Chapitre 24: Training Once Again
This discipline training turned out to both be a lot worse and a lot better at the same time. Since Bruno saw through me and realized that I was in the initial stage, he also knew that my heart shouldn't be an issue anymore.
I was a bit worried about this point, since I wasn't sure if my blood was actually able to improve my heart as much as everybody thought it was. Though, it was soon apparent that it was at least good enough for now.
Instead of simply beating me this time, I was forced into continually sparring with hopelessly better opponents. They were a bit annoyed when I requested to use a polearm once more as my sparring weapon, but after they secured that from somewhere, the rest of my day was dedicated to being hopelessly outmatched. No matter what I did in the fights, they would find a way to disarm me and then land a deliberate blow on my body.
I thought it was going a bit too far to shamelessly hit me after I had already lost the spar, but I guess that was the point of this whole punishment. For the entire day, I was forced to continually get up and try and defeat my opponents only to quickly lose and receive another injury. As my injuries piled up and my body slowly fell into exhaustion, I started to feel my blood working to fix everything.
This situation didn't involve adrenaline at all, so I now knew that putting my body through extremely taxing situations could also be used as training. We still had about 4 hours to go until the end of the day, but as soon as I noticed that I could also train, a sort of madness took over me, wanting me to take advantage of this opportunity.
My sparring opponents were looking quite bored at this point, but all of a sudden, I started standing up with a newfound fervor. Despite my tired and ragged body, I forced myself to give everything in my fights.
Although they seemed surprised with this shift, I still wasn't able to win a single fight, but that wasn't the point. With each new injury adding on to my body's exhaustion, I could feel my blood burn through my veins even more clearly. This in turn gave me the motivation to try even harder and quicken the process.
After four very hard hours later, I collapsed on the ground struggling to even breathe. My available mana had run dry and wouldn't even be able to quickly heal the numerous bruises across my body. Everything hurt and I had no motivation to even move. I barely noticed a lot of people giving me weird looks as they walked by to get dinner.
"How did he even keep that up for this long?"
"This crazy old man actually used this to train with mana. Look at him, he obviously has no mana left and can't even move."
I had the presence of mind to hear their conversation, but nothing mattered to me. If I was left to my own means, I would have just decided to sleep right there for the night. I typically slept on the ground anyway, so there was no real need to move anywhere else. Soon though, somebody started kicking my side.
"Get up old man. I don't care where you sleep for the night, but you have to at least get dinner. Your mana is gone and it will just be worse if you don't replenish it right away."
I definitely understood his reasoning, but that would involve getting up to go eat. My body was dead set on getting me to just relax for a while. It had been worked well past the limit and nothing else was important now. With excuses piling up in my mind, I tried to follow through with them.
"Don't worry about me, I'll just stay here for a bit and grab food later."
I wasn't sure if this was enough to get them to leave. I badly wished to just lay there and rest, but I was soon met with another kick to the side.
"I'm going to keep beating you until you get up and eat. Think of this as also part of the training."
I let out a deep sigh. Was this person actually concerned about me? Or maybe part of their job was to make sure I got more mana through food even if the punishment left me unable to move at all. Apparently, I was thinking for a bit too long and soon felt a bit harder kick on my side.
"Alright, alright. Let's get this stupid food then."
I wasn't sure where my leftover energy was coming from, but I slowly dragged myself up and walked unsteadily to the cafeteria. I happened to stumble multiple times, but caught myself before falling completely. I wasn't sure if I would be able to stand again if I actually fell.
Behind me, I could hear my sparring partners talking more.
"I've never seen somebody take punishment training so seriously before. Is this guy a masochist or something?"
"I don't know, just a crazy old man, I guess. I couldn't even begin to explain his thoughts."
I somehow stumbled my way through the cafeteria and could eventually sit down in my corner. Finally sitting down again with nobody forcing me to do anything, I realized that I had never felt so comfortable before. Yeah, the ground was hard and I had to sit a bit awkwardly to eat my food, but my body could relax so I could ask for nothing better.
