Adrian following behind, breathing roughly.
He was keeping a distance from Kai that was not so very far.
Adrian's body, his shirt cast off, was soaked through with sweat.
It seemed he had begun the physical conditioning together with the soldiers from the start.
Which meant Adrian was currently past three hours of running.
And even so Adrian was still running.
However roughly he breathed, the two legs carrying that run did not waver.
Though the soldiers and the centurions and the instructors had all dropped out, Adrian was running without collapsing.
Then, in an instant.
Adrian overtook Kai and ran on ahead.
For a moment their bodies overlapped, and in passing Adrian's eyes turned toward Kai.
Their gazes met briefly.
Kai was able to glimpse the emotion held in Adrian's look.
It was a victor's.
The ease of a victor saying, I have beaten you.
The sneer saying, you are nothing but a loser.
That was what was held in the eyes of the Adrian overtaking Kai.
SNAP!
For an instant a sound of something severing rang through Kai's head.
Without meaning to, he sharply raised his pace and speed.
He ground his teeth.
......I will absolutely not lose.
To no one else, but to Adrian above all, he absolutely could not lose.
Kai overtook Adrian and ran on ahead.
The distance closed in an instant.
Once again their bodies overlapped for a moment.
Kai looked at Adrian with indifferent eyes as he passed.
And when he overtook Adrian as though it were nothing—
CRUNCH!
The sound of teeth grinding came from behind him.
How hard had he bitten down, honestly.
It seemed less like grinding teeth than demolishing them.
BA-BA-BAM!!
A tremendous sound came following after.
There was no time to check what it was.
There was no need to check.
At some point Adrian was already overtaking Kai like an arrow loosed.
......Full speed.
As if to say he too would absolutely not lose to Kai, Adrian was wringing out every scrap of strength and raising his speed.
Naturally.
He could not lose.
When Kai put strength into his thighs, CRASH!
With a great roar the ground caved in, and Kai's body shot forward.
Adrian looked back, startled.
And when he checked the distance closing fast with Kai—
Not to be outdone, BAM!
...The ground Adrian was standing on collapsed wholesale.
"Wh-what in the world..."
"Insane..."
The soldiers watching that sight lost all sense of it.
Adrian and Kai running at full speed, repeatedly trading places back and forth.
The ferocity with which neither of them gave a single step was genuinely......
BAM! CRASH!
Enough to call to mind a bloody duel to the death.
***
The stamina duel between Adrian and Kai spread through the county castle in an instant.
In the end, bets were even laid on who would win.
"Sir Kai will win, obviously!"
"Of course, of course! Do you know what kind of man Sir Kai is!"
Most predicted a victory for Kai.
The Head Knight's renown had by no means been won at the gambling table, so it was a natural result.
But there were not none who predicted Adrian's victory.
"But... maybe Lord Adrian could actually win?"
"He isn't just keeping up, he's overtaking him."
That was how evenly matched the two of them were.
Their contest rose in a single stroke to become the county castle's greatest topic of interest.
***
◆I cannot even estimate how long you intend to run!!
◆That you are out of your mind is the one certainty!!
Translucent messages surfaced noisily before my eyes.
Contents whose mechanism I could not begin to work out poured down and obstructed my vision.
If I had my way I would have waved a hand and swept them off, but I could not bring myself to.
"Haah...! Haah...! Haah...!"
......It genuinely felt like dying.
My breath had risen past my throat and felt about to go over.
I had reached the limit of my stamina.
Perhaps because of it, the strength drained out of me before I knew it.
For an instant the strength gave out in my legs.
Just as my trembling legs would move no further, it happened.
◆You may use the skill 'Regeneration [C+]' to restore cardiopulmonary endurance.
◆Required nutrients - Carbohydrates, fats
◆Consume carbohydrates and fats to restore cardiopulmonary endurance?
Translucent messages poured down before my eyes out of nowhere.
I accepted without needing to think.
The fat stored in my body burned away in an instant, the carbohydrates converted rapidly into energy, and my stamina was restored in a single stroke.
◆Stamina has broken through its limit!
◆Stamina stat rises by +2!!
Following it, a message surfaced saying my Stamina stat had risen.
From this I could tell that stamina, like muscular strength, has the 'principle of overload' applied to it.
It meant that exercising past the limit of your stamina improves your stamina.
And it also meant that, as with muscular strength, a price is required in exchange.
◆The massive nutrient consumption leaves you feeling extreme hunger!
Grrrrrrowl......!!!
A sound of thunder burst out of my stomach.
Extreme hunger.
My stamina had come back, but a dizzying spell of vertigo rose.
I hurriedly took out an entrail lunch box I had stored in the Inventory and shoved it into my mouth.
The tutorial quest's clear reward, the Inventory.
Put simply, it was a 'subspace pocket.'
It was an authority-like ability that engraved into me the element of subspace — a virtual space separated from reality — and let me use it freely.
Because it was engraved into me, only I could see it.
That is, it amounted to a storehouse and a vault for my exclusive use.
Chomp, chomp.
When I chewed and swallowed the entrails, the dizziness vanished.
The main nutrient of entrails was protein, but it was not as though carbohydrates and fats were absent entirely.
