Recovery Training
"Pa, Paran... are you okay?"
Han Rie was clutching me in her arms, her voice trembling as she asked.
I didn’t know why she was crying, but for now I opened my mouth to calm her down, since she seemed to be spiraling into gloom.
"Um... I’m fine, so you can stop crying."
Well, I had been hurting like crazy until just a moment ago, but now the pain had vanished without a trace. That meant I was fine, right?
The energetic Han Rie who had been circulating mana with wild intensity only moments ago was gone, replaced by a girl looking down at me with worried eyes.
"I’m sorry about just now... I got too worked up..."
No matter how much I insisted that I was fine, Han Rie’s expression remained thoroughly downcast.
"I’m not mad at you. I was just pissed off that someone beat you up like this..."
It seemed she had calmed down a little, but she was still seething at the sight of the blue bruises on me.
Honestly, until a little while ago, the mana Han Rie had poured out while circulating it so furiously had made me feel like my whole body was being crushed under its weight.
Since the Melitton family mana was naturally of a hot attribute, the heat I felt in my body was by no means mild.
Even from the outside, the destructive force was obvious. Right in front of me, it felt like my heart was pounding out of my chest.
Because of my mana corrosion and my ability to see mana, I’d witnessed the whole process in vivid detail with my own eyes...
"I-I'm finnnne..."
I was still being held in her arms, but my body was trembling, and my speech had turned clumsy too.
As time passed and I stayed in her embrace, even my racing heart gradually settled.
I’d kept repeating, over and over, that I was fine, but even then it was hard to calm Han Rie’s excitement.
After enough time had passed for both of us to settle down, we finally started talking.
I explained roughly why I’d ended up with bruises like this, why I’d left them visible, and why I was doing this recovery training in the first place.
Basically, the mana residing in my body, in other words the mana lodged within my own flesh, kept healing the human body continuously.
And in the process of recovering, mana naturally soaked into the body. If you endured that process long enough, it could accelerate the body’s growth.
Han Rie’s reaction to that explanation was...
"... You use that? Recovery training? No, you actually teach class with some half-baked method like that?"
Uh, half-baked?
Recovery training was a fairly popular practice, widely known even on the internet.
Of course, people said that if something went wrong with the injury, or the body was damaged too severely, it often left behind aftereffects or even permanent disability.
If you called it half-baked, then sure, it was half-baked.
"You call it half-baked?"
"Yeah! What else would you call it? I mean, I used that method too, but..."
Han Rie frowned hard and went on.
"I used it too, but it was worse than not doing anything at all. I mean, why would anyone still keep doing such a painfully brutal training method... no, no, I don’t even know why that kind of insanely painful training is still around. These days, nobody even looks twice at methods like that."
"... I see."
Han Rie, who had been muttering while working through her feelings, blurted out the word she’d just used and immediately corrected herself in a panic, glancing at me as she kept talking.
I could see how hard she was trying to speak properly in front of me.
If anything, it made her feel even softer only toward me, which was oddly suffocating.
And honestly, I wasn’t even sure what changed when she swapped that word out for “very.”
I kept telling her she didn’t need to be so careful and could speak casually, but for some reason Han Rie kept treating it like a slip of the tongue and awkwardly defending herself with an almost painfully prim attitude.
"Of course, it’s not like there are no benefits, such as improved recovery or physical reinforcement. But if you’re asking whether the change is significant enough to feel in your body... well, not really. And if you mess up the control, it’s just a harmful training method that damages the body..."
"I see."
So, to summarize it simply.
High risk, low return.
Apparently it was the kind of training that only had real value at the beginning, and even then its efficiency was poor.
Body damage probably meant things like disability or lasting aftereffects.
If someone told me to do recovery training while carrying something like that, I honestly wouldn’t want to do it either.
Though, granted, that was exactly what I was doing right now...
"Hmm... still, here the effect isn’t quite that negligible. If you combine it with various forms of training while receiving the blessing of growth, then of course it’ll have an effect. But if you told me to do it, I’d refuse without hesitation. It hurts, and other kinds of training would help me far more."
She said that for herself, it would just hurt and barely do anything else.
