Chapter 82: 82 Freed from Chain.

The next day, as the morning mist enveloped the field at Midnight’s family mansion, two figures of youngsters with matched paces jogged around the perimeter.

Jin gleaned at his side and saw Silvia’s ragged breath, but determined to follow his routine. Her form was a mess, but he nodded and slowly lowered his pace.

There was no harm in doing it, so Jin did it even though he noticed the girl’s face was crumpled. She bit her lips, but words stuck in her throat, and she resumed the training.

After they circled the field for less than an hour, the sunrise peeked through the horizon. Its bright light brought color into the grey world and slight warmth to ease the cold that seeped their bones.

Jin stomped hard and faced the east side. He drew a long exhale and turned toward the girl. “That’s enough for warming up!”.

“Haa, haa, haa, alright”.

Silvia struggled to regulate her heavy breath. She stood near Jin, watching his side profile calmly gazing toward the golden eye.

Her azure eyes flashed, raising her palm to block the intense light that burned her pupils, and she glanced at the boy.

“Huff, Then, what are we doing right now?”. She straightened her posture and directed her front toward the east.

“Nothing really; I just want to feel the sun’s warmth, that’s all.” Jin’s expression stilled as he was in a deep state of focus.

This was one other thing she learned from the boy named Jin. Silvia nodded to herself, calmly closed her eyes, and let the warmth simmer in her chilled body. “Um, this is not bad at all”.

They spent dozens of minutes before Jin broke the calmness between them, “Silvia, take your sword and let’s train our swordsmanship”.

He addressed the girl who was utterly absorbed in her own world by poking her smooth cheeks, making her face bloated in a sullen expression.

“Alright,” Silvia begrudgingly walked toward the mansion terrace and grasped the wooden sword hilt.

The weight in her hands felt comfortable, and her dimmed spirit awoke like a sleeping dragon ascending to the sky.

Silvia came before Jin, who already held his wooden sword, which followed his style. Meanwhile, Silvia still used the dummy sword that was used by her family and started to feel discomfort creeping in.

She shook her head to push away the negative thoughts gnawing at her spirit. What the girl needed right now was focused, ’Come on, Silvia, you can do it!’.

Slowly, under the brightened sky, Silvia and Jin’s shadows stretched as they prepared their stance.

Silvia inhaled deeply, trying to calm her pounding heart, “Here I come.”

“Come”.

Jin tensed his grip on the bokuto hilt and gazed at his opponent, who seemed to approach the spar cautiously.

Unlike their first encounter, where Silvia was like a raging wave and dared to challenge Jin and suffered a heavy loss, right now, she was like a calm water gleaming gently under the divine halo. Her presence became bigger with the aura that leaked from her.

’Interesting’. His lips parted, and Jin lowered his stance by pointing his bokuto back and dashed forward, ’Let’s see your response’.

Jin’s bokuto whistled horizontally toward her waist; the girl tensed her feet and stepped back before launching her counter in a downward slash.

However, his eyes caught the power that carried within Silvia’s sword was gentle, unlike the heavy and powerful strike that had been ingrained in her memories.

He raised the bokuto and let it clash with her sword. Jin’s eyes narrowed, ’As I thought. ’

Silvia’s attack didn’t finish; her movement was regal and flowing like a river stream, never stopping to allow Jin to breathe as if trying to bring him down within the hard current.

The sound of wood clashing against each other rang continuously; it brought a soft rhythm to the field.

Both youngsters breathe synchronized into one, turning the tense sparring session into a gentle, graceful dance between the two.

Silvia, who unconsciously changed her fighting style, matching Jin’s movement, enhanced their created flow.

’This is fun’. Silvia’s tense expression melted into pure joy, knowing that a sparring match could be this fulfillment.

Jin twisted his wrist and let the sword in Silvia’s hand slip from her grasp. With a gentle push, the girl’s wooden sword flung backward, turning her body into a statue midway.

“Haa, haa, haa, Why would you do that?”. Silvia’s loud voice broke the gentle atmosphere that lingered around the field.

