, and she was back to her usual self.
“The app said it would grant my wish.”
“Wish?”
A strange light flickered in Noel’s eyes.
It was a mysterious blue color, as if the sky was contained within.
“My wish was to escape from my boring daily life and go to a place where everything was new and fun. If possible, I also wanted to have a relationship with a wonderful man…”
“That’s me?”
Noel blushed slightly and nodded.
I felt embarrassed for no reason at the strange atmosphere and Noel’s appearance, which was quite different from usual.
“In the first place, the reason I accepted the contract was because I had nothing to lose.”
“You said it was a priestess’s intuition earlier.”
“Oh, that was just a joke, of course.”
Noel smiled and got up.
The blanket slipped down, revealing her pure white body.
Noel, who had taken a seat between my legs, told me briefly about her hometown.
“Istria?”
“Yes, I heard that other continents call it the Eastern Continent.”
Noel’s explanation that followed was somewhat shocking.
Istria, where hundreds of countries and tribes were in conflict, was a crazy place where they waged war every day for the gods they believed in.
In addition, gods whose faith had weakened were said to be corrupted and tried to seduce humans with sweet words to make unfair contracts.
“The closer they are to corruption, the more desperate the gods are, so if you make a contract with a god who isn’t an evil god, it’s usually beneficial. That’s why I accepted it. Besides, it didn’t seem like a god low enough to scam humans.”
A place where gods were constantly trying to stab humans in the back.
I was amazed that Noel had survived in such a place.
Of course, the gods in Istria seemed to be a slightly different concept from the gods we think of on Earth.
When we think of gods, we often think of omnipotent beings, but in Istria, most gods were just local deities or high-ranking spirits, and it was even possible to subdue them if necessary.
“Is your tribe okay?”
Didn’t she say that they worshiped a trivial god that couldn’t even share divine power?
“Are you worried about me?”
Noel raised the corners of her mouth as if she was satisfied and quietly leaned her head against my chest.
Her slowly swaying ears were expressing her feelings. Like a puppy’s tail.
“It’s okay. Even like this, we’ve been preventing external invasions for hundreds of years. Besides, Master will help us if anything happens, right?”
I stroked Noel’s head without answering.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Yes??”
Did she feel a sense of kinship from the fact that she lost her parents to monsters?
We had a conversation from a closer distance than before.
The dawn was deepening.
“Oh, right. The last time I said the bunny girl outfit was a priestess’s robe, that was a lie.”
“…”
I knew it was a lie, but I felt depressed for no reason when I heard it directly.
Perhaps noticing my reaction, Noel, who had gone to the bathroom for a while, came back wearing a bunny girl outfit.
It was the same outfit she wore when we first met.
Unable to resist Noel’s bunny girl appearance, I violated her until dawn. Noel, who was repeating fainting and climaxing, dirtied the mattress while crying like a rabbit.
I was worried about my master, but I cast a soundproofing spell, so it should be okay.
…Probably.
***
The next day, I headed to a nearby training room with my master. It cost a whopping three million won per hour.
The reason I came here was simple.
Magic can be researched by being cooped up in a workshop, but martial arts can only be trained by moving.
Moreover, the importance of sparring with an equal opponent was exceptional.
I stared at my master while holding a practice iron sword.
“Ugh…”
But my master seemed to recall what happened last night, and she quickly averted her gaze as soon as she met my eyes.
An awkward silence flowed between us.
I was also concerned about what happened yesterday, but I decided to forget about it for now.
In order to draw out my master’s sincerity with only the martial arts I had built up so far, I needed to get rid of all unnecessary thoughts.
This was a sparring match and a kind of challenge.
Golden sword energy flickered over the practice iron sword.
My master seemed quite surprised to see it.
“…I didn’t know you would awaken the method of imbuing will into sword energy already.”
“It’s all thanks to having a good master.”
Thanks to that, my master’s eyes became more serious.
In the silence that followed, our gazes crossed. Soon, our figures disappeared.
*Bang!!*
The sword energy collided and a gust of wind swirled.
My master’s level was transcendent, higher than mine.
But I didn’t feel intimidated. In order to meet Chun Yeo-hwa again someday, I had to defeat the elder of the Demonic Cult who had reached the pinnacle of evil.
I didn’t have the luxury to stop here.
I unfolded the Formless Sword Art and pressured my master.
The entire training room shook from the fluctuating waves of magical power. My master’s true value was revealed in the increasingly intense sparring.
*Bang!*
“Ugh?!”
My master’s sword was a greatsword.
It was somewhat slow, but the heavy blow was fatal.
At first, I was the one pressuring her, but I had to change my course due to the shock that seemed to be transmitted to my bone marrow. I had to avoid and deflect as much as possible while looking for an opportunity.
And before long, the opportunity I had been waiting for came.
I avoided my master’s sword strike aimed at my side with the Formless Step that had reached 6 stars. As a greatsword that was impossible to recover quickly, a gap was created.
I squeezed the muscles of my entire body and exploded the Vajra Energy concentrated at my toes in an instant.
*Thud-*
Formless Sword Art – Heavenly Light.
I became a bolt of lightning and thrust my sword at my master. But just before the sword touched her, her waist bent at an impossible angle, and she avoided the attack as if nothing had happened.
Was it the flexibility unique to beastmen?
I felt disappointed that I had missed the perfect opportunity, but I didn’t dwell on it.
Now that I knew she could do such movements, there would be no second mistake.
But I realized too late that mistakes were never allowed, even in sparring.
‘I caught…?!’
Heavenly Light is a thrust that pursues the ultimate speed.
Thrusting is a technique that requires controlling all elements of the body, from the fingertips to the toes, to move in one direction, so the movement is quite large.
A large movement meant that gaps were bound to occur.
My master didn’t miss the momentary gap.
*Clang!*
“Ugh?!”
I flew backward with a shock as if I had been hit by a huge rock. I barely managed to block it with my sword, but I had no choice but to admit defeat when I saw the broken sword.
The match ended in a total of 29 moves.
Considering when I first picked up a sword, it was a remarkable achievement, but it was still far from enough.
Just as I was about to approach my master to ask for another sparring match, I had no choice but to stop when I saw my master’s face with a shadow cast over it.
I touched my neck and put down the broken sword.
It seemed that after the sparring match, we needed to have a conversation while having dinner alone.
