I activated Ittou Shura and focused on maintaining a clear, calm mind while taking deep breaths, imagining ki flowing into every corner of my body along with each breath.
My parents seem like regular people, and senjutsu users are pretty rare in this world anyway, so finding a teacher would be tough.
I'm not totally sure if I'm doing this training right, but I'll keep working hard enough to push away those doubts.
....
Six months flew by with nothing but milk, sleep, and meditation on repeat.
My achievements during that time? I mastered sitting up and crawling, and I'm planning to tackle standing once I get a bit better at the crawling thing. Oh, and I graduated to baby food.
What? You're asking about the senjutsu? No progress! Got a problem with that?! It's only been six months and I'm figuring this out as I go!
But there's nothing else for a baby to do anyway, so I've got no choice but to keep at it.
....
Time passed, and I turned one year old. Finally! FINALLY! I can stand on two legs!
Senjutsu? Heh heh heh!
I can actually sense ki flow now!
My range is still limited to about ten feet, but if it's my parents' familiar ki, I can tell where they are anywhere in the house.
Man, getting these fantasy powers really gets you pumped up! I want to focus on developing this detection ability.
….
I'm six now. What? Time's flying by?
Look, you get it—little kids always have their parents hovering around them. I can only do low-key training.
Self-Destruct is obviously out of the question, and I can't go swinging around ominous blades like Zarich and Taurvi.
Actually, speaking of the future—where the hell am I supposed to learn how to use Zarich and Taurvi?
I don't think regular kendo lessons are gonna cut it... Ugh, looks like I'm stuck teaching myself.
Maybe I'll have to rely on YouTube videos about combat knives or something?
Well, Self-Destruct and Verg Avesta are problems for later. As for senjutsu, I focused on ki detection during training, so both my range and accuracy have improved big time.
I can sense about 150 feet around me now—that's Kite from Hunter x Hunter levels! And instead of just knowing someone's there, I can tell how they're moving and gauge how strong their presence is.
And that's exactly how I noticed something that made my blood run cold... there's an overlord living in the apartment building nearby.
The first time I sensed that presence, I broke out in a cold sweat.
My mom thought I'd gotten sick and rushed me to the hospital. (She wasn't exactly wrong.)
After we got home, I carefully probed the overlord's presence from the edge of my detection range.
Yeah, that person could probably level Mount Fuji in five seconds flat.
Someone living here in Kuoh Town with enough overwhelming aura to wipe out a small country in minutes...
It's gotta be that person. One of High School DxD's most broken characters—Mil-tan!
The guy who casually gets behind the Monkey King's descendant and the White Dragon Emperor, who shrugs off a Devil Princess's magic like it's nothing. A "normal person"—if you can call him that!
Part of me wants to see him, part of me doesn't... I mean, I knew the Milky anime was already airing, but it should still be the second season. I'm surprised he's already mastered magical girl magic (physical) in such a short time.
At this rate, won't he be even stronger by the time the main story starts? I figured he was around Maou-class or a bit higher, but if he's already this powerful... Maybe Mil-tan will be Transcendent-class by the original timeline? Hell, maybe even stronger—able to duke it out with the Two Heavenly Dragons or Crom Cruach in their prime?
...Yeah, Mil-tan could probably pull that off.
But if I'm gonna meet him, how do I do it?
From Mil-tan's perspective, I'm just some random neighborhood kid he's never met.
Guess I'll have to make it look like coincidence? Mil-tan's probably doing daily training to gain magical power.
He's probably got a regular schedule for running and stuff.
I could use my senjutsu detection to figure out his timing and start running myself? I've been wanting to work on basic fitness anyway, so this might be perfect.
...Wait a minute. Isn't this basically stalking?
Who's stalking? → Me
Stalking who? → Mil-tan
…
"No, no, wait, it's fine! It's just saying hi once!"
After that, I'll change my timing or route so I won't run into Mil-tan again!
I absolutely refuse to acknowledge any Mil-tan romance route!
It's okay—neither of us swings that way.
I'm just meeting an original character. Yeah! It's like going to see an idol! (Mental breakdown)
Alright! Now that I've decided, I'll add tracking his home and away times to my usual senjutsu detection training! (Stalker behavior)
After spending about a week tracking Mil-tan's presence during my senjutsu training, it looks like he goes running at 6 AM and 6 PM... probably.
Why "probably"? Because he'll be stretching in front of the apartment one second, then he's out of my detection range the next.
I mean, I can sense him moving at car-speed when he disappears, so that's probably his version of running.
You know what? I've been making wisecracks about this world since I got here—hell, even before I got here—but I'm getting tired of it...
