"I'm not the same guy as back then anymore. Anyone can grow if given time, right?"

"Oh? Interesting. I'll make sure to see that for myself right now. First, Papico, you go against him! You seem to have made a fool of yourself by letting your guard down last time, but don't let your guard down this time. Show this permanent G-rank what an E-rank is capable of in this town!"

Ryu and Papico were given practice wooden swords and moved to the center of the training ground.

They stood in a fighting stance.

"I let my guard down last time, but not today! I'm going all out this time, so be ready!"

Papico shouted and immediately attacked. Ryu intercepted him with his sword. They clashed in a flurry of blows.

The sound of wooden swords striking echoed, clang, clang, clang.

It looked like they were evenly matched...

Of course, Ryu was holding back considerably.

Papico was an E-rank adventurer, but an E-rank in this town was equivalent to a D- or C-rank in other towns.

But even so, he was no match for Ryu...

Ryu wasn't using any time magic, just his natural abilities, but even then, Papico's sword was too slow for him.

But Ryu had no intention of showing off his strength at this time. He was going to try his best to stay under the radar. And it seemed to be working, at least so far.

He put on an act of struggling to keep up with Papico, pretending they were evenly matched.

But he didn't intend to lose to someone at this level, so he decided to land a blow at the right moment.

He anticipated his opponent's attack. He narrowly avoided the descending sword, barely inches away, and countered with a cut across Papico's waist. Papico, thinking his attack had connected, missed by a hair, stumbled forward, and took Ryu's blow right in the stomach.

"Ugh!" He cried out, spun forward, and fell to the ground.

"Oh, uh, sorry, are you alright?"

"You stupid...Argh!"

"It was a lucky hit. I thought I was done for, so I swung blindly and hit him."

Ryu congratulated himself on his masterful acting, but Iraira was looking grim.

"Hmph, so it was just luck! Again! Next time..."

"That's enough! Cairo, go!"

Iraira snapped at Papico, who was about to protest, but he cowered under her glare and slunk away.

Ryu was forced to face another opponent without a break. He clashed with Cairo, acting as if he were keeping up, but he was deliberately holding back. Cairo was a D-rank adventurer, but unfortunately, he was also no match for Ryu.

This time, he decided to let Cairo get a counterattack and lose. It felt like if he won again, she'd make him keep fighting until he lost. He didn't want to attract too much attention right now. Winning against an E-rank and losing to a D-rank was a reasonable level for a former experienced adventurer.

As Cairo swung his wooden sword at Ryu's waist, Ryu also swung his sword. Ryu's sword was lagging behind, his waist was wide open, but that's what he wanted. As Cairo's sword struck Ryu's stomach, Ryu cried out, "Aaargh!" and fell to the ground.

As Ryu got up, he said,

"Whew, you're amazing, D-rank, I can't beat you."

"You ...Stop messing around!"

Iraira's irritation reached its peak at Ryu's poorly delivered acting.

"What?"

"Cairo, did you really think you won just now?"

"Well...to be honest, it felt like he was trying to get hit."

"And you didn't seem to take any damage when you were hit."

Ryu had a dimensional barrier surrounding his body, so he hadn't taken any damage.

"Ryujeen, you are playing around, are you? You're underestimating us?"

"Aw, did you figure it out?"

"Hey, Papico, 'Azure Rainbow' should be at the guild today, right? Go get them!"

Papico hurried to fetch the members of the B-rank party "Azure Rainbow" at Iraira's command.

Three adventurers arrived. Iraira told them to introduce themselves.

"Jero, C-rank.""Salady, B-rank.""Vale, A-rank."

"Iraira, newbie training can be done with just E-ranks, can't it?"

"Hmph, there's a former experienced adventurer who's pretending to be weak and hiding his true strength. I'm going to see how strong he really is. Jero, Salady, Vale, go against him in that order! No holding back, go for the kill."

"Kill? That's a bit rough. Well, I guess I'll have to do the same, I don't want to get killed."

Next Episode

Iraira doesn't fight?

Stay tuned!