I Awakened My Game System! Now Three Great Houses Want Me Dead!-Chapter 109: Be

Gaia hesitated before quickly nodding.

"O-of course."

And so the tour began.

She started with the training yard, which was a wide, open space, lined with glowing Arcane for strengthening the structure... a must-have for an arena made for Runebearers.

"You’ll probably use this... a lot.

"Probably."

Xenos agreed while stepping onto the sand and kicking it lightly.

"It feels solid underfoot. Did you test it yet?"

She shook her head.

"I was waiting for you."

Xenos grinned.

"Flattering."

That made her trip over her next word entirely.

Which, thankfully for her, weren’t exactly many.

After that, they moved on to the kitchen, where a few maids scrambled to bow as they entered.

"They insisted on baking since dawn, calling it a celebration."

"Of what?"

"Your arrival and our new home."

He blinked.

"They celebrate me showing up? You might want to warn them to lower expectations."

Her laugh came out soft.

"I’ll... try."

Next came the main hall, a high-ceilinged chamber with sunlight spilling through stained windows, each pane depicting some overly dramatic symbol of... Luck?

He stopped to look at one.

"Let me guess, was this also done by my father’s people?"

Gaia nodded, an answer enough for him.

"Hm, he might just annoy me to death."

Her giggle escaped again, shy but genuine, as they went past the servants’ quarters, then upstairs to the private floor.

"These are..."

She hesitated before opening the final door.

"Our rooms."

Xenos blinked at the word ’our.’

"You’re fast, huh?"

Her face practically caught fire.

"N-not like that! I mean—we—you—"

"I’m teasing."

Amused, he held up a hand.

"Relax."

She huffed, crossing her arms, clearly flustered.

"You’re insufferable."

"Thank you. I work hard at it."

For a moment, a comfortable silence lingered.

One that he took to look around before turning back to her.

"Do you want to duel?"

Her eyes widened.

"What—now?"

"Sure. You gave me a tour. It seems fair that I give you a lesson."

She hummed, torn between confusion and anticipation, before finally smiling.

"Fine. But don’t go too easy on me."

"I never planned to... at least not too much."

...

Medea softly clipped the white flag and stepped back.

The training area that had felt cozy minutes earlier snapped clean into battle mode.

Xenos dropped his hands to his sides and took a stance like he’d done it a thousand times.

Though this time he held no sword and wore no Hands of Lethe, planning to use nothing but his limbs and reflexes.

He didn’t need metal for this; he wanted to see what she’d actually learned.

Opposite him, Gaia stood with her bladed staff, the wood polished to a cold sheen.

Seeing her hold it still felt like a surprise, even more so when she actually took a proper stance, showing Xenos just how much she had improved since he last saw her fight.

The two stared at each other for a while before Gaia suddenly flicked her wrists, and the earth answered: dozens of spearheads thrust from the ground.

Xenos hummed at the spears, making a proud face.

"Hm."

She quickly fired the first volley at him.

He tried to move like he always did, with a quick step to the side, only to discover that the ground under his feet had given way. Gaia had obviously practiced the sink, the floor swallowing his ankles at a much faster rate.

Xenos grinned despite himself.

She’d become a Priest, and it showed.

This was her third Rune bleeding into her fighting style.

"You’ve improved so much~."

The duel had just started, and Xenos could almost cry already.

How lovely was it to see a chick grow up?

And at such a fast rate as well?

Perhaps that Academy wasn’t all that useless.

Though still...

’Chicks are naive.’

Xenos freed one leg with a tidy arch kick and used the momentum to fling one spear into another. Earth met earth in the air, making the whole volley misalign and shatter into each other, shards clattering harmlessly away, his Luck helping out.

But Gaia wasn’t done, as sharpened walls, or essentially, spikes, sprouted from the ground and crawled towards him.

Xenos wasn’t worried, though, as by that point he managed to get his other leg out, jumping up and kicking off the nearest spike’s tip with the flat of his boot, shooting himself back and away from the attack in a backflip.

Landing on his feet, he immediately began running towards her from the right.

"You got so much better~!"

Jumping over a row of sinkholes, he sidestepped midstride to avoid another barrage of spears and closed the remaining distance with a simple hop, his hand finding the back of her neck.

"Dead."

Gaia obtained her rhythm.

She now had much higher accuracy.

But still, she tended to hesitate before attacking.

"N-Not yet!"

Gaia spun the staff, swinging at him, but he easily dodged it by stepping back.

Undeterred, she followed through and lunged with a high sweep. Expecting that, Xenos rolled under the arc, letting his shoulder brush the ground before pushing up and spinning into a kick that almost tore her head off, pausing just before it.

"Don’t telegraph your attacks with your hips."

He lowered his leg and took a stance.

"Bring your whole body or nothing."

"Haaa!" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

She answered by chaining a double-spin into a rising cleave, a fun attack, though slow, for he stepped in and slotted his forearm between the staff and strike before it could go fast.

"Good power. Try not to give me the center line when you commit to the spin; it leaves you open if someone steps inside your tempo."

Planting both feet hard on the ground, she launched a rain of stabbing jabs while melting the ground beneath and around Xenos, combining both physical attacks and spells to an acceptable degree.

Xenos, obviously anticipating the earth pockets’ arrival, casually hopped out, ducked, and tumbled through both her traps and attacks, nearly tiptoeing his way through them.

"Footwork, Gaia. You’ve got the strength; get the feet to say the same thing. When you plant, imagine a spring and load from the ground, not only the hip."

Pausing the stabs, she flicked the staff into a chopping arc that would have split a shield.