Trust was important in any relationship.
In that sense, Kyle had been in a good mood lately.
The first day of work had been the most important. Had the men made a complete mess of their jobs, it would have been obvious.
Yet not only had they gone back to work the next day, but the fishermen’s expressions had also become noticeably brighter.
‘Will they trust me a little now?’
With that thought, Kyle headed for the old pier as usual.
There was still a chance that the elderly fishermen were being threatened into employing the criminals against their will. For that reason, Kyle accompanied the men to the pier every day and returned around the time they finished work to check on them again.
Since he had been the one to propose the arrangement, he intended to take responsibility for it until the end. So far, however, the results had not been bad.
“They caught far more than last time.”
Kyle muttered as he watched the fishing boats return.
Every boat was loaded with boxes overflowing with fish.
It was a catch they could never have brought in without working diligently. Kyle chuckled and nodded to the men who were looking toward him.
The young men immediately began unloading the boxes from the boats as they docked.
Kyle approached one of the elderly fishermen climbing ashore and asked him in a friendly tone.
“Are they finally becoming useful?”
The old man glanced at the young men before shaking his head.
“They still have a long way to go….”
“But they work hard, do they not?”
The old man nodded.
A smile hung upon his face.
Kyle did not know precisely why, but the men truly had been working diligently.
“I ought to pay them their full wages….”
“Please continue paying them half until you believe they have become reasonably proficient.”
“Even so….”
Perhaps it was because of the workers’ pasts.
Although several days had passed, the old man still seemed uncomfortable with the arrangement. Kyle considered the matter for a moment.
“Do they not still have many areas in which they lack experience?”
“They do, but they have been doing quite well lately. Just look at everything we caught today.”
Kyle stared at the boxes for a moment before smiling and nodding.
“Very well. Still, do not pay them so much that you suffer a loss.”
“Of course!”
The old man nodded, his expression considerably lighter.
Since the man who represented the fishermen in the area had acknowledged them, it seemed that the young men would not need to worry about employment for some time.
And fishing was only the beginning.
The shipyard, which had once resembled a scrapyard for abandoned vessels, was now considerably cleaner, and its workers were busy repairing a fishing boat.
The dried-fish workshop had recently reopened as well.
There were even people who said they would begin selling fish at the market again if the fishermen could supply large quantities as they had in the past.
At this rate, if the old district came back to life, the children would not need to worry about finding work even after they eventually left the orphanage.
“Whew! Is the system finally starting to take shape?”
Kyle spent the entire morning walking through the district and investigating every workplace before returning to the orphanage with a satisfied expression.
He smiled as he watched the children take out bread, warm the soup they had prepared that morning, and begin their meal.
“Teacher!”
The moment they saw him, the children all looked up in surprise.
“Teacher! We finished all our homework!”
“Yes, yes! Finish your meal first, and then we will talk.”
Kyle spoke with a gentler expression than anyone could have imagined.
It was the complete opposite of the face he had worn that morning while putting the young men from the Rehabilitation Center through hell.
He sat beside the children and carefully attended to each of them.
“Do not watch the others. Eat as much as you want.”
“What about you, Teacher?”
“I already ate!”
“Boo!”
One child puffed out her cheeks, apparently upset that he had eaten something delicious without them.
Kyle popped a piece of candy he had bought outside into her mouth.
“Mmm?”
The child’s eyes widened in surprise.
Kyle laughed and pulled a bag of candy from inside his coat.
“Here! Anyone who finishes their meal may have one piece. Understood?”
“Yes!”
“And if you listen carefully during my lesson after lunch, I will give you another one. You must stay awake and listen until the very end!”
The atmosphere abruptly turned cold.
Kyle immediately became dejected again.
Not even candy, which held absolute power over children, could compensate for his miserable teaching ability.
He had no choice but to admit it now.
The only reason he had believed himself to be a good teacher was because of the effectiveness of his club.
Still, he had a secret weapon for that day.
“Today, we are going to learn magic, so everyone must pay close attention!”
Kyle smiled triumphantly as the children’s eyes widened at the word magic.
Kyle could not cast magic himself, but he understood basic magic formulas and how to manipulate mana.
Mages also needed to undergo Mana Awakening before anything else, so he should at least be able to teach them the fundamentals.
The result, in conclusion, was a success.
To compensate for his wretched teaching ability, Kyle had gone to the bank, withdrawn some money, and purchased a basic magic training set.
“Wooooow!”
Even after the lesson ended, the children continued staring at the magic set.
They had good reason to be amazed.
Kyle had stumbled upon a genius.
He had merely intended to determine whether any of the children possessed an affinity for mana. Yet one girl awakened the moment he explained it to her and managed to activate the magic set after only a few hours of instruction.
“Sarah, you will make yourself ill if you use too much.”
“…Yes.”
Sarah lowered her head in disappointment.
It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped.
Using too much mana immediately after one’s first awakening could cause serious problems.
“Then me! I want to try next!”
Mary stepped forward after Sarah and infused mana into the device.
Like Sarah, she used the basic magic-tool kit to produce a small light.
Monsters.
Kyle had often been called that himself in the North, so perhaps he was not one to speak.
Even so, the two girls possessed talents monstrous enough to astonish even him.
‘They are comparable to those three. No, Sarah and Mary might be even more talented.’
