Chapter 57
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Muscles Are Justice
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Aira, born as a complete failure of a high elf.
She didn't even possess the presence of the "Hero of the Bow" that every high elf was supposed to have from birth.
Archery, which ordinary elves wielded as a matter of course, and the magic that communed with nature were utterly useless to her.
Even the Elf Forest, the very foundation of the elf kingdom, showed no response, as if rejecting her outright.
A child who could do nothing but breathe in the forest.
An elf without even a drop of mana.
At that point, anyone would arrive at the same question.
How did such a being become the "monster" that single-handedly annihilated the elf kingdom in the original story?
The answer was surprisingly simple.
Aira hadn't been born without elven talents.
As if by fate—
Or rather, as if intentionally designed.
She was merely a being who had awakened a power entirely different from mana—one this world couldn't even define—in exchange for losing every possibility tied to elves.
An elven mutation that had leaped in a direction beyond elven evolution or heroic lineage, unprecedented until now.
Of course, there had been one similar case mentioned before Aira.
But that was little more than a MacGuffin, barely brushed past by name in the original story—an area not worth delving into.
"There's... such a power hidden inside me?"
"Yeah. So stop thinking of yourself as a useless high elf, Aira."
Remembering the moment she first underwent mana measurement with Evelyn still made Aira's face stiffen.
A result that didn't even register a number.
The definitive "none."
It was the instant when the hope she'd dared to nurture shattered on the spot.
Even Evelyn, sitting across from her, had been sweating bullets, unsure how to break the news—but I didn't care.
I told Aira the truth right then and there.
You're no failure.
You're a blessed existence, if anything.
A newly blossomed power that stripped away every advantage of an elf.
The forest rejected you only because it feared that power.
The real crime lies with those fools who cast you out, calling you worthless without knowing a thing.
I said as much while gently stroking Aira's hair.
'My Pactum Mortis was crafted using that girl's traits as a hint in the first place.'
The difference was that my magic let me specify conditions and costs like a contract, whereas Aira had shouldered them all from birth.
Without even knowing if it was a pact or a curse.
If she'd known her power from the start, she might never have endured this hell.
She could have lived proudly as a high elf in the kingdom, laughing among her sisters.
But that future was already gone.
And now, all that remained for her was a plunge into the abyss.
So, not as a reader who knew her future, but as her master who had decided to treat his slave like family, I simply grabbed her hand and pulled her back up.
"Don't worry."
I lowered my voice.
"Just do as I say, and you can get plenty strong, Aira."
"...!"
After a pause to gather her words, a laugh slipped out.
"No. Way stronger than now. Way cooler."
"Yes!"
It was short, but her response carried real strength for the first time.
Until then, Aira had never succeeded at anything.
Every attempt ended in failure, and that failure always returned as scorn and ridicule.
That was why she trusted no one.
What such a girl needed most right now wasn't a miracle or talent.
It was faith.
That alone would suffice.
Looking at Aira, who had regained her smile, I finally pulled out what I'd prepared.
For the high elf abandoned even by the Elf Forest—what I'd devised, the so-called "Training Method for a High Elf Who Gave Up on the Elf Forest Too."
Drawing from the moment of her awakening in the original story, the core of this restructured regimen was surprisingly simple.
No magic, no secret arts.
"Alright. From now on, we're—"
I paused, locking eyes with Aira.
"Going to build a healthy body first!"
"...A healthy?"
"Body?"
At my words, Aira and Evelyn both tilted their heads in unison.
It was the reaction I'd expected.
This was a world with magic, but the era was barely medieval at best.
Naturally, there were no gyms or systematic training equipment.
But who am I?
A man who's dissected human bodies, handled muscles, nerves, and ligaments firsthand.
Back in med school, I'd delved deep into rehab classes on strength recovery and conditioning.
The underground fitness room in that massive hospital.
Its image was still vivid in my mind.
"No equipment? No problem. If it's not there, we make it."
I jotted down the needed materials from memory.
Dumbbells akin to weights and barbells.
Supports and fixing rods.
Simple structures for bodyweight exercises.
Items that could be ordered online in modern times, but here, each one had to pass through a blacksmith's hammer.
A hassle of an order, no doubt.
But luckily, we had solid backing to smooth over all that effort.
The leader of the Ashen Hand, Princess Evelyn—who was never stingy about things like this.
Thanks to her, in just one day, a corner of the Ashen Hand hideout transformed into a proper training room.
