Being a Swordsman is Hard Work

"Finally, I get to meet her for real" Ray mumbled.

Inside his heart, he was 'dancing' around, finally meeting his 'beloved'. Well, more like he was fangirling because Artoria was much more beautiful in real life than the 2D version of her.

Artoria was perplexed. She thought that Ray didn't see her with God and Hana, a name that she just realized after being transported inside this white space.

"You knew of me?"

"Of course, I knew you. Ah, where are my manners? I'm Ray Purnomo, a student from **** high school." He said while bowing down. At this point, he was just trying to be a 'man' in front of someone that was considered a 'man'.

"Have you wield a weapon before?"

"Well, I can't say that I have but..." Ray had wielded a weapon before, though it was only a metal pipe for... something that better left unsaid.

"Can we change our place first?" Artoria was unnerved by the surrounding white void.

'Hana, can you change it into something like... I don't know... a real training ground?' Ray said through his mind.

The scene shifted into a medieval castle training ground. 3 training dummies that made out of hay, 2 archery target practice and an obstacle course.

"This space changes on its own?" Artoria asked

"Not exactly. Hana, the one that summoned you, changes this space according to my will."

"It's convenient. Do you have wooden weapons?"

'Hana, please buy me 2 wooden swords.'

[...Buying wooden swords... 100 system points are deducted.]

Ray summoned the swords and toss one of the to Artoria.

Artoria took it and went to her stance, putting her sword to the right side of her head, her left hand holding the hilt while the right hand under it. Ray put his sword in front of his body.

Artoria kicked the ground to gain momentum. Her speed was so fast that she looked as if teleported in front of Ray.

He tried to block it with his sword, a futile effort. Artoria swung her sword horizontally, threw Ray quite far away because of the force behind her attack.

Ray instantly went unconscious.

"It seems that I need to train him from the basics." She unequipped her armor.

She now wore a simple white shirt with a royal-blue colored butterfly tie and skirt with the same color, black stocking, and brown boots.

She sat with a seiza position, closed her eyes and meditate while waiting for Ray to wake up.

Because of Avalon inside his body, it didn't take long for Ray to wake up. It was not as embarrassing as he thought it would, being unconscious because of one attack.

He felt like he gained more power with just that single confrontation, imagine how much power that he can get with continuous training.

'But, I need to get ready to work.' He thought and so he went to Artoria.

"I will teach you the basics after you've done the things you wanted to do." She said.

"Thank you..."

"You can call me 'teacher' or Artoria is just fine."

"Yes, teacher." Artoria thought that it has a nice ring to it. It reminds her of her younger days when she was still trained by Sir Ector, her foster father, and successor, as a knight.

'Hana, can Artoria go outside with me? I think her being alone her is...'

[Yes, she can. You need to touch her while simultaneously go out from this space.]

"Teacher, do you want to go outside? Because I think staying here is..."

Artoria was silent for a second, contemplating what she should do. She feels comfortable here but at the same time, it's quite lonely to be here. But she didn't know what to do once she's outside.

"Teacher can follow me to my workplace or stay in my room."

"Is your workplace close?"

"Quite close. Just a 10-minute walk from my place..." Ray realized that they used English to talk with each other and quite possible that she didn't know the Indonesian language.

"Teacher, do you know how to speak in the Indonesian language?"

"'Iya, saya bisa' (Yes, I can). I suddenly have the knowledge when I arrived here." she said.

"Hmm... too formal but it's understandable. Well, let's go, teacher." Ray put his hand on her right shoulder and they transported to the real world.

The scene changed into Ray's room in his boarding house. The room can be considered a big room for one person. The room was colored in light green and the furniture was a bed, a beige-colored wardrobe, a table, and a chair.

"Quite a big room for a person," Artoria commented. When she was just a squire, her room was smaller than what Ray has.

"It's worth quite a lot of money after all. So its a given. It even has an indoor bathroom. Anyway, do you want to follow me at my workplace? I'm going to work now because I need to do something there."

'Hana, can you buy me a web design book and also a laptop for it.'

["Web Design for Dummies" costs 1.000 System Points and Microsoft Surface Book for 2400 System Points.]

'Huh? Why is that laptop so cheap?'

[Because 1 USD is equal to 1 System Points.]

'So then, the wooden swords that I just bought were quite expensive and why is the book cost so much then?'

[Because instead of Host needing to read it, the book can just integrate its knowledge with you.]

'That... makes sense. Then buy the two items please.'

[Buying Web Design for Dummies... Buying Microsoft Surface... Items were successfully bought. Would you like to integrate the knowledge inside the book?]

