Preparation for what came later.
Ethan had simply chosen that.
Getting clear of the crisis immediately in front of him?
Had he wanted a thing like that, the idea of joining a subjugation party would never have occurred to him.
'Taking Hugo is the right call.'
The talent described for Hugo in the original was in the highest bracket.
As proof of it, Hugo was putting up tremendous growth.
Completing a body as full of possibility as Hugo's would not take long.
'The problem is everything else.'
Physical ability alone could not keep a man alive in this world.
Bare survival, perhaps, with the knowledge Ethan held.
'But that isn't what I want.'
That result was not what Ethan was after.
'Struggle.'
Competition. Victory.
The appetite of his days crossing the world as a fighter stirred in him.
Ethan was hungry for the struggle.
To seize everything at the end of it.
That was Ethan's goal.
Everything else was only a footing stone laid for it.
'Mana, now......'
Ethan still did not properly understand mana.
Which stood to reason.
What Ethan knew of mana amounted to the conceits of novels and comics.
Tell a man like that to understand mana all at once and there was no way he could.
'The orthodox road won't do.'
Training up mana step by step by the orthodox method was far too slow.
While Ethan squandered time that way, the fellow who was the novel's protagonist would be hoovering up every rare opportunity and windfall there was.
'The Dead Tree.'
This regular subjugation.
The protagonist had not grown fully yet, and that was enough.
Let him grow any larger than this and Ethan might not be able to handle it.
'And time is short.'
Ethan threw a sideways look at Hugo.
This fellow was the operation's central axis.
For that, he had to temper him far more harshly in the time he had.
And the light in Hugo's eyes was not to his liking.
He was still looking at Ethan with complicated eyes, unease and doubt mixed in them.
Ethan snorted a laugh at the sight and drew the whip from his belt again.
"Still comfortable, are you?"
The corner of Ethan's mouth went up, and in the same instant Hugo's eyes filled with terror.
***
After the high-intensity session ended, Ethan did not go straight to his rest; he came out into the annex's garden.
"The air is still cold."
"I'm young yet, so I'm fine."
Ethan answered Nade with an indifferent look.
"......There is something I am curious about, however."
"Say it."
"How did you devise those training methods?"
"No idea. I just go by feel."
"Will you hide it to the very end?"
"Hide what? Training is just training."
"For just training, you were instructing Hugo with considerable experience, were you not?"
"Heh. Seems I've got a talent for teaching."
Ethan let a laugh slip and looked up at the night sky.
A great full moon lit the garden.
A sight you would not easily see in Korea.
No, the moon was larger too, so it was more accurate to say it was a sight you could not see on Earth.
'Seeing it like this stirs something.'
He really had come into a novel.
That this grotesque situation was reality and not a story felt quite funny to him.
But there was no worry in him, and no fear.
It was a novel at best, and life in reality had been tedious.
He did not even know whether death here was connected to death in reality.
There was no need to start worrying this early.
"So what business brings you out at this hour of the night?"
Nade was silent a moment at the question, then spoke.
"The young master's training methods were at a level to be admired. If you were anyone but the young master, I should want to invite you as a clan instructor."
"Enough flattery. Get to the point."
"......But that alone is not enough. What do you intend to do?"
"What do you mean, what do I intend? I'm going to go kill monsters."
"Let us stop the games. However heaven-given the young master's talent, the young master still cannot......"
"Handle mana?"
"......That is right."
"Well, that's true. And I haven't even got a retainer to guard me. It wouldn't be strange at all if I croaked in the subjugation without a soul the wiser."
"And knowing that......"
"And what changes if I know it?"
Ethan's eyes left the moon and moved to Nade.
Holding the moonlight, Ethan's eyes were deep.
There was no unease in them, and no worry.
"Nade, you do what's yours to do. I'll show you with a result this time too."
The way he had with Karon.
Ethan muttered it in a small voice.
***
Time passed again.
Now it was less than fifteen days to the regular subjugation's departure.
As it drew near, the air in the Blante clan heated up.
But there was no great change in Ethan's routine.
Dawn, morning, afternoon.
Three times a day, he put himself through insane-intensity training alongside Hugo.
Training brutal enough that an ordinary man passing blood would have been no surprise.
Yet most of the content stayed confined to conditioning and strength work.
'No, weren't we preparing for the real thing now?'
Contrary to Ethan's word, the conditioning went on.
As the time ran down, unease settled into Hugo's face.
The regular subjugation was right in front of them, and Hugo had not even properly learned how to hold a sword.
"......Young Master Ethan, is this all right?"
"What is there about it that wouldn't be?"
Hugo's chest tightened at the unruffled manner, but he asked nothing further.
"Wait for it. Everything is going to plan."
Ethan knew what Hugo was worried about. But preparation for the real thing was proceeding properly.
Hugo appeared to think what he was doing was simple conditioning work; the truth was otherwise.
'Explosive physical ability, and leaping power.'
All of it was a process of preparation for one single motion.
Ethan looked at Hugo.
The man's unease was understandable.
A subjugation is not training.
Ethan had never been through one himself, but he could roughly guess.
It was a matter of survival. The monsters would come at them with their lives on the line.
It meant facing malice and killing intent beyond what ordinary men can bear.
Kill or be killed.
Soldiers with strength of mind enough to hold on to their senses in a reality that raw, where the weak are meat for the strong, were very rare.
'But you can bear it.'
Knowing already what sort of man this was, Ethan did not doubt.
