novelraw Chapter 124 : The Answer I Obtained (2)
Chapter 124 : The Answer I Obtained (2)
Chapter 124: The Answer I Obtained (2)
I returned to the school through the Waypoint.
‘This is convenient.’
Now that I could freely use all the Waypoints of this school like the Headmaster, that thought came to me first.
I had just exited the auditorium and was heading toward the dormitory.
“Artel! Are you feeling better now?”
I ran into Kiena for the first time in a month.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
I forced myself to act glad and greeted her.
“You’re really okay, right?”
“Of course. Just look at me. I’m healthy.”
“What on earth happened for you to bleed that much? Do you know how worried I was, thinking you were going to die?”
Was it because we were only meeting now?
Kiena spoke with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Uh, sorry.”
I replied in a dry tone.
“How did it end up like that?”
Kiena persistently clung to the circumstances of the incident.
“I guess if you overdo magic practice, it puts a strain on your body too. There was a spell I wanted to practice, so I kept practicing it, and then I lost consciousness.”
Since I couldn’t tell her everything truthfully, I made up an explanation that sounded as plausible as possible.
“What kind of magic were you practicing to cause that…….”
As expected, Kiena didn’t seem suspicious at all.
She looked like she believed everything I said.
“I want to rest for now, so I’ll head in first. Let’s talk later.”
But I was still holding the wine barrel imbued with Flewd magic.
Since I didn’t want the conversation to drag on, I made an appropriate excuse and tried to return to the dormitory.
“Okay! Get some rest, Artel! Let’s eat dinner together later!”
Kiena cheerfully shouted and waved her hand behind me as I headed toward the dormitory.
But I didn’t reply at all and walked on silently.
As soon as I entered the dormitory, I released the Flewd magic applied to the wine barrel first.
In one corner of the spacious dormitory, there was a spot perfect for placing the barrel.
I set the barrel there, opened the lid, and took out the dumbbells one by one, standing them upright on the floor.
Starting from 1 kg dumbbells all the way up to 20 kg.
When I seriously began taking out the dumbbells, the weight at which my arms started trembling was from 10 kg.
For a mage, weight itself was something unfamiliar to begin with.
Since everything could be solved with magic, like when I brought the wine barrel here from the Underworld, I had never actually lifted heavy objects with my hands.
After lining up all twenty dumbbells neatly like that, I ended up with another serious worry.
“……How do you even use this?”
I had obtained the necessary equipment, but I didn’t know how to use it.
“…….”
I sat down on the floor just like that, staring at the dumbbells and pondering how I should use them.
Since there was no one to teach me, I kept staring at the dumbbells as if trying to bore holes through them, and I started to think that they resembled something.
The hilt of a sword, the weapon of swordsmen.
“Oh? Were they made like this on purpose?”
Judging from it, I was convinced that the reason dumbbells were shaped like this was because they were tools made for students of swordsman schools to get accustomed to swords.
They looked far too similar to be a coincidence.
I first picked up the 1 kg dumbbell.
“Hmm, this one’s light.”
I was sure that in the Underworld, swordsmen said that just lifting and lowering things would increase their strength.
But there was no way to know exactly how they lifted and lowered them.
“Alright, let’s think. This is something made to get used to swords, so wouldn’t you use it like a sword?”
I gripped the dumbbell, thinking of it as a sword with no blade and only a dangling hilt.
Then I recalled the knowledge I had once heard from Garent in the past.
As for swordsmanship, I had once heard from Garent, who had been a Grand Swordsman at the peak, about how to swing a sword.
I didn’t remember everything properly, but I squeezed my memories as much as possible and reflected on the teachings Garent had left back then.
But soon, another stray thought invaded my mind.
‘Come to think of it, that swordsman I bumped into sounded quite similar to Garent’s voice, didn’t he?’
There was no way Garent, who had been a Grand Swordsman 300 years ago, could still be alive now.
Thinking that I had merely felt their voices were similar, I erased that stray thought.
What mattered to me right now was increasing my physical strength through these dumbbells.
Vision Power put a burden on the body, and to endure that burden, the body had to be strong.
‘Now that I think about it, my body in my previous life had quite a bit of muscle even though I never did any training like this, didn’t it?’
The swordsman I had talked to at the entrance of the Swordsman’s District said that even becoming a swordsman required innate talent.
The same applied to mages.
Unlike swordsmen, who had to be born with an outstanding body, mages simply had to be born with a good brain.
I recreated the swordsmanship Garent had taught me in my head and followed it with my body.
Garent had definitely said that the basic swordsmanship movements—slashing and thrusting—weren’t something you could do just by swinging your arms and striking out.
For slashing, you had to use the power of your waist and shoulders, and for thrusting, you had to use the driving force of your lower body.
In other words, you used your entire body.
About two minutes after I started swordsmanship practice while moving my whole body with the 1 kg dumbbell—
“……Why is it so hot?”
In an instant, my forehead and back were soaked with sweat, and even my heart started pounding violently.
Moreover, even though it was just a 1 kg dumbbell, continuously holding it while moving my body made my shoulders and wrists hurt quite badly.
To end up like this in just two minutes with a 1 kg dumbbell.
For a mage, wouldn’t that be like casting two of the most basic fire-element spell, Fire Ball, and then being on the verge of burnout?
It was utterly bleak.
I was beginning to understand why the swordsman at the entrance of the Swordsman’s District had told me that if I trained hard for about ten years, I might be able to take the entrance exam.
