In the Training Room, Getting Serious with a Beautiful Chaebol Heiress (2)
In the Training Room, Getting Serious with a Beautiful Chaebol Heiress (2)
Back when I had known this world only through a monitor.
After clearing the tutorial-like "entrance exam," the next thing I threw myself into was stat pumping.
[I came because I heard you were second only to me among awakeners, but I suppose this is your limit.]
'Winning over a hidden heroine who was immune to hypnosis? As a gamer, I couldn't pass that up.'
After I'd barely cleared the exam with my pitiful stats, that heroine had appeared—even though she couldn't be romanced at all in the main game.
The undisputed top-ranked S-rank—my master.
To win my master over, I first had to become her disciple.
But the minimum stats required to become her disciple were pretty damn high.
They were far too high to reach by playing casually and messing around.
So I researched the fastest possible route for boosting my specs...
'And this was the result.'
"There's a training method that can raise one of your stats by a whole point in a single day."
That was the ultra-rapid growth method I'd eventually discovered.
At the unbelievable news, Sia's eyes flew wide open in shock.
"A whole stat point... are you serious?! That's insane!"
'Exactly. That was the right reaction.'
Awakener stats.
The stats displayed before an awakener's eyes, just like in a game, were capped at 10.
And here I was saying I could raise one of them by a whole point in a single day.
It was only natural that even Sia, a high-ranking officer of the number one clan, was caught off guard.
"It only raises a stat by a full point shortly after awakening. It isn't quite that effective for awakeners who've been active for a while."
"Ah... still, that's incredible."
My added explanation did put a 'well, that figured' look on her face.
Even so, the training method remained incredible.
Sia's eyes sparkled.
"If that's really true, I'll reward you handsomely as an officer of the Cheonhwa Clan. It'll definitely be a huge help!"
She even offered to reward me if the method proved worthwhile.
I understood why.
The gender ratio among awakeners was nine women to every man.
A lot of them were understandably reluctant to undergo grueling physical training.
Awakeners or not, they had started as ordinary girls living ordinary lives. How many would welcome being told to train like national-level athletes overnight?
On top of that, exercise was an extremely inefficient training method.
Once they fought for their lives inside Gates, their stats rose on their own far more efficiently than through mere exercise.
Their stats would rise later through hardship anyway, so why bother with something so foolish now?
That was the mindset of the awakeners who avoided training.
The fact that even such a lavish Training Room sat quiet and empty said it all.
'This was the problem with kids these days. Tsk, tsk.'
Of course, I had already reached the top of S-rank, and the first-generation awakeners and clan officers knew the truth as well.
Real combat did make awakeners stronger.
But at that rate, they would die before they ever got stronger.
They might survive if veterans like us protected them, but then they would gain no real combat experience.
Eventually, valuable recruits ended up as useless D-rank deadweight.
Those with sharp instincts could still climb to C-rank or B-rank despite that, but anyway.
It was only natural that Sia, who knew this reality, would eye my training method.
'Well, plenty of women trained hard, and men weren't fundamentally any different.'
"You don't have to reward me. It's not as big a deal as you think, and it's not something just anyone can follow either."
"Not a big deal? Raising one of your stats by a whole point in a day?"
"You'll see."
I grinned as if to say, 'Watch and learn,' then casually settled onto the machine.
After that, I started exercising in an utterly ordinary fashion.
If there was a difference, it was...
-Hummm...
"Huh, you're doing it while circulating your mana?"
The source of an awakener's power.
I also began circulating the intangible energy called "mana" throughout my body.
She stared as if to say, 'That's your secret?' so I quickly explained.
"You know why awakeners are way stronger than ordinary people, right?"
"Well, obviously, because of mana."
"Correct. Then why do physical capabilities differ according to stats even among awakeners?"
"Because the body gets used to mana? To begin with, it's natural to improve the more you use it."
"To be precise, it's because the body becomes capable of handling more mana."
A theory that wouldn't be raised until a few years from now.
A serious examination of what awakeners called stats.
It was a difficult theory, but it was simple to summarize.
One: Mana was what enhanced an awakener's physical abilities.
Two: The more mana an awakener circulated through their body, the more mana that body could contain.
As a result, an awakener could exert greater power.
This was also why real combat was more efficient for raising stats than something like exercise.
Awakeners circulated mana far more desperately in real combat than during exercise, which naturally made it much more effective training.
I gave her this brief explanation.
Sia looked unimpressed.
"So you exercise while circulating mana as if you were in real combat? I didn't notice much effect when I tried that."
"If you just do it normally, yeah."
Sia remained thoroughly unconvinced.
Apparently, the 'secret' I'd presented was such an obvious method that every awakener had probably considered it at least once.
And it really was ineffective when done normally.
But...
With a single dose of my hypnosis, even ordinary exercise became pumping iron on the boundary between life and death.
"Watch. ———I, Seo Yujin, will enter a state of 'Indescribable Fear' until this hypnosis is released."
-WHOOOOOSH!!!
My placid mana surged in an instant.
Sensing imminent death, my body began desperately wringing out every scrap of power it had.
Sia's expression went blank.
"Yu, Yujin. Your face is..."
"This? It's manageable."
