My Second Chance In Life In Another World

CHAPTER 45: PRACTICE MATCH

The Training field is a huge open space that is used for swordsmanship lessons. This space can contain all of the swordsmen from first years to fifth years, and everyone can still train without anyone holding back. In that huge space, the 16 of us first-years who can activate swordsmanship skills with instructor Gord are now at the upper left corner of the training field.
 
"All of you can activate swordsmanship skills, so there's no need to teach you the basics; that's why I separated you from the others," instructor Gord said.
"Now for the first lesson, let me measure your strength first. To measure your strength, we will conduct a match between the 16 of you," instructor Gord added.
 
After that, instructor Gord made eight pairs from the 16 of us; my partner was a boy with dark hair and glasses. He looks like he doesn't want to chat; that's why I didn't start a conversation.
 
"First pair, come here!" Instructor Gord said, and then Tyiyn and a brown-haired boy went to Instructor Gord.
 
So Tyiyn would go first. I'm excited to see how Tyiyn, an heir of the swordsman family, would fight.
 
"The match would end if either one of you surrendered or lost his sword. I'll also stop the match if I decide that one of you cannot fight anymore. That's all," instructor Gord explained the rules.
"Now for the proper etiquette of a swordsman, you must tell your name first before the match to pay respect and to remember the name of someone with whom you crossed swords," he added.
"Now, take your stances!" Instructor Gord ordered the two of them.
 
"My name is Tyiyn, son of Al'lan!" Tyiyn said.
 
"My name is Beric, son of Derald!" Beric said.
 
"Once this coin reaches the ground, the match will start. Now get ready!" After that, instructor Gord tossed the coin, and when it finally landed on the ground, the match started.
 
Tyiyn is the first to attack. He ran towards Beric as soon as the match started and tried to slash him.
 
Beric blocked Tyiyn's attack, but Tyiyn showed no sign of stopping and continued to attack him.
 
The two of them have so much opening, but it seems like they cannot see it, or I am just special because I have already fought so many swordsmen before that I can easily see the openings that Tyiyn and Beric make.
 
The match continued like that, with Tyiyn on the attacking side while Beric continued to block Tyiyn's attacks.
 
After 5 minutes without stopping, I can already see that Tyiyn is getting tired, and the openings that he makes increase a lot, but on the other side, Beric also seems tired, but not as much as Tyiyn.
 
Tyiyn continued to attack Beric, but as soon as Beric blocked Tyiyn's last attack, instead of stepping back, he stepped forward, which surprised Tyiyn.
 
Beric started to activate a skill, and it looks like Tyiyn doesn't have the time to step back. I'm interested to see how Tyiyn would perform, as both of us have been taught swordsmanship since childhood, but it seems like there's a really huge gap between normal children and a reincarnator like me.
 
As I was expecting Tyiyn to lose, Beric activated his skill.
 
"Horizontal slash!" Beric shouted, then he slashed Tyiyn with all his might.
 
By activating Horizontal slash, the user would get a physical boost, and the power of his slash would be doubled, so if it hit Tyiyn, it would be completely his loss.
 
But it wasn't just me who was surprised by what happened next, but also everyone else, including instructor Gord.
 
Because the horizontal slash that Beric activated didn't hit his target, Tyiyn. Even I didn't expect what Tyiyn did.
 
When the horizontal slash was supposed to hit Tyiyn, he suddenly jumped so high then he made a split in the air.
 
With that, he managed to dodge the horizontal slash of Beric, and when he landed, Beric had just finished his horizontal slash, and his stance was full of opening right now. That's when Tyiyn took the chance to activate his skill.
 
"Horizontal slash!" Tyiyn shouted, then slashed Beric. It hit Beric's body, which is completely unguarded, and it made him fall to the ground.
 
After that, Tyiyn placed the tip of his wooden sword around Beric's neck. He has a face that says "It's my win".
 
"I surrender," Beric said while hanging his head low.
 
"That was an amazing match; if I didn't have the time to jump, I might be the one who loses," Tyiyn said, holding his hand to help Beric stand.
 
Beric accepted it and held Tyiyn's hand to stand up.
 
"That was a great match, but I won't lose next time," Beric said then smiled at Tyiyn.
 
"The match ended! Tyiyn won!" instructor Gord announced.
 
After that, instructor Gord called the second pair to start the second match. Tyiyn heads towards me.
 
"How's that? How's that?" Tyiyn asked me as if bragging about his win.
 
"Yeah, yeah, that was amazing. I didn't expect that you would win. I completely thought that you already lost when Beric activated his skill. I didn't expect that you would jump that high. That's one great coincidence," I said.
 
"That's not a coincidence, though?" Tyiyn said.
 
"Huh? Then–" When I was supposed to ask what he meant by that instructor, Gord started the second match.
 
Oh, the second match is starting! Talk to you later, Will!" He said, then headed to the front where he could view the match clearly.
 
What does he mean by that's not a coincidence? Did he already know that's what would happen?
 
While those thoughts were circling in my mind, Raiden's turn finally arrived. He belongs to the fifth pair, while I'm sixth next to him, so I stopped thinking about Tyiyn and now observe Raiden's match.
 
Instructor Gord explained the rules again, and after that, he let Raiden do the etiquette of a swordsman.
 
"My name is Raiden, the infernal swordsman," Raiden said, then took his stance.
 
Infernal swordsman? Ah, that's right! My mother told me about that in one of our training sessions.
 
If the father gave his child a title, that would be the title the child would use when naming himself. I'm glad that my father didn't give me a title, or I would be so embarrassed to say it because I can already tell that it would be an embarrassing title like "king of all elements" or something like that.
 
The title can also change if someone who is in a higher class than you gives you a new title, but you can refuse it, not like when your father gave it to you. Accepting the title also shows that you will respect the one who will give it to you, so refusing to accept it means you don't want to respect him.
 
Going back in the match, it's now Raiden's partner's turn to tell her name.
 
"My name is Nyrinn, daughter of Aegar," she said, then took her stance.
 
Nyrinn has long, dark green hair, and she has this "serious type" vibe emanating from her, just like my partner here.
 
After they spoke their names, instructor Gord tossed the coin.
 
The coin landed, but neither of the two made a move to attack. The silence started to spread, and neither of the two dared to make a move.
 
"What's happening? Why won't you attack Raiden?" The silence was blown by none other than my noisy roommate, Tyiyn.
 
"Shut up! Don't interrupt!" Instructor Gord reprimands Tyiyn, and that makes him shut up.
 
"Well, shall I call it a draw? If no one attacks, the match won't end," instructor Gord said.
 
After that, no one dared to make a move, so Instructor Gord made the decision to call the match a draw.
 
That means Raiden and Nyrinn are the defensive swordsman types, who rely on defending against the opponent and then counterattacking when they see a chance.
 
After that, it's finally my turn. Instructor Gord called the sixth pair, so me and the dark-haired  guy with glasses, who is my partner, headed towards the center. Then instructor Gord explained the rules once again, and when he finally finished, it was now my turn to say my name.
 
"My name is Will, son of William," I said, then took my stance.
 
"My name is Famir, son of Lathar," my partner said, then took his stance.
 
After that, instructor Gord tossed the coin, and when it landed, Famir took the initiative.
 
He started attacking me just like Tyiyn did to Beric. His movements are so much slower than Ruel's, his attacks are much weaker than Uncle Philip's, and lastly, he's full of opening compared to Mother.
 
I know I shouldn't compare my opponent to them, but those thoughts keep popping into my mind.
 
He swung once again, then I evaded it. He got surprised because he thought I would block it, but instead I jumped to the side and started to activate my skill.
 
"Vertical slash!" I shouted, and he got into the position to block it in time so it didn't become the finishing move, but it made him kneel down because of the force.
 
After that, I just kicked the sword from his hand, and the sword flew in the air, and I caught it.
 
"The match ended! Will won!" instructor Gord said, then proceeded to call the seventh pair.
 
I head to where Tyiyn and Raiden are standing, and when Tyiyn sees me, he hurriedly goes my way.
 
"Will! Will! Why didn't you tell me that you were so strong?" Tyiyn said excitedly.
 
"I'm not that strong; that was just a coincidence." I tried to brush him off with that.
 
"Is that really a coincidence, though?" Raiden said, then smirked at me.
 
So they still noticed? And here I thought I did my best to hold back.
 
"Well anyway, congratulations to the two of you," Raiden said, looking at both Tyiyn and me.
 
"And you? Why didn't you move?" I asked as if I didn't know the reason.
 
"No reason at all; it's just that I don't like fighting with women." He glossed it over like that, but I know the real reason. I won't tell them, though they might become more suspicious of why I knew that.
 
After that, the three of us watched the match until the last pair finished their match.
 
"You can have your lunch now, but remember to come back here twenty minutes after the bell rings. I noticed that almost all of you don't have that much stamina, so in the afternoon we will work on that, understood? Okay, dismissed!" Instructor Gord said.
 
The three of us went to the cafeteria, where we met Tork, full of energy. After that, the four of us had our lunch while talking about what we did this morning, and Tork was so into it that he almost explained all of what happened to him after we parted ways.