This was the first time she experienced a training that filled her heart with joy and freedom. She felt a pair of wings grow on her back, but Jin ripped it mercilessly.

“You didn’t notice it, but”. Jin exhaled and pointed out her changing style, “Your movement almost resembles mine. Are you unconsciously copying my movement or what? Why did you do that?”.

A dawn of realization smashed her from heaven, pressing her stiffened back. Her throat tightened, and she started to gasp for breath.

The memories from her childhood resurfaced when she imitated other people’s style, a hurl of insults and curses that bore its fang, like a monster gnawed at her frozen heart.

However, the current Silvia that stood before the boy was incomparable to that time. She reached out to her pounding chest and lifted her head high.

“Y-Yeah, I’m copying your movement set”. Her lips curled downward, afraid to hear the mean words spilled from Jin’s mouth, “But, if you don’t like it, I will forget it and stick to my own style.”

“Huh? Why would you do that?”.

Jin’s brows knitted together in wonder while the girl’s jaw dropped.

“B-But, I thought you didn’t like it”.

“Didn’t like it? I never said that?”.

“T-Then?”. Silvia asked, her trembling lips and hands becoming a living testament that she was still haunted by those harsh remarks thrown at her.

Before her eyes, another wooden sword that resembled the one in Jin’s hand landed on his other hand. Jin lightly threw it at her, who hurriedly caught it with eyes widened.

“If you want to match my style, you have to use this thing called bokuto, not the wooden sword you hold right now.”

Silvia stood rigid like a tree. Her mind was unable to process the event that transpired before her eyes.

“Let’s resume our spar”. Jin twisted his wrist and swung his bokuto a couple of times.

“If you keep following my movement and focus on my breath, I’m sure with your talent, You could absorb my technique easily.”

“Are you sure?”. Silvia lifted her gaze and opened her frozen lips. “You are not mad at me?”.

“Mad? That’s ridiculous”. The boy shook his head and pointed his bokuto toward her face. “I should be the one asking this”.

“Silvia, are you sure of following this self–taught swordsmanship I developed for years? You know that all my techniques were the basics of the basics”.

Silvia gulped her saliva to moisten her parched throat and clenched the bokuto in her hand.

True to what Jin said, all his movement and sword technique were based on a basic swordsmanship principle, but his basics have been honed to perfection.

Each time he swung the sword, revealing his technique to the world. The world cried to see a perfection that sheathed a tremendous killing aura if properly drawn.

“Yes, I would love nothing more, Jin”. Silvia hugged the bokuto tight in her chest and gazed at the boy’s flinched expression.

He scratched his cheek and occasionally peeked through her face, “Well, alright, be sure to follow my movement”.

“Thank you”. The overflowing emotion flooded her heart and washed away the dark monster that haunted her for years.

Inside her consciousness, where dark stretched endlessly, a figure of a little girl chained by hundreds of black chains vacantly stared down with no reason to live.

A monstrous crack shattered the desolate world that trapped her as she saw the figure of Jin reach out to her. His gentle smile and warmth lit the will to live inside the girl’s chest.

’Let’s go’.

’Um’. The little girl reached out, and Silvia, who returned to reality, dashed forward like a wild boar, pouncing into his chest.

“Jin”.

“Guhuk!”. Jin’s body was flung backward by her tackle.

They settled on the middle field on top of each other. The girl tightened her grip on the boy’s chest as she couldn’t contain the swelling emotion in her chest.

Meanwhile, two shadows hid beneath the mansion’s door where Ryan and Marina, who planned to inform the two of the breakfast, had no choice but to peek their faces in conflicted expression.

“Hmm, should I become Jin’s disciple as well?”. Ryan pinched his chin but shook his head in denial, “No, I will get strong on my own way”.

Marina on his side exhaled and glanced at the field where her son was troubled by the girl’s feelings, ’Jin, you are growing too fast’.

“Huff, I hope he could still lean on me like he used to”. The woman exhaled sharply as her motherly instinct resurfaced in seeing her baby boy close to another girl.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep