“Is it that tasty?”
As I said that watching the three kids scarf down a simple bread and soup, No. 1000 nodded as if she had no time to waste talking, No. 17 blushed slightly and No. 1 said brazenly.
“The food is not tasty, we are hungry.”
But unlike his att.i.tude he quickly slapped away No. 1000’s hands away from his bread.
It’s not like I couldn’t understand them. It’s probably because it’s been a while since they ate food fit for humans.
After serving them a seven-day full course of every type of bombardment the organization had to offer, they were given a pouch of jerky and moved immediately to the mountains. Just as they got over alt.i.tude sickness, a raft in the middle of the ocean. And after hearing that they were sick and tired of water, they had magic-sealing cuffs normally used for mage prisoners shacked onto their arms and thrown into the middle of the desert.
Even then, No. 1000’s survival ability was magnificent.
An appet.i.te that would even let her eat poison mushrooms for the taste.
Maybe she has some Poison Immunity MAX that you’d only find in novels, but even if she eats poisonous mushrooms she shows no signs or symptoms of poisoning.
I thought for a bit whether it was some type of mushroom I didn’t know about, but then No. 1 tried copying her and immediately rolled his eyes back frothing at his mouth, I even had to use an emergency antidote to barely save him.
On the ocean, they caught a lot of fish, but her skills at cooking fish just right with basic magic were particularly praiseworthy.
Even No. 17 who’s a magic prodigy occasionally burns hers, but No. 1000’s skill where she didn’t burn her fish, not even once, was close to miraculous.
Her final actions in particular, in the desert, had even me horrified.
Without even a hint of hesitation, as soon as their drinking water ran out, she immediately bottled her own p.i.s.s in her water canteen!
The other two were horrified at No. 1000’s actions, and continued looking for an oasis, but there was no way I’d be that easy on them.
Since I had brought them all to a place where I had already determined there was no oasis, it was fun watching them gradually drying out.
Especially when No. 17, who had held out till the end finally drank her own urine, just when the shame and humiliation started to fade away from her face, when she asked me how to gather water, as I showed her how to use leather to gather morning dew and cacti as a water source, her soulless dead face was absolutely priceless.
And roughly two months of training pa.s.sed by like that, and now we were back at our beloved barracks.
After a simple meal, I decided to give them a rest day today.
Although I was being quite benevolent, I don’t think my disciples appreciate their teacher’s kindness.
“Today… Then what’s happening tomorrow?”
“…Again?”
Although their three horrified stares stung a bit, I need to endure.
Yes, the heart of a teacher must be as high as the sky and deep as the sea!
“You may rest until the sun rises tomorrow morning.”
But their suspicious looks still haven’t disappeared.
Ahhh. In that case.
“Or should we start now?”
“We’re okay!”
“Thanks for the break!”
“I’ll come out when it’s dinnertime.”
As I looked at them hurriedly turn around and head to the dorms, I sighed.
Why do all my disciples have such little faith in their instructor?
As I walked out pondering this, an exclamation just naturally sprang to my mouth.
Look at those dorms! Perfectly restored! Even if it looks like that it’s a specially made dormitory.
It was made so that the higher you go, the less risk there is of someone dying from the building collapsing.
Since the building collapses at least two, three times a year, it was made easy to destroy, easy to fix, light and cheap.
Perhaps the only downsides were that the roof blew off during a storm every now and then, and the building was sometimes cut in half when the kids were fighting?
Well even so, if you make them come out and start surviving, then emergency weather activity training complete! No matter that this is a fantasy neighborhood where magic is life, the power of mother nature is fearsome even here.
You need to overcome those environments in order to be tenacious enough to not die wherever you go.
Oh, thinking about it, trapping them in a cave-in like the dormitories seems like a good training plan.
Survival where there isn’t the faintest speck of light! Should I try drawing up a plan? I thought as I entered my office.
“Oh, Master, welcome…”
Slam!
Something weird is inside.
Mm. why is she here? It’s been ages since she graduated, why is she here?
I opened the door again.
“Master! Why did you shut…”
Slam!
I shut the door again. Yep. It’s her. It’s common sense to avoid the local mad dog when she’s around.
Plus, if it has rabies, it is highly recommended that you run away as fast as possible. If you get bitten while fighting it’s only your loss.
“Master? Master? If the door doesn’t lock from the outside, then Master is holding onto it, right? Is it alright when your ex-disciple is here and not letting her in… Wait, no, not letting her out?”
This is the problem. The heavily shaking doork.n.o.b. I’m holding onto it as hard as I can, but the moment I let go, I’m caught.
“Master? Are you listening? Can I think of this as confinement play? To think Master had these kind of preferences…”
She’s bulls.h.i.tting something, but I ignore it. The door handle is shaking more violently but it feels like it’s going to break at any moment.
“What are you doing, Instructor?”
But salvation came at the most perfect timing.
“What is the problem, No. 1.”
“Ah, I came to replace the equipment damaged in the desert.”
“Alright then, hold onto this door for a minute.”
With a quiet voice, I call No. 1 over and have him hold onto the door, and put some effort into it.
Even though he looked confused, No. 1 held on to the door with all his strength, and I turned around and gapped it as fast as I could.
Let’s run first.
The others are problematic in their own right, but that one is particularly troublesome.
She’s oddly similar to my previous workplace’s boss, and her crazy b.i.t.c.h personality is also similar and hence even more uncomfortable.
It’s dangerous to be bare-handed. In that case I should prepare at least the minimal weapon for self-defence. The training’s going to progress to the next stage soon enough anyway, so I might as well grab it early.
#8 Their story: The future hero’s troubles
My heart that was fired up against No. 1000 cooled quickly.
After surviving the Empire-style magic bombardment, then the other a.s.sorted magic bombardment that followed shortly afterwards. At the very least it was easier to endure. If my body was normal that is…
My entire body was screaming at me as I pushed it beyond its limits. Most of the others had their mana strained to the limit and were in similar conditions to me.
Only No. 1000 maintained her easygoing slowness like normal, but it didn’t seem like she was going to lend a helping hand anytime soon.
One person, then two people fell.
Each person squeezed out their non-existent mana to dig a trench, hid behind natural obstacles to get out of the line of fire, and when they barely intercepted an attack, someone shouted.
“There’s something there. Sniper!”
We couldn’t understand what they meant immediately. We’d already been holding out for five days under heavy fire, people dropping out wasn’t out of the ordinary.
It was a coincidence that we found out what that actually meant.
When No. 17 abandoned the temporary shelter that was all but obliterated by enemy fire, and was about to head elsewhere.
She sent the person that was with her in another direction.
To an area that looked like a perfect place to get sniped.
“Kuwuk?!”
I saw it. The figure of the person collapsing as if he’d been hit out of nowhere. But still! To think that it was a magic shot that left no traces of magic!
To make matters worse, in the middle of heavy bombardment, and now with stealth magic! How the h.e.l.l are you supposed to block that!
“They’re blocking it well.”
But No. 17 and No. 1000 are blocking it with ease.
Generally the shot came the moment the bombardments destroyed the obstacles people were hiding in, but surprisingly enough they blocked it well, and dodged it well.
Did that mean there was a separate way to block it?
I had to take two hits before I realised.
The first shot in particular hit me in a very poor place, I could only barely defend against it by pouring all my magic into it.
Ah, where exactly that place was is dangerous in many ways, so I’ll leave out that explanation.
The solution is quite simple. While on standby, spread a layer of mana out extremely thinly, and act like a sensor.
While mana is being used at a very high rate, the moment I started to use that I found I could deal with it. Now, I can take whatever you throw at me!
Aaand the moment I thought that, training over. After telling us good job and tossing us a bag of jerky, he threw us into the mountains.
It was there where I came to learn of alt.i.tude sickness for the first time.
I didn’t even know this illness existed. The Empire doesn’t have too many mountainous regions to begin with, and even the mountains it had weren’t that high above sea level.
Because of that I couldn’t eat properly, but No. 1000 was happy that there was less mouths that ate. Because of that the moment I felt well enough to eat properly I stole one of the mushrooms No. 1000 was roasting, and thanks to that I saw my deceased mother’s face that I’d only ever seen in paintings.
She sent me back saying it wasn’t my time yet, if I’d followed her I’d have died then and there.
And we hunted beasts in the mountains, roasted them, this wasn’t so bad… Just as we thought that, training over.
It was annoying that training ended just as we were getting used to it, but now for some rest…
There was a time where I thought such things.
I relaxed and closed my eyes, and when I woke up we were on a raft in the middle of the ocean.
All we had was a single fishing rod and a small bowl, one oar. End.
Of course even though we could slake our thirst through water magic, there was no food.
Just then, we realised just how good the environment was up in the mountains.
We could hunt animals to eat, and if there were no animals we could eat gra.s.s and roots!
But we couldn’t even do that in the sea. The only thing we could very occasionally catch on a line without bait was seaweed.
In the end we dove in to catch fish, but that wasn’t easy, either.
In addition, cooking the fish we caught.
The sight of our hard-caught fish turning to charcoal right in front of our eyes was something we couldn’t bear to watch without crying.
As I looked at where sky met ocean far away in the distance, the inside of my head was also dyed in blue.
As our instructor rode in an extravagant cruise ship that was completely unbefitting of an evil organization that symbolised stealth, he looked at us that were half-insane and shamelessly asked.
“Where do you want to go next?”
No. 17 and I said we didn’t want to see water any more, we said anywhere as long as there was no water. And that was the worst choice we could have made.
“When does this end?”
“Don’t know. Don’t talk to me, I’m thirsty.”
As I said that, sprawled out on a sand dune in a dying voice, No. 17 replied with a very annoyed voice.
The sea was heaven. I didn’t know just how valuable water was.
I glared balefully at the magic suppressing tool that was shackled to my right wrist like a chain, but it didn’t seem like it would come off anytime soon.
The saliva had already long dried from our throats. In this environment where we swallowed more sand than saliva, the sandstorms were like h.e.l.l.
Furthermore, despite how hot the days were, the nights were disgustingly cold.
Even if we tried to dig a hold to make a shelter, because the ground was sand, a single gust undid all our efforts. In the end we were all getting sick of surviving with a campfire on a rock.
“I got food.”
“…Scorpions again.”
And the worst thing is that there is nothing to eat.
The mountains were heaven in terms of food. The sea had a lot to eat as well once you got used to it. But the desert had nothing.
Scorpions. Lizards. Except just once.
Whether it was abandoned or lost, a camel came pa.s.sing by and No. 1000 quickly caught it, aside from that time we had nothing remotely resembling meat.
Back then, we took ten big steps back as we looked at No. 1000 who drank the camel’s blood instead of water, but thinking on it now, we should have drank up when we had the chance, and I still regret that to this day.
And so we struggled and training was finally over, and we were told to rest up for tomorrow, but where did it go wrong?
Was it that I had checked my equipment for early thinking that training would resume tomorrow?
And was the problem that there were faults a couple of items of gear? Or was it that I held onto the door that the instructor said the devil lived inside?
Maybe, all of them were the problem.
The door I was holding shut opened, or more accurately, destroyed, and from the inside a beautiful woman came out.
That woman looked at me, smiled and said.
“So. Your last words?”
And I was. .h.i.t with that opening. It was a mysterious beating. It was a refreshing beating. I was. .h.i.t, it hurts, and it doesn’t hurt.
“Kuhuk?”
My gaze that had been looking forwards was now facing the ceiling.
“Hm… Seeing as how there are marks left, it isn’t perfect.”
As I barely managed to turn my head, I saw a metal stick around a metre long.
Was I hit by that?
“Hm… If I succeed then world conquest might not be impossible, but it’s so hard.”
“Kuk kahaat?”
It’s odd. It hurts. It hurts so much. But it feels good. What is this?
“I raised the pleasure output, but at this rate it’s just a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t production tool.”
With light hand movements, the metal stick struck my body.
What I felt was definitely pain, but when it came to my head it wasn’t pain, but pleasure.
“Huwww… Huwuut?”
“Ah. d.a.m.n it. This is a failure.”
A disappointed tone. With those words the hand that was holding onto the metal stick stopped.
“Well, I’ll leave the punishment for interrupting me meeting Master at that.”
As I quivered and shook on the ground, the woman who violated me brought her face to my ear and whispered.
“Also, some advice from your uppercla.s.sman. When you see something like this, run away immediately.”
She lifted her head and waved around the metal stick in front of my eyes, and unlike her voice up to now, she said with a serious voice.
“Once you see it, you can no longer die.”
The meaning of those words, I didn’t know then.