"Second Lieutenant Keiko, I, Jeanne Armstrong, officially issue a challenge to you! Do you accept it?"
Keiko was dumbfounded. Then, she asked her in disbelief, "Are you sure you want to challenge me?"
"Yes! Not only am I going to challenge you in combat competition, but also in the obstacle race," replied Jeanne confidently.
Keiko, at this very moment, really wanted to shout, "Miss, you are crazy!" but the words choked in her throat.
There was another way to quickly improve the ranking which was to directly issue a challenge order to the opponent. It was just that the soldiers generally didn't do such provocative things because the challenge couldn't be treated lightly. Unless the two parties really had an irreconcilable feud, it was very rare to see someone issue a challenge order.
The first reason could be directly eliminated after all Jeanne and she didn't belong to the same division, and Jeanne, as a civilian officer, had no combat ranking, so logically, this kind of challenge was meaningless.
And for the second reason, Keiko thought it shouldn't be possible because after some observation she felt that the relationship between the former "Keiko Lee" and this eldest lady was more than good, borderline ambiguous. There was no reason for her to issue a challenge because they had no irreconcilable feud with each other either.
'So, what the hell is this woman up to this time?'
Keiko stood frozen, looking at Jeanne blankly.
Although she accepted Jeanne's challenge, she didn't know what to do.
Did Jeanne really want to fight her? How could this be possible? Jeanne could hardly fight, and her physical ability was not good at all. Wasn't Jeanne bullying herself by picking a fight with her?
"You don't need to feel any pressure, Lieutenant Lee, let's just compete fairly," Jeanne stood with her feet apart and ready her stance.
Fair your sister!
Keiko wanted to cry badly. She didn't even know who this ridiculous competition was unfair to.
The soldiers watching on the side were simply watching the fun, especially a guy like Seol-Hyun Ae, who couldn't wait to watch a good show and kept pestering Keiko to hurry up and accept.
Today's training just got more and more interesting.
"Hey, why don't you attack?" Keiko hesitated for a moment, then said to Jeanne, "I really don't want to attack first."
"Why are you acting like a coward?" Jeanne laughed and mocked, "Are you that afraid of me?"
'Yes, I am!' Keiko screamed inwardly.
She then sighed helplessly, placed her right hand behind her back to prepare her stance, raised her left hand in a starting gesture, looked at Jeanne, and said, "You can attack first and I will also give you the handicap of one hand. Furthermore, I'll only defend and not attack back."
"Hey, Lieutenant Lee, don't look down on me!" Jeanne snorted coldly and stopped talking nonsense with Keiko. She rushed towards Keiko to attack.
As soon as she came in close distance, Jeanne kicked a series of small high kicks very rudely toward Keiko's head, but Keiko blocked it with ease as she raised her left hand, patted her instep one by one, and slowly stepped back to ensure a safe distance.
After completing five consecutive kicks, Jeanne swept over with another round high kick, and Keiko ducked and dodged it gracefully.
'You missed it for the second time, Miss…' Keiko commented in her heart while a smile appeared on her face at the same time.
Jeanne looked at her and saw her smirking. This annoyed her very much and made her really angry.
She swung her right leg up and kicked again. Keiko raised her left arm to defend, and a question popped up in her heart, 'Miss, you only do Taekwondo?'
"Yaah! Yaah!" Jeanne let out a squeak, and as soon as her right leg was touching the ground, she released another mid-section kick toward Keiko's chest and abdomen.
She just turned sideways and swiftly circled to Jeanne's left side.
Seeing this, Jeanne immediately changed her legs. This time it was a left stab kick. She thought she could reach Keiko this time, but she didn't expect Keiko to suddenly laugh and lunge forward with her left shoulder.
She supported Jeanne's leg that was flying toward her, then quickly approached Jeanne, circled her left arm, bound her hands, and locked her arms and legs in her arms.
At that moment, Jeanne was standing in the same position with her legs stretched upwards. If her ligaments were not good, she would probably scream out of pain, but Jeanne's ligaments were quite flexible, so even if her left leg was forced by Keiko to raise above her shoulder, her expression didn't change.
The two of them were locked in an ambiguous position at the moment, which made people inadvertently think something ba—cough… inadvertently think that it was a little bit improper to treat the famous Miss Jeanne like this, don't you think?
Still, there was a lot of deliberate coughing, muffled laughter, and small whistles all around them. Although Jeanne's expression was calm, her complexion was slowly turning red. Keiko didn't care about them and just whispered in Jeanne's ear.
"Major, I'll give you a piece of advice. If you fight again in the future, try to use your legs as little as possible. Martial arts pay the most attention to the lower body. If you can't get stabilize your legs, it will cause many flaws, and the opponent will easily exploit such a mistake, just like now..."
"Let me go!" Jeanne said angrily.
She didn't know why but she felt Jeanne was a little bit cute when she was angry.
"Pardon my offense," Keiko said, letting go of her hand in a very gentlemanly manner and moving away.
"Do you want to fight again, Major?" Keiko asked again.
"No!" Jeanne said angrily, but her anger came and went quickly. After fixing her clothes, she calmed down. Then, she looked at Keiko and said, "Let's go, let's go, to the obstacle course!"
"Are you sure?" Keiko raised her eyebrows and confirmed it again.
"Of course, why are you talking so much nonsense?" Jeanne said in displeasure.
Keiko was helpless and had no choice but to go with her.
The training is actually over by now, and it's time for dinner. However, the soldiers of the left-wing squadron did not want to miss this good show, and they all stayed in place to watch the competition.
###
Author's note:
Hello, my dear reader!
I want to give a boost to this book so I'll do a targeted vote with a reward this week (21st Feb - 27th Feb).
This week voting target:
500 PS = Mass release 3 chapters at the end of the month (28th Feb) + 3 chapters System Journey to Godhood.
750 PS = Mass release 4 chapters at the end of the month (28th Feb) + 3 chapters System Journey to Godhood.
1000 PS = Mass release 5 chapters at the end of the month (28th Feb) + 3 chapters System Journey to Godhood.
Don't worry, I have a sufficient amount of chapters in the stockpile this time, so it definitely not an empty promise!
So, do me a favor and give me those power stones! Thank you all and happy reading!