Chapter 106

Chapter 106: What the hell are those lunatics?

Kkirukkkiruk!

Swoooosh, swoooosh!

Waves rippled and seagulls flew over the coast of Mudside.

“Alright, alright, take the goods!”

“Another ship coming in!”

Along the docks, there were about forty to fifty ships anchored, and even now, ships were constantly coming and going from the harbor.

It was a stark contrast to the desolate scene from just a few weeks ago, when it was practically deserted.

This lively sight was thanks to the social party that had been held. Since then, nobles and merchants had rushed to sign contracts, resulting in this change.

And about ten minutes away from there, on a sandy beach—

“One, two! One, two!”

“Hrrrrrrgh!”

The Daphne Knights, dressed in training uniforms, were in the middle of an intense training session.

As usual, massive logs were strapped to their backs, and several boulder-sized stones dangled from them.

Clack! Clack! Clackclack!

Every time the knights moved, the stones clashed against each other.

“Eeeeeeek!”

Each time they squatted and stood back up, their bodies swayed violently from side to side.

‘S-So heavy!’

‘The balance... I can’t keep my balance at all!’

On top of not being on the solid ground of a training yard but on sand, the added instability from the dangling stones made it nearly impossible to maintain their balance.

If even the slightest strength left their thighs, their bodies felt like they would collapse like paper. It was pure agony.

Wobble!

“Eeeeeeek!”

Just as Mikkelsen’s body leaned to one side and nearly toppled over—

“Hey, hey, what the hell is that? Can’t you hold your posture properly?”

A sharp shout came from the side—Hardin.

Mikkelsen responded with a tearful expression.

“But, Young Master. This is just... way too hard...”

“Then what, do you think training is supposed to be easy? You think it’s for comfort?”

“Well, I mean, you’re not wrong, but still...”

“Ah, shut up already!”

At the annoyed outburst, Mikkelsen shriveled up.

“Ugh-chachachacha!”

Hardin raised his body with the log and all the dangling stones.

Clackclack! Clackclack!

The wobbling stones collided, making a racket.

His whole body was drenched in sweat, yet his posture didn’t shake at all.

“Keep going! More, moooore! This is hard? This? When even the Young Master is doing it, you so-called knights dare to complain?!”

Gritting his teeth, Hardin raised and lowered his body again and again.

The knights’ faces gradually turned pale.

‘My god... is he even human?’

‘How is he doing that without using mana?’

‘Please stop, stoooop!’

Take it easy, for crying out loud!

Why the hell is he pushing himself that hard?

‘He’s a demon.’

‘Maybe he’s possessed by the ghost of someone who died from overtraining.’

Even if they wanted to say something, they couldn’t argue when he was doing it himself like that.

Besides, from what they heard…

 "I heard the Young Master showed up at the training yard again yesterday? Trained until dawn."

 "I saw it too. He was training until morning."

Even bizarre rumors like these were circulating now, to the point where people were starting to wonder if that man ever took a break.

Damn it... how can a person act like that 365 days a year?

‘Please stop, I beg you!’

‘Spare me!’

Just when everyone was silently screaming in their hearts—

“E-Everyone, hang in there! Since the Young Master is doing it like that... w-we should push ourselves even more!”

Manton shouted while his whole body trembled.

Next to him, Mikkelsen furrowed his brows and muttered under his breath.

“Nooo. Just shut up, please.”

Even without that guy adding fuel to the fire, it already felt like they were going to die!

As Mikkelsen and the other knights glared at him with eyes full of curses, Manton raised his voice again.

“Shut up, you say?! Am I wrong? As knights of the house, we should naturally follow the Young Master’s example... fo—follow... heeek, heeek...”

While ranting passionately—

Manton’s eyes gradually lost focus...

“Train... hard... Young Master... ugh! Blegh!”

Thud!

He fell flat on his back, rolled his eyes back, and began foaming at the mouth.

“Captain Manton!”

“Hey, hey, stay with us!”

The nearby knights rushed over and slapped his cheeks repeatedly.