He was definitely going over 35 mph, and he's always back in about thirty minutes. Dude, you just ran a full marathon in that time, didn't you?
I convinced my parents to let me start running. My pitch? "A friend at kindergarten said they do it" and "it seems cool." That's all it took.
I mean, parents don't really have reasons to object when their kid wants to exercise, so they agreed pretty easily.
The conditions were that I'd run on the track at the big park nearby, and at least at first, one of them would come with me. Fair enough.
I was honestly surprised they agreed even with those conditions.
I haven't been a brat since being born here, and I mostly just break up fights at kindergarten, so they figured "Ikki should be fine."
The day finally came, but knowing I'm about to encounter an overlord has me weirdly nervous.
Oh, by the way, it's 5 PM right now, and I'm planning to casually pass by Mil-tan after finishing my workout.
It'd be weird for a kid to be outside after 6 PM, it'd look bad, and my mom needs to start dinner prep anyway.
And here we are at Kuoh Park! It's pretty impressive, living up to the town's name.
It's like a sports field with a playground attached.
I've been doing stretches at home and keeping up with my Ittou Shura breathing meditation, so while my basic fitness might be lacking, I've strengthened my lung capacity and can constantly sense all the muscles and blood flow throughout my body.
Being able to sense it means I can control it too!
Maybe eventually I'll be able to control even my heart like in the original Rakudai Kishi.
Actually, even without using Ittou Shura, I can now intentionally release my brain's limiters to tap into that emergency strength people get in crisis situations.
...Am I getting better results in weird directions instead of senjutsu control? Is that just my imagination?
"Alright! Time to run!"
After stretching, it's time to start running!
But since I'm doing this, I want to make sure I actually build up my fitness properly.
So I'll reference that certain failed knight again.
His daily routine included running 12 miles at full sprint combined with jogging.
Anyone who's tried it knows how absolutely brutal that is. I experienced it once—well, they called it experiencing it—in PE class in my previous life.
If you're an amateur, just three or four rounds of 50-meter dashes plus jogging will leave you gasping for air with your legs feeling like jelly.
...12 miles is insane.
Obviously, since this is my first day and I just started elementary school this spring, I can't do anything like that. I'll start by figuring out what my current limits are.
----
"Huff... huff... huff..."
"Ikki, you okay?"
"Hah... hah... I'm... fine... hah..."
I'm breathing hard, but mentally I'm still doing okay.
The nightly Ittou Shura sessions are way more exhausting than this.
What surprised me was that I managed thirty full sprints in a row.
I think that's probably thanks to Ittou Shura too.
I don't actually move during Ittou Shura, but the whole time I'm in that state, I'm operating at full power.
That's gotta put serious strain on my whole body.
It's like going all-out while not moving.
Anyway, enough analyzing my fitness—time for today's main event.
It's 5:55 PM right now... nice and round.
It takes about three minutes to walk home at a kid's pace. By the time I get there, he should be stretching or something.
With a mix of excitement and anxiety, I head home. My senjutsu already confirmed he's in front of the apartment!
And finally, I managed to get him in my line of sight!
A chest so thick it could probably deflect rifle bullets, arms and legs like unbreakable tree trunks, eyes sharp enough to fire lasers, and a Gothic Lolita dress stretched to its limits.
The first thing I thought when I saw all that was how his Gothic Lolita outfit was different from the one Mil-tan wore in the anime.
...Well, it's still the second season of Milky right now, so that makes sense!
Maybe this is just me trying to escape reality... I thought I heard Mom gasp "Eek!" for a second, but while apologizing to her in my heart:
"G-good evening! Are you about to work out?" I called out.
I mean, Mil-tan... you're still Mil-tan even during training (magical), huh.
"Nyo? Good evening nyo! Mil-tan is about to work hard to gain fantasy powers nyo!"
Your existence IS fantasy!
"I-I see... good luck with that..."
"Nyo! If you believe, the spirits will surely answer Mil-tan's heart nyo!"
I think the spirits would run away before you could talk to them.
"Thanks for cheering me on nyo! I'm going now nyo!"
He vanished in an instant. So that's Mil-tan quality... (distant stare)
By the way, when I got home, I got scolded: "Being polite is important, but you shouldn't talk to obviously suspicious people like that."
Well, to someone who doesn't know him, he's weapons-grade suspicious. Actually, he's that level physically too.
Anyway, I managed to have my first meeting with an original character.
While my parents are supervising, I'll just adjust my workout and return timing to avoid encountering Mil-tan...
For some reason, we ended up exchanging casual greetings pretty regularly after that.
I was just randomly moving the character around, but how did this happen?
Even the author doesn't know what's coming next.