Rewards and Consequences (3)
Teaching someone else is harder than it looks. To teach properly, you have to know the subject inside and out yourself. By that standard, I’m probably not a good teacher. I may be strong, but I lack any real talent for explaining things or any broad knowledge. My fighting style alone proves it—just overwhelming firepower to crush the enemy. That’s the extent of what I know.
Still, if the goal is simply to make someone stronger, there’s no need for proper lessons. People tend to grow tougher when you just throw them into the fire and let them figure it out.
“Krrraaaagh!!! Aria! Camilla! Plea!”
“Quiet, Siwoo. The more you resist, the worse it’ll hurt.”
I straddled Siwoo’s thrashing body and raised my fist. He was screaming and twisting on the floor.
“You said you’d teach me! You said you’d teach me! This is just violence!!!”
“It’s proper training, believe it or not.”
Thud! Thud! My small fists hammered into him. Even though my raw strength wasn’t that high, I’d wrapped mana around both arms, so it probably felt like he was being hit with rocks.
“Ow! Ow!”
His shrill cries kept leaking out, so I punched him in the mouth to shut him up. It must’ve hurt… I understood that. But if I wanted to make him stronger, there was no helping it. The reason I was hitting him with tears in my eyes was simple: defense training. Also known as toughness training. Every time you take an attack laced with mana, your body’s mana resistance rises by a tiny amount.
“This is toughness training. Essential for a close-combat hero like you.”
Heroes who only shoot abilities from a distance don’t really need it, but close-range fighters like Siwoo constantly clash with demons in melee. Is it realistic to expect him to never take a single hit? Of course not. This training reduces fatal wounds to serious or light injuries. Think of it as the reason top heroes can take swords to the bare body and keep going.
“So shut up and just take it!”
“Ow! Ow! Aaaagh!”
After an hour of my fists raining down on him, Siwoo’s entire body had turned reddish and swollen to nearly one and a half times its normal size. Any more and he’d start bruising badly, so I stopped.
“Good work.”
“I-Is it over…?”
I nodded. Siwoo’s lips curled upward for a moment before his eyes rolled back and he passed out cold. He’d wake up on his own if I left him there.
“Next.”
I turned to the two girls trembling behind me.
“Um… Plea? I’m a backline fighter, so I don’t need toughness training, right?”
“Hiiik… Please spare me! I’m mid-line too, you know?! When does a sniper ever fight in close quarters?!”
Hmm. They had a point. Normally, the front line’s job is to keep attacks from reaching the mid and back lines. But the world doesn’t work that conveniently. Heroes don’t always fight in neat parties like during the last C-rank demon raid. Most demon subjugations are handled by a single hero. That means backliners have to buff themselves and trade blows with demons directly, while midliners have to keep their distance and still beat the demon down. So…
“Enough excuses. Aria, you’re first.”
“Hnnngh…”
Aria whimpered but still offered herself up, and I gave her the same merciless beating. Camilla screamed too, but she endured it as well.
“Phew… Good work.”
By the time I wiped the sweat from my brow, three hours had already passed.
“Ugh… Is it finally over?”
“Yeah. Siwoo, you feeling okay?”
“No, I feel like I’m dying…”
Despite the complaints, he was moving around just fine. Watching him poke at the half-conscious Aria and Camilla, it looked like he’d already recovered from the damage.
‘That gem really is effective.’
At this point in the original story, Siwoo would still struggle against Aria in close combat, yet here he was casually moving around after taking my punches. He’d already surpassed her and could probably hold his own against second- or third-years. Considering the semester had only started a little over a month ago, his growth rate was absurd. If he kept improving like this, he might even beat me by graduation.
“Nice.”
“What?”
“Just talking to myself.”
“Lame… Anyway, Plea, want to go grab something to eat together? These two look like they’ll be out for a while, so I figured we could pick up some food for when they wake up.”
