episode_0032

As we briefly saw in class, Mathias was a classic two-handed swordsman. Even though it was a two-handed sword, it wasn’t something so stupidly large or long that it could cut a person to pieces just by its weight. It was a swordsmanship technique that used an ordinary longsword with both hands.

I don’t know if there are other terms for this in the past or present life, but that’s what I call them anyway. The swordsmanship I’ve learned are also called the Karsten Kingdom Swordsmanship or the Ritual Swordsmanship, so they’re not named in detail like a menu, like ‘a standardized swordsmanship that combines a horse-mounted spear and a short sword that’s easy to carry, convenient for cutting people up.’

But the most important thing right now is physical strength. I don’t know if Mathias’s skinny body will ever turn into something like the Bear Claw instructor, but at least he needs to have basic physical strength to train or do anything. With that in mind, I made Mathias wear all the basic training gear and run around the training ground like crazy.

Even though it is called a janggu, it is only for training purposes, so it is mostly made by roughly copying the shape, so it is lighter than it actually is. It is a bit rough, but it is probably a bit heavier than the weights I wore when I first took swordsmanship lessons. With this much, it should be easy to increase basic physical strength without putting too much strain on Mathias.

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There were times when I thought that.

“Huh..huh..”

What is that in front of my eyes? Is it a person or a slime? Ayla poked at the thing that was spread out on the ground, blending in with the ground, with her sword, but it didn’t seem to move. Ayla also looked dumbfounded. They were running together in the first place, and Ayla looked fine no matter how you looked at it.

“Matthias, how are you doing now? How long do you think it will take to rest before you can start training again?”

“1,10 minutes.. no, just 20 minutes..”

He can barely move, but he can recover his condition after resting for about 20 minutes. Is that the fear of the humans here? But that’s not the important thing. I learned the shocking fact that Mathias is weaker than me when I was 5 years old, but… the important thing is that there is a big difference between him and Ayla, who is also a commoner.

Although Ayla clearly has considerable talent and is good at math, I never thought there would be such a huge difference in physical condition. I think some kind of fundamental solution is needed.

“Our little cutie is really weak.. Are you eating properly?”

“Ugh… Ugh… What, I’m eating… It’s just school lunch, but…”

“Only meals!?”

The academy also had a cafeteria, but it didn’t serve breakfast or lunch, and was only open for dinner. I’ve never been there, but given that it was free, I could easily guess that the quality of the food wasn’t all that great.

Even though ordinary students usually skip breakfast, they buy lunch at a store or cook various dishes with friends they like, but Mathias just starved. Seeing his pitiful behavior, Ayla squatted down next to Mathias and started to slap his shoulder.

“Isn’t it because I don’t eat properly that I’m not growing tall and my body is so flabby! I guess I’ll get scolded some more by my older sister!”

Since Mathias and Ayla were the same age, it was obvious that they weren’t sisters, and according to my prediction, no matter how well I fed and looked after him, Mathias would never grow taller than Ayla, but I decided not to say such cruel words out loud for Mathias’ sake.

However, I couldn’t disagree with Ayla’s opinion. No matter how crazy the humans of this world are, superhumans with specs that are incomprehensible to common sense from their previous lives, in the end, if you don’t eat properly, fuel won’t run. I grabbed the back of Mathias’ neck and pulled him up. No, how can he be so light?

“From now on, physical training will be temporarily prohibited. I didn’t know it would be this serious…”

“Yeah..Yeah? T, that won’t work.. You have to keep trying to get stronger..”

“If the current Mathias were to spar with me and even brush my clothes, I would allow it. Would you like to try it?”

“Hee, heee.. I will follow your orders..”

It must have been that way long ago. Seeing Ayla pat Mathias’ body with her hands and shake off the dirt, she seemed quite familiar with it. Thinking about what she said about her older sister earlier, I wonder if she really has many siblings.

“So, princess, what are you going to do now?”

“You guessed it already, right?”

How can I change that frail, weed-like body? First, I have to make the roots strong.

