Chapter 57 - The Training Ground’s First Trial

The spectacular scenery, so hard to find in the real world, had distracted me for a moment, but this place had been remodeled for my training. It wasn't a tourist attraction.

“Will the training work more or less the same way as before?”

“A little differently. Mental training to use dragon speech, and sparring to draw out the dragon power lying dormant within you—those will stay the same. But we’re adding one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

When I asked about the new training method, Rokan answered with an inscrutable smile. “This is where you first used dragon speech properly, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I really thought I was going to die.”

The memory was still vivid: pain so intense I’d thought death might be preferable, the exhilaration of using dragon speech for the first time, and the days of suffering afterward. Rokan’s words brought all those conflicting feelings rushing back.

... It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. The pain had been incomparably greater than the exhilaration.

“So I intend to add training modeled on what happened then. That eccentric fellow went to all the trouble of making it for his precious successor, who dreams of becoming a dragon in a human body. It would be rude not to use it.”

“That’s true, but...”

Did he mean I had to go through that awful pain again? Every time I trained?

But Rokan seemed to think it was the most efficient way for me to grow stronger in the shortest time. I thought it was the best option available right now, too. Still, having to endure that pain more than once... Once had been plenty.

The memory must have made me grimace without realizing it.

“Don’t worry. It won’t be exactly the same as last time. I don’t have some strange hobby of inflicting pain on people.” Rokan spoke in a gentle voice, trying to reassure me. “I don’t intend to push you that hard, either. I’ve modified the original magic circle, so I can adjust the difficulty precisely. You won’t suffer like you did then.”

Rokan’s reassurance helped, but something still bothered me. Didn’t that mean he was going to put me through the wringer right up until I passed out?

“...”

I knew I had to do it. But I couldn’t help worrying after the fear that experience had burned into me.

“You’re making such a fuss. For Shasha’s sake, you ought to be willing to jump into a fire.”

“Yes, sir!”

Right. I was scared, but I’d just have to keep my wits about me. If it was like last time, I wouldn’t die, and Rokan would step in to help if things got dangerous.

I drew my sword from my pocket dimension. Then, to steady myself before training began, I gently brushed the ring Sia had given me.

“I’m ready.”

“Good. We’ll start easy. I’ll watch you for a bit, then adjust the difficulty to suit you as we go.”

Rokan took a crystal orb from his pocket dimension and infused it with mana to begin the training. Figures of soldiers I’d seen before began appearing one by one across the empty field. And, just as I’d half expected, wyverns began materializing in the air.

The scene looked uncannily like the one I remembered. Even their numbers seemed about the same. He must have recreated the conditions perfectly.

“... Lord Rokan, didn’t you say we’d start easy?”

“It only looks difficult because there are so many of them. You can handle it.”

Though he said the difficulty was lower than before, the vivid memories made me shrink back in fear. I had first used dragon speech against them, but I’d also experienced terror and pain so overwhelming that they eclipsed the exhilaration.

This was probably... a kind of PTSD.

‘But still.’

Only by overcoming that fear and mastering it could I finally approach the heights I wanted to reach.

The situation might look the same as it had back then, but everything was different now. So I would face them without fear.

With my sword giving off a faint gray aura, I charged without a moment’s hesitation and began my sword dance.

Rokan had been telling the truth about starting easy. Everything was much simpler than it had been before. The aura at my sword’s tip grew denser, and the soldiers fell like autumn leaves without managing a single counterattack.

Then, at some point, aura began shooting from my sword without my even realizing it. Bolts of sword aura streaked from its tip and struck the wyverns in the air.

Manifesting sword aura on a blade was one thing; sending that aura flying at an enemy was on another level entirely. Swordsmen were inherently weak at ranged combat, but being able to project their aura rather than merely produce it helped overcome that limitation to some extent.

Back at the academy, a professor had even said you could divide swordsmen by whether they could project sword aura. This alone showed how dramatically I’d improved. I’d never imagined I could use such an advanced technique, much less do it without even trying. As far as I knew, only a minority of B-rank swordsmen could manage it.

The sword aura I projected was still weak, but successfully producing it at all was significant.

I glanced behind me and saw Rokan watching my training with a satisfied smile. “You’re doing well. Between the energy I can sense from you and the aura on your sword, I can truly feel how much you’ve grown.”

They say praise can make even a whale dance. In that case, why not put on a proper sword dance?

An ordinary hunter would rightly focus on learning to control sword aura, but my priorities were different. That was one thing, and this was another.

[“Freeze.”]

Feeling the energy of my sword, warmed by combat, and the faint dragon power within me, I attempted dragon speech against the enemies spread out before me.

