"Huff, huff, huff......"
My breathing kept coming in ragged gasps.
The guided training under Elder Aaron, the Mercenary King, was so brutal that I'd even lost track of time. Every muscle in my body was screaming from the strain.
"......"
It felt as though all the exercise I'd done over the past month in my room + the week I'd spent training outside had been rendered meaningless.
I'd been sure I was reproducing the proper forms by recalling the illustrations and explanations from the exercise books I'd read in my previous life. No, to begin with, the movements hadn't even seemed that difficult.
But as I repeated the exercises in time with Elder Aaron's commands, that entire notion shattered to pieces.
Both the intensity and the burden of the exercise were on a completely different level from when I trained alone.
"Huff, huff......"
"Howell, stay focused. One for martial might, two for the strongest. One."
"Martial...... might."
"Two."
"The strong...... est...... hup."
I collapsed face-down on the ground, panting.
I'd laid bare the full limits of what I had.
'This is hard. Way too hard.'
The amount of muscular work Elder Aaron demanded was insane.
I'd been training nonstop for three hours.
Not just anaerobic exercise, either, but aerobic exercise so intense it felt as though my lungs were about to burst.
"Haa, haa......"
I'd reached the point of pressing my face against the ground and drooling.
The brief rests in between weren't even enough to catch my breath.
Was it because I had the body of a ten-year-old?
No.
From what I could feel, this was...... purely a matter of the training intensity.
It was different from my previous life, when I'd stubbornly crawled around after climbing out of bed until a seizure struck me.
This wasn't illness.
This was nothing but sheer exhaustion burning upward from beneath my chest.
It was fortunate that I'd at least built up some basic stamina whenever I could.
Without even that, I wouldn't have lasted one hour, let alone three.
"Can't move anymore?"
"......"
I didn't even have the strength to answer.
"Ahem. Can't be helped, then. Rest."
"......"
I simply flopped onto my back and rested.
Little by little, my breathing settled, and I recovered enough strength to control my body again.
I slowly propped myself up with both arms and sat properly.
"Haaa......"
"Looks like even three hours is still too much for you."
"......I'm ten years old now."
"Back in my day—hey! I was carrying boulders around from the time I was seven!"
'Ha...... That's one hell of an exaggeration......'
I thought there was no way a seven-year-old could do such a thing.
Then again, looking at that muscle-bound old man, part of me wondered if he really might have done it......?
In any case, even I had managed to endure this much at ten.
'But seriously, how did I actually endure it......?'
It was true that I'd pushed my grit and willpower to their absolute limits.
When it came to my determination to move my body, I was confident I wouldn't lose to anyone.
But the burden on the body was a separate matter.
No matter how large I was for my age, this was still a child's body.
'Was Howell Ruin's body actually born with talent?'
Honestly, nothing else made sense.
A normal boy's body enduring training this grueling?
Even to me, that seemed impossible.
Especially when I thought back to my previous life.
Back then, forget talent—I hadn't even been capable of the basic physical activity expected of a human being.
Grrrrr—
"Kwahahaha! Hungry?"
"Mm......"
I rubbed my empty stomach.
Judging by the sun hanging near its zenith, it was about lunchtime.
The elders at the training ground were filling their stomachs with food they'd brought themselves.
Elder Aaron checked the meat he'd left in a smoker, then came back.
"It's not done yet. Even if you're hungry, hold out a little longer."
"Okay."
We waited for a while.
No training.
No conversation.
Just silence.
Perhaps because of that atmosphere, a question I'd never really had room to think about rose to the surface.
No.
It wasn't that I'd never wondered.
I'd simply forgotten about it because the physical training had been so exhausting.
"Elder Aaron, may I ask you something?"
"What is it? Go on."
"I was wondering whether there was any particular reason you suddenly decided to train me."
I was genuinely curious.
Hadn't this come completely out of nowhere?
Elder Aaron was going out of his way to spend his own time teaching me.
"Of course there is. Curious?"
"Yes. Very."
"Kwahaha. If you're that curious, I suppose there's no reason not to tell you. Let's see...... You were asleep for five years, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"That damned sleeping sickness is a nasty one. No one's managed to figure out its cause, from five years ago until now."
"Not even Elder Lephiri?"
"That's right. Not even Sister Lephiri, an authority on the holy arts, nor any of those famous mages could figure it out. If people like them don't know, then bringing in anyone else in the world would probably make no difference. Not unless they were gods or something."
'Gods......'
I couldn't dismiss that possibility as mere fantasy.
I'd died of an incurable disease in my previous life, then possessed Howell, another boy with a different incurable disease.
The very fact that one soul had experienced two different incurable diseases was strange.
On top of that, it wasn't much of an exaggeration to say that the latter disease had been cured through my possession.
'Elder Aaron only said it casually, but...... could anything short of the primordial gods have caused the things I've experienced......?'
At the very least, it seemed highly likely that some tremendous beings worthy of divinity had intervened.
Otherwise, the only explanation was a string of coincidences so absurd they defied reason.
"Was it the third day after you came out of your room? Denia called me and several of the other old folks together because she wanted to discuss something."
"Director Denia did?"
"Yeah. She was worried about your health. You'd been unconscious for a whole five years, so who could say when it might flare up again?"
The possibility wasn't nonexistent, but from what I could feel, the sleeping sickness was completely gone now.
