"Kwahahaha! Don't worry. It's nothing serious!"
Ha. If this isn't serious, then what is?
My thoughts grew tangled as I wondered if I was really going to die like this.
In the end, with no choice but to swallow the bitter mustard, I raised both hands. Every nerve in my body focused on the falling boulder.
'Damn...... Here it comes.'
WHOOOOOSH—!
The enormous boulder was slicing down through the sky.
If it fell like this, it would smash my head first, then crush the rest of my body piece by piece.
Just as fear overwhelmed me and I squeezed my eyes shut—
SWISH—
Elder Aaron stepped beside me.
"Howell! Don't chicken out! Keep your eyes wide open and watch! Someday, you'll have to be able to do this too!"
Elder Aaron thrust his right arm overhead.
As if he intended to catch the enormous boulder with that one hand alone.
Gulp.
I swallowed without meaning to.
'Ha...... No way. Is he really......?'
He really was.
WHOOOOOSH— BOOOOM—!
WHOOOOSH——
The impact of the boulder landing on his palm blasted a wave of air outward.
If Elder Aaron hadn't grabbed me with his left hand, I would've been blown away with it.
With him holding me by the scruff of my neck, I dangled in the air as I watched the boulder-catching spectacle firsthand.
The whole thing had unfolded in barely a minute, yet my entire body was drenched in sweat.
'Haha...... He's seriously a monster of an old man......'
His reputation as the Mercenary King.
The times I'd occasionally met him in my room.
Even his appearance alone had screamed superhuman.
But seeing him personally demonstrate something this absurd made it truly sink in.
He was stronger than anyone I'd ever met in my previous life.
'Huh?'
And that wasn't the end of it.
Elder Aaron casually flung the boulder to the side as though he were tossing a pebble.
Several other elders were standing where it flew.
They watched the incoming boulder without so much as blinking.
First, an elder holding a spear thrust straight at the boulder's core.
CRAAAAACK!
The boulder shattered outward from its center into several large chunks.
Then an elderly woman wielding a longsword swept through them with dazzling swordsmanship, reducing the chunks to fragments in midair.
"......"
I swallowed as I watched the debris rain down onto the ground.
The grandfather who had used the spear was Jade Legoan, former Dragon Knight Order Commander.
The grandmother who had used the sword was Sine Roneam, the Sword Saint.
Both were retired heroes once hailed as the greatest of their era in spearsmanship and swordsmanship respectively.
'Every last one of them is incredible.'
The Mercenary King.
The former Dragon Knight Order Commander.
The Sword Saint.
Not one of those titles was an empty reputation.
Every one of them lived up to the name.
Once again, I was reminded of the astounding nursing home I was living in.
***
The next morning.
I genuinely felt like I was going to die from the pain.
"Uuuugh......"
Deep down, I'd been rather proud that my stamina and strength were far beyond those of an ordinary ten-year-old.
For one thing, I was taller than average for my age.
And even more importantly, I'd survived that muscle-bound old man's hellish training.
But the moment I opened my eyes that morning, reality came crashing down.
Maybe my confidence had really been overconfidence.
The aftereffects I'd forgotten about all hit me at once.
"Uaaaagh...... I'm dying......"
All I'd done was sleep properly through the night.
Yet every muscle packed throughout my body ached so badly that even turning over required everything I had.
'This is insane...... I can't even move my arms......'
My entire body was in agony.
What was I supposed to do?
Should I call someone?
Or perhaps Elder Lephiri would appear like a savior and cast some restorative holy art on me?
'No. Let's save Elder Lephiri as a last resort. Ugh. I'll handle this with grit...... Ngh, no, that's impossible......'
Complaining wasn't going to solve anything.
For now, recovery came first.
I simply flopped back onto the bed and caught my breath.
'Haaa. If I just lie here and rest, I'll probably feel better eventually.'
As I lay quietly staring at the ceiling, thoughts began piling up in my mind.
My tendency to overthink.
It had naturally developed from spending my entire previous life confined to a bed.
Live like that for around thirty-five years, and habits and tendencies were bound to form.
'These habits and tendencies were part of why my frustration had been so great. I could look at my own limitations with cold clarity. Come to think of it, if I grow up without any major problems, am I supposed to succeed Director Denia and become the nursing home's caretaker?'
Well, becoming the caretaker was fine.
Not becoming one was fine too.
I was grateful simply to be able to live a life like this.
My memories of my previous life were precious, but compared to this life, that one had still been much closer to an unhappy existence.
'This time, I need to live without leaving any regrets behind.'
Would taking on the role of managing the nursing home mean being bound by a predetermined fate?
In truth, nothing had been decided for certain yet.
Still, there were things I knew for sure.
Unlike my previous life, I was healthy.
And I could satisfy the longing I'd carried with me.
The elders at Grixita Nursing Home all seemed to like me.
Even though we weren't related by blood, they treated me warmly, like a grandson.
'I want to try all sorts of things. And for now, accomplishing them one by one is enough. Let's not overcomplicate it.'
As if clearing away stray thoughts, I closed my eyes and enjoyed a short nap.
Three or four hours of sweet sleep.
By around lunchtime, I could at least control my body again.
"Uuuugh."
I tensed every part of my body and forced myself out of bed.
When it came to relieving muscle soreness, the proper thing to do was move lightly, like stretching.
But after walking down the hallway for a little while, I ended up collapsing onto the floor.
"Ugh. This is driving me insane."
After resting for a few minutes, I got back up and started walking again.
I barely managed to put one foot in front of the other through sheer grit.
After leaving the nursing home building and stepping into the outside air, I stopped for a moment.
'Enough useless thoughts. Yeah. I should train hard today too.'
But despite the passion in my heart, my feet refused to carry me toward the training ground.
"Mmmmm......"
To begin with, making a ten-year-old boy go through that insane training regimen couldn't possibly fall within the bounds of normal.
I wavered between reason and instinct.
In the end, I chose reason.
'Even if it's hard, I have to do it. If there's one thing I'm confident in, it's effort.'
At that moment, an ominous chill ran down my back.
"......?"
"Kwahahaha. Let's go."
Elder Aaron placed a hand on my shoulder and steered me in the right direction.
Even if my body had been perfectly fine, I probably wouldn't have been able to shake him off.
Right now, with my entire body crippled by muscle soreness, I didn't have even the slightest strength to resist.
"Looking at you, I'd say you're suffering from muscle soreness. Howell, don't you worry about a thing. Stuff like that always loosens up once you exercise!"
"......"
I was speechless.
I'd been planning to go anyway, but I hadn't expected to get there like this.
Half dragged along, I arrived at the physical training ground.
There wasn't even time for a separate rest.
The training began immediately.
Fortunately, perhaps because my entire body was sore, today's routine was different from yesterday's.
Surprisingly, it included stretching and meditation.
And so one day......
Two days......
For two full weeks, the hellish training continued without missing a single day.
Two weeks......
Even I wondered how I'd endured it.
But in the end, I had.
"Now you're finally starting to look the part. I can see your muscles settling in properly. Then again, who taught you? Of course you'd improve! Kwahahaha!"
Elder Aaron's self-praise.
Even so, it was hard to deny that he had a point.
I could feel the changes in my own body.
'It's hard as hell...... but I guess it's efficient in its own way.'
Rather than an exercise method built on calculations and structured theory, it was closer to training founded on instinct.
That was the fascinating part.
Maybe once someone reached the extreme, precise theory stopped mattering.
Elder Aaron seemed to have refined the results over a lifetime of training his muscles.
By testing everything directly with his own body, he'd produced the most efficient method possible.
And he didn't insist on simply working the body to exhaustion, either.
Before beginning the exercises, he used proper stretching to loosen and align the connections between my muscles.
Then, after the grueling training ended, he consistently massaged them.
'A true master of muscles.'
