Chapter 12. The Delinquent Has Changed (1)
Ragged but rhythmic breathing.
Someone was training in the Frost Trial Grounds.
The Frost Trial Grounds was a place dedicated to training and conditioning, and it could be used at any time.
Any soldier who wished to train independently was free to use the Frost Trial Grounds whenever they wanted.
However, not even once—
Had any soldier arrived to train before Kai.
Filled with curiosity, Kai entered the Frost Training Hall.
And then—
Huff! Huff! Huff!
He saw Adrian training his body. Adrian had removed his shirt, exposing his upper body. Firm muscles had already taken shape across it.
Perhaps that was why.
The chill of dawn was so severe that describing it as bitterly cold hardly did it justice. Yet even that cold could not overcome the heat radiating from Adrian.
‘Again today....’
It had already been ten days.
Naturally, Kai had heard the rumors. Rumors that Adrian had changed.
Not only the soldiers of the County but even the maids of the Lord’s Castle talked about nothing but Adrian, so it was impossible not to know.
Besides, Adrian practically lived in the Frost Trial Grounds, so Kai encountered him every day.
Nevertheless, Kai hadn’t paid much attention to him. He had simply assumed it wouldn’t last long.
After the first day, he paid it no attention. Even after the second day, he remained unconcerned. Around the third day, he thought Adrian would give up soon.
On the fourth day, he began to feel slightly unsettled. Only after the fifth and sixth days did the thought, ‘Could he possibly...?’ briefly cross his mind.
When the seventh day passed and the eighth arrived, Kai acknowledged that Adrian genuinely wanted to change.
But he thought that was all it was.
On the ninth day, he deliberately stopped paying attention altogether.
And now, on the tenth day—
Huff! Huff! Huff!
Adrian was training his body in the Frost Trial Grounds as usual.
By this point, even Kai had no choice but to reconsider.
Of course, ten days wasn’t an especially long time. It was far too short to declare that someone had truly changed.
But that kind of physical training wasn’t something just anyone could endure.
To be honest, forget ten days—even a single day would be unbearable.
Kai had never neglected his own physical training either. But even he wasn’t confident that he could train to that extent.
That training went far beyond the limits of the human body.
Of course, Adrian possessed a strangely powerful ability to recover.
Kai couldn’t understand how Adrian had acquired such extraordinary recovery, but….that didn’t change anything.
It merely restored his body.
But pushing his muscles all the way to their limits?
In the end, that required “willpower and mental fortitude”.
Without willpower and mental fortitude as a foundation, even Troll-like recovery would be meaningless.
Furthermore, exceptional recovery meant that ordinary exertion caused proportionately less lasting damage.
In other words, unless an extraordinarily powerful stimulus was applied, it wouldn’t even qualify as training.
Therefore, this physical training was literally impossible unless the mind completely ruled the body.
It was training that could only be performed by surpassing the body’s limits through sheer mental fortitude.
It sounded easy when put into words, but it was incredibly difficult.
Mental fortitude unsupported by the outer shell of physical stamina—
It was worth less than a sheet of paper.
Adrian had continued that kind of training for ten days.
With the body of a delinquent, he had trained beyond his limits every single day for ten consecutive days.
The soldiers of the Count’s Castle no longer regarded Adrian as the delinquent of the Count’s family.
The maids of the Lord’s Castle no longer regarded him as the delinquent of the Count’s family either.
At present, only the “residents” of the County, who remained unaware of these changes, still thought of Adrian as the delinquent of the Count’s family.
In other words—
Kai was also beginning to accept it.
Adrian had changed.
This wasn’t merely a temporary effort.
Even so, within Kai’s eyes as he stared at Adrian—he felt disgust.
* * *
For an instant, the soldiers’ attention focused on me.
But I was in no condition to care about something like that.
My muscles had ruptured, and forget moving even a single finger—it had become difficult just to breathe.
My body collapsed limply to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
The “distrust and suspicion” within Kai’s gaze still hadn’t disappeared.
◆You can use the skill “Regeneration [C+]” to regenerate your ruptured muscles.
◆Required nutrient—Protein.
◆Would you like to consume protein to regenerate your ruptured muscles?
◆Y-You’re completely insane!!!!
A dramatically alarmed message appeared before my eyes.
When I threw the barbell I had been holding onto the floor, it landed with a thunderous boom and sent a tremendous vibration through the ground.
The instant I thought about accepting—
Grrrng, grrrrgle!
The muscles throughout my body convulsed and began regenerating the ruptured muscle fibers.
My muscles were reconstructed even more densely and compactly than before.
“Urghhh...!”
It truly felt as though my entire body were being torn apart.
Somehow, the intensity of my workouts increased exponentially with each passing day.
As the strength of my muscle fibers increased, the intensity required to damage them naturally increased as well.
Consequently, the pain also increased exponentially.
Perhaps I had thoroughly destroyed them this time, because they showed little sign of regenerating.
It seemed the damage I had sustained exceeded the rank of my Regeneration ability.
It appeared that I would soon need to hunt more Ice Trolls and secure additional Genetic Factors.
I remained sprawled across the floor and waited for my body to regenerate.
Then, suddenly—
I noticed Kai supervising the soldiers’ training on one side of the trial grounds.
Kai had always been like that.