'In the First Round, I couldn't handle it and even wet myself a little. I'd piled on extra hypnosis and broken the training into repeated three-minute daily sessions, but... now that this was the Second Round, it was nothing.'
-Ding!
[Strength and Agility stats increase by 0.01 from repeated experience.]
"Anyway, exercising in this state makes your mana consumption skyrocket, so your stats rise quickly. Mine just went up again."
But I just calmly kept exercising.
I worked in a forced-awakening state, pouring out mana under the drive of my survival instincts.
Just 30 minutes was enough to completely drain all my mana.
[......Strength and Agility increase by 0.94, and Mana by 0.31, from repeated experience.]
[Trait 'Unyielding' is forcibly activated! The special status effect from hypnosis, 'Indescribable Fear,' is released.]
『Strength [4.47 (+0.94)] Agility [4.05 (+0.94)] Intelligence [3.12] Luck [8.42] Mana [4.11 (+0.31)]』
'Maybe I should've acquired the Trait later.'
I'd wanted to reach a Strength score of around 5.0, but apparently that had been too greedy.
Still, I'd comfortably raised my stats by the roughly one point I'd promised.
So I smiled and spoke to Sia.
"Hah, hah... My Strength and Agility already went up by 0.94. My Mana went up by 0.31 too. Well? Isn't it incredible?"
'This time, I'd truly give it everything—for all of you!'
"......"
Sia didn't answer.
* * *
Yoo Sia had been looking forward to discovering Yujin's special training method.
But what she faced was the exact opposite.
-Wooooosh...
'What the hell was that? Was he insane...?'
Yujin raised and lowered a barbell in front of her.
...His pupils were violently trembling as though an earthquake had struck.
His hands and feet trembled, and his forehead was drenched in cold sweat.
His face was completely drained of color, deathly pale.
He looked like a man who had been pushed to his mental limit.
"Ah, it went up again."
'How could he say that so calmly in that state?'
And yet Yujin kept moving.
He slowly lifted the barbell with trembling hands, then lowered it again.
He desperately flared his mana as though fighting for his life.
He struggled against irresistible terror and an unjust death.
An overwhelming madness radiated from him, enough to crush anyone who merely watched.
'He... wasn't normal.'
What Yujin was doing bordered on mental self-harm.
He was calmly subjecting himself to death.
...Sure, his stats would go up from doing that.
Because he was literally hovering between life and death every second.
But, why?
It was a full stat point, but it was still only one point.
Perhaps it would matter to some run-of-the-mill nobody, but that number didn't seem important enough to Yujin to justify this.
He was plenty strong right now to begin with.
So why was someone all but certain to become the next S-rank acting like such a madman?
What on earth was driving him to train like a madman?
Unable to comprehend it, she couldn't bring herself to stop him and could only watch.
The longer she watched, the more the sight seemed to tear her heart apart.
Yujin's insanity ended thirty minutes later.
"Huff, huff..."
"...Is it over now?"
"Y-yeah. After a certain point your body adapts to the fear and you can't do it anymore. I adapted pretty fast."
Yujin smiled as though nothing had happened, as if asking whether it wasn't amazing.
Emotion suddenly welled up in her, and she wanted to snap at him.
What was so amazing about this? Wasn't this just insane?
She wanted to tell him never to do it again.
But,
"...I see."
Sia barely choked back the words that had risen to the tip of her tongue.
For some reason, she felt that she couldn't.
Instead,
"Can you stand?"
"No way right now. Look, my arms and legs won't move at all. Pfft."
"Idiot. I'll carry you to the dorms."
-Grab.
Without hesitation, she hoisted his sweat-soaked body over her shoulder.
Yujin was still trembling from the aftereffects of the terror.
Though Yujin had seemed so strong the day before, he felt lighter than she'd expected once she lifted him.
"Huh? N-no. If I rest a bit I think I can at least walk on my own..."
"Forget it. Which dorm building? Just tell me. I'll carry you there."
"...Thanks. Heehee."
Her artifact outfit, worth hundreds of millions of won, became damp with sweat, but she didn't begrudge it at all.
Instead, she could only think that even this wasn't enough and that she wanted to do more for him.
"You're hungry, right? I'll go buy chicken while you shower."
"Huh? No, I'd feel kinda bad about that..."
"I'm rich, so shut up and eat."
"Oh, thank you?"
"I'll order some energy tonics and supplements too, so take them."
"Pfft. You're making such a fuss. Thanks—I'll take them."
"And... from now on, don't go doing stupid, reckless training like that."
"Huh? Maybe not Strength, but I could still raise my Mana a little more."
"Don't. Please."
"...Okay, okay."
'When one of my only three wives asked me for something, I had to oblige. Of course.'
"Good. Don't make people worry about you anymore. ...Idiot."
And just like that, the two of them had grown a little closer.
* * *
Maybe it was because I'd passed on an incredible training method.
Sia willingly carried me all the way to the dorms.
Willingly, even though she'd claimed to hate the smell of sweat so much.
We'd cleared up the misunderstanding from the infirmary incident, and I was happy because Sia and I seemed to have grown closer...
"Yujin. What's the passcode..."
-Flung open.
"Daddy~?"
"———Yujin?"
"......!!!!?"
...I had been happy. Now I was miserable.