WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 62: Training Helps a Lot
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Five days later, Class E's main building.
It was where the Academy's lowest-ranked students lived.
Wails had been echoing from the nearby training grounds since the early dawn.
“Huff, huff...!”
“Urgh, gah...”
“Ugh...!”
Every Class E student was drenched in sweat.
They looked utterly exhausted, as though they had spent the night at the training grounds.
The dawn air was still untouched by sunlight. Only the chilly dew cooled their burning bodies.
“Guaaah... At this rate, I’m really going to die...”
“Cough, I can’t breathe...”
They had been training for eight hours straight, with no sign of stopping.
The students could barely speak, only letting out dry coughing fits.
They were all training in the same space, but the details of their routines differed from person to person.
“Hup...!”
“Swing harder! Your strikes have gotten pathetic!”
“Damn it! You think I don’t know that? I can’t put any strength into it...!”
“Quit whining and come at me again!”
“Huff, huff... Hup!”
Clang! Claaang-!
On one side, students continued sparring as their weapons clashed.
On another, students cast magic, setting off all kinds of explosions beneath the roof.
A few were simply building stamina and strength, while others meditated.
“Fuck, how many laps around the training grounds have I run today...?!”
“You’ve still got a long way to go! You should be able to run twice that much!”
“I’m already dying hereee!”
“Big Bro said so, didn’t he? Once you build up your stamina, it’ll have much better synergy with your magic!”
“I’m doing it! I said I’m doing it! I’m still running, aren’t I?! Damn it, I can’t ignore Big Bro’s words...!”
The overnight training continued as they criticized and encouraged one another.
It truly was a fiery page of youth.
Each student held a booklet in their hands.
“Phew... So, what did it say I should do here again?”
“It says to rely more on instinct than calculations here...”
“Mine says I should mix in some martial arts. Is it telling me to develop a battle mage style?”
“It says to reverse-engineer my magic...”
“Mine says a bow suits me better than a sword. That’s why I’ve been trying a different main weapon since yesterday.”
“It’s explained in so much detail. The contents and methods are different for every person.”
“When did Big Bro even prepare all this...?”
“I heard he wrote them while cutting into his sleep every night for us...”
They were feedback notes.
I had painstakingly written one for every student.
I pointed out their shortcomings and wrote long, detailed explanations of how they could improve.
‘There are a lot of them.’
My goal was to develop every Class E student.
Still, there were too many of them for me to give each person individual attention.
So I came up with this method instead.
I would organize everything they needed and hand it over like a secret manual.
To prepare it, I had spent my time lying in bed and scribbling away with a pen.
‘It took nearly a month, I think.’
I had started preparing right after receiving the quest.
That was why I had spent so much time in bed.
“Training methods and meal plans are the basics... It even covers each person’s weaknesses.”
“It’s ridiculously long. Big Bro prepared all this alone?”
“I guess that’s Big Bro for you...”
“I almost feel guilty for being cared for this much.”
The secret manuals were quite thorough.
At some point, I had started writing down all sorts of things just because I was having fun.
It flowed out easily, like writing strategy guides in my previous life, and I filled page after page.
In the end, I handed everyone a thick manual of over two hundred pages. The kids read them and got emotional all on their own.
A few even teared up.
‘Recommended training routines, suitable combat styles, areas to improve, useful potions to take... I put in every little thing I could think of.’
I also didn’t forget to offer some encouragement before training began.
-I want to be with all of you.
-We won’t stop at Class E. We’ll all rise together.
-I’ll help you run toward higher classes and greater heights.
-If you believe in me and follow me, I won’t give up on any of you. I’ll help you until the end.
After I threw out those few simple lines, their eyes lit up, and they threw themselves into training.
Despite the intense regimen, not a single person had fallen behind yet.
Maybe it was because they had always been full of competitiveness, ambition, and inferiority complexes.
Now that I had shown them the way, they ran like demons possessed.
Thanks to that, some students were already beginning to see results after only five days.
“What... Didn’t you usually use a sword? You look way better with a bow.”
“Big Bro wrote that my magic would suit a bow better.”
“The power is insane. What kind of principle is that?”
“Of course, I’m still not proficient enough. It’s powerful, but the accuracy is really poor...”
The others caught their enthusiasm and threw themselves into training as well.
There was a reason none of them complained even when I dragged them out at dawn to train.
They were grateful to me.
They all wanted to grow stronger.
I had only satisfied their thirst.
‘Their loyalty seems to be getting a little too high, which is burdensome, but...’
No harm in it.
If I raised such dependable subordinates, I could respond flexibly to any incident that happened at the Academy in the future.
At the very least, I needed to build enough trust that they would leap into a deathtrap without hesitation if I told them to.
In that sense, I still had a long way to go.
‘Not that I have even the slightest intention of giving them an order like that...’
The point was to max out their favorability.
Eventually, these kids would join a war with the world’s survival on the line.
In the latter half of the original story, Grandia Academy collapsed, and the remaining students joined the continental Allied Forces to fight the calamities.
‘If I raise all of them to B-rank, it’ll be an enormous advantage in the final battle.’
Of course, the bar was high.
An overall B-rank stat level was around that of a top Class A student within the Academy.
Those with overall A+ ranks were usually professors or powerful figures scattered throughout the continent, so B-rank was already a considerable level.
Unless they were characters with absurd potential, B-rank was basically the ceiling for a student’s stats.
‘Of course... There is one student who’s already A-minus rank right now.’
The top student of the entire first year.
Rin Glacia.
She was simply a different species, so I would skip over her.
By the time she became a graduating third-year, she would become a crazy monster capable of fighting Javert one-on-one.
‘...Though that would be after Javert killed herself.’
I would think about those two later.
The matters right in front of me came first.
“Ahem.”
Among the Class E students under my care, there was one person whose training I had focused on more than anyone else.
Alice.
“Shall we begin?”
“Ah... Y-Yes!”
Alice had been standing there tensely, but she jolted and hurriedly nodded.
Her blue eyes trembled with anxiety.
It was only natural. Her ability itself was practically a trauma.
The girl bit her lip hard.
“Th-Then... I’ll try!”
Alice closed her eyes.
Before long, a pitch-black aura began to sweep across the area around her.
Rumbleee-!
“...”
Just like during the practical exercise, when she had been swallowed by a nightmare and gone berserk.
An ominous energy writhed around the girl.
Dark crimson mist slowly rose.
“Phew...”
She let out a long breath.
A black crown was set atop Alice’s head.
Still, its form was significantly diminished compared to the one I had seen before.
If what she showed during her rampage had been the completed version, the crown she wore this time did not seem to contain even one-tenth of its power.
“Good. Slowly, just like that.”
“Phew, phew...”
She took several deep breaths.
If she pushed herself and unleashed a nightmare, she could suffer mental damage.
That was why my instruction was to first get used to lower-level nightmares.
Alice continued concentrating with her eyes closed.
Flutter-.
Before long, a black cloak wrapped around her slender back.
The girl awkwardly recreated the appearance of the [Black Queen].
“...Awaken.”
Her black hair fluttered in the headwind.
Amid the swirling gusts, the queen’s lips moved.
Creeeak-!
Then, shapes flickered within the thick mist.
Playing cards. Soldiers with thin limbs attached to them, looking rather cute.
One by one, the soldiers appeared and lined up before the queen as if forming ranks.
“Mm...!”
Exactly six of them.
Alice shouted at the card soldiers.
“A-Attack...!”
Creak, creeeak-!
At her cry, the nightmares moved.
Their target was a tree thirty meters away.
The card soldiers swung their weapons at the tree all at once.
Crack! Crunch-!
The target was destroyed in an instant.
Although they were the weakest creatures she could summon, each seemed to be a two-star monster.
On top of that, they had the bizarre classification of [Dream]. They couldn’t be damaged by conventional means.
The only real method was to subdue the caster.
“Next attack! N-Next attack...!”
Alice continued issuing commands, gradually increasing their numbers.
The card soldiers had already multiplied to nine.
I signaled for her to continue.
“Good. It’s stable so far.”
“Y-Yes! Then next...”
But the problem arose after that.
The exact moment the number of playing cards reached ten.
Twitch.
<[······.]>
The soldiers stopped in place, outside Alice’s control.
The playing cards soon began convulsing as they turned pitch-black.
Human limbs burst out, and blood and entrails poured forth.
The cards transformed into grotesque forms in an instant.
<[♣♣♣♣♣]>
<[♠♠♠♠]>
Their bodies trembled violently before they attacked in every direction as if they had gone berserk.
Alice stepped back in surprise.
It seemed her commands no longer worked.
“Ugh, ngh...!”
Only then did I step in.
Footnotes:
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