Half an hour later.
In the backyard training ground of the Twilight Manor.
The dust in the air gradually dispersed, revealing two figures on the field.
One stood calmly; her whole body was spotless.
The other looked a little bedraggled, with a gray face, holding on to her staff with both hands to barely stabilize her body.
The former was naturally Riveria, who had proposed coming here to test the progress, and the latter was Lefiya, who was being tested.
"There has been some progress, but not much, and none of the old problems have been solved. You can't go on like this." Riveria frowned and looked at Lefiya opposite her: "Have you really been exercising seriously during this time?"
Takumi, standing outside the court, also nodded in agreement.
Judging from Lefiya's performance just now, although her magical strength had been enhanced, it was only within the natural range.
After all, during this period, the Loki Familia had organized another Dungeon expedition.
As Riveria's successor, Lefiya filled the vacancy in the first echelon and was on the front line. She must have gained a lot of great experience, so she should have become stronger.
But in addition to the improvement in magic, Lefiya's overall combat effectiveness hadn't improved at all.
The old problem hadn't been fixed; she still couldn't perform when the enemy was close.
"Can I say that I was not prepared this time?" Lefiya cried sadly and tried to defend herself.
She was really careless just now, thinking that since her opponent was Riveria, the content of the competition would definitely be a magic attack.
But what she never expected was that Riveria didn't bother to use magic to attack her. Instead, after blessing herself with defensive magic, she directly used the staff as a spear and rushed forward in a flash.
Lefiya had never seen this kind of thing before. She was completely unprepared for a melee mage's fighting style.
Her brain overloaded at that moment, and she immediately shut down; her hands left the keyboard, and she was beaten bloody by Riveria without any resistance.
"Amazing! When did Riveria become so slick in melee combat? By the way, is she really Riveria?!"
Tiona was stunned, with an expression on her face that looked like her worldview was about to shatter.
The reason was naturally that she was shocked by Riveria's performance.
In her original impression, Riveria had always been the standard image of a noble mage.
She was the kind of person who always looked calm, stood at the back of the team, and elegantly used magic to output damage remotely.
But what did she see just now?!
Riveria directly used the staff as a club, rushing forward to deal violent physical damage to the enemy's face! Her fighting style was so ferocious that even she, an Amazon warrior known for her openness and violence, was put to shame.
Although Riveria was dealing violent damage, she still maintained her elegance.
But her fighting style was very different from before, as if she were a completely different person.
"Uh-huh."
Ais, standing on the side, nodded vigorously in agreement.
At the same time, her eyes looking at Riveria flashed with strong curiosity and inquiry.
Obviously, she could see that Riveria's strength had already reached a new level. Not to mention anything else, her physical fitness was not on the same level as before. Although the original Riveria had physical fitness much better than Lefiya due to the level difference, she didn't know any melee skills at all, so it wasn't that easy to crush Lefiya in close combat.
After all, even though Lefiya had a problem with her limbs going numb when an enemy got close and couldn't fight back, she wasn't stupid enough to just stand there and get beaten. She would at least run away.
So as long as Lefiya really wanted to hide, the original close combat between Riveria and Lefiya would most likely just turn into a chase.
But now, even if Lefiya wanted to escape, Riveria could easily block Lefiya's route with her speed advantage.
This showed that Riveria's current physical fitness was several levels higher than Lefiya's.
And it was also much stronger than Riveria's original level.
Therefore, Ais was curious.
How could Riveria become so strong in such a short period of time?
"Not ready? What kind of excuse is this?"
Hearing Lefiya's sophistry, Riveria scolded her unceremoniously:
"Although this is just a sparring match, it is also a battle. Is there anything called 'not being ready' in a battle? Do you think that in actual combat, the enemy will wait until you are ready before attacking you?"
"Okay, I'll grant that you weren't ready at the beginning, but what about later? You reacted eventually, but how did you handle it?"
"You kept running around without knowing how to fight back even when you got a chance..."
"Even if you don't have time to chant magic, is it difficult to pick up a staff and resist?"
"Don't say you don't know how to fight in close combat. I didn't use any skills just now. Many attacks were even full of flaws. As long as you were willing to resist, you could have blocked one or two, but you only knew how to run."
"You really disappoint me, Lefiya."
"Woo~!"
Lefiya was scolded so much that she could not refute it, and she fell to her knees in frustration.
"Sorry, I'm so useless, but... I really can't do it!"
It wasn't that she didn't know about this problem of hers. She also thought about improving it, but she couldn't do it!
As soon as the enemy got close, she would be so scared that she just wanted to keep a safe distance quickly, without thinking at all. What kind of resistance?
No matter how hard she tried, this problem couldn't be improved!
What could she do? She was also helpless!
"..."
The four of them fell silent.
Seeing Lefiya's despair and self-doubt, they didn't know what to say for a while.
Especially Riveria and the others; they also knew that Lefiya had already made a lot of effort in this area. They really couldn't blame Lefiya for not making progress, but they had to admit that this problem was too difficult for her.
At this time, Takumi suddenly thought of something and said:
"By the way, could her condition be related to the spiritual mysophobia of your Elves?"
"What?"
Riveria was stunned when she heard this and didn't react for a while.
"Hmm?"
Lefiya and the others also looked at Takumi curiously.
"What I mean is, could it be this girl's mental mysophobia that makes her unable to accept being approached by an enemy?"
"Eh? Now that you mention it, I really think it makes sense." Tiona scratched her head.
Riveria thought for a moment and nodded: "It is indeed possible."
Ais was more direct. She immediately pulled out her rapier, pointed it at Lefiya, and walked towards her.
"Eh?! Wait! Ais-san, what are you doing?!" Lefiya suddenly looked horrified and subconsciously backed away, keeping a distance from Ais.