It's Hopeless
Fire Dragon-chan's name is "Lea."
I figured a dragon would have some grand, epic name, but it's way cuter than I expected lmao
From now on, call her Lea-chan ♡
Approved.
"Lea-nim~"
"Lea-chan, please nerf the golems a little…"
"Lea-nim! I finished today's rounds — can I go now?"
"Lea-nim, just one hug, plea—"
"No."
I swatted away Haring and the handful of heroes lunging at me, then flopped down in the nest.
The atmosphere had shifted considerably over the past few days. Before, they'd trained with a healthy dose of fear around me. Now the distance between us felt like it had simply… evaporated.
They approached without a shred of caution, chattering about this and that, and I answered them halfheartedly each time and let it slide.
It started after I told them my name…
"What's in a name."
I'd only corrected a few wrong guesses, and somehow every wall between us had crumbled. It was baffling, but I decided to leave it alone for now. They clung more often, sure — but they still hadn't crossed any real lines.
Time flowed on, and two weeks after I'd given them my name—
"I did it!!!"
"At long last!"
"Finally, one-on-one training with Lea-chan…"
Successes began to appear, one after another. A full week faster than the three weeks I'd estimated. I'd figured their lack of grit and raw power would drag things out much longer, but heroes, it seemed, were still heroes.
I looked over the six of them grinning in front of me.
"Finally, a dragon's techniques…"
"Dream big."
"Huh?"
"You've got a long way to go. A long way."
First was a male hero with short, cool green hair who wielded a long spear. He'd diligently completed his nest circuits and hit the target. His name was Hidene. Apparently this generation of heroes all had unusual names.
"Then… can we learn magic?"
"The basics, at least."
"Yahoo!"
Second was a female mage with long brown hair — one of only two magic-users among the eleven heroes in training. The other was still grinding golems with zero visible progress, so for all practical purposes she was the only one. Her name was Nya-nya, just as odd as the last. Sounds like a cat. She even looked a bit like one.
Third was—
"Hehehe… finally, together with Lea-chan…"
"…I don't like you."
"Excuse me?"
"A hundred more laps."
A male hero with messy black hair and a vaguely unsettling air about him. Dual axes. His name was something like Yugi. Yugi, huh? Peculiar name, but given there were hundreds of mass-produced heroes out there, I decided not to dwell on it.
"Do I… actually have to run them?"
"Yep."
"…Really?"
"Yep."
Yugi trudged toward the nest clearing with tears in his eyes.
"Fufufu… so at last the curtain rises on this great one's magnificent journey."
"Doesn't seem all that magnificent, though."
"Just you wait. The wicked Demon King who threatens the world shall perish — by these very hands."
"The Demon King's already dead."
"Excuse me?"
Fourth was Ka-zen, a black-haired male hero with scholarly-looking glasses. He was the one who'd first explained what heroes really were. Oddly enough, he carried no weapon at all. At first I'd assumed he was a bare-handed brawler, but he hadn't trained his body in the slightest. When I raised an eyebrow, he pushed up his glasses with a smug little chuckle.
"Fufu. You see, this great one possesses a truly extraordinary abili—"
"He's a beginner. A total beginner."
"Hasn't even class-changed — what's he been doing?"
"Ahem! Quiet! Quiet!"
"?"
Anyway. The remaining two were Haring and Yong-ba.
"Can those golems even be broken?"
"I've shot every arrow I have, but…"
Both had already built their foundations. They still couldn't land a proper hit on the golems, but through various drills they'd long since cleared the baseline requirements. The reason I hadn't taught them first?
If I teach them one at a time, when am I ever going to finish?
If I was going to do this, I was doing it all at once. Originally I'd planned to wait until all eleven hit the mark — but the remaining five showed zero signs of success, so I'd given up. They could figure it out on their own later.
"Once you've learned properly and the other five succeed, you can teach them then."
"Us?"
"Yep. You can manage that much."
It wasn't as if I was teaching them anything particularly difficult. Anyone with a brain could pass it along.
I had the five heroes sit cross-legged at a distance, then stirred my mana.
Whoooosh…!!
"Shall we begin?"
Mana cultivation.
It was common knowledge — not just among heroes, but among any knight or run-of-the-mill mercenary. A training method that absorbed the mana scattered through the air while simultaneously expelling it, accumulating mana within the body.
Countless variations of mana cultivation existed, but I'd prepared the one best suited to heroes.
Bahamart's cultivation method.
As the hero who had saved the world and the strongest of the previous generation, his mana cultivation technique was second to none. Of course, as a proprietary royal art, it wasn't something that should be freely shared…
He told me to teach them, didn't he?
He'd asked me to look after the heroes, so I was simply teaching them his technique. He could hardly complain about that.
"No point teaching something inefficient, right?"
"Y-yes…"
"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
"COME TO ME, MANA!!!"
"Hyperventilating…"
"……"
The problem was that none of them could keep up.
I sat cross-legged, watching the five heroes (Yugi was still running) gasp for breath, and shook my head. I hadn't asked them to do anything hard. How difficult could breathing possibly be?
"Try a little harder."
"I caaan't… haaah."
"Breathe. Just breathe."
"Fufufu… how unsightly, all of you."
"Hm?"
"A basic exercise like this is child's pla—"
"You dead?"
I poked Ka-zen, who'd frozen solid mid-boast like a statue. What on earth had he done to lock up his entire mana pathways with nothing but a cultivation method? That actually takes effort.
I sent mana flowing through him in mild disbelief, unlocking his pathways.
Next—
"I can't breathe! I can't breathe, Lea-niiiiim…!"
"You, spit some out. You trying to eat so much you turn into a pig?"
Fine blue blood vessels had risen across Nya-nya's skin. I patted the back of the girl who was gasping as if she were about to die. She'd taken in far too much mana.
Some of them couldn't sense mana at all, while others gorged on it until it became a problem. Once you absorbed mana, you were supposed to expel ninety to ninety-five percent of it — take that instruction too literally and of course things went wrong. If she'd already formed a mana core, her heart would have burst on the spot.
I forcibly drew the excess mana out of Nya-nya, then checked on the others.
Hmm.
Hidene was absorbing mana halfway and immediately spitting it back out. Yong-ba was scrunching his entire face in concentration. Haring opened her mouth wide and closed it again, but not a single scrap of mana entered her body.
She looked up at the sky with a tragic expression.
"O heavens!!!!"
"Whoa—!"
"Why do you visit such trials upon me…!!!"
"……"
"Grant me the path to ascension…"
"It's only been one hour."
"Oh. Right."
Haring scratched her head sheepishly and opened her mouth wide again. I'd told her to take in mana, and she was just swallowing air.
"Hopeless. Totally hopeless…"
Could these people ever become real heroes?