Surveying the space, I was certain.
The prelude to the counterattack had finally begun.
Of course, Evelyn—who wasn't used to modern gym equipment—didn't look thrilled.
Even after funding it herself, her gaze on the results brimmed with open doubt.
"Lucas Argent... I know you always solve problems in wildly unconventional ways."
After choosing her words carefully, she spoke frankly.
"But this... seems a bit 'inefficient'."
"In what way?"
"You're trying to build Aira's stamina, right? Wouldn't pairing her with my knights for sparring be far more practical?"
She glanced around the training room and added,
"I'm not sure how much this 'gym' stuff with those machines will really help..."
A perfectly reasonable doubt.
By this world's standards, building strength meant honing it directly through combat.
But that mindset treated the body as merely a "lump that exerts force."
I looked up at Evelyn.
"Princess. Do you know where the biceps brachii muscle is located?"
"Biceps... what?"
The expected response.
"The human body has hundreds of skeletal muscles alone. Big ones, small ones, those specialized for contraction, others for endurance. They all have different roles and reactions."
I pointed to the training room.
"Until now, this world's training lumped them all together. But muscles grow precisely when used precisely."
That was the core of this regimen.
Sparring to grow stronger through blows.
Sure, if the goal was "how to get better at fighting," that worked.
In fact, I'd seen results using it to trigger Piel's hero awakening.
External stimuli.
Extreme combat.
Stimulating survival instincts to draw out potential.
But the power dormant in Aira's body wouldn't awaken that way.
If it could, she would've triggered it back when her sisters shot arrows at her and abused her in the elf kingdom.
The reason was simple.
This power only reacted in a state of total overexertion—pushing body and mind alike right to the brink of death.
The original story made it clear.
Eight years later.
When the rift hit the Argent territory due to Piel's hero awakening.
In the chaos as slaves fled, Aira attempted her escape too.
To flee Lucas's torture, worse than death, she ran desperately.
With vision half gone.
With lungs that tore at every breath.
Without a single night's sleep, just to avoid capture.
Simply to survive.
From the eastern edge of the Abellan Empire to the western Elf Kingdom—through rain, snow, dawn, or night.
With legs that had already lost several toes, nonstop for nearly ten days.
Only when her body surpassed limits upon limits, shattering even the notion of "overexertion"—
Like torn muscle fibers forcibly recombining, the power slumbering within Aira finally stirred.
An awakening that pledged every elven talent in exchange for overwhelming physical adaptability.
Deficit Awakening.
It wasn't talent—it was power born of sacrifice.
'Even for a grimdark story, that was too far.'
In the original, Aira lived her whole life in agony after that awakening.
Waking from nightmares, choking on terror, her body stronger but her mind scarred with chronic trauma that never healed.
That's why I scrapped that path from the start.
Recreate that "overexertion state" again?
Absurd.
Yes, Vengeful Goddesses was grimdark, but Aira's awakening arc was infamous as the "line-crossing section" where readers dropped out en masse.
Not for cruelty, but because it felt irredeemable.
So I wondered.
Is there a way to awaken this power without overexertion or breaking her spirit?
And the answer lay in something surprisingly straightforward.
Gym training.
In gym terms, overexertion isn't destruction—it's controlled damage.
Tear, but within recovery bounds.
Break down, but rebuildable.
The body is honest.
Use it precisely, and it grows precisely.
And in the original, Aira later said,
"If I'd known I had this power, I could've just overworked myself to death alone."
That was the hint.
So I set the course.
"One more! You can do one more!"
"Nngh... I can't, Master Lucas...!"
"Is this your limit already, Aira? Think that'll make me happy?"
"?! D-Do you... get happy watching my hips move up and down?"
"Huh? Uh... yeah! Let's say that!"
"Th-Then...!"
Aira gritted her teeth.
"I'll grind this 'deadlift' even harder!"
"Yes! That's the spirit!"
Her breaths came ragged, muscles trembled, limits crossed and receded time and again.
I watched closely.
Pulse.
Breathing.
Joint angles.
Muscle responses.
Without injury.
But no rest—right on the medically razor-thin edge.
Yet always within unbreakable bounds.
And on the tenth day.
Aira felt it herself.
A sensation unlike any before quietly rising from deep within her body.
The phenomenon that had taken eight years in the original story had finally opened its eyes—in just ten days, without breaking a thing.