'Will it take long?'

[With your [Eidetic Memory], it should not take long.]

'Integrate it.'

[Integrating... Integrating Successful.]

Ray thought that there will be some sort of pain. When Hana bought the book, he can 'see' that the book was quite compact.

It was a good thing that the process didn't take too long and also painless because he didn't want to undergo the same pain when Hana integrated with him.

When the 'knowledge integration' was a success, he suddenly feels like he was a programmer, albeit without any practice.

Ray planned to create a website to help market the cafe. He also wanted to help with some other things as well, but that will depend on his discussion with the Owner of the cafe. So he designed the website in his mind.

Since he has [Eidetic Memory], designing a website in his mind is as easy as lifting a pin from a table. The only thing that he lacked was a license for applications such as Adobe Photoshop and everything that he will need to copy the mockup design from his mind and brought out the website to life.

'Hana, can you access the internet from there?'

[Yes, I can.]

'Can you create a bank account for me? I need it to make a PayPal account.' The reason he needed a PayPal account was that he wanted to make purchases using USD in the future. And having a PayPal account should not be a bad idea.

It took Hana some minutes before she can hack inside a private bank and add his account there. And it didn't take Hana more than a minute to create a PayPal account with his name.

[It is finished, Host.]

'Thank you very much, Hana.'

[You are welcome.]

After he finished purchasing his Adobe license, which costs him only 53 System Points per month, he went to the cafe with Artoria in tow.

Ray previously told her that he wanted to help the cafe from liquidation. Artoria wanted to know why a cafe can even arrive on the boundary of bankruptcy by herself.

What usually took him a 10-minute walk, he simply needed 5 minutes to arrive by running with his 'usual' speed. He was confused about why he can arrive swiftly, so he looked at his [Status].

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Status

Name: Ray Purnomo

Race: Human, *Sealed*, *Sealed*

Strength: 13

Endurance: 10

Agility: 11

Luck: 10

Magic: 3

Skills:

[Eidetic Memory: ?] [Cooking: G] [Instinct: F] [Programming: G]

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Ray didn't feel surprised by the increase in his stats. Though it was just an increase of 1 or 2 points in his stats, he can feel that he was more powerful than before.

There was this feeling at the back of his mind that he ceased being human. Though technically he had a human body, the power that he held right now didn't belong to a human, at least from Earth's perspective.

Unconsciously, he knew that the 2 *Sealed* races affected him quite a bit. It felt like he had something 'divine' deep inside his soul that kept nourishing him and he was sure that it was not Avalon.

Thinking that he will stop being a human earlier was different from what he felt right now. Sure, it sounds fun on paper, but when he feels it, he was frightened that he was not himself, deep in his heart.

"What's wrong?" Artoria felt something wrong from her disciple.

"It's nothing. Let's go inside, teacher," said Ray as he opened the door.

What greeted them was empty tables across the room, even though it already been more than 5 hours since the cafe opened.

This sight always greeted Ray, but he cannot help but feel sad looking at the empty place. Even Artoria felt sad about it.

The cafe's interior was inspired by 'relationship', where part of the room was colored with bright colors while another room with darker colors. It represents 'relationship' where sometimes, it brought colors into their individual life and sometimes just darkens it.

*A/N: From this moment on, Ray will be talking in the Indonesian language. But I will still use English so people can understand.*

"Ah, welcome Ray. Who is that beautiful lady?" said an old man. His face looked like he had seen better days.

"This is my teacher..." Ray didn't know if he should tell him about her identity.

"Artoria Pendragon," she said.

"Artoria Pendragon? Where did I hear that name before?" the owner said.

"Nevermind that, I want to talk about something with you, Owner. Is that alright?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

"This place's future."

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Hello, everyone.

I owe you guys an apology because I didn't upload anything this past week.

My workplace was having an event, so we were busy preparing and running the event. On a side note, the event was held in Sunday.

But I should've been writing even for just 100 or 200 words... I just don't have the motivation to write that week.

Another thing, my past self didn't follow the plot that I have been laid out so I'm now confused on what should I write. Now, I need to modify the timeline... for the nth time...

I can't really promise another chapter because I still need to do some things. But tomorrow, I should be quite free to write in office.

This chapter, to be honest, is not the best, not like what I write is good anyway. But this chapter is just that bad. I usually write author's thoughts before I fix the grammar in grammarly and never fix my author's thoughts XD.

I hope all of you enjoy my novel so far. I just want give a heads up because I want to fix my plot lines first before diving back into writing.