[Maid's Intuition] flared in the back of his head a fraction of a second before his eyes caught up. Eli stepped sideways on instinct, bringing his sword across his body in a clumsy parry.
The wooden blades cracked together with a dry clack that rattled all the way up his arm.
'How can a wooden sword exert that much strength, what the fuck!?'
Eli almost lost his balance, but as soon as he recovered, Juli was already past him, pivoting on her heel.
The second strike flew toward his shoulder before the first had even finished ringing. Eli barely got his sword up in time in the most awkward way possible.
Clack.
The force of the impact sent a shock through his entire body.
'How can there be so much of a difference?'
The third strike just disappeared on him. Despite tuning his intuition to the maximum, Eli could not trace where the sword was or even its trajectory. By the time he realized, the wooden tip had landed sharply on the side of his thigh.
"One."
Eli staggered back. The gap between him and Juli was a chasm; they were fighting with the same sword, but seeing different worlds. He couldn't believe that there would be realms above him that he had to face in the future.
'Juli is a Two-Song… then what about Three-Songs, or Four…'
Disillusioned was too strong of a word for what he felt. It was more eye-opening than anything else — to see where he leveled with others and how much further the ladder went above him.
Still, it didn't make sense. His [Maid's Intuition] was an S-Rank ability, so he should have been able to at least sense the danger of an incoming attack. But Juli's third attack just vanished!
Eli let out a breath, rolled his shoulder again, and reset his stance.
"Again!"
"That's the spirit!"
Juli didn't even bother giving him a countdown. She just closed in on him like a starved tiger.
This time, Eli forced himself to breathe slowly and turn up a notch — whatever that meant. [Maid's Intuition] picked up the high feint a beat earlier, so he angled his sword upward to meet it… only for Juli's blade to dip mid-swing and come at his hip from below.
'Cheap! That's cheap—'
He twisted his torso just enough that the wooden tip skimmed his belt instead.
Eli then came at Juli with a counter-swing, but it was late and wide, slicing through air a step behind her — so wide that when he looked down, Juli's sword was already poking at his sternum.
'Fuck! It's like heaven and earth.'
"Two!"
Juli hadn't even broken a sweat, yet Eli was drowning in despair, wondering if he should switch to learning magic just to avoid sparring with her.
'Wait… Wouldn't that invite more beatings?'
The tale of her obsession with picking fights with mages was already ingrained in his head.
'Yeah, no. Magic is not the escape route. It's a suicidal route.'
So that idea was off the table.
Eli reset his stance — again — and rolled his sword wrist twice.
"Again."
Juli didn't say another word and rushed in with a stab so swift it felt like a bullet instead. Who could ever dodge a bullet, let alone block or parry it?
Eli slashed upward, seeking to catch the flat of her blade and shatter its momentum.
And their blades connected, but her momentum was like a train-wreck, sending shockwaves to his bones and muscles.
'Damn!'
He gritted his teeth and fell back with a sloppy counter. His sword was knocked aside wide enough that Juli could have ended the round, but she stepped back instead, letting him recover.
Eli didn't like that.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Don't pull the strike. If you've got me, just take it."
Juli raised an eyebrow, then she shrugged.
"Alright. Your funeral!"
She came at him once more, her sword shooting forward with enough force to ripple the air. Eli sensed a violent gust heralding the blade's path and snapped his head back. Her blade hissed past, missing his face only by a few millimeters.
'Good!'
It wasn't just seeing the blade and its trajectory. Eli needed to utilize all five of his senses to be able to use [Maid's Intuition] correctly.
In his fights with the alpha frostfang and now Juli, he often overcommitted, falling for feints and fast switches, which left him in the most vulnerable position.
Like now.
His guard collapsed on the fourth exchange, and her wooden sword cracked against his shoulder hard enough to numb his arm down to the elbow.
"OW—!"
"Three!"
Eli stumbled back, rotating his shoulder and wincing as the pins-and-needles ran up to his neck.
"Eliseee. One more loss and it's oh-and-one-sixty-seven!"
That mocking tone… if only he could give her a solid bonk with his wooden sword.
"AGAIN!"
Juli huffed, swinging her sword around like a toy.
"You sure you don't want a break?"
Eli was sweating profusely, his breath came in ragged gasps, and his sword hand trembled. But his fervor was boiling like lava, bubbling in his heart and hissing with every breath.
"No breaks."
"Alright!"
Juli rushed at him with the speed of a panther, sword tip aimed dead at his collarbone. This time, however, Eli saw it. The line was clean in his head, and [Maid's Intuition] traced it like chalk on a board.
He stepped off the angle and brought his blade down at her wrist.
'Got y—'
Juli's wrist was no longer there.
"What the—"
She had rotated under his swing, pivoted on her front foot, and her sword was already rising up the inside of his arm. The blade tip stopped a hair's breadth from his throat.
"Aaaand game!"
Eli froze with his blade still buried in empty air just an inch above her shoulder.
'Oh come on! I had her! I HAD her.'
"So close, Elise! I felt the wind!"
"I'm going to kill you."
"No, you're not. You're zero-and-one-sixty-seven."
Juli mischievously giggled, retrieving her wooden sword and planting it into the dirt.
Eli dropped his sword and sank down beside her, his breath ragged. The cold air bit at the sweat on his neck.
The barbs under his ribs had finally loosened just a bit.