“It’s a little early, but let’s eat dinner.”

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The place I arrived at was the barbecue place where I had my first meal at the Academy and where I have been visiting regularly ever since, becoming a regular. I gave a quick greeting to the bearded owner, with whom I have become completely familiar, and ordered the assorted sausages and barbecue as usual. It was a menu that both Cosette and I had eaten, but based on what I had observed of Agnes, a commoner, I thought that even if Ayla and Mathias ate twice as much as I expected, they would still have a hard time keeping up with Cosette.

A fearful and unknown woman. Her name is Cosette.

While I was waiting to hear Ayla preach to Mathias about the importance of eating and its connection to training, the meal was served. Ayla looked slightly surprised by the pressure of the hearty whole pig barbecue, and I put a few of the assorted sausages on Ayla’s plate and placed them in front of Mathias.

“Starting tomorrow, come to this restaurant for lunch and order this. Put the bill on credit and I’ll take care of it. Is that okay?”

“Well… I don’t care, but… This girl is eating this all by herself?”

“Woman, woman, you’re not a girl..!”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. I thought you were my friend.”

Ayla giggled and poked Mathias in the ribs, saying that he was being misunderstood because he didn’t eat properly. Of course, even if Mathias had proper eating habits, someone would mistake Mathias for a woman, but she decided to keep such cruel words a secret for Mathias’ mental health.

Mathias, who had been sulking, took a bite of the sausage and his eyes immediately turned bright. Well, this store was considered quite good based on my evaluation of all the stores in the Academy, but if he had only been eating free meals from the cafeteria for a year, I could understand his reaction.

Ayla diligently piled pork barbecue meat on Matias’ plate, who was eating diligently with his small mouth. He would never be able to finish it all. It seems that Ayla was quite surprised by Matias’s eating habits, as she was naturally taking care of him, not with any intention of bothering him.

I spoke to Mathias as we ate our super-fast meals, very quickly and swiftly, but without losing any of our dignity.

“Matthias. This may be shocking, but you are… probably in a weaker state than the ‘existing’ students in their childhood. If you don’t eat properly and build up your body for a while, you won’t be able to keep up with the training.”

“That, that kind of..”

What are ‘existing’ students?

This is the most commonly used metaphor for nobility in this academy. Words or expressions that directly reveal status are forbidden, but in the end, if you talk indirectly, you can easily get around it.

In fact, if you step even one step outside the Academy branch, you can tell who you are and where you are! Isn’t the ban really the minimum safety measure that prevents the nobles from openly trampling on or discriminating against the commoners?

A is obviously a noble, and B is obviously a commoner. A, B, and everyone else knows this, but everyone pretends not to know and just turns a blind eye. This is the situation at this academy.

“You must have learned this in your theory classes at the College of Knights. How important is logistics in a wartime situation? It certainly has meaning in replenishing worn-out equipment, but ultimately, food is the most important. No matter how brave and powerful a knight is, he must eat as long as he is human. You have just neglected that up until now.”

There actually exists a knight who died halfway through starvation. He was a great knight who was famous at the time, but he offered himself as a hostage to protect the monarch, and after various incidents, he asked to be released if he could defeat three knights in a duel, and the enemy monarch accepted.

Up to this point, it would have been a story that could be told as a fairy tale or a heroic tale. If the knight had defeated the three men, it would have been told as a heroic tale, and if he had not defeated them, it would have been told as a tragic song. However, what happened next was a little different from what the knight had expected. After accepting the duel, the monarch asked the knight to choose a duel, and locked him in solitary confinement for a week.

The knight endured the humiliation with superhuman patience and maintained his honor, but he died in the first duel. Of course, the monarch ended up being reviled even in his own country as a scoundrel who did not know honor.

“I won’t tell you to finish your plate, but please continue to eat as much as you can. It would be better if you take the leftovers with you and eat them in the dormitory for breakfast. I will check to see if you are coming in regularly every day, so don’t think about missing them.”

Mom, don’t you know how to cook rice?