With Hessien’s safety confirmed, I took a deep sigh of relief. However, there was just one tiny issue: the fact that she wanted to train us now, after the heated emotional and physical conflict with someone who was their world’s version of a (insert a famous Earth genocidal politician). She was probably going to accidentally cut off our arms due to the adrenaline flowing through her veins.

I coughed into my fist. “Um… before we start, do you want to talk out your feelings first? Maybe get the steam out…”

Vacinay nodded. “Yes, yes! We would love to train, but I think we need just a little minute to cool out and `share some interesting stuff about us before.”

We looked at each other and anxiously nodded, acknowledging our goal.

Yamanda folded her arms, holding her sword between her armpit. Also, I just realized something. She used teleportation despite the chaotic negative skill energy around.

I wondered why nothing happened to her. Whatever, that was something to worry about later.

We were about to launch a therapy lesson here! Despite the fact neither one of us went to one. Wait… Ghomas did when he was younger, but I doubt he was going to be useful here.

Yamanda's fingers drummed on her arm as she looked at the white clouds, pondering.

Then she finally decided to talk, “I see no point in talking about my feelings, really. I hate that creature and all of her kind, and I desire to see them all dead, even if it’s impossible because of how they are created.”

Her face twisted more in anger. “I am a damn knight… I trained for so many damn years for this job, this honor, this role, and my parents' respect… I am a knight. A knight… Not any knight, I am a presidential knight. I am a sword and shield of the president. I am a knight. But…”

She stomped on the ground. “I am a knight… Do you know how much work it takes for that? You are supposed to discard everything of your former life and dedicate everything to the president. He is supposed to have the nation’s best interest in sight… My parents didn’t become shells of their former selves serving this country only for him to make decisions that mess up everything for us?! Tanya?! That creature? That evil being?! Even if he had to use an evil manifestation, why couldn’t he just wait for someone to capture a weak one?! Why… her.”

Ah… of course, this was serious. Her grip was so tight on her sword that I started wondering if her palm was bleeding.

Vacinay was thinking of something to say.

“Feels like your purpose of living has been betrayed, huh?” Ghomas randomly said.

She looked at him. “Yes, precisely… My hair is red, the color it’s dyed when one becomes a presidential knight, to signify their past is no and they now belong to a new family. It’s something to be proud of, but now it feels absolutely disgusting.”

“I can’t really understand what you are going through. To the full extent at least. But, I think I get it. No matter how much time will pass, the betrayal will never leave.”

She threw herself down and replied, “Ah… is that so. Yeah, it feels so. But whatever. It is what it is…”

I asked, “Hopefully, in the next election, the new president will be better? Unless it’s very far in the future.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We would have to wait till he dies for that unless… Hm. I don’t want the consequences of killing him.”

Wait a second, what?

Vacinay asked anxiously, “Why would we have to wait until he dies?”

“… Because if one was held while a president reigned, why wouldn’t he just kill all his competitors or heavily discourage them from campaigning?”

The three of us looked at each other, knowing what that meant.

“That bastard might as well be a damn king.” Hessien grumbled.

“Fascism, why am I surprised,” I muttered.

I think I used the word correctly… I never really bothered to learn too much about politics since I was blessed enough to not be affected by it because of where I lived… But… I no longer have such an advantage!

I wanted to break down and roll on the ground in my sorrow, figuratively of course.

Vacinay asked, “How many times has someone tried to kill that guy?”

Yamanda answered, “A lot. But, the royal guards are decently strong. The ones you have seen are those in training on the very low tier ones.”

With a serious expression, I asked, “You wouldn’t try to stop us if we perhaps killed him in the future?”

“Unfortunately, I would.”

Tch.

She sighed and stood up. “Okay… let’s train. Don’t worry about holding back; the ground here is reinforced, allowing even the strongest presidential knights, who are capable of leveling cities, to train here at full force.”

Leveling cities… Holy shit!

Also, how strong did she think we were? I couldn’t even break a rock with my fist if I tried to.

I said, “I am at only level 10 and these guys are lower than level 5.”

She was in complete disbelief.

With a facepalm, she muttered, “So you all weren’t making yourselves look puny on purpose… To think the reason I walked towards the restaurant just to spend the entire time checking you all out was pointless.”

Eh?!

Vacinay shouted, “That’s why you made us walk for so long?! After seeing you could teleport, I thought it was because you wanted us to see the city!”