They had only just awakened, so there was no way of knowing what their futures would hold.
However, it was already obvious that they were exceptional.
Of course, those two girls were not the only geniuses.
There were two other children whose talents appeared comparable to the three most outstanding disciples Kyle had ever raised.
In a secluded corner, Norris tried to recreate the sensation he had felt earlier as he struggled to move his mana.
Beside him, El glared at the mass of mana gathered in one corner of his body.
Those two were formidable monsters in their own right.
There were also quite a few other children who possessed the potential to undergo Mana Awakening.
A tickling sensation.
A prickling sensation.
The feeling of something foreign.
Some of the innocent children described mana in those terms.
If Kyle continued channeling mana into them and helping them become accustomed to the sensation, they would likely awaken naturally in time.
Thus, Kyle unexpectedly found himself caring for children with extraordinary talents.
Perhaps the trainees from the Rehabilitation Center had heard the rumors.
Their expressions were filled with impatience.
‘Tsk! I told them not to be impatient.’
As promised, Kyle had tested them after a week to determine whether they possessed the aptitude for Mana Awakening.
Far more of them had potential than he had expected.
The problem was that news of the young geniuses appeared to have made them anxious.
“Tsk, tsk!”
Even though they were clearly unable to concentrate on their training, Kyle merely clicked his tongue and did not reprimand them.
He understood perfectly well why they were behaving that way.
It reminded him of his days as a soldier in the North.
He had seen soldiers despair because they could not awaken their mana and train with desperate determination in the hope of somehow forcing an awakening.
“Whew! Stop. None of you seem able to concentrate on your training.”
The trainees lowered their heads.
“As I told you, if you continue training this way, those with talent will naturally awaken their mana. However… how could that happen when all of your minds are elsewhere?”
Kyle looked around at the gathered trainees.
“It will be somewhat difficult, but would you like to take a shortcut?”
Everyone raised their heads and nodded with serious expressions.
“You will still have to go to work, no matter how difficult the training becomes. No matter how much pain you suffer, once you begin, you will have to see it through to the end.”
Despite his warning, the trainees nodded frantically.
Kyle regarded their determination and gave them a solemn nod of his own.
“Now that I have witnessed your resolve, I will also treat your training seriously from this point forward.”
From that day onward, Kyle began using the training method with which he had taught his subordinates in the North.
People commonly claimed that those without talent could never achieve Mana Awakening, no matter how much they trained.
Kyle could not agree.
He believed that anyone could somehow reach the point of Mana Awakening, even if the time required differed from person to person.
After all, every human being possessed mana to some degree.
If that mana could merely be stirred awake, an awakening should be possible.
Skillfully controlling, compressing, and refining that mana into Aura or Magic Power, however, truly belonged to the realm of talent.
With that distinction in mind, Kyle had created a special training method that allowed virtually anyone to achieve Mana Awakening, brutal though it was.
“Urgh!”
“Stop exaggerating. Was the resolve you showed me worth no more than this?”
Kyle raised his club again.
A faint light of Aura clung to the weapon as it struck the man across the backside.
The pain was so terrible that he felt as though he would lose consciousness.
Yet he could not even faint.
The next wave of agony immediately jolted his mind awake.
“Next.”
Kyle sent the man, who had been beaten to his limit, flying into the distance before repeating the same process with the next trainee.
The method itself was brutally simple.
Kyle channeled Aura into their bodies without inflicting serious physical damage.
The Aura clashed with the mana inside them, forcing them to sense its presence and become familiar with it.
Then why had such a training method never become famous?
Most people abandoned it because of the horrific pain.
More importantly, it was impossible unless the instructor could control Aura with extreme precision.
A master who had reached an exalted level of Aura.
An iron will be capable of enduring unimaginable pain.
Both were necessary.
That was why it was nearly impossible to carry out voluntarily.
How had it been possible in the North?
It was an environment where failure to endure meant death.
Whether the soldiers possessed strong willpower or not, they had been forced to withstand the training.
Their superiors also needed every capable fighter they could obtain, so they had no choice but to carry it out despite the difficulty and inconvenience.
Naturally, Kyle found it bothersome as well.
However, he had performed it so many times in the North that he had long since become accustomed to it.
It was tedious, but neither difficult nor exhausting.
Even now, he appeared to be swinging the club carelessly.
In reality, he was adjusting his Aura with exquisite precision for each individual trainee.
The result was a miraculous training session in which they remained conscious despite the overwhelming pain.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
With one final scream, their time in hell came to an end.
The trainees had learned exactly why Kyle had been called the North’s Supreme Hell Cudgel.
After only one hour, they regretted volunteering for the training.
However, they could no longer withdraw.
Kyle was the sort of man who always saw things through once they began.
All they could do now was endure.
From that day onward, a peculiar phenomenon appeared in the outskirts of Boritz Harbor.
Every morning, human screams rang out instead of roosters, waking the entire neighborhood.
Even more strangely, the criminals heading to work afterward wore remarkably radiant expressions.
The young men smiled as they labored, as though this exhausting work were the happiest part of their day.
Thanks to them, the gloomy atmosphere of the streets rapidly began to brighten.
There was, of course, one minor drawback.
The moment night fell and it was time to return home, all of their expressions became profoundly miserable.
However, that was a trivial matter.
A few small problems had arisen, but what truly mattered was that the district was returning to normal.