I ate my food in a zombie like state all while dreaming about when I could finally go to sleep, but was interrupted by a person coming up to me. I looked up and after recognizing the black and red robes that the man wore, was able to get back some presence of mind.
"Is this how you usually eat? Like some dog cast away to the corner?"
"Ah, my babysitter has arrived. Please feel free to join me."
The man looked absolutely furious at my words.
"What makes you think you can call me a babysitter?"
I continued to eat my food despite the conversation to continue showing some disrespect. I figured the worse thing they could do was to assign more discipline training and although that was definitely unpleasant and not the most efficient way, it would be able to help my mana training.
"If you are required to watch over my every move despite me being a grown man that can take care of himself, what are you if not a babysitter?"
I continued to eat my food without even looking at him at this point, but soon he lost his temper completely. I could feel a strange energy filling the air in front of me. Just like when I saw the Red Eyes before, this energy didn't quite feel like mana. I looked up in alarm and was quickly forced to the ground.
I let out a scream as an unimaginable pain spread throughout my body. This pain did not originate from anywhere in particular, but felt as if everything about me was being slowly torn apart. My mind was strained, my memories blurry and my body unresponsive. If this continued, I felt like something would break and I would completely disappear into nothingness.
After a few seconds more of that hell, everything abruptly stopped.
"What the hell are you doing!"
I had barely recovered at all from that experience, but somehow looked towards that voice to see what was going on. At the door to the cafeteria stood an old man in very elaborate black and red robes. These definitely looked like a step up compared to the other Red Eyes that I had seen so I immediately assumed that this was someone high up in their organization. Even more so since he was one of the only old people I had seen in this world.
"Did I not just say to observe the target and get to know them better? What about that order tells you to injure that man?"
I looked around more and could see that Bruno was standing behind the man in an obviously differential position. It was like he was ready and willing to do anything that the man wanted.
My gaze shifted and I saw how everybody in the room was completely pale and shivering in fear. Some even went so far as to leave their seat and kneel down. Finally, I looked over and saw the person who attacked me. He was similarly kneeling on the ground, but I was pretty sure he wasn't doing it on purpose.
All around him was an insanely dense energy formed entirely of that unique mana that they Red Eyes always seem to have. It almost looked as if it were a physical object creating a mold around my offender. Just looking at the density of energy alone, I knew that this man had to be one of the strongest I've ever seen.
"My deepest apologies sir. I was simply teaching the target some manners. He obviously does not respect the Red Eyes."
After his words, the energy moved and forced the man's head to slam on the ground. I could see some blood try to fall out of his nose, but wasn't able to get passed the energy surrounding him. It just stayed at the edge of his nose as if it were resting on something solid.
"At what point in my orders did I say you should teach the target to fear the Red Eyes? Do you not realize that those actions are counterproductive to our goals? Yes, I see now that you are not ready. Perhaps a couple of months in the tower will straighten you out."
The man looked a bit dazed after his head slammed on the ground, but after hearing the mention of this tower place, his eyes went wide.
"No! Anything but that. I'm sorry sir, I was wrong this time. Please take mercy!"
Towards the end he was screaming for mercy, but taking one look at his superior I knew that there would be none. In fact, this performance was probably going to result in an even worse punishment.
The man continued pleading for mercy, but soon he just stopped moving altogether. He didn't even close his eyes like he might if he fell asleep or unconscious. He just stopped doing anything at all, making me wonder if he was in fact dead. Shortly after, the man's body floated towards the door and then out of the building.
The silence continued until the man from the Red Eyes spoke.
"I'm terribly sorry for this situation Commander Bruno. I will be sending a much more qualified person tomorrow morning. Hopefully the others will learn from this situation."
He cast his gaze on a couple of other Red Eyes that were standing near both Alex and Greg before shifting to look at me. Despite saving me earlier, I couldn't help but become terrified knowing that his focus was on me.
"I'm sorry to you as well sir. This never should have happened. Take solace knowing that he will be thoroughly punished for his actions today."
Seeing how composed and non-emotional he was about punishing his subordinate, I started to feel some fear. I definitely didn't want to end up as an enemy of the Red Eyes.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone