The guild’s training grounds were where adventurers’ passion gathered.

A place where swords and magic clashed.

In Yeomyeong’s training grounds, no one even noticed when someone shouted their battle cry.

But today, an unusual silence fell over these training grounds.

What caught everyone’s attention wasn’t a massive explosion or a match between masters.

Thwack-!

It was an impact so soft you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention.

That tiny sound made everyone in the training grounds turn their heads.

Ugh-

Gyeoul fell backward from what seemed like an insignificant hit.

The moment Gyeoul collapsed clutching her nose, everyone in the training grounds froze.

Including Kwon Arin who had thrown the punch.

“…?”

Kwon Arin stood frozen with her fist still extended, unable to pull it back.

She stared blankly at her fist before looking at where Gyeoul had fallen.

“Gyeoul!”

Seeing Encia running toward Gyeoul snapped Kwon Arin back to reality.

She crouched next to Gyeoul to check her condition.

Blood was flowing from where her punch had connected squarely with her nose.

“Ugh…”

Gyeoul let out a soft moan.

The pain must have been intense as she rolled back and forth.

Of course it would hurt – an eight-year-old child had just taken a punch from an adult woman.

And not just any woman, but an adventurer.

“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry…!”

“No, no, I askhed you to do it.”

Gyeoul’s voice came out nasally from the nosebleed.

Though her eyes were slightly red, she wasn’t crying.

“Oh god, I feel terrible about this.”

“It’sh fine. It wash all my fault. The ability didn’t work.”

Swipe swipe-

Gyeoul wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

Red blood stained her small hands everywhere.

“Gyeoul, use this to wipe.”

“Nyaa.”

Still dizzy from the impact, Gyeoul wiped her nose on the cloth that was offered.

After crumpling it and stuffing it in her nose, she realized it was part of Encia’s clothes.

“H-how is your face? Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I just got careless, not knowing the ability had usage limits.”

“Y-yeah…”

Thank goodness she wasn’t badly hurt.

Kwon Arin let out a relieved sigh.

She glanced around at the other guild members.

“What happened to Gyeoul?”

“Looks like an accident during training.”

“Seems she was practicing dodging punches.”

Though she’d expected to be scolded, neither Encia nor the other guild members criticized Kwon Arin.

They treated it as just another training accident.

If this had happened when she first met Gyeoul, she would have faced killing intent from the guild members.

But she had changed since then, and no one got angry.

They trusted her enough to assume it was just a mistake.

Kwon Arin felt both embarrassed and proud of how much she had changed.

It was all thanks to Gyeoul.

She ran to the training room cabinet and pulled out a potion she had been saving for emergencies.

Though expensive, she didn’t mind using it for Gyeoul.

“Gyeoul.”

When Kwon Arin returned and started unscrewing the potion cap, Gyeoul frantically waved her hands.

“It’s okay. I can handle it.”

“But still…”

“I’m really good at dealing with this kind of thing.”

“Hmm…”

That was probably true for Gyeoul.

Kwon Arin lowered her eyes with guilt.

But truthfully, Gyeoul was thinking that it actually hurt quite a bit.

Was it because she wasn’t used to being hit anymore?

Even with her mana-enhanced body, her slightly bruised nose hurt terribly.

‘Have I gotten that much weaker?’

It didn’t use to hurt this much before.

How could she build up her endurance again like in the old days?

As she pondered this, she remembered seeing adventurers doing endurance training.

‘I should do some endurance training too.’

Her family used to say there was no need for it.

But now it seemed necessary.

Gyeoul got up with a grunt.

The surrounding adventurers looked relieved to see her standing normally.

**

After things settled down, Kwon Arin and Encia resumed their sparring.

Not wanting to disturb them, I quietly slipped out of the training grounds.

I headed for the training area with machine assistance.

As I was hurrying there, I sensed the children at the entrance.

“King!”

“Master!”

The children spotted me and stamped their feet excitedly.

Though their feet moved quickly, they approached slowly.

There was a rule against running in the training ground corridors.

“Gyeoul, going to work out?”

Saebyeok asked, looking at the training room I was heading toward.

It was a room full of various machines for assisted training.

And it had the endurance training machine I wanted.

“I’m going to do some endurance training there.”

“Endurance…?”

Saebyeok showed rare surprise.