Having spent thirty-five years living with a different incurable disease, I could sense such things almost instinctively.
Of course, it was hard to call that absolutely certain.
"But we couldn't keep you locked up in a room forever, either. Denia probably wanted to take some kind of drastic measure. The others were worried about you too."
"So that's why you decided to train me, Elder Aaron?"
Elder Aaron crossed his arms and puffed out his chest.
"Exactly. Everyone kept going in circles, so I stepped in and settled the matter. I told them we should just exercise you properly and make your body itself healthy."
"So the idea is to 'make me healthy through exercise.'"
"That's right. And I was chosen for the job. I told them I'm a busy man, but they all insisted I take charge. How could I refuse?"
His choice of words made it sound like a complaint, but his expression said the exact opposite.
His whole face was practically blooming with delight.
'He really is exactly what he looks like.'
That had been true in the impressions left behind in Howell's five years of memories, and it had remained true throughout the month or so I'd watched him myself.
Aaron Tulba, the Mercenary King, was such a pure-hearted man that both his body and mind seemed transparent.
Not pure in the sense of being innocent or unstained.
I meant that his nature itself was straightforward.
"I think you're the best choice too, Elder Aaron."
"You do? Kwahahaha! I thought all you'd done was sleep, but you've gotten mighty sensible."
I'd said it partly to flatter him, but it wasn't entirely wrong.
Elder Aaron had been the one who proposed this plan in the first place.
And if the goal wasn't to learn "combat techniques" but purely "physical training," then he probably really was the best man for the job.
Even among all the elders at the nursing home, he was likely the greatest muscle freak of them all, a man driven more by instinct than anyone else.
"Looks like the meat should be done by now. Wait here. I'll go bring it over."
Elder Aaron fetched the back-rib meat smoking in a barrel at the corner of the training ground.
Glossy juices ran across it.
It looked incredibly delicious even at a glance.
"Just tear it apart with your hands and eat."
"Okay. Enjoy your meal too, Elder."
"You're always so damn polite. Here, eat up."
Elder Aaron tore off a piece of meat and handed it to me.
As the saying went, kind words invited kind words.
I filled my stomach by eagerly devouring the juicy meat.
Smoked meat after exhausting myself tasted like heaven itself.
Crunch, crunch.
I gripped a rib bone and picked it clean, then kept eating.
Meat really did have a way of making a person feel alive.
It was enough to make the aching fatigue throughout my body feel as though it had eased a little.
"Good?"
"Yes. It's delicious."
"Right. When you're training your body, nothing beats meat."
I nodded with a bone still between my teeth.
"Kwahahaha! You really do understand! Eat plenty!"
And so I continued savoring the smoked pork.
One by one, the other elders finished their meals and resumed their training and exercise.
I paid them no mind and let my full stomach pull me into a sweet nap.
If I wanted to survive the Muscle King's physical training in the afternoon too, resting even for a little while was the obvious answer.
It was around three in the afternoon when I opened my eyes again.
"Howell, you brat. Stop sleeping and wake up."
"Mmm...... Huh?"
"You've been sleeping all day."
"......"
For a moment, I stared blankly at the scene in front of me.
Elder Aaron was repeatedly squatting down and standing back up while holding an enormous boulder.
But the truly shocking part came next.
"You know, something suddenly made me curious."
"Huh? What?"
"I started wondering just how well you'd live up to my expectations."
Elder Aaron's broad grin made his feelings plain as day.
"I'll show you something fun, so watch closely."
One minute.
That was how long it took for everything to happen from start to finish.
Elder Aaron lifted the boulder with one hand and abruptly hurled it straight into the sky.
WHOOOOSH—!
The boulder shot straight upward at a right angle to the ground and vanished from sight in an instant.
I couldn't close my mouth at the incomprehensible sight.
Yet Elder Aaron and the other elders nearby looked perfectly calm, as if nothing remarkable had happened.
Only after about ten seconds had passed since the boulder flew upward did I finally manage to grab hold of the thread of thought I'd lost.
'Wait. If he threw it ninety degrees straight up, isn't it going to fall back down here? And with a ridiculous amount of acceleration......?'
Cold sweat broke out as I looked at Elder Aaron.
Honestly, I had no idea what was about to happen.
Elder Aaron smiled brightly.
"You catch it."
"Huh?"
"The boulder's going to fall soon. Oh, look over there. It'll be dropping right onto your head any second now."
"......"
I instinctively tried to move out of the way, but Elder Aaron's heavy hand pressed down on my shoulder.
CRUNCH.
Just from him pushing down on me, my feet sank into the ground.
"......"
Both my feet were fixed in place.
I couldn't move an inch.
"Kwahahaha! A lion trains its cub by throwing it off a cliff! Howell! Show me your guts!"
What kind of nonsense was he suddenly spouting?
I could only think about what kind of dogshit situation this was.
The falling boulder was gradually coming into view overhead.
How was I supposed to process this situation?
I shook my head, wondering if this was a dream.
It wasn't.
This was reality.
No matter how much I denied it, this wasn't a dream or some figment of my imagination.
"......I'm really supposed to catch that?"
"Yep. You can still move your arms."
"......"
I was speechless.
Utterly dumbfounded.
Was my second life really going to end like this?
You're joking, right?
Elder?