I nod off, not realizing the harshness of the training I would face the next day.
[…]
“WAKE UP YOU LAZY BRAT!”
“WOAH WA WAT… WHAT’S GOING on?” I woke up startled and confused. Looking back, I had a hard time remembering what I was doing before falling asleep.
Oh, that’s right, the lightening technique.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ON YOUR FEET!” Romuald said like thunder.
I moved instinctively.
One.
On my feet I was. It felt crazy; no, unreal would be more accurate. My body, which before felt heavy and stiff, was now more limber than ever.
No way... I looked at Romuald with newfound respect.
“Hmm I see your body is moving alright now, so let’s get started”
He had a stick in his hands. And along the “weapons” lining the wall, there was a gap where one could deduce it had come from. On the spot, it seemed weird as until now we had not used weapons and such a man couldn’t be expecting to fight me, right? Despite the weirdness of the situation, I felt so alive that I didn’t mind it.
First mistake.
We went outside. The luxurious forest that was surrounding us was darker than before.
It was almost dusk.
We were walking towards an unknown destination. It wasn’t the cascade from earlier, as we were moving in a diametrally opposed direction. The air was chilly and while refreshing compared to the stuffiness of the sleeping quarter, it did sting my skin a bit.
Soon enough, he broke the silence. “Do you know what’s the most important muscle for a fighter?” he said, a warm smile on his face that put me on edge.
“Wouldn’t it be his heart?” I answered matter-of-factly. Second mistake.
“That would be a-,” He said before pausing as if taken aback by my answer. He looked at me with pensive eyes, before looking back in front of him, still ominously happy.
“I guess you’re not wrong. After all, without a strong heart, forget fighting, you can’t even live. Then I guess which muscle would follow? And before you say so, no, the diaphragm and any other such muscles won’t be accepted… You nerd.”
At this question, I pondered.
“The shoulders?” I said, half sure. After all, when I looked back at my spear practice, the only muscles which I remembered being sore were them, from having held my fists up high all day.
“Um- not a terrible choice, but not quite right either.”
“Any other guess?”
I was left confused. If not the shoulders, what else?
“One’s midsection?” I reasoned since your core was located somewhere around the diaphragm, wouldn’t a strong abdominal chain protect it from any unfortunate accident?
“Yet again, this is not a terrible choice, but not quite the best either.”
“Do you really don’t know?” He said teasingly, but also not surprised.
“No, I have to admit I don’t.”
“Fine, you’ll find out soon enough.” He flashed his teeth.
“Alright...” I said meekly.
Please stop smiling.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something didn’t seem right.
Still, I awkwardly followed behind him, until we reached after a 20 minute of so of silent walking... well, walking for me, skipping for him, a distinctly unique area. First, unlike the cascade, which was surrounded by trees of all kinds, this place was totally bald. A glade. While I knew from books that these existed, it was still somewhat unsettling to see one in such an expansive forest. Second, all the areas I had encountered until now seemed like natural sites. This, however, had obvious signs of human intervention. The glade seemed to be 100 meters by a 100 meters. In one area, one could see a forest of circular pillars anchored in the ground in an array of sort; in another, odd shaped rocks ordered by size and most likely weight were lined on the ground; finally at the center of this training field, was an oval stone circled by small but smooth rock. On the stone I could see something engraved, a name?
As we approached Romuald finally broke the silence, “Don’t cross into the circle..” He said with a melancholy smile. I nodded; I didn’t know for sure why this would be here — in a place clearly dedicated to training — but it was obvious the remains of someone laid on the earth below that circle.
He stretched as if eager to move, and while doing so, said, “with that said, do you now have an idea of what is the most important muscle for a fighter?” his sinister energy from before back.
“The back muscles?” I said, half in doubt. They were used to pull, right? Wouldn’t have a strong back help in snappy punches and spear jabs. Also, father and his broad back came to mind as much as I hated to admit it.
“Eeeeeehn eeeeeeehn eeeeeeeeeeeeehn,” he said, gesturing a big x with legs in a squat and his arms crossed in x. At this moment he really looked like child.
“WRONG!”
“Caveat, important muscles too, but WRONG!”
“The answer is legs! Powerful leg muscles equal power, stability, and agility. All the other muscles you mentioned are important, be it to transfer power from down to up, to allow you to hold your weapon or whatever else you’d need to do. But at the end of the day, it all starts with your legs. So let’s get to the fun part.”
He looked at me with a bone-chilling smile.
“How do you train your legs?”
As he spoke, the air grew colder, and the words he had uttered while I was half asleep came back to mind. Enjoy this while you can.
He didn’t answer immediately, instead flashing a smile so terrifying it made a demon’s look amiable. Until he dropped the single-word bomb.
“Suffer.”
Before adding.
“and since you pissed me off, suffer some more!”
#
Training started with 0 laps around the 100 x 100 meters field. Quick math, 4 kilometers as warm-up. Thankfully, with the massage Romuald had given me, it almost felt like this was the first training of the day. Still with 4km as a warmup, I finished the laps panting.
“NO REST FOR THE WICKED! ATTENTION!” he said, too happy.
