A Troublesome Party (4)
"Seriously, what the hell is wrong with those things? They're just asking to piss me off."
That was the bow girl, her mouth already gone foul.
Good. Time they started changing a little, don't you think? Adventurers are supposed to have filthy mouths. Keep a harem going the way they had and nothing would ever get done.
Hans and the spear girl were the same.
"I figured the difficulty would go up. But those smug faces are seriously fucking disgusting."
"Fuck it. Just come at us already."
Yeah. That's right. People need to learn how to change like that.
It was satisfying, watching humans shed their shells and spread their own wings. That beginner party was finally taking its first real steps.
And then they got beaten down again. They fought back, and at last they crushed the monsters.
"There. Done. Next is how to use mana."
"Mana?"
Using mana wasn't complicated. You just released the energy already inside your body.
"Humans rely on physical strength when they hunt monsters, but when they face something strong, they start activating mana from inside without even realizing it."
To prove the point, I showed them the faint ripple of mana that flowed when fighting ordinary monsters, and the way you wrapped mana around your body—or coated a weapon with it—when facing something truly strong.
Wrapping mana around the body was, in the end, body reinforcement.
The order was a little different from how I'd handled the nuns, but I planned to be even more vicious this time. With body reinforcement, they should at least be able to take down something like a gargoyle.
"Is that so?"
"That's how humans, weaker than monsters like orcs, can still win. And once you start handling mana directly, you can even fight things like gargoyles."
"Ahh."
You must have already felt something when the teddy bears were hitting you.
Getting beaten just to toughen your hide isn't everything. While you were taking those hits, your useless bodies should have started activating mana. Normally people die or collapse before that happens, so it doesn't matter. To activate mana while being beaten, you have to reach absolute rock bottom—and these ones had finally gotten there.
They'd probably awaken to body reinforcement on their own.
"Alright then. Fight."
And so hell began again.
Our beginner party had more or less figured out how to fight—but that was all. The teddy bears with wooden clubs were tough.
Crack. Crunch! Thud!
Every swing of a club landed with the sound of wood striking bone. Equal-opportunity violence—men and women alike.
Honestly, each teddy bear, fueled by the mana Celia poured into it, hit hard enough that even a holy knight or better would struggle. The teddy bears' violence was pure agony for them.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"What the hell—is that just wood?!"
"Somebody help!"
They'd managed the bare-fisted teddy bears well enough, but the moment the clubs came out, they started getting pushed back.
Worse, the teddy bears had no emotions. They moved only on Celia's orders—which meant they were just endlessly pounding their opponents with those cute little faces.
Naturally, day one was a complete thrashing. More precisely, they got beaten for a full twenty-four hours with no rest. Whenever someone was about to break or collapse, one of the teddy bears would dump a potion on them, haul them back up, and start hitting again.
"Hmm. Do you think this will work?"
"The mana will wake up eventually."
"Well, if humans still have any self-preservation instinct left. But cases like that aren't exactly common, are they?"
"It's not impossible. In theory it works. Mana sometimes surfaces when people are on the brink of death."
Celia sure did worry a lot—fellow mages and all.
"So we beat them half to death, heal them, and repeat until the mana wakes up."
"Have you done this before?"
"I have."
"And they turned out fine?"
"They did. Turned into combat machines."
Just look at the nuns. Granted, this method was a bit more extreme, but it couldn't be helped. I was a person who needed a vacation.
I couldn't give them rest breaks while growing their mana. They wouldn't even have room to resent me.
"Aaaagh! S-save me!"
"Fight back. Or at least endure the beating and drag something out from inside you."
Being trampled underfoot had simply become being hit with clubs. A little stronger, a little more advanced—so it was possible. As long as they didn't freeze in fear, they'd manage somehow. And if they kept taking hits and fighting back, repeating it over and over…
They'd grow stronger naturally.
A truly crude method—but there wasn't a better one. They should be thanking me. Training this elite didn't come around often. By this theory, you could even raise an army with Habel's Hourglass. I just didn't, because it was too much work for me.
Crack!
At last, something abnormal happened to Hans under the clubs. His arm twisted the wrong way. The teddy bear responsible wobbled on its legs as if to say, That's all you've got?
"Gyaaaaah!"
"M-my arm—it's twisted!"
"Potion."
A teddy bear stepped forward with practiced ease and poured a potion over Hans's twisted arm. In an instant it snapped back into place.
"J-just a little—let me rest a little—"
"I already told you no."
The teddy bear closed in again and started twisting the same place it had just broken.
"Gyaaaaah!"
Twisting an already twisted spot hurt twice as much. Hans screamed, and the girls edged back.