He “personally” supervised and trained the soldiers of the County.
At first, even I had questioned it.
Why would a noble knight personally handle such work?
But after living through my time in the Coalition, I came to understand.
That had always been a knight’s duty.
A knight was both a title and an official position.
The Lord held supreme command over the military, but during wartime, knights became Operations Commanders and directed most military operations.
Therefore, the title of “Chief Knight” essentially meant Supreme Military Commander.
Commanding operations and training soldiers were also part of his responsibilities.
However, as was often the case with commanders, most were reluctant to leave their seats.
Training soldiers?
They usually dumped such work on those they considered their inferiors.
But Kai wasn’t like that.
As far as I could remember, Kai had never done such a thing. He never pushed his responsibilities or duties onto someone else.
He was a man devoted to the principles of “chivalry”, always fulfilling the responsibilities entrusted to him.
Although he eventually fell and became the Commander of the Frost Legion, Kai had been the very model of a knight during his human years.
Just look at him now.
Kai was wearing armor made of “metal”.
One might ask whether it wasn’t only natural for a knight to wear metal armor.
Not at all.
A suit of iron armor weighed approximately forty kilograms.
Full Plate Armor weighed about twice as much, approximately eighty kilograms.
No sane person walked around wearing that in everyday life.
More importantly, this was the Northern Snowy Mountains.
Do you know what happens when someone wears metal armor in an environment subjected to severe cold throughout the year?
Their flesh tears apart.
That wasn’t merely a figure of speech.
Metal exposed to the cold rapidly absorbed the chill.
If it touched bare skin, the skin froze almost instantly and tore apart.
That was why the soldiers of the Count’s Castle wore “Leather Armor”.
Wearing metal armor in this cold was tantamount to suicide.
Despite that, Kai remained completely unharmed because—
‘He’s protecting his body with Aura.’
And he maintained it all day long.
‘That lunatic.’
He truly was completely insane. The reasons he went that far were even more absurd.
What were they again?
The first was apparently because that was what it meant to be a “knight”. A knight had to be fully prepared to fight anytime and anywhere.
The second reason was training.
‘He said it allowed him to continuously train his Aura even during his daily routine.’
Kai didn’t remove his armor even while eating.
He even regarded rest as another form of training.
In that sense, every moment of Kai’s life—no, his very existence itself—was a form of training and conditioning.
Of everyone I had encountered throughout my previous life, he was the most insane.
It made me think that only someone that insane could willingly turn himself into a Lich.
They say a genius cannot defeat someone who works hard, someone who works hard cannot defeat someone who enjoys the process, and someone who enjoys the process cannot defeat a madman.
Kai was both a genius and a madman.
If I wanted to kill someone like Kai—
I couldn’t afford to remain idle. I had to become just as insane as he was.
◆Your Muscle Fiber Tissue has surpassed the limits of humanity!
◆Your muscle fibers are being reconstructed!
◆Your Strength Stat has increased by 4!!
I shoved the lunch box filled with entrails into my mouth and added even more weight to the barbell.
After the soldiers completed their basic military training—
The next exercise was “physical conditioning”.
It wasn’t only the soldiers who participated.
Kai joined them as well.
Even a knight capable of wielding Aura couldn’t afford to neglect physical training.
The efficiency of their aura varied depending on the condition of the body serving as its foundation.
For a knight, the body was both the foundation and the supporting structure.
No matter how exceptional one’s swordsmanship or how extraordinary one’s natural talent might be, it was useless without a solid foundation capable of supporting it.
Talent alone would never raise someone beyond the second rate.
Kai conducted physical training alongside the soldiers.
Unless there was some special reason preventing him, it was part of Kai’s daily routine and training.
“Everyone, match your breathing and run.”
With Kai at the front, the soldiers began running in unison.
At first, everyone kept pace without difficulty.
But gradually, some soldiers became unable to maintain the speed.
Even so, Kai didn’t rush them.
Although they were all soldiers, their levels of stamina were different.
It would be wrong to force identical training upon people whose physical endurance differed.
Physical training wasn’t a competition.
They only needed to push themselves to the limits of what they could endure and continue doing so consistently every day.
Learning one’s own limits through that process and developing the grit and perseverance needed to surpass them—
That was true training and conditioning.
Mental fortitude unsupported by the outer shell of physical stamina was nothing more than a sheet of paper.
However, physical stamina that lacked mental fortitude was equally hollow and worthless.
“Haaah...! Haaah...!”
“I-I can’t go any farther...!”
After approximately one hour, some of the soldiers began giving up.
Only after around two hours had passed did most of the soldiers collapse from exhaustion.
The only ones remaining were Centurion and instructors.
However, even they couldn’t last longer than three hours.
A few managed to pass the three-hour mark, but they didn’t last much longer.
Only then did Kai increase his pace and speed. It was now time to test Kai’s limits.
“Whoa...!”
“That’s incredible....”
When the speed increased, cries of amazement erupted among the soldiers.
That reaction was understandable.
After running alongside them for approximately three hours, Kai was now moving even faster.
At first glance—
Their admiration appeared to be directed at Kai.
But Kai knew.
Those gasps and exclamations weren’t meant for him.
Kai slowly turned his head.
When he looked behind him—
Someone was following close on his heels.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
It was Adrian.
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