Since she was already at the top, while I was sitting at the very bottom, it made perfect sense.
For Han Rie, it would probably be the kind of thing where the effect was almost nonexistent either way.
"Haa..."
After finishing her long explanation, Han Rie let out a deep sigh.
"I really am sorry about just now. I’m a little bad at controlling my emotions... so I guess that’s why my mana got out of hand all of a sudden too... But seriously, you’re really okay, right? You’re not just saying that because it hurts too much?"
"It doesn't hurt thaaat much. I slept well for a full day, so I recovered too."
It really feels like my whole body is screaming. Honestly, I don’t want to do this. I’m starting to wonder whether I even need to keep doing it.
But then again, a professor who looks dozens of times stronger than I am is telling me to do it... She probably knows far more than some outsider who doesn’t know anything, and can guide me much better too...
"... So, what was that professor’s name again?"
By then we’d both mostly calmed down, and since class time was starting to approach, we were unpacking our things when Han Rie, who had been staring at me quietly, asked that question.
"Professor Seres Erasian."
"I see... Seres Erasian... Seres, huh..."
After I answered her, Han Rie looked away and muttered softly to herself.
"Thanks for telling me, Professor Seres..."
Even though she had turned her head aside, my mana corrosion and my eyes clearly told me what state Han Rie was in.
The sight of coldness seeping out of that warm mana made me flinch.
As she muttered with the same chilled, frostbound expression she’d worn that morning, the fear I’d felt before came bubbling back up all over again.
That icy presence made my whole body tremble despite myself.
My body was issuing a command that it absolutely could not ignore.
Stop Han Rie from becoming cold like that, no matter what.
That muttering face was not okay, it insisted. Stop it somehow.
My instincts kept trying to convince me, and I did my best to cling to Han Rie and explain that Professor Seres hadn’t done anything wrong.
During the breaks, I kept hanging onto her and pushed as hard as I could.
I told her what Professor Seres had taught me over the past two days, how much she had improved my weak physical condition, and how she had shown me the basics of sparring.
I also explained that this recovery training itself was something I had accepted after being persuaded by her reasonable arguments and by what I’d seen of my own condition, and that I was doing it of my own will.
"I... I do like it when you keep hugging me, Paran... but okay, I get it. I was just curious about the professor’s name, so don’t worry..."
- snug
"So for now, let’s just keep doing this. Okay?"
Whether it was because I kept clinging to her and delivering my explanation, or because my words had finally worked, Han Rie’s mood, which had been cold only a moment ago, softened back to normal.
- pat pat
Now that she seemed calmer, she stroked me and looked at me with her usual expression.
Being held and petted like this, my own tension began to melt away too.
Even the mana corrosion that had been urging me to stop Han Rie finally closed its mouth.
I didn’t know why it had been like that, but if I’d left Han Rie alone, something major would definitely have happened.
I let out a sigh of relief and surrendered myself to her arms.
.
.
.
The usual afternoon special class.
The old training grounds, spacious and pocked with holes here and there.
"Here, take this."
Professor Seres handed me a long spear. She herself was holding a long wooden staff in one hand.
"Today it’s the spear. Thrust with all your strength."
A change in weapons after only one day.
I took the unfamiliar spear and wore an uncertain expression.
No, just yesterday I’d been holding a wooden sword and getting beaten silly while making clumsy attacks, and now it was a spear.
A sword is wielded with one hand. A spear is gripped with two.
It felt lighter, relatively speaking, but the way you held it was completely different, so it was actually even more awkward.
"Hey, what are you staring at with such sluggish hands? Get into your stance at once."
As always, Professor Seres wore her sharp expression and corrected my posture.
"Y-yes..."
Up until yesterday I’d been forcing my body to remember the feel of the sword, and now she was telling me to use a spear...
There really was no injustice quite like this.
I had no choice but to settle into position, and Professor Seres rushed at me.
Even if it was made of wood, this time it was a spear, while Professor Seres held a staff.
Feeling the massive flow of mana coming toward me, I took the attack and deflected it.
- Tak! Tak! Tak!
Huh?
For some reason, I was blocking her attacks unusually well today.
What on earth?
It was strange, but in a good way, and that only made me more confused.