I restored my stamina and put strength into my legs again.
Not to be outdone, Kai raised his speed further as well.
The reason that was possible was that, just as I used the 'Regeneration' ability, Kai was using 'Aura.'
In other words, cheating.
...Not that I was in any position to say so.
At any rate, I could glimpse Kai's fierce determination not to lose to me if it killed him.
And so a contest of trading places back and forth continued for several more hours. The soldiers watching seemed to tire as well, and began drifting away one by one.
At some point only Kai and I were left at the Frost Proving Ground, still running.
......At this rate no decision would come.
The Frost Proving Ground was too small to settle the contest.
This contest had to be decided in a harsher environment.
I turned my head slightly and looked at Kai.
As it happened Kai seemed to have had the same thought, and looked at me.
Naturally, we ran out of the Frost Proving Ground. We expanded the stage to the whole of the county and began running.
The snow piled on the snowfield catching at our ankles.
Stamina drained still faster.
The brutal cold froze the muscles of our legs.
And so.
A day passed.
***
"The two of them are still running...?"
Seraphia went past bewildered into feeling her wits had been knocked clean out of her.
Of course Seraphia had heard the news that Adrian and Kai were holding a running contest.
Just yesterday, that was.
"Does that mean neither of them has slept?"
"That is correct."
Bernard nodded slightly.
Which meant Adrian and Kai had been running all day long.
It was not simply a figure of speech.
It was, in the literal sense, 'all day long.'
Counted in hours, twenty-four.
Counted precisely it came to about twenty-one hours, but even so it was not sane.
"N-no... what on earth..."
Seraphia genuinely felt her wits were about to leave her.
Above all she was deeply worried that they would damage their bodies carrying on like that.
Her worry about Adrian in particular was considerable.
Adrian was a man who had not once exercised in the past ten years and more.
She had heard that Adrian had been exercising hard of late.
But even so, it had been about ten days.
Was Adrian not overdoing it?
Deeply worried as she was, she was also privately glad.
'My brother really has changed...'
Since Adrian returned to the house, Seraphia had not once been able to have a proper conversation with him.
Because Adrian would avoid the spot the moment he saw Seraphia.
Because of it, though they lived under the same roof, never mind speaking to him once, she could not so much as see his face properly.
The rumours going about the county castle and the Lord's castle were Seraphia's only chance and only means of hearing news of Adrian.
Perhaps that was why.
'I'm envious...'
She was just a little envious.
Of Kai, who was stuck to Adrian all day long in the name of a running contest.
When would Seraphia be able to have even one proper conversation with Adrian?
Conversation aside, she wanted to look him properly in the face.
This was greed, but someday she wanted to eat a meal with Adrian, like ordinary families do.
And so, though it was only for a very brief moment—
'If I learned to exercise too, then with my brother...'
Seraphia allowed herself that imagining, if only for an instant.
***
Two days had passed since the running began.
In truth I did not know the exact time.
Only, from the sun having set twice and risen twice, I guessed that two days had passed.
The entrail lunch boxes I had stored in the Inventory were showing their bottom at some point.
I was in a state where I could no longer use the Regeneration ability, and fortunately the same was true for Kai.
Kai's Aura seemed to be showing its bottom as well, because his speed had slowed markedly.
From here on it was a contest of pure human physicality and stamina.
"Haah...! Haah...!"
My lungs expanded as though they would burst.
My pounding heart hammered like mad, and the blood of my whole body rushed to my ears and set my eardrums humming.
My throat, having drawn in the cold chill continuously, was cold as ice.
And yet my dry mouth was desperately craving even a single mouthful of that cold air.
Every time I drew breath the chill drove into my lungs and felt as though it were stabbing my ribs.
Whereas......
"Huff...! Huff...! Huff...!"
Kai's breathing was not disturbed in the slightest.
Regular abdominal breathing.
Two legs kicking off the snow of the snowfield.
Steady, without a single waver.
'That lunatic.'
There really was no other word for him but lunatic.
'Isn't he a Lich already?'
It's a reasonable suspicion.
Because there is a limit even to the mind ruling the body.
And on top of that Kai was wearing metal armour.
And still running two days straight without rest — how is that human?
Granted, stamina was a distinctive human talent.
Every living thing that exists in the world evolves by centring on the ability optimised for its environment and maximising those strengths.
In other words, every species has one distinctive ability, like the Ice Troll's regeneration.
Humans likewise have a distinctive ability that only humans possess.
That is precisely 'intelligence,' and 'stamina.'
Intelligence needs no explanation.
Human stamina too is in no way inferior compared to any living thing in the world.
It is not merely not inferior.
Humans surpass them 'overwhelmingly.'
Which is why I had no need to devour any ability related to stamina separately.
Because I only had to hone and polish the ability humans are born with.
That was the whole reason that in my task force days I could run without rest for some six days for the sake of surviving a mission.
I ground my teeth and kicked off the snow of the snowfield.
At any rate, I cannot lose.
In truth I hadn't intended to go this far.
But now that it had come to this, the contest had to be seen through to the end.
Kai was of the same mind.
When I caught up, he put on still more speed.
And that was when it happened.
GRRRRK—!
At the sudden shriek, Kai and I stopped moving at the same instant.