Now that he mentioned it, it was almost dinnertime. I was starting to get hungry too, and Aria and Camilla would probably need at least another two hours before they stirred. Following Siwoo’s suggestion made sense.
“Sure. Let’s eat first, just the two of us.”
“J-Just the two of us…?”
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“No… not really…”
If there wasn’t a problem, then what was with that red face? Ah.
“Right, there was that thing at the dessert shop. Sorry about that… If eating with me makes you uncomfortable, we can eat separately.”
Aria had scolded me harshly after the community found out we’d pretended to be a couple while eating cake. She’d smacked her forehead and launched into a long lecture. Thinking back on it now, why had I even done that…? It was all the director’s fault. If that incident made Siwoo uncomfortable about going to the cafeteria with me, I should probably back off. It had been a while since I’d eaten alone anyway. Maybe I could find somewhere tasty…
“No, I’m just nervous. It’s not like I’m uncomfortable or anything.”
“Oh, really? That’s a relief.”
When I started to leave, Siwoo grabbed my arm. Honestly, I didn’t want to eat alone anymore either. This worked out nicely.
“Then let’s go together.”
I took his hand with an awkward smile and headed toward a nearby restaurant.
*
“Ugh… Where am I…?”
“Awake already?”
Aria still looked half-asleep as she blinked around in confusion. I splashed some cold water I’d bought earlier onto her face.
“Kyaaah! What are you doing?!”
“That’s how the internet says you’re supposed to wake up a friend.”
Aria’s anger visibly deflated into a long, exasperated sigh. It was a lie, of course, but claiming “I saw it on the internet” usually got her to forgive me when she was mad. While I was congratulating myself internally, Siwoo stood up from behind me and gave me a solid flick on the forehead.
“That’s a lie. I saw your mouth twitching before you poured the water.”
“What—?! Siwoo, you traitor!”
I whipped my head around to glare at him, but before I could, a hand grabbed my chin.
“Plea!!!”
“Ow! I’m sorry, Aria!”
Aria’s merciless flick landed right where Siwoo had hit me earlier.
—Thwack!
“Ow! Aria, using mana for that is too much!”
“You earned it! Besides, you were the one beating me up with mana earlier!”
“That was training—ow!”
I got another hit for talking back. Clutching my throbbing forehead, Aria crossed her arms and launched into a lecture, reciting some prayer-like speech she’d apparently picked up somewhere.
“So, you shouldn’t take advantage of a friend’s kindness.”
“Yeees…”
After thirty minutes of nonstop scolding, a strange sound reached my ears.
—Grrrowl
“Aria, are you hungry?”
Her face turned bright red. She cleared her throat awkwardly and gave a tiny nod.
“…I’ll stop the lecture here. It’s getting late, so we should get some rest.”
“Before that, take this.”
I handed her the kimbap and instant fish cake soup I’d bought earlier. She tilted her head in surprise.
“Oh… Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“Don’t worry about it. I picked it up while Siwoo and I were out eating.”
“Thank you… Wait, you went to eat with Siwoo?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason…”
Aria trailed off, glanced between Siwoo and me with a strange look, then blushed furiously and lowered her head.
“Are you feeling sick?”
“N-No! I just got a little warm after yelling earlier. Anyway, I’ll enjoy this.”
“Okay!”
Aria cooled her flushed face and unwrapped the food. The kimbap had cooled a bit, but it still looked delicious, and the fish cake soup was still steaming. She must have been starving—she finished everything faster than usual.
“That was good.”
“No problem. Camilla still hasn’t woken up, though…”
“I’ll check on her.”
Aria moved over to the collapsed Camilla, placed a hand on her forehead, and focused for a moment.
“She’s just sleeping. At this rate, she probably won’t wake up until dawn… I’ll take her back to her room.”
“Thanks.”
Aria hoisted Camilla onto her back and left the training room.
“Well… I should get going too.”
Siwoo spoke awkwardly, probably because it was just the two of us now, and started toward the door. I grabbed his hand.
“There’s something we need to do together… Can you spare a little time?”