I set the dumbbell down for a moment and searched for the dumbbell closest in weight to that swordsman’s greatsword.
The closest weight was the 18 kg dumbbell.
‘I can’t even last long with a 1 kg one. Just thinking about fighting while holding an 18 kg one for days on end…… doesn’t that make swordsmen even more monstrous?’
The Battle of the Full Moon from 450 years ago.
The duration of the battle was three days.
All the swordsmen who participated back then held heavy swords, yet they never let go of their swords.
For a full three days.
At the time and even after the battle ended, I hadn’t known how incredible that was…… but now, looking at myself struggling with a 1 kg dumbbell, the swordsmen once again seemed like great people, like my master.
I too had to train with the resolve of not letting go of that 18 kg dumbbell for three full days.
To put it precisely, only if I didn’t drop it from my hand for three days could it be said that I had completed a body capable of using Vision Power.
I somehow grit my teeth and practiced swordsmanship with a 2 kg dumbbell.
And about 30 minutes later.
An unexpected problem occurred.
“……My body won’t move.”
I ended up completely sprawled out on the dormitory floor, unable to even twitch a finger.
As if someone had cast a powerful binding spell on me, my body wouldn’t move.
To be precise, I could move.
However, every time I tried to move, my muscles inflicted pain on me as if they were torturing me, so I didn’t even dare to think about moving.
While I was battling muscle pain, a message came flying in through a mob.
It was the mob I received from Etar, connected only between me and Etar.
-How about we have dinner together to celebrate your recovery? If it’s all right with you, I was thinking we could also go meet Alfric and Tresha today.
“…….”
Yeah, it was true that the side effects of Vision Power had recovered…….
But now another side effect had arrived, filling me with the desire to refuse.
“Of all times…….”
I let out a sigh and sent a reply to Etar.
-Fine. I’ll go to the Headmaster’s Office at the appointed time.
There was still a bit of leeway until dinner time, so I decided to rest like this for a while.
‘……I misjudged this. Resting a little doesn’t make it better, does it?’
That was the thought that crossed my mind as I headed to the Headmaster’s Office to meet Etar.
Since it wasn’t a serious injury, I thought it would get better if I just rested a bit, but that was a huge mistake.
Every step tormented me with muscle pain, and my gait became strange as a result.
I reached the point where I could only walk by supporting myself against the wall.
No matter how you looked at it, this thing called muscle pain seemed to get worse the more time passed.
Common sense said that pain was supposed to ease as time went by, wasn’t it?
This muscle pain felt like a mutant among pains.
It would’ve been fine if it just hurt, but the problem was that it even made me irritable.
Truly, it was pain like the worst disaster imaginable for a mage.
Even I, who had been an Archmage, couldn’t focus on magic because of this pain alone.
Compared to this, Tyrant’s hallucinogen was easier to overcome.
Didn’t swordsmen endure this hellish training every single day?
It was truly astonishing.
How they endured this torture daily.
‘Should I cancel the appointment even now…….’
The road to the Headmaster’s Office felt unbearably long.
It was a corridor I usually walked without a second thought, but now it felt as distant as the very top of the main school.
‘No. I’m Arkis Aimer. I can’t give in to something like mere muscle pain!’
Besides, there were disciples I was meeting for the first time in 300 years.
I didn’t want to postpone meeting those kids just because of some irritating pain.
Because right now, I wanted to see them.
After many twists and turns, I was finally able to reach the Headmaster’s Office.
“……No, why are you sweating so much, Lord Arkis? Haven’t you fully recovered yet?”
Etar asked in surprise after seeing my state.
Just walking that short corridor had made me sweat because of the muscle pain.
“Uh, it’s nothing. Just about to die, that’s all.”
“Th, that’s not nothing…… is it?”
Etar asked seriously. I weakly nodded.
“At least it’s not like I collapsed coughing up blood from Vision Power side effects, so isn’t that nothing?”
“When you put it that way, I have nothing to say…….”
At that moment, while I was talking with Etar, another message came through the mob.
It was from Kiena, sent to my student mob.
-Artel, where are you? You said we’d eat together. Hei and I are waiting at the cafeteria.
I had come to the Headmaster’s Office without telling Kiena.
And I hadn’t replied either, but it seemed she thought we were eating together.
On top of that, even Hei was waiting.
Now the two of them were gradually becoming a hassle.
Still, since I had to stay close to them, there was no reason to deliberately make things uncomfortable.
I sent a reply.
-Sorry, my body hasn’t fully recovered yet, so I think I need to rest. It’s hard to move.
It wasn’t a lie.
My body really hurt so badly right now that I could die.
-Really……? Got it! Get plenty of rest!
At the single word that I was sick, Kiena didn’t bother me anymore.
I asked Etar.
“By the way, there doesn’t seem to be any food prepared here. Where are we going to eat?”
Etar pointed toward the Waypoint in the corner of the Headmaster’s Office.
Specifically, the spot where a stone was located, and replied.
“We’ll eat at the Ramus Branch School. I told Tresha to prepare four servings of food.”
“My identity…… did you tell them?”
“No. Since you told me to hide it for now, I didn’t say anything. Aren’t you planning to surprise them? I deceived them by saying it was a place to greet you by bringing in Student Artel as a sculptor.”
“Well done.”
“Then shall we go?”
As Etar and I stood in front of the Waypoint, the stones converged and created a portal.