It would have made for a wonderful sight if it had worked. Unfortunately, the dragon speech failed. Before using it, I’d worried, ‘What if my dragon speech works and cracks this place apart?’ So unlike last time, I’d aimed only to freeze the enemies.

It seemed I’d worried for nothing. Maybe my recent progress and Rokan’s praise had gone to my head.

“You still seem to have plenty left in you. In that case...”

Rokan fiddled with the crystal orb. For an instant, light flashed across the soldiers and wyverns, then vanished.

“Let’s keep raising the difficulty.”

* * *

“Hah, hah...”

When training finally ended, I collapsed where I stood, breathing hard. It reminded me of the time I’d sparred with Rokan and swung my sword nonstop for an hour. No, this might have been worse.

For one thing, getting hit by the monsters created by the system wasn’t entirely painless. Rokan had adjusted the magic circle here, but every hit still hurt a little. The pain wasn’t severe, yet it kept building until my body was screaming that it couldn’t take any more.

And then there was Rokan. He really had worked me until I was just about to collapse from exhaustion. He watched from behind and fine-tuned the difficulty in real time, keeping me in a state where I felt ready to drop but never quite did.

Ugh, I was out of breath. On the verge of exhaustion, I drank the potion Rokan handed me and recovered some energy.

“That was your first session at the new training ground. I’d like to hear what you thought.”

“I thought I’d already been through hell, but I didn’t know there was a worse one.”

I’d expected to start with a light warm-up, not train this hard from the outset. If we kept at it like this, I might see results sooner than I thought. But damn, it was grueling.

“It was hard, of course, but I was hoping for something more. It’s disappointing.”

“Dragon speech?”

“Yes.”

I’d done it once before. Both the Hunter Association and Rokan had confirmed that I was growing stronger at an absurd rate. And Rokan himself had said this place offered the best conditions for using dragon speech. So I’d thought I might manage it at least once, even by chance.

“You can’t expect results on the first try. From what I saw, you didn’t do badly. Now, let me give you some feedback on that session.”

Seated on a bench, Rokan patted the space beside him for me to sit.

“Today, let’s start with what needs improvement. What do you think was the main reason you couldn’t use dragon speech?”

“Could you give me a moment to think?”

What had I been lacking today? I sank into thought, searching for the answer. The way he’d asked suggested there was something I’d missed. I felt that something had been lacking too, but couldn’t put my finger on it.

I could say I’d used dragon speech last time because I’d taken off my suppressor and could access all my power, but that sounded too much like an excuse. I searched my memories of the entire two-hour session and still couldn’t find the answer. When Rokan saw I wasn’t getting it, he offered a hint.

“The basics.”

“Ah!”

Just one word, but it immediately brought something to mind.

“I was so focused on other things that I overlooked the basics, just as you said. And the most important basic is... ‘will,’ isn’t it?”

The most fundamental thing of all: an intense will. Thinking it over, I hadn’t felt much of that in myself today. Maybe the ideal conditions for dragon speech and my recent progress had made me complacent without realizing it.

Most importantly, unlike the time I’d successfully used dragon speech, I hadn’t been desperate to survive and escape this place. There was no excuse.

“... Now that I see it, I’m embarrassed.”

My head dropped in shame. Rokan and Sia were both doing everything they could to help me achieve my goal, while I’d taken it too lightly. Even if the setting and circumstances had changed, I should have felt the same desperation I had back then.

“Good. As long as you understand. Just don’t make the same mistake again.” Rokan patted me lightly on the back. “That doesn’t mean you did poorly. You handled your power well, and your control over its strength was generally good. It’s also worth praising you for not overdoing it by attempting overly powerful dragon speech.”

He went on to discuss what I’d done well and where I’d fallen a little short.

“Thank you.”

“Well, you seem to have rested enough. Let’s finish today’s training with some mental training as a cooldown.”

There was more training after all that? Today’s session had been so intense I’d assumed we were done, but apparently not.

Well, what could I do? I’d had a potion and enough rest. Time to get on with it. After my break, I followed Rokan’s guidance through some light mental training to finish the day.

“Ugh, I’m tired.”

“Well done. Training was harder than usual today, but you kept up.”

“You worked hard today too. Thank you.”

I was so tired I’d probably collapse the moment I got home. If I’d felt better, I would have stayed to admire the scenery before leaving, but I didn’t even have the energy for that. My head was so foggy I felt as though I might fall asleep right there.

Then one remark from Rokan snapped me awake.

“Minjun. I thought about what you told me earlier, and I think it would be best if I started a guild.”