Not a chance. If they were Hans's women, they should take the beating with him, shouldn't they?
The teddy bears swung their clubs into the girls from behind.
"Wow. This is basically thug training methods."
"Those types wouldn't waste this kind of violence on something like this."
Even the men I'd taken in early on used to just beat kids senseless in the slums. They'd gotten a thrashing from me and still seemed to be running around causing trouble there. Honestly, I'd looked the other way. They weren't causing trouble downtown—just playing gangster in their own alleys. If I stopped even that, who knew where they'd run off to, and I couldn't be bothered to go catch them myself.
Besides, weapons for the church were being moved through those same slums. Their harassment might even be what kept the goods flowing. The one mercy was that they weren't using my name.
…Anyway. My thoughts had wandered.
"Huff… huff… I can't take it anymore!"
Rage finally boiled over. Hans lunged at one of the teddy bears and seized its club. Of course the others didn't miss the opening—clubs came down from every side.
Crack! Thud! Wham!
Through the continuing violence, Hans clung on and finally crushed one teddy bear's club—with his bare hands.
Oh? The kid actually had some potential.
But the moment the teddy bear with the broken club hung its head, the others around it seemed to fly into a rage and beat Hans with everything they had.
"Hans!"
"You sons of bitches!"
The girls, who'd been looking out for themselves a second ago, exploded with love for Hans's sudden coolness. Spear and bow in hand, they turned and attacked the teddy bears.
Strange. What exactly was the relationship between these people?
Still—if I raised them right, they might be useful later. At the very least, if they could lead a vanguard against the Four Heavenly Kings when the Demon Realm came provocating, that would be a blessing.
Thud. Crunch. Whack!
And the result: on the third day, they took down the club-wielding teddy bears again.
This time they were properly pissed. One teddy bear's head hung by a thread of stuffing, a few had their sides stabbed through, and one even had an arrow jammed in its eye.
"Oh no, my teddy bears!"
Celia, future Master of the Teddy Bear Magic Tower and CEO, could only watch as tears welled and rolled down her cheeks.
"Ah… well. Can't be helped."
It wasn't a bloodbath, after all. More of a fluff-bath. Or a stuffing-bath. Either way, the club teddy bears had been crushed by a party running on pure spite.
And as a result, this hopeless party had instinctively learned body reinforcement. Learned by instinct rather than instruction—and anything learned that way digests far faster than something taught.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Alright. Good work, everyone."
"Huh? Then…?"
I clapped my hands in approval, and smiles tugged at their mouths.
Yeah, yeah. Enjoy it. Just don't enjoy it too much.
"What's left is the teddy bears armed with real weapons."
"No way—that's way too much!"
"If you use body reinforcement properly, it won't hurt. The teddy bears will go easy on you. Just like until now."
Just like until now, when they'd nearly died. Everyone's faces said as much. So what? Get stronger if you don't like it. Complaining without getting stronger was a sin.
"You call that going easy?"
"Even a gun won't kill you if it hits gently enough. So what about clubs and melee weapons?"
Meaning they could endure melee weapons just fine.
"No, but—"
"What are you waiting for? Start."
"Yes, ma'am."
This batch of Celia's teddy bears would carry her personal feelings, so they'd be even more brutal. We'd started it, but emotions could be selfish things.
And so the teddy bears' merciless training—violence—began again.
It ended on the fifth day.
I'd run Habel's Hourglass more than expected, but it wasn't bad. We'd finished successfully, after all. Looking at their faces, they'd turned out reasonably well.
"Alright. This should be enough."
Their eyes had that properly seasoned gleam. Their bones still ached from the fighting, but they were at least in a state where they could stand against a holy-knight-level opponent.
My training methods really were something. Even Master couldn't match them.
"You're right. They've improved quite a bit."
And in the process, these three had learned the world wasn't soft. Camaraderie had grown stronger than any romance between them. Good. Looking at it that way, a harem was nothing but a liability for adventurers. If they'd built one, they would have ended up just like a certain Hero.
At least the Hero had the Holy Sword. Ordinary people would just get slaughtered by male and female monsters alike—no need to spell it out.
"You've all worked hard."
They bowed their heads deeply, as if moved by my dry words. Yeah, yeah. No need to thank me that much.
No—before that.
"From now on, you'll be receiving a new mission."
"Yes, ma'am!!!"
I had no idea why they reacted like that, but it wasn't bad. Better than acting like idiots.
Starting with hunting orcs would be good. They'd already killed orcs and goblins, but those had been weak ones. The Demon Realm's were different.
"Guhk! Gyaaaaah!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
The orcs were shredded with almost no effort. Same for the goblins.
Our hopeless party, with body reinforcement awakened, had gotten stronger.