That suggested how painful endurance training could be.

“I won’t go too hard.”

“Okay. Got it.”

I entered the machine training room with the children.

We looked around at the various machines while heading to the endurance training equipment.

Thwack-! Thwack-!

“Ow! Aagh!”

“Just hold on a little longer!”

“Hehehe. Look at their face.”

Other adventurers were already at the endurance training area.

I’d heard it was sometimes used as punishment, and seeing their pained expressions made it look scary.

“Hey, that guy-“

“Shh.”

“Why suddenly… Oh, Gyeoul’s here? Come to watch?”

The guild adventurers welcomed us with kind smiles.

They were people we often saw around the guild.

“Yes. I want to try using the machine.”

“T-this one…? It’s quite painful though?”

“Yes. I heard the pain helps build endurance.”

I’m an adventurer too.

I should know how to endure some pain.

Until recently, I was really good at it.

I clicked my tongue regretfully.

“But we’re not done yet, so you’ll have to wait a bit?”

“That’s fine, I’ll wait.”

“It, it might be quite a while…?”

“Yes, I’ll wait however long.”

As I sat down near the endurance machine, the guild adventurers exchanged glances.

I couldn’t tell what they were communicating with their eyes.

“W-well then, should I give it a try?”

The largest of the three adventurers using the machine climbed onto it.

The machine had you stand and secure your limbs, then heavy balls would emerge and strike different parts of your body.

Thwack-! Thwack-!

“Ugh! Cough!”

He chose level five out of ten.

The ball hitting his stomach looked painful just to watch.

“Ugh! Cough!”

“Just hold on a little longer…!”

“I-I can’t take anymore! Cough!”

“No, just a bit more!”

“Argh!”

The man on the machine screamed.

Yet no one told him to get down.

He endured the machine’s attacks non-stop for twenty minutes.

“Help…”

“Keep enduring! If you get down now it’s over!”

“Ack…!”

The female adventurer who shouted for him to endure clenched her fists.

She kept glancing at me too.

“G-Gyeoul, doesn’t it look really scary? Maybe we shouldn’t do it?”

“Hmm… I was planning to start slowly from the lowest level.”

“B-but that guy up there has great endurance, he could probably last three hours? You’ll have to wait really long? Maybe we should do something else today?”

Three hours.

Could Yeomyeong Guild adventurers really endure that long?

I looked up at the adventurer on the machine with surprised eyes.

He was nearly unconscious.

“He’s asking for help though…”

“Ah, no, people working out always say they can’t go on but keep going.”

“Oh…”

“That guy’s endurance is so good he could probably do this all day? Gyeoul might not get a turn today.”

Hehehe.

Just as the female adventurer laughed,

the man receiving endurance training collapsed forward limply.

The training machine raised its mechanical arm as if declaring victory.

“…”

The female adventurer looked down at him with bewildered eyes.

After sighing deeply, she climbed onto the machine herself.

“I-I have weak endurance so I’ll need to lower the level.”

She lowered it to level one, then after some thought raised it to level three.

Probably because level one was marked “For Children.”

Thwack thwack-!

“Aah!”

She screamed as soon as the machine activated.

Looking beside me, I saw Levinas covering her eyes with her ears in fear.

‘It is scary.’

But level one should be fine for me, right?

I thought this while waiting for the woman to finish.

She lasted thirty minutes, longer than the male adventurer before her.

The lower difficulty probably let her endure longer.

After waiting through the next adventurer’s turn too, it was finally my turn.

It had taken almost an hour and a half of waiting.

‘Is level one too low?’

After debating between levels one and two, I set it to two.

The children’s level seemed too weak.

‘They endured level three for thirty minutes so…’

As soon as I climbed onto the machine, I noticed the adventurers in the training grounds glancing at me.

Levinas had uncovered her eyes and was looking up at me worriedly.

“King, will you be okay?!”

“Not sure…?”

Just as I shrugged at Levinas,

Gaeul pointed somewhere in alarm.

“Master…!”

A large ball was flying toward my stomach.

I squeezed my eyes shut at its considerable speed.

Thwack-!

“…!”

The heavy ball struck precisely at my solar plexus.

My ears and tail shot straight up from the overwhelming pain.

“…”

I silently got down from the machine.

I stood there for a while with wide eyes, saying nothing.

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