The Weight of a Lifetime
Most of the misunderstandings surrounding Grotein, House Ahental's butler of thirty-three years, came down to a single assumption: that he was a taciturn man.
He spoke only when necessary, and sometimes did not even bother to reply, so the impression was understandable enough.
But he was not taciturn. His interests simply ran so far in one direction that he had none left over for other people.
"Heehee, what are you doing after work today?"
"Shoulders."
He was a man possessed by muscle.
He had not always been this extreme. The trouble had begun in his prime, when he was still an active knight of Ahental and slammed headlong into a wall.
My mana affinity is terrible. There's a limit to how strong I can get through mana cultivation.
Mana affinity was a measure of how much mana a person could take in. It meant that even if everyone trained the same technique for the same length of time, they would not all gain the same "one" — there were differences from person to person. His happened to be unusually low.
But the gods were fair. They had given him monstrous physical power, and he chose to cultivate his strengths rather than patch over his weaknesses. Choosing what you were good at over what you were not was the most natural thing in the world.
He felt a sense of accomplishment when he lifted something heavier. He felt proud when his muscles grew thicker.
No one else in the knight order devoted themselves to physical training the way Grotein did. Too much muscle made the body sluggish, and sluggishness interfered with Ahental Swordsmanship — a style built on the swift draw. He was soon treated as a freak.
Shunned by his comrades, his life as a knight reached its limit. Resigning his knighthood and transferring to an internal post as the family's butler happened as a matter of course.
Decades later, he was still the same. If anything, age had only deepened his obsession with muscle.
Over thirty-three years he had lost his family and discarded his honor as a knight. Muscle was all that remained to him, and he refused to lose that too. His muscles were the finished work of a lifetime. Now, in his old age, all he asked was to preserve that work for as long as he could, and then die.
If I can live like this until the end, I want for nothing more.
It was while he was thinking this that Grotein remembered a wish he had forgotten — after watching Messi's Squire test.
When he saw Messi lift the eighth-stage iron sphere as though it weighed nothing, a wind of change stirred across that expressionless face. Grotein's heart rate spiked. It was the look of a man who had just met his first love.
There was one thing Grotein had spent his whole life searching for. It was not a disciple. It was not an adopted son.
With that strength, he could spot me...!
A squat rack of a person who could assist with his own weight during training. In other words, with a partner's help, he could put up another two hundred kilograms beyond his current max. That would mean reaching a realm one step higher than any weight he had ever lifted.
Just as Messi wished to grow stronger, for Grotein, more weight was the goal of a lifetime. That alone was enough for his interest in Messi to swell like his trapezius.
I will make him my (workout) partner. No matter what.
Messi cursed inwardly.
The old man in front of him, who knew no moderation whatsoever, was truly a man driven mad by the gym. Messi had spotted for him a few times, and without anyone ever asking to be taught, it had somehow become his turn.
"Sir Messi. An ogre-hide belt, if you would. Cinch it tight about the waist. One's viscera have been known to make an escape. Heh heh!"
To think there existed a human being who could deliver a line that bone-chilling as if it were nothing. And to use something as precious as ogre hide for a heavy-duty lifting belt... Messi had no idea what a butler of House Ahental actually earned.
"...You want me to lift this?"
"In training, one must lift to seven- or eight-tenths of one's absolute limit. Only then is the weight inscribed upon Sir Messi's body."
Five plates hung on each end of a long barbell. It was a miracle the bar had not bent under that load.
"This barbell was a special commission, so you needn't regard it with such alarm. I requested it hold as much as two thousand kilograms... It was made, I'll have you know, by a descendant of a Little People master craftsman who established himself in the inner citadel. Half my life's fortune went into it. Heh heh!"
"Even so... isn't a thousand kilograms a bit much?"
The eighth stage Messi had lifted was four hundred kilograms. This was two and a half times heavier.
"Oh dear... it is not a thousand kilograms, Sir Messi."
Grotein shook his head with a look of genuine regret.
"Pardon? Isn't it five hundred to a side?"
"It is eleven hundred kilograms. Lady Gaia will not lift the bar in your stead, I fear."
"..."
Grotein strapped on the heavy-duty belt and stepped up to the eleven-hundred-kilogram barbell first.
"Sir Messi, I shall lift this first and set it upon your traps. You must receive it properly."
There was no squat rack in existence that could hold or support a barbell of this weight, so for inhuman loads like this, a back squat simply could not be performed alone.