She tried to hide her smirk with her hand. “Ah yes, I was actually planning on using that as an excuse.”

I actually didn’t mind it. Since I worked a lot on my cardio, it wasn’t too much. Matter of fact, I kind of want to do some jogging for an hour just to get that pump going.

With her hand on her waist, she changed the conversation, “Anyway, you all are currently very weak… so we will change this training. Instead, we will be power leveling you all up to at least level 15! With that, you all should have the strength to perhaps lift around… 6-12 tons based on your base stats.”

My eyes nearly shot out of my head upon hearing that number.

Just how strong was that Yuen guy…? I wasn’t the only one that was completely baffled by the levels of strength.

Hessien dashed towards her and stood at attention like a soldier. “Do you wish for me to carry something for you while we head to the destination to turn us into beasts of great power?

Still, that sounded so weird to me.

While I haven’t tried to lift anything heavy yet, at max, I think I could lift… 800 pounds. But to think it would only take 5 levels for me to reach such inhuman levels of strength. I did theorize that leveling was difficult back in the house… but it makes sense since the power it gives is this absurd.

Just what's your level, Yamanda.

Oh right, I can check people's levels. I forgot about that.

Yamanda noticed my gaze and looked at me before asking, “What is it?”

If asking what someone’s skill was considered rude… then how rude would it be to check someone’s level?

If people always found a way to differentiate themselves from others and use that difference to push down on people to uplift themselves, I would definitely expect levels to be something some people are not only very private about but also have insecurities revolving around them.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

That made me also think; it was still weird to me that levels were basically measurements of skill energy. I did think of it a little when I leveled up from killing the rabbit-man because it was a skill. Which made me wonder…

I asked, “How do we level up exactly?”

The other three looked at me as if I was stupid. But, it was a good question.

She replied, “Oh right. You all aren’t from this world… we gain levels from absorbing skill energy. The easiest way is to kill those containing skill energy.”

Excuse me what?

Hessien's expression switched to horror. “Wait… you mean like… people?”

“Not necessarily. Alignment manifestations or breaking skills. For example, the rabbit man thing your cousin killed.”

I asked, “If someone could shoot fireballs, would putting it off count as a skill break?”

She shook her head. “Of course not. These are offensive skills that entirely revolve around exploding or destroying themselves to damage you. They aren’t stable enough to be processed.”

“Wait… So people who use skills that require creating something or outputting energy out of themselves are constantly… lowering their levels?”

“Technically? But energy points focus as the primary energy source for skills. You would always run out of energy points before you even lose 0.1% of your level.”

No wonder energy points had such a price to pay since it’s this efficient.

Ghomas asked, “So… what are we going to be hunting down?”

She looked at Hessien and muttered, “I would suggest evil manifestations… but that thing would definitely react in an annoying way. Besides, you all are too weak for them. Looking for skill creations would be a waste of time because of how rare they are… so… We shall be hunting down people.”

"Is that a joke?" I asked, baffled.

"Uh... No."

"Please tell me you are joking."

"Hm.... I am serious. We can’t do death row criminals.”

Ah, so she had some kind of mora--

She mentioned, “Some do hunt tribe—“

We all three said in unison. “No.”

How was that even legal?

“I said some… But fine. We will go to the Gervmu route. There are a lot of half-mans. People who had their forms transformed by trading their ‘humanity’ for certain limited wishes to the statue of Pasfell and became very dangerous and cannibals.”

It felt messed up to say, but I think I would have felt a lot more comfortable killing a human that didn’t look…

I already hate this.

Of course, I was going to have issues with killing in general, much less for those who even looked remotely close to humans.

A random bit, she said humanity. I assumed that was the translator doing its job, like a localizer.

Vacinay rested her fist on her chest as she seemed regretful. “Their sacrifices shall be worth it. Their death shall further our growth.”

Hessien agreed. “Preach… Let’s go, miss!

“There is no way you all can be serious. Okay, Miss Yamanda, how different do they look from humans?” I asked.

“It varies wildly; the statue of Pasfell is also known as the well of change and transformation. So, someone could wish to have wings and have wings… along with the unwanted transformation, making them become 4 feet tall with disfigured wings sticking out every frame of their body.”

Okay, that sounded a bit much better.

The longer I stayed in this world, the 'grossier' my morals were becoming… but as long as I didn’t think of them as humans, it was going to be okay.