Watching this, Hardin’s brow twitched.

‘What the hell. What did he even do?’

Hardin approached Manton, crouched down in front of him, and placed a hand on his chest.

Wuuuuung!

He infused mana into him.

“AAAAAGH!”

Suddenly, as if nothing had happened, Manton shot upright like lightning, eyes wide open as he stared at Hardin.

“Y-Young Master?”

“Stop slacking off and put in the work. Got it?”

“I wasn’t trying to slack off...”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. If you're awake, get back in line.”

“Ah... thank you!”

Thud!

Hardin picked up the fallen log beside him and personally slung it onto Manton’s back.

“Alright, alright, let’s go! Focus your energy! Fix your posture!”

“Y-Yes sir...”

“Put more strength in your response!”

“Understood!”

As training resumed again, everyone’s faces twisted even further.

‘He’s brutal. Absolutely ruthless.’

‘For the love of God, ease up already!’

They felt like they were dying from the pain and frustration, but what could they do?

It wasn’t like they could just refuse.

On top of that... with this situation dragging on, even doubts began to grow within the knights’ hearts.

‘Is this really right? How long are we supposed to keep doing this crap?’

‘If he’s going to train us, at least teach us a proper sword technique or something!’

It had already been over a year since Hardin became the commander of the knights.

And all they had learned during that time were so-called basic drills that beat their bodies to death, plus getting smacked around by Hardin.

Sure, they admitted their physical condition had improved and they’d gotten somewhat stronger. But—

‘Still, this isn’t it.’

‘What about swordsmanship? What about tactical training? We’re supposed to be knights, aren’t we? We should be learning a variety of things.’

The difference between what they imagined and Hardin’s training was simply too vast, and dissatisfaction inevitably piled up.

Of course, Hardin was well aware of this situation.

‘Well, those bastards… they’re just about ready now.’

Hardin glanced sideways at the knights who were training while he himself squatted and stood back up.

“Grrrrrr!”

“Heeek! Heeek!”

Even in a near-dead state, they somehow managed to continue the training.

Though their footing was unstable and their center of gravity constantly shifted, they endured it using their solid lower bodies and back muscles.

Even for knights, nine out of ten wouldn’t be able to manage this without using mana.

Which meant that those guys’ physical condition had improved considerably.

‘Their vessels... are just about finished.’

Hardin stood and exhaled through his nose again.

If he’d really wanted to, he could have taught them Wave Swordsmanship and all sorts of secret techniques long ago.

But until now, there hadn’t been a crisis serious enough for them to deserve that kind of training. And if he recklessly taught them too early…

‘That’d be the end of it.’

If you fill a vessel with something that doesn’t match its size, it’ll inevitably crack.

Moreover, an empty vessel is easy to expand, but expanding a vessel that’s already full is much harder.

If those guys were going to live up to the standard Hardin expected—not just as members of the Grand Blue Knight Order of the past, but as knights of Daphne who could each fulfill more than one man’s role—they first needed to have the right vessel.

That’s why he hadn’t filled them with trivial tricks. But now, they were reaching the vessel size Hardin had envisioned.

‘It’s time to start filling them.’

He let out a deep sigh.

Now, it was truly the beginning.

They had built the port, and soon, their house would purchase ships.

Once they began operating in the big waters, crises and hardships unlike anything they’d ever faced would constantly come their way.

To overcome that, Hardin’s strength alone wouldn’t be enough anymore. Those guys needed to truly carry their own weight.

Not only that…

‘I also need to start moving forward.’

Hardin briefly closed his eyes and reflected on his own body.

He could feel the firm muscles built throughout, and the vast increase in the mana within him.

Compared to when he first possessed this trash of a body, he was now incomparably stronger.

But even that wasn’t nearly enough.

‘Compared to the me of my past life… I’m at maybe 10%? No, not even that.’

Both his body and mana were in the same boat.

Instead of a mana circuit, he now used a new source called a core… Taking into account his experience, swordsmanship proficiency, and mana control ability, he was certainly much stronger than an average knight of his rank. But in terms of purely objective, raw combat power, Hardin still didn’t even reach the level of a 3-star knight.

Thinking back to how he was at this age in his previous life, he had grown stronger for sure...

‘Still a long way to go. A long way.’

Because what he aimed for wasn’t just to catch up to his past self.

Hardin controlled his breathing and closed his eyes for a moment.

Goooooo...

And then, an image of a monster flashed in his mind.

That wretched creature that had taken everything from him—his family and the members of his house.

Grit!

Hardin clenched his teeth, and a deep furrow formed between his brows.

And then—

“UAAAAAAH! Faster!”

With a fierce shout, Hardin pushed himself even harder.

Of course, the knights alongside him could only think—

‘J-Just kill me already…’

It was, truly… a living hell.

---

Around sunset—

As the orange light shattered across the sea—

“Training’s over!”

Thud!

Only then did Hardin drop the log to the ground and try to catch his breath.

His whole body was drenched in sweat, and his arms and legs visibly trembled.

“Well done, everyone.”

“I-I survived…”

The other knights also dropped their logs and collapsed onto the ground like corpses.

It really felt like they’d wrung out every ounce of strength they had.

‘Gotta rest now. Gotta rest real good today.’

‘Dinner’s gonna be chicken and beer…’

They comforted themselves with cheerful thoughts of what reward to give their battered bodies after surviving such a hellish day.

If they didn’t at least do that, they really might have died.

“Clean up and go rest, everyone. Don’t be late tomorrow.”

“Yeeees sir…”

We… we survived.

As Hardin turned his back and walked away, everyone let out a sigh of relief and nodded to one another.

“Let’s go too…”

“Brother Beryl, you buying dinner?”

“Uuugggh, isn’t it your turn this time?”

“Come on, there’s no such thing as turns. Whoever makes more should buy more, right?”

Just as they were about to wrap up the day in their own way—

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A deep, resounding foghorn suddenly blared from the direction of the sea.

“Huh?”

“What the hell was that just now?”

Everyone, from the knights still cleaning up to Hardin who had been walking ahead, turned their gaze in that direction.

“...H-Huh?”

Their eyes widened in shock.

Ships were approaching from beyond the breakwater.

The problem was, those ships were completely different from the ones that had been coming into the port until now.

“Wait, aren’t those warships?”

“Dear god… F-Five of them.”

Four fast ships with two sails each, and in their center, a massive flagship with five sails was sailing in formation toward them.

Cannons poked out from holes all along the ships, their fronts were reinforced with iron plating, and flying atop them were huge flags bearing a hammer insignia.

The sheer grandeur and intimidation of the fleet left everyone stunned. Manton blinked and said,

“T-That’s… isn’t that the fleet of the Count of Tread?”

“Count of Tread? That name sounds familiar… Are they the ones from the far northern edge?”

“Y-Yes, that’s right.”

The Count of Tread’s house.

Being from the same Luden Shire region, they had at least heard rough details about them.

They were known as one of the strongest and largest families in the area, said to rake in enormous profits by selling high-quality weapons produced in their massive forge to all corners of the continent.

‘But why the hell would people like that be coming here?’

Dragging warships into another house’s territory didn’t give off a good impression at all...

Just as Hardin was watching them closely with wary eyes—

“T-They stopped.”

“...Huh?”

The approaching warships all came to a halt at a set distance from shore.

Everyone blinked in confusion.

BOOOOM!

The cannons mounted on the warships suddenly fired, spewing flame as multiple massive iron balls were launched forward.

“What?”

Their eyes followed the trajectory of the cannonballs... until they saw a single ship at the end of their path.

‘No way.’

‘Are they insane?’

It was a small merchant ship that had just begun to leave the port.

“AAAAAARGH!”

“G-Get out of the way!”

Screams rang out from the merchant ship as people jumped overboard in a panic.

THUD! CRACKKSSSH!

The ship was completely obliterated, its shattered remains scattering through the air.

Everyone’s jaws dropped.

“...What the hell are those lunatics doing?”

Hardin scowled deeply in disgust.

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