Transmigration: I Made A Deal With A Man in Yellow

She moved her wooden sword as though she had been holding one for years. Her movements weren’t wild or unnecessarily flashy. Everything flowed naturally from one position into another, and whenever another child tried to attack her, she seemed to already know where the strike was going.

She stepped around one swing, lightly redirected another, then struck her opponent before they could recover.

Nobody had managed to hit her.

More importantly, there was something familiar about the way she moved.

I narrowed my eyes and watched more carefully.

Then I saw it.

The pivot.

Elfriede avoided an attack by turning on her lead foot, allowing the wooden sword to follow the rotation of her body before striking from another angle.

I knew that movement.

She had used almost the exact same footwork against me.

Another child rushed her, and Elfriede lightly shifted backward before suddenly stepping forward again and countering.

That too.

Even as a child, the foundations of Sister Friede’s fighting style were already there.

And suddenly, something else made sense.

"So that’s why..."

Her scythe techniques had always felt strange.

Even after spending months studying them, there were movements that didn’t seem natural for a scythe. Some of her transitions, stances, and defensive movements felt like they belonged to another weapon.

Now I understood why.

Before Sister Friede became a master of the scythe...

She had been a swordswoman.

My attention eventually moved toward the final member of the group.

Liliane.

Unfortunately, unlike the other four, she wasn’t doing well at all.

Thwack!

A blonde-haired girl punched Liliane directly in the face.

"Argh!"

Liliane fell onto her back and dropped her wooden sword. She immediately grabbed her bleeding nose as tears gathered in her eyes.

The blonde girl stood over her with a clenched fist.

"You shouldn’t be here if you’re too scared to fight," she said coldly. "You’ll only become a burden to everyone else."

Liliane’s lips trembled.

The blonde girl didn’t say anything else. She turned around and walked away, leaving Liliane sitting alone on the ground.

Elfriede had seen everything.

She immediately abandoned what she was doing and ran toward her, crouching beside Liliane with a worried expression.

"Are you alright, Liliane?"

Liliane sniffled while holding her bleeding nose.

"That girl was too mean..." More tears rolled down her cheeks before she looked at Elfriede. "Do you think I’m a burden too, Sister?"

Elfriede’s expression softened immediately.

"No. No, you’re not."

She wrapped both arms around Liliane and pulled her into a hug.

"She was just being too harsh. It’s only our first day, remember? Nobody expects you to be good at everything immediately. You’ll get used to it."

Liliane remained silent for a moment before slowly wrapping her arms around Elfriede.

"Okay, Sister..."

She buried her face against Elfriede’s chest while Elfriede gently rubbed her back.

I watched the two of them quietly.

The Sister Friede I knew had killed me four times without hesitation.

She had cut off my head, crushed my lungs, burned me alive, and threatened to slowly destroy my soul because I broke a few statues.

Yet the little girl standing in front of me couldn’t even watch her sister cry without immediately running over to comfort her.

I folded my arms and stared at Elfriede.

It was difficult to believe they were the same person.

And something told me I was about to find out exactly what had changed her.

My vision shifted once again, and the memory around me changed.

I found myself back at the same training grounds outside the orphanage, except something was different this time. The children were older now. They had grown taller, their bodies had developed, and the childish awkwardness in their movements was mostly gone. Judging by their appearances, several years must have passed since the last memory.

Their training had changed as well.

They no longer stumbled around while swinging wooden weapons or flinched whenever an attack came too close. Their movements were sharper and more confident, and they were far less afraid of getting hurt than when they had first started.

More importantly, they weren’t using wooden weapons anymore.

They were using real ones.

Actual swords.

Honestly, what kind of adults allowed children to fight each other with real swords? Somebody could seriously get hurt doing this.

And, well...

They did.

Blood stained several parts of the training ground. Boys and girls fought each other with sharpened weapons, leaving cuts across arms, legs, and faces. Some screamed whenever a blade sliced through their skin, while others cried from the pain, but the knights supervising them never told them to stop.

The fights only ended when one person surrendered or became unable to continue. Killing was obviously forbidden, and they weren’t allowed to intentionally cause life-threatening injuries, but apparently everything below that was acceptable.

It was brutal training for children their age.

Part of me was angry that an orphanage would put them through something like this, but another part of me understood why.

They were being trained to survive.

Whatever creatures existed during this period clearly weren’t going to care that these kids were young. If this training prepared them for what waited outside these walls, then perhaps being harsh now would keep them alive later.

Still...

There was harsh, and then there was this.

I stood with my arms crossed over my chest as I watched one particular fight.

Liliane was facing the same blonde-haired girl from several years ago.

Liliane had changed quite a bit since the last memory. She had grown taller, and her features had matured, but she also looked much worse. Her skin was unusually pale, and heavy bags had formed beneath her eyes. I couldn’t tell whether they came from constantly crying, lack of sleep, or something else entirely.

What hadn’t changed was her fear.

The rapier in her hand trembled slightly as she stared at the blonde girl.

So after all these years, she was still afraid of her.

The blonde girl drew her longsword and immediately rushed forward.

Her blade came horizontally toward Liliane with enough speed to cut deeply into her side, but Liliane raised her rapier and intercepted it.

Clang!

The blonde girl attacked again.

Liliane blocked.

Clang! Clang!

Their weapons collided repeatedly as they exchanged attacks. Compared to the frightened little girl from several years ago, Liliane had clearly improved. Her footwork was better, her defense was much tighter, and she no longer looked completely helpless against her opponent.

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