“I am in,” I said.

Ghomas rubbed his chin and asked, “But they are still humans— Flowmans?”

“Yes,” Yamanda answered.

“But it’s going to be okay to kill them because they look different than us?”

“Yes. Well, I am okay with killing whoever, as long as they are criminals or sins against our existence.”

Ghomas looked at me, and I averted my gaze.

“Isn’t that like… the same logic people used for genocide back on earth…? Like, their culture is different, they aren’t humans. They look different, they aren’t humans…?”

Vacinay jabbed her finger at him. “Good point! Counterpoint! They are cannibals and very dangerous, according to Yamanda.”

“Exactly,” I said.

Ghomas sighed as he walked towards us. “Time to become murderers.”

Hessien said, “Think of it as… we are getting rid of dangerous individuals.”

Vacinay nodded. “Exactly, start dehumanizing the shit out of them so we can easily kill them!”

We all looked at her weirdly.

She then averted her gaze as she scratched her head. “I see… that one was a bit too far… Wait a second. Hell, it’s not! Sure, I made a joke about it, but that’s what you all are doing! I am not using such dumb tactics to rile myself up!”

“Shut up,” I muttered as I walked towards Yamanda.

Hessien agreed. "Exactly. Dehumanization is one thing, but jokes about it? Nah nah nah! Take this seriously."

Vacinay glared at him.

He grinned as he hugged her, deliberately annoying her more.

Yamanda fit her sword in her scabbards and looked at us before saying, “You know, you don't need to be near me for teleportation.”

I responded, “I just guessed it would consume fewer energy points.”

She looked surprised before smiling. “You are actually somewhat sweet. You remind me a very, very little bit of my nephew.”

“Merci.”

Then suddenly we stood on muddy grounds, and all around us was a dense jungle with huge green and brown roots stretched all over.

Yamanda touched the ground, and an array of weapons and armor appeared, ranging from the spear-guns, katanas, broadswords, war hammers, daggers, knives, leather armor, chainmail, and knight-like armor.

“Hell yeah…” Hessien grinned.

Vacinay crouched low and took the broadsword which she could barely lift. Using all her willpower and some loud grunts, she swung it a bit.

Ghomas took the war hammer. And Hessien surprisingly took the spear-gun.

While they also donned armor, I looked at the options, thinking which I preferred. I think I wanted the speargun for range, but I hated how they looked.

I looked at my hand and closed and opened it, wondering what fit me the best.

Knives… I think I really liked how they felt in my hand.

The only thing that sucked was how lame the armor was.

I whispered to her, “Nothing more… Um… dress-like?

If I said it out loud, the three others would have rightfully started laughing at me. But I really, really like dresses.

Yamanda suppressed her reaction.

“No. These are typically tailored-made… And typically worn by the few women knights that are… very, very concerned about looking elegant or ‘feminine’ as if wearing some damn armor would make them manly.” She said the last part with quite a bit of anger.

I knew my request was stupid, but I just hated pants or pants-like wear with almost all my being because I didn’t like how it stuck to my skin.

But oh well.

Before I took armor there, I asked, “Do they have levels or some rank to them?”

“Yeah, all these are 1 stars, anything greater would be too heavy or stressful on your bodies.”

I nodded as I donned the chainmail armor. I hated it so much, looked so damn ugly. But it was free stuff; I couldn’t complain about that.

I took a knife and thanked her for the armor and weapons.

The three others were playfully fighting, but that came to an end when a weird heinous cry pierced through the air.

Yamanda looked behind her and said, “One of them showed up.”

When we turned back, a man on all fours with many arms all over his body stared at us, particularly Yamanda, Me, and Vacinay.

His arms closed and opened in disgusting ways along with a perverted grin that surpassed its eyes.

“I haven’t had a female in so long… Give me... GIVE M--”

Vacinay took the spear gun from Hessien's hand and clicked the trigger, which shot a red beam through its head.

After a second, it fell down dead.

“Nice shot,” I said. “Should have probably tortured it a bit, but not bad.”

As yellow energy from him floated up and traveled to Vacinay, she said, “That idea only came up after I shot at the head.”

I nodded. "I don’t think I am going to feel any aversion to killing these things.”

Hessien took his spear gun from Vacinay and said, "So... It's about to be a massacre?"

Me and Vacinay said in unison, "YES."