I didn’t react instantly. Still laying on the bed trying to catch my breath.
Third mistake.
I didn’t even have the time to realize what I had done wrong, that he grabbed me by my helmet and flung me high in the air towards the rock area. “W-W”
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
I didn’t even realize what had happened. All I could see since my body went tumbling in midair was Romuald leisurely jumping in my direction.
What...
the...
hell.
As the spin from the throw turned me away from him and made me face the doom that I was flying into, Romuald grabbed me by the helmet, cradled me in his arms and landed on the ground.
BOOM!
I stared, still not totally sure this had just happened.
“What now?” He looked at me with a grin.
“Since you’re a baby, let me treat you as such.“
“D-d-drop me!” I said.
“Sure,” and drop me he did.
Boom.
My back slammed on the ground, and my eyes rolled upwards in disbelief. The stinging pain instantly bringing me back to reality.
What else did I expect?
I tried standing up, but while my brain was grounded, my legs were lagging. Standing with quivering legs, I did the only thing I could do in that moment, glare.
“Eh, since you got enough energy to glare like that, I guess you are ready. Grab a stone and follow me.”
He walked away, heading to a free spot within the odd-shaped stone area, and brandished his simple stick. Then, with it, he unleashed thunder.
A resounding noise erupted from his simple swing, and crackling noises like small thunders resounded. Sound wasn’t the only thing generated by his swing. A strong wind rose like a tornado, lifting me and the nearby stones lightly into the air; the tree closest to us was about 20 meters away and its leaves ruffled violently before settling. As the sudden updraft subsided, the wind stopped for a few seconds before everything returned to normal. It was then that I realized that this man, while fun to hang around despite his pettiness, was truly dangerous. With a simple, annoyingly mundaying swing, he had done so much.
“Brat, do you now get the immensity that separates the heavens and earth, that separates a magic user from one such as you?” He said, still wearing a smile on his, but his tone stern.
“This 2 weeks of training will make you stronger yes, but you will never be able to do this, this is simply outside the realm of possibility for a non-mana user, still I am not one to bully a kid so I will give you a choice. While you were sleeping, I went and met Alfred. If you so desire, this whole training will end right now. After all, you just had to gain my approval, right? Or…”
He drew a line in front of him.
“You can cross that line, stay here and I will help you ever so slightly bridge that gap.”
At these words, I didn’t need to even think. While this training was terrible and extremely tiring, it went without saying that at least this much was expected. I wasn’t stupid enough to think there would be any easy way to become stronger and had already steeled myself for it at the moment I left the mansion.
I took a deep breath and then laughed, “Sir or Master... this training might be unbearably tough, and I might even drop dead at the end; but this is the first time in a long time that I had hope of getting stronger.” I paused.
“Even if I might end up regretting it, there’s no way I’ll give up on the first day of training.”
Having said that, I walked toward him and crossed the line.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” He broke into a fit of laughter, even shedding some tears.
“Phew, looks like you are not totally hopeless with that spirit. You might have some chance, like 0.0001% but still better than nothing, right?”
He then laughed some more.
This wasn’t pleasing to hear at all. And thus I sulked.
“Oh, Oh come here, won’t you respect the one you call master?”
“Shut up!” I turned my back but stayed there.
He still laughed and laughed, but after a while, he stopped. “You chose hell over death, so I will honor your choice.”
“Uh?”
“We will start with horse stance,” he continued without even giving the time to shiver at what was said.
“Horse stance?”
He didn’t even bother explaining it. He walked up to me, and moved my body into position, making me hold the stone in front of me while lowering me to horse stance before saying, “hold for 10 minutes.”
“10 minutes!?”
“You chose this. Get into position.”
I am dead.
I held the stance as best as I could. He’d call out loud every 30 seconds so I could keep track of time. While I was grateful for that, my legs started quivering after only 1 minute.
But I couldn’t fall.
Why?
Every time I changed my stance to make the move slightly easier or went up a bit to ease the tension on my legs, snap an accurate and vigorous swing would target the lacking part. Thankfully, he reined in his power or else there’d be no remains of me, but it still hurt enough for me to not dare deviate from the stance. Fear is a hell of a drug, allowing me to maintain this position for far longer than I would have thought.
Still, I could only will myself to keep the horse stance for 4 more minutes before I crumbled to the ground — throwing the stone in front of me.
Pant. pant. pant.
That’s only 5 minutes!?
“CHOP CHOP, you got 5 more to go! On your feet!”
Someone, please save me.
##
I was now standing on these weird posts, posts that Romuald called plum blossom posts, with one stone in each hand. My shoulders and arms were heavy. My legs were heavy. These rocks were heavy. Simply said, I was in pain.
I was standing high, the shortest post being 1 meter high and the others ranging from a slight increase to a staggering 4 meters. Romuald had made me travel from post to post, with a pause of 1 min of horse stance before going back to some more post jumping for the last 20 minutes. There were breaks of 1 minute every time I finished a repetition.
It was painful, but there was a silver lining, and a pretty significant one at that: I didn’t have to worry about falling. Romuald was watching me from below the posts nagging me, but whenever he’d see I was about to fall, a well-calculated swing of his stick would create a slight updraft allowing me to rebalance. This would be fuel for even more nagging about form and such, but being alive to hear it was a blessing in itself.
