The Demon King's Paladin

Chapter 41. Morning Swings

                                                                       Sharon Ashblade's Point of View

While having a breakfast of oatmeal early in the morning, the maid Valerie, who was assigned to me after I arrived at the Royal Palace, informed me that Sarah would like to have lunch with me today. I was more than happy to accept the invitation.  I finished my meal and proceeded to begin to do some light training to wake my body. I saw Sarah's fiancé John, walking to the inner fields with his maid Ms. Anna, he must have decided to meditate today. I find myself thinking of that man these past few days. I shake my head to rid the thoughts out of my mind. How the legendary Senior Anna from the Royal Academy had become a maid, is a story I still would like to hear though.

Regardless, I continue to swing my sword. Lost in questions about why I continue to think about that man. It all started when I arrived here! He tried to keep us from helping Sarah, at first, I thought it was because he thought of us as weak. But after the first training session Asha and I had with him. After we had dismissed him as the reason, we couldn't land a strike on King Warrick. Asha and I, who thought John was the weakest link fought against Warrick as a trio with Sarah. Sarah, Asha and I were soundly defeated in 5 minutes. After which Sarah still raring to go, made a duo with John. And it took King Warrick 10 minutes to defeat them. The teamwork they had, while a little stiff, showed absolute trust in each other. When one would attack the other would interrupt the King's counter, The trust they shared was amazing. Sarah looked at us with a knowing smile. Apparently, her goal the entire time was to show us this difference they had.

After King Warrick had defeated them, Asha and I were simply shocked at how differently John had fought with Sarah, the difference was night and day when he fought with us. Asha and I simply walked to John as he was resting and asked why that was the case. To our surprise, he began to accurately point out every error of the training session we had. I was embarrassed, not only because of his pointing out of every action I had made, but also because of how close an eye he had kept on me. For as long as I can remember, I was never criticized by anyone besides my father when we trained. Not even my teachers had criticized me, but this man had not only criticized me, someone who could defeat him in a one-on-one fight, but he accurately broke down everything I was objectively doing wrong. I was angry and in a moment of childishness I muttered.

" Nobody asked you to help."

To this he continued to surprise me. He explained in an irritated tone how he felt responsibility to not only protect Sarah, but Asha and I as well. The way he looked at me was stuck in my head since. After thinking for a moment, it was Asha's turn for a thrashing. So far to my recollection, Asha has never shown glimpses of her true self to anyone outside her family, besides Sarah and I of course. But it seems John, for some reason is able to coax that out of her. After he had finished telling Asha her faults in battle, we both heard an interesting insight to John's days here in the Royal Palace. To confirm we both asked him to walk us through his day. We were both shocked at what we heard. We both looked at King Warrick to confirm what John was saying, Sarah simply sat there staring at our reactions. From hours of magic lessons with Queen Aqua to hours of training with General Crest, after only a small break he begins full contact sparring switching between one-on-one sparring to working as a team with Sarah. Every fight ending the same with him being defeated by Warrick, day in day out, and he's only begun to train in martial arts and magic for 1 month. How he survived is amazing. Even Asha and I wouldn't last. Asha and I were surprised to say the least.

As Asha and I were reeling from finding out all of these, the next day, John and Sarah took their first rest day from their training. My rest day consisted of simply spending the day with my family. My mother who is not quite used to being a noble even though the family has been one for quite a while, was quite nervous while interacting with anyone outside of the family or the King and Queen ironically. Around the late afternoon of the same day, Asha and I were informed that Sarah had been kidnapped! Without thinking Asha and I ran to the throne room, only to find Cynthia and Sarah standing in front of His Majesty and the Queen. The Queen began to speak to us as we approached Sarah.