I almost thought Muscle King suited him better than Mercenary King.
That was how unrivaled he was in anything related to muscles.
'Honestly, his philosophy on muscles really is worthy of respect.'
"Watch your central axis. Your central axis."
In addition to anaerobic exercises for building muscle and aerobic exercises for increasing stamina, there was something else he taught me.
Footwork.
It wasn't an offensive or defensive technique in itself, but he said it formed the foundation of all movement.
"Feel your soles touching the ground all the way through. You can worry about posture and form later."
Elder Aaron demonstrated several different ways of moving, but none of them had any particular name.
"Everyone's feet feel different. You have to discover for yourself the moment when your feet feel most comfortable."
Footwork without any fixed rules.
That was why the same steps never repeated themselves exactly.
Elder Aaron simply stepped wherever instinct took him.
One step.
Then another.
'So that's why he told me to feel it through the soles of my feet.'
A world of sensation where my feet connected with the earth.
For someone like me, who hadn't even been able to walk properly in my previous life, it felt unfamiliar yet deeply meaningful.
"Haaa......"
I let out a shallow breath.
It was easy to say.
But because there were no rules or fixed patterns, it was far harder than I'd imagined.
Still, the more I imitated the demonstrations he showed me, the more I felt as though I was beginning to grasp something.
Another week passed as I practiced both exercise and footwork.
Little by little, my feet and the ground began to communicate.
"Kwahahaha. Now that's starting to look decent."
Elder Aaron told me to perform the footwork on my own, then watched me closely.
"Keep moving while you listen."
"Yes. Hup, huff."
"If an opponent swings a sword horizontally, there's footwork suited to that. If they thrust a spear straight at you, there's another kind. Against a massive blunt weapon, there's yet another. There are steps suited to each situation, but none of them is a perfect answer."
What did he mean?
Wasn't it best to respond with the movement appropriate to each attack?
"That footwork, this footwork, and the other footwork are all nothing more than collections of cases where someone found that moving a certain way let them dodge. If all you've learned is the footwork used against a frontal spear thrust, do you think an opponent using a blunt weapon is going to go easy on you?"
Ah.
I thought I understood what he meant.
So that was the point he was making.
Keeping that understanding in mind, I continued stepping and shifting through the footwork.
Then Elder Aaron suddenly tossed a small stone at me.
Whoosh—
'Damn.'
I instinctively stepped backward and dodged the stone.
"......"
"Kwahaha. Nice dodge. That's enough. Stop and rest. Let's eat lunch."
Elder Aaron treated it like nothing and began preparing the food.
A full spread of pork he'd boiled ahead of time was laid out before us.
Elder Aaron's philosophy was that a man couldn't live unless he ate meat at all three meals every day.
Of course, he didn't neglect vegetables either, since he still had to get nutrients from foods other than meat.
It was simply that the proportion of meat was enormous.
'Well, I'm always happy to eat meat too.'
Crunch, crunch.
Munch, munch.
We sat facing one another and tore into the meat.
'Mm. It's inconvenient because I've lost a few baby teeth recently.'
My new teeth hadn't grown into the empty spaces yet.
That still made tearing and chewing meat somewhat difficult.
Anything hard or tough.
Or food that was simply too large.
I was doing my best to chew through the meat, but apparently Elder Aaron found the sight amusing.
"Kwahahaha! Hurry up and grow, will you? That way, you can drink with me while we snack on meat."
"Drink?"
"Yeah, alcohol! I'd love to have a cup with you even now, but if I get carried away and do something stupid, Denia will give me hell. Kwahahaha!"
So even the reckless old Mercenary King couldn't help watching his behavior around Director Denia.
At Grixita Nursing Home, the director's word wasn't exactly law......
But her influence was considerable.
"By the way."
Elder Aaron started to say something, then stopped and shoved a beef rib bone into his mouth.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH.
He chewed the bone itself while staring directly at my face.
So directly that it was almost uncomfortable.