I had to ask myself how could one from the dark affinity created wind (the conclusion that it was just his physical strength scarier than the alternative), but besides that, it was just a matter of suffering through the motions.
That night, I wasn’t able to play kress, immediately falling asleep.
Every subsequent day was the same, a hellish grind of cardio in the morning followed by a delightful meal, and a life-saving massage that gave me just enough energy for me to do the evening strength training.
This was, without a doubt, hard, but also gratifying. While the first 3 days were unbearable and left me quivering at night due to muscle spasms and pain, this abuse I was putting my body through along with Romuald’s massage was making it stronger. Slowly but surely, even if it was by mere seconds, I was decreasing the time it took me to do my warmups and increasing the time I could hold horse stances.
Qigong was both the most relaxing and frustrating part of the day; while also being the only part I actually looked forward to (besides dinner).
I had never gone into that state since the last time, which made me want to try even more.
After 6 days of this hellish training, I finally had adapted enough that I could play kress at night before sleep. Ooooh, how much I missed it! Seeing Romuald’s face crumble in frustration from losing against me, and him swearing the next game would be his before embarrassingly losing again. The best kind of revenge.
I had to admit that Romuald wasn’t a poor player; against most people (or at least the one I had seen), he’d be able to win. I was the one he was facing.
My nose elongated the longer I played.
Obviously, he never missed the opportunity to make the next day’s training more taxing, but this inch of pride because I could beat him any day in kress, and that this hell he was putting me through resulted in significant visual and performance improvements day by day, made this tactic useless.
You can’t defeat me, mwahahaha.
[…]
“Fight me.”
Wa-what?
This was the 8th day of training, out of 14. We were standing on the naked training field. This day he had brought with him two evonite sticks. I had given it no thought to it then, but I was now realizing what it meant.
“B-b-b-but why? It’s obvious I got no chance!”
“Yeah? That’s the whole point.”
“W—“
Romuald shook his head disapprovingly. “Yeah, I am pissed... Brats these days got no respect for their elders…”
Without missing a beat.
“And you unfilial brat got NO SPORTMANSHIP! How dare you!!” His eyes jumped out of their orbit.
“7 times.” He swung.
“7 Times!” He swung again with significantly more anger.
“7 TIMES yesterday only! Don’t you have any restraint!?” He swung yet again, this time summoning a gust of air.
He looked to be fuming, but then, as if to calm himself down, he sighed.
Is this over?
“You need a good spanking.”
“But you were—“
“SHUT UP!” He said, not even embarrassed, as he threw a stick to me. Both sticks were roughly the same diameter, but mine was shorter admittedly so I could brandish it.
Heavy.
Even with all the training I had done, I could barely lift it off the ground, say nothing of wielding it.
“Come at me!”
He didn’t give me time to process what was going on.
“COME AT ME!” He yelled.
Are we seriously doing this? There’s no way, right?
My eyes lost focus for a bit.
This is a joke, RIGHT?
“Chet. If you won’t take it, then initiative is mine”
He barely finished speaking, that he vanished from where he stood.
His disappearance woke me up and instinctively led me to look up high. Nothing?
Fuck! my back!
I didn’t have time to spin around to parry and, even if I did, my arms would have probably been sent flying.
In a flash, I ducked while clenching on the stick, its weight helping me to drop faster.
“Oh, impressive?” I heard a voice from behind me say.
While I had narrowly dodged it, the stick was much too heavy for me to brandish comfortably, so I dropped it and rolled forward.
“Brat, throwing away your weapon is probably one of the stupidest things you can do in a death match.”
He flash-stepped in front of me. One moment there, the next gone.
He appeared in front of me like a ghost, and with two sticks in his hands, he cross-slashed, stopping their imaginary blades inches away from my neck.
“Slash,” he said.
I was on the ground. Defeated. The two imaginary blades were signs of how one-sided that fight had been. I wasn’t exactly surprised or even angry, after all this result was expected. Still, Romuald’s next word ticked me off.
“Well, that was disappointing,” he said with a headshake of disapproval.
“W —“
What the hell were you expecting? I was about to yell, but I held my life too dear for that.
He didn’t heed it any mind and continued, “From now on, at the end of every training session, you’ll do 1000 vertical slashes.”
“That’s for dropping your weapon.”
He crouched, and with a smile, flicked my helmet — sending me to roll backward.
Then again. “That’s for pissing me off.”
“Sorry.”
While trying to get my ideas together after the vicious cartwheels he had just made me do. I was angered, but I also realized I had gotten too cocky; this unsurprising, but real defeat the proof.
Yes, I could beat him at kress, but so what? It was a damned board game!
What was important was how I would overcome the physical limitation I was born with to carve my spot in this world.
Humph... while Romuald is petty, he is not—
Flick.
As I recovered from the tumbling, I yelled reflexively, “what the hell was that for!?”
“It’s fun,” He said with the dumbest grin on his face. He then jumped in the air, and with a boisterous and grating laugh, he said.
“Aaaah winning cleanses your soul hahahahahaha!”