'Time to start preparing the rest of it.'
It had come time to recruit the additional men.
"That's it for today's training."
Hugo looked at Ethan with a bewildered expression.
Stopping training partway through.
It was so unlike the usual Ethan.
"......Are you unwell somewhere?"
Ethan's face twisted up at the worried question.
"Want to croak?"
At the murderous note in Ethan's voice, Hugo flinched and stepped back.
"There's somewhere I'm going, so save the chatter and follow me."
Ethan started walking without a backward glance.
Hugo scrambled after him.
***
The place Ethan took Hugo to was the main house's training ground.
Not the knights' ground.
Most of the people who trained here were apprentice knights.
The moment they saw Ethan and Hugo they stopped training and began to murmur.
'That's Young Master Ethan, isn't it? What brings him here?'
'Don't tell me he's come to draw off men for his subjugation party?'
'Seriously? I wouldn't go if it killed me. It's less than fifteen days to the regular subjugation now.'
Ethan paid no mind to the apprentice knights' discourteous muttering and went his way.
Hugo, rather, was trailing along behind him thoroughly shrunken.
"Hey."
Ethan turned savage eyes on Hugo.
Under the look, Hugo flinched and turned his own away.
"You want to embarrass me? Shoulders back."
Hugo startled badly at that and squared his shoulders.
Ethan snorted at the sight and started walking again.
'......How am I supposed to not be afraid in this situation.'
Until very recently he had been nothing but a servant.
A servant the other servants bullied, at that.
And this was where apprentice knights whose talent had been recognized came to train.
A place a mere servant like him had no business entering.
'But even so, I must not look like I am cowering.'
Hugo recalled what Ethan had said.
Looking shrunken and afraid here was conduct that would get Ethan cursed along with him.
At the very least he had to refrain from that.
Hugo followed behind Ethan keeping his unease from showing as best he could.
"Here will do."
Ethan ran a rough look around and muttered it.
Every apprentice knight nearby had stopped training and was conscious of him.
Exactly the situation he wanted.
Ethan looked around in silence, and then spoke.
"Right. Anyone here who thinks he's something, step forward."
The apprentice knights blinked at the words out of nowhere.
Ethan snorted a laugh at the reaction and stamped once on the ground.
WHAM!
"Are the bastards who belong to the Blante clan nothing but this rabble of wretches?"
The air went cold in an instant at Ethan's rough speech.
Muttering came from here and there.
And right then, one apprentice knight, his face flushed, stepped forward.
"Even for the young master, is conduct like this permitted?"
Ethan snorted as though the question were beneath him.
"Hmph. Even vermin like you have some pride, I see, calling yourself a knight hopeful. And that fellow kept his mouth shut when I called just now?"
"When a thing is sprung that suddenly, who would show himself......"
Ethan cut the apprentice knight's protest off with a rough sweep of his arm and spoke.
"Enough. Shall I prove to you that you're garbage?"
'H-he's insane!'
Hugo's face went white at Ethan's speech crossing one line after another.
Filled with bewilderment and terror, Hugo tugged at Ethan's clothing.
"Y-young master, how do you intend to clean this up, doing such a......"
But Ethan paid him no mind and carried on.
"Still, if you're apprentice knights your pride will have taken a fair wound? But what can be done. It's the truth."
At the insulting speech, the apprentice knights around them twisted their faces.
"......Can you answer for those words?"
At the apprentice knight's voice shaking with rage, Ethan laughed uproariously.
"Haha! Did you all hear that? Answer for it? Answer for it, he says. Hah! Then of course I can answer for it."
Ethan was roaring with laughter and clapping Hugo beside him.
Hugo was taking the blows in silence, thoroughly tense.
'Hurts like hell.'
Even a half-joking slap carried considerable pain, so Hugo's face was drawn tight.
"There, look. My first party member is furious too. He's still a half-finished thing, but you lot wouldn't even be a match for him, would you?"
Hugo, his face drawn tight, looked at Ethan in confusion, and Ethan kicked him in the shin.
Almost in the same instant, Ethan whispered at Hugo's ear.
"Don't react. Read the room and follow my lead."
"What in the world do you intend to......"
Hugo did not hear the answer.
Ethan looked around. A considerable crowd had gathered and ringed them in.
Apprentice knights of the Blante clan.
All of them men whose fitness had been recognized, and their pride in belonging to the clan ran high.
And Ethan was shaving that pride down and mocking it.
And this from a man who had been a wastrel until very recently.
'A wretch who did nothing but smear ink on the clan!'
The apprentice knight who had taken Ethan's sneering to his face flushed red.
Unable to control his rage, his hands began to tremble.
Then the sneering voice came again.
"What? Can't bring yourself to admit it?"
"......Honestly, I cannot."
At the answer, the corner of Ethan's mouth hooked up.
"Good. A man ought to have at least that much pride."
Ethan shoved the thoroughly frightened Hugo forward by the back.
"Right. Then I'll show you lot you're garbage."
At that, the apprentice knights and soldiers broke into murmuring.
"......And how do you intend to prove it?"
"Between men, is there some other way to prove anything? He fights you, obviously. The way I did with Karon."
"Y-yes? Young master?"
Hugo's eyes went wide. They began to glisten wet.
Ethan muttered, too low for anyone else to catch.
"Shut up and face front. Slip up here and you really will croak at my hands."
"Y-yes......"
At Ethan's words, Hugo faced front with the look of a man about to weep.