Grotein wrung every ounce of strength from his entire body and hoisted eleven hundred kilograms. His erector spinae drew taut as bowstrings; his thighs swelled as if they might burst. His arms looked like pillars of steel.
"Hrrrrngh!!"
A man's groan — the kind you only ever heard in a gym — boiled up from his chest, and the impossible weight of the barbell rose, slowly. Grotein's eyes were bloodshot and bulging, and the aura pouring off his body sent what little hair he had left streaming wildly.
He's actually insane...
Messi could only marvel in silence. He himself had become like this by receiving Enzo Muete's power — but Grotein was a true natural.
"Hup!"
Using the momentum, Grotein heaved the barbell up to his shoulders. He dropped his elbows to a right angle, held, and slowly approached Messi. He said nothing, preserving his core pressure, but his boiling eyes spoke for him.
The sight was terrifying enough to steal one's breath. The barbell touched Messi's trapezius.
"HOLD IT!!"
He wasn't even using honorifics anymore. But Messi, too, had grown serious without realizing it. He had understood, from Grotein's very presence, just how earnestly this man treated this training.
Messi gripped the barbell at the proper width. He felt Grotein's spotting arms tremble. He had to hurry. He did as he had been taught: seated the bar properly on his traps, lifted his ribcage, drew in a breath, and locked his core tight.
At last the barbell left Grotein's assistance.
Receiving that tremendous weight, Messi felt the sensation of heavy for the first time in a long while. Even standing still, he felt as if he would sink into the earth. And yet, instinctively, he knew. This was the correct answer for physical training. The weight was enough to make his mind go hazy.
Slowly, savoring the crushing pressure, he began to move. Through the weight that flattened his body, Grotein's shouts to mind his center of gravity and his breathing reached him from far away. Messi followed the instruction faithfully.
When he passed the sticking point, Grotein began matching him, hands under the bar, spotting in rhythm.
"...Seven... eight! Come on, one more!"
"Ghh...!"
"...Nine! Come on, one more!"
"Kh...!"
"...Ten! Come on, one more!"
"You've got to be—son of a b—"
"Do not speak, if you please! Maintain your brace! One more — just one more!"
It was getting hard to tell who was actually working out. Grotein moved up and down with Messi's reps in feverish enthusiasm.
"Ghhhh...!"
"Heh heh, well done! Absolutely splendid!"
Looking thoroughly satisfied, Grotein dumped the barbell from Messi's traps onto the floor. BOOM! The sound that had become so familiar every time they came to the training grounds rang out.
"Heh heh, I laid down layers of troll hide, so it's quite all right."
This old man had thought of everything.
"Hah... hah..."
"Now then, if you are fatigued, do have a little sugar water. Next is my turn."
"Excuse me?"
"Heh heh, why so surprised? Resting is simply what one does while spotting for me!"
...Even Enzo Muete would take one look at this man and walk the other way.
For once, the color drained from Messi's face.
"Heh heh heh!"
Grotein looked down at Messi, collapsed after training, with a look of fond pride. He was thoroughly satisfied.
Sir Messi absorbed his words like a sponge drinking water — the man had foundations to spare. It felt like painting on a blank canvas, and there was a real pleasure in teaching him.
On top of that—
He really is extraordinary. That body... an impossible physique.
He could only click his tongue in awe at the raw power that casually lifted weights no one but himself had ever been able to handle. He could scarcely believe that the massive muscles he had spent decades cultivating and those lean muscles were producing the same force.
It was a truly blessed body. What would happen if he stimulated that body and forged it into a true man's physique? Just imagining it was a delight.
He will become a monster even greater than I.
And then... he himself would receive that monster's spotting and reach a still higher realm!
Grotein laughed with genuine cheer. Even in his old age, the light of his gym life still burned green.
Ereb had been in a good mood lately.
Humming came unbidden, and when the corridor was empty he would even tap-dance. It was all thanks to Messi. They said one outstanding retainer put a hundred ordinary ones to shame, and the rise in his own standing was visible to the naked eye.
He was walking the inner citadel corridor in high spirits, Ramang at his back, when the voices of the maids drifted over.
"Hasn't the Second Young Master changed a lot lately?"
"Right? There used to never be a quiet day..."
"Even Madam had basically given up, hadn't she?"
Hmm. Gossip? Ereb's eyes sharpened. Ramang's face hardened and he made to burst out; Ereb stopped him. Let's hear them out. The conversation continued.
