Harem Training System: Every Girl I Train Makes Me Stronger!

Chapter 48: 48. Catherine’s Hand Was Shaking, Kaela Vaulted the Gate, and Nobody Was Fooled

The tremor in Catherine’s hand was small enough that most people would have missed it entirely, but William had spent decades learning to read exactly this kind of thing, and once he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it.

Her fingers were wrapped tight around the wooden practice sword, knuckles pale, the blade itself trembling just enough to catch the morning light in flickers.

"Catherine," he said again, softer this time. "Your hand... is there something wrong?"

She looked down at it like it belonged to someone else. For a moment William watched something flicker across her face, somewhere between confusion and a kind of old, buried panic, the expression of someone caught off guard by their own body.

Then, just as quickly, she straightened, and the mask he’d come to recognize over the past several days settled back into place, brisk and composed and utterly unconvincing.

"It’s... nothing," she said. "Just a small cramp... nothing serious."

"I haven’t held a sword this long in years; my grip isn’t used to it..."

’That doesn’t make any sense... knowing we’ve been training since yesterday,’ William thought and then said. "Catherine, you can be honest to me, you know."

"I mean it, William... It’s fine." She lowered the practice sword and rolled her wrist deliberately, the motion too smooth, too rehearsed, like she’d used this exact excuse before and knew precisely how to sell it. "There’s nothing to be worried about."

"We’ve been at this for almost an hour, so yeah... my hand is tired. That’s all it is."

William didn’t believe her, not for a second, but he’d learned enough about people in two lifetimes to know that pushing on a door someone had just slammed shut rarely accomplished anything except making them slam it harder.

He held her gaze for a moment longer, just long enough that she’d know he wasn’t buying it, then let it go with a small nod.

"Alright," he said. "We’ll call it here, then."

Relief crossed her face so plainly that it was almost its own kind of answer. She busied herself gathering the practice swords, movements a little too quick, and William watched her retreat into the safety of routine, the same way he’d watched a hundred soldiers retreat into paperwork or drills or anything at all rather than sit still with something that hurt.

He was still turning it over in his head, cataloging the shake in her hand alongside everything else he’d noticed since arriving in this world, when a voice cut across the yard with all the subtlety of a battering ram.

"There you are!"

Both of them turned.

Kaela stood at the low garden gate with one hand braced on the top of it, clearly having vaulted the thing rather than bothering to open it, silver hair windblown, and ice-blue eyes locked on William with the particular intensity of a woman who considered his location at any given moment to be information she was owed.

"Kaela," William said. "How did you even know I was here?"

"I asked around." She said it like it was obvious, swinging her legs over the gate instead of walking through it, landing in the yard with a soft thud. "Nobody’s seen you since yesterday morning."

"You disappeared... An entire rest day and not a single sparring session, not even a training lecture." Kaela sighed. "Do you understand how UNACCEPTABLE that is!?"

"Well... you smartass, it’s called a rest day for a reason..." William sighed while facepalming.

"Nah! Fuck rest day!" Kaela stomps the ground hard.

"Rest days are for people who don’t have anything better to do." Kaela’s gaze swept the yard, cataloging the two practice swords Catherine was still holding, the faint sheen of sweat on William’s collar, and then, with the sudden focus of a predator locking onto something interesting, the fact that they were standing in the private backyard of the vice headmaster’s personal residence at what was still fairly early in the morning.

Her eyebrows climbed. "Uh-huh...?"

"Wait..." She looked between them slowly. "Why are you two here... like together... this early?"

"We were training," Catherine said, too fast.

"In your backyard?"

"It’s a perfectly reasonable place to train."

"Now... I can smell bullshit from three hallways away, and Instructor Wade doesn’t even live within fifty miles of this district." Kaela’s grin was spreading now, wicked, delighted, and dangerously sharp.

It was the exact expression of a predator who had just stumbled onto a fresh trail of evidence and had absolutely no intention of letting the prey escape. "Oh-hohhhh~! I see how it is..."

She leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes glittering with malicious glee. "Hehhhh..."

"Did he stay over?" Kaela asked, tilting her chin up with a smug, theatrical flourish. "Instructor Wade, you sly bastard!"

"Did you sneak into the Vice Headmaster’s quarters for an unsanctioned midnight debriefing?!"

"That is not..." Catherine started, her voice climbing half an octave, cracking slightly at the end. "It doesn’t happen like that, and even if it were relevant, which it is categorically not, it would have been entirely professional in nature!"

"It was related to instructor well-being and urgent academy business, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t—"

"HAH! There it is!" Kaela barked, slapping the table. "You’re doing the thing right now!"

Catherine froze, her face flushing a shade of pink that suggested her blood pressure was reaching critical levels. "W-What thing...?"

"The thing where you talk really fast and use way too many syllables when you’re lying through your teeth!" Kaela turned to William, putting on an expression of exaggerated, theatrical innocence. "She does that, Instructor Wade!"

"I’ve noticed it before! It’s like her brain goes into panic mode and just starts vomiting vocabulary!"

"Usually right before she gets caught doing something she’s not supposed to," William added, unable to resist.

"Not helping, William!" Catherine shouted at him.

He watched Catherine’s composure fray in real time, each thread snapping with audible satisfaction. He could practically see the steam rising from her ears.

"Jeez! I am not lying!" Catherine hissed, though her frantic energy betrayed her completely. "I am being precise!"

"Precision is what you use when you’re explaining a spell matrix, Vice Headmaster, not when you’re defending why you’re sporting a hickey at eight in the morning," Kaela cackled.

William decided that before Catherine actually combusted, he needed to intervene. "That’s not an important matter, Kaela."

"You see... there was a summoning incident at the dungeon yesterday."

Kaela’s ears perked up. "A summoning incident?"

"A Tier Five monstrosity got pulled through while we were testing my new sword," William said, his voice dropping into a more serious, controlled register. "It was... intense."

"The thing nearly tore through the eastern ward... It was handled, but the aftershocks made staying here the only logical choice purely so Catherine wasn’t left alone after something that volatile."

The teasing glint in Kaela’s eyes vanished instantly, replaced by genuine alarm. "A Tier Five? Here? Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me?"

"Aw, goddammit! I would have come and helped—"

"I said it was handled, Kaela... You’re hearing it for the second time," William said with a dry chuckle.

"But yeah... the good news is nobody got hurt." He paused, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Well, except the monster, which is currently scattered across three different dimensions in various states of decomposition."

Kaela’s expression shifted rapidly from alarm to something resembling profound betrayal and then to pure jealousy. "That’s so unfair! Damn it!"

"Oh, here we go," William muttered.

"I’ve been stuck doing pathetic little drills with wooden swords while you’re out there getting drenched in monster blood and fighting actual threats to existence!" Kaela threw her hands up in exasperation.

"You’re doing drills with wooden swords because you almost took Clara’s head off two nights ago," William countered flatly, "and I am actively trying to keep the property damage to the academy grounds to a minimum."

"We can’t afford to replace the east wing every time you get excited."

"That was one time!" Kaela shouted, pointing an accusing finger at him. "And the sword slipped!"

"The sword didn’t slip, Kaela; you swung it like you were trying to decapitate a dragon, and Clara happened to be standing in the trajectory of your bad aim."

"She was in my strike zone!"

"She was eating an apple three feet away from you!"

"A dangerous place to eat an apple during combat training!" Kaela shot back, crossing her arms defiantly. "Besides, you’re just jealous because my ’accidents’ involve actual danger, while yours involve... what?"

"Getting tired from paperwork and staying late with the vice headmaster?" She shot a pointed look at Catherine.

"That was a dungeon breach!" Catherine shouted, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that she was still clutching her collarbone.

"Sure it was," Kaela whispered loudly, winking at William. "A real... monster of a night."