"Still, he's gotten more composed."
"That's true. A few days ago I brought him a snack and he actually praised me."
"He never used to do that in his life..."
"Heehee, maybe he's finally growing up."
The atmosphere wasn't bad. If anything, it felt like his reputation was improving in a positive direction. Ereb savored their praise, nodding. Behind him, Ramang let out a sigh of relief.
"Growing up? This late? The sense he never developed past twenty, suddenly showing up now? I think it's because of that person."
"Ah, Sir Messi?"
"He's rather handsome, you know."
"Oh my, you..."
Hmm. So Messi's reputation has gone up more than I expected, too...
Without the faintest idea what the maids were actually talking about, Ereb was pleased.
On the road to Ahental Territory, he had received several maps from Messi. One of them was that he must never again behave like the wastrel he had been in Tallen County. Messi had asked him to change, starting with the smallest things.
Ereb had kept that promise. He had begun by changing how he treated the household staff. According to Messi's explanation, the employees were always near the viscount, so their evaluations would naturally flow up to him. It was the moment beings he had considered of no importance until now appeared in a new light.
"It does seem like the Second Young Master brought someone remarkable."
"He even treated our young lady!"
"I heard a few days ago he even sparred evenly with Sir Ramang?"
"Really?"
Ereb had to stop Ramang, behind him, from bursting out again. He only got as far as "I won—" before his mouth was covered.
"He's so composed, too. So very composed. Maybe it's because he's royalty?"
"But then again he doesn't seem like royalty at all. He can barely even talk down to people."
"It's not unpleasant, though, is it? When would we ever hear honorifics from a member of the royal family?"
Hmm. So that was a problem. He would have to help Messi get used to commanding subordinates.
He was about to stop eavesdropping and step forward when, with terrible timing, they made the remark in question.
"But isn't he a bit wasted on Lord Ereb?"
He froze.
"?"
Ereb's expression went blank for a moment.
Wasted? Messi was?
No... they must mean I'm the one who's wasted. Of course.
A flicker of cognitive dissonance tried to take hold; his brain's rationalization function flipped it to the opposite interpretation. Ereb barely managed to keep his grip on reason.
Until he heard the next sentence, that is.
"I know, right? If he'd been under the First Young Master, he'd be put to much greater use!"
"Heeheehee!"
Thud.
"..."
The shock was so great that Ereb's body lurched and he drove his head into the corridor wall.
"S-Second Young Master. P-please, compose yourself."
The signs were not good. Fearing a relapse into wastrel mode, Ramang startled and tried to restrain him. But Ereb's wastrel-ification did not proceed. He did not so much as twitch until the maids' laughter had faded completely out of earshot.
There was, however, a different change.
"Wh-what am I supposed to do, Sir Ramang?"
"Pardon?"
"Messi! That guy — there's no reason for him to stay at my side anymore, is there?!"
"...?"
It was the first appearance of self-esteem crash mode since the collapse of the Forest of Resentment ruins entrance.
But this pathetic fool had a point. Hearing it put that way... wasn't it true?
The things Ereb had promised to give Messi once he became head of the house were already being provided, in spirit, by the Viscount of Ahental. He had even heard from the treasurer that twelve hundred gold had been allocated in Messi's name and was already being disbursed.
In that case... did Messi even need to cling to Ereb anymore...?
Ramang felt a sudden sense of crisis as well. He immediately blamed someone else.
"...You should have treated him better, then."
"What was that? That's rich coming from the man who held a blade to Messi's throat a few days ago."
"Th-that was a test, so..."
"Your motives were impure and you know it! Let's start by having you apologize, Sir Ramang!"
"Apologize? Me? If it's an order I'll do it, but... why me?"
What followed was a series of chaotic scenes.
Hearing the two of them out, Erena let out a long sigh.
This is exactly why our family never works... They distrust every relationship, so they don't even know how to give trust...
Erena had always been able to see the family's problems from a third-party perspective. Hearing Ereb's words, she roughly guessed the situation. She pondered what advice to give the lost lamb fidgeting anxiously before her.
Even if I tell him to treat Messi well from the heart, my brother won't even know what that means...
Knowing her second brother very well, Erena thought it over and offered an alternative.
"Brother, why not just give Sir Messi something he needs?"
"...I don't know what that guy needs."
"If you go somewhere full of things people need, you'll catch at least one, won't you?"
At Erena's ensuing explanation, his face brightened.