Zimo's joy and William's pain

William had awakened an hour before dawn. He felt quite rested. He stood up and lit two large candles on the table in his room. When he stood in front of the bronze mirror, he noticed that his body was almost completely healed, except for some minor aches and pains. All the bloating he felt yesterday was gone.

He was hungry like crazy, but still, because of his previous life and not being used to this noble life, he could not wake the maid and ask her to prepare dinner. Anyway, he was going to go to practice soon. 'I'll eat later,' he thought.

When he arrived at the training ground, no one was there yet. Half an hour later, when it started to get light, he saw Pierce, who had carried him in yesterday, coming with a torch.

Pierce grinned when he saw William waiting in the dark. "You're early." He said.

William was already ready. "Yes sir!" he greeted Pierce.

Pierce just grinned. 'I hope you will not regret it.' He was passing through it.

About half an hour later, twenty other soldiers arrived. They all still looked sleepy, and tired. They frowned when they saw the little brat come before them. But they remained silent after what Pierce said yesterday. Everyone was lined up in order of height. William also joined them. He took the last place.

Pierce told them to follow him. They came to a small warehouse. Pierce entered the warehouse and came out with three logs one-meter-tall and one-foot-wide in his lap. He emptied the warehouse, scattering them across the entire team, starting with the tallest man.

When it was William's turn, he placed the log in front of him. With the slightly brightening air, William was able to make out the shape of the log. It was the same white iron tree as yesterday. But this time it wasn't in the form of a sword. It looked like a long thin spear shaft. It was two meters tall and as thick as William's arm.

When William looked to his right, he saw everyone putting logs around their necks. He also managed to put it on his neck, albeit with difficulty. 'Weight training?' he thought.

It was. After that, Pierce led them out of the castle gate with logs on their backs and told them to run ten laps around the castle.

William was able to complete the first lap without any problems, but in the middle of the second lap, he realized that his legs were starting to ignore him as he was now running with the weight on his back. He was able to finish the second lap slower. But it was almost twice the time. Meanwhile, other soldiers continued to run, creating an earthquake effect. When he finished the second lap, the soldiers were starting their fifth lap.

One of the soldiers purposely came in front of him as he was running and shouted, "You can only dream brat!"

Then he scraped his foot extra on the ground, sending a wave of dust and dirt into William's face.

He couldn't even wipe the dust and dirt off his face because of exhaustion. Then he said, 'Pray I don't get stronger, asshole! I'll beat you first,' but he was too tired to speak. In the third lap, he only started walking slowly like a turtle.

Nobody helped him. He saw Pierce send them into the castle ten laps later but waited for himself.

He had finished a total of ten laps, albeit slowly. As he threw the log from his back, he saw the sun in the sky almost reaching its peak.

Pierce glared at him angrily. "Who told you to drop the log?" he snapped.

William said, "Sorry, trainer!" ' putting the log on his back again, this time with more difficulty.

"Now go back to the training ground!" Pierce said.

"Yes, sir!"

When he crawled back to the training ground, he saw the other soldiers happily eating and relaxing in their huge bath vats. He was stunned by the sight he saw.

"Hehe, brat, this is a special diet your father prepared for his soldiers." He said and continued.

"When these soldiers get stronger, they go into the black forest and hunt powerful animals. The blood and flesh of these prey become food for the new soldiers to become stronger. This bathroom is your family's secret. It's okay that you don't know for now, but once you get into it, you'll understand why it's a secret." He said grinning.

"Now go eat your food!" said. He poked his back with a thin stick.

When he walked over to the table, he was immediately shaken by the notion that he was privileged. Whatever was prepared for the soldiers, he would eat the same. He didn't even have milk, which he always drank so faintly. He loved milk in this world. Especially light green tiger milk that they had given him from the age of two, he would give his all.

The only difference from the others on the whole table was that his tiger blood was diluted. He also knew that his body wouldn't be able to take it. That's why he didn't care. He ate the tiger meat in large bites and drank its blood. Then Pierce pointed with his stick to the bathtub that contained the other soldiers.

When William came to the huge vats, he saw that all the soldiers were naked. Almost all of them had an elephant trunk in their lower parts. He couldn't help but compare it to his own. Then he convinced himself that he felt all this because his body was smaller.

Embarrassed, he undressed and jumped into the barrel. He felt unbearable pain in his body as he entered the water. It was like someone was stabbing knives all over his body. He was underwater for a minute. During this time, however much he suffered and feared drowning, he could not rise to the surface of the water. He didn't move his body. It was as if his body was completely locked up.

After a genius moment, the pain began to slowly disappear. He felt his body regain control and surfaced before he drowned. Ten minutes later, all the pain in his body was gone, giving way to relief. It was as if all his pores were breathing. He had never felt such a feeling before. He wanted to fall asleep, but he kept himself awake, albeit forcibly.

He enjoyed this pleasure for another half hour. Then he awoke to Pierce's voice.

"Everybody get up! Line up on the training ground!" said.

William's eyes widened as he stood up and looked at his body. 'Is this the cursed healing bath from the legends?' he thought. Almost all of yesterday's wounds were healing. The crusted ones fell off, and a new skin layer began to grow in its place. All the bruises and redness on his skin were completely gone. Also, all the tiredness he had just experienced was completely gone. Right now he felt as vigorous as a tiger ready for its prey.

They did body training in the afternoon and even almost all week long. The first day was just running and endurance training. The second day was training to climb to the top of the walls around the castle, again with weights, using ledges. He had not climbed more than ten meters. Each time, he fell on his back, suffocating with the momentum he gained. On the second day, all his hands were blistered and his whole back was covered with wounds. Without the miraculous effect of the healing bath, the dream of becoming stronger would end here.

The third day was again a patrol with weights. But this time, small pieces of white ironwood were tied with rope to his arm, leg, and upper body like armour. He thought it was the hardest training. Because his father's land was both wide and warm, they could not take any water with them. The other men would have been tired as well as their whole body was covered with a layer of sweat. There was no need to even mention William's condition.

But for some reason, he liked this training the most. They had toured the surrounding small hills, and even spotted various creatures. When they climbed a hill, they saw a family of foxes. Pierce called this fox ' Silver Clawed Fox'. Then he identified them. 'The strongest part of these foxes is their claws. After all, it even got its name from there. Its weak point is its tail. Because it's so sensitive, cutting off its tail will drive it crazy with pain. So no matter how smart it is, it starts acting crazy when you damage its tail, and this is the best opportunity to kill it.'

The fox family only looked at them from afar. They were known to be intelligent. They chose not to attack such a large number of people. Pierce said they shouldn't be bothered because they're in training. After all, they had no weapons with them. But when William made eye contact with the mother fox, he felt a cold.

That fox understood that he was the weakest of the group. He was sure that if he left the group, he would be their lunch at the first opportunity. He quickly ran and caught the rest of the group. He was walking closer now.

The fourth day was like hell training. Again like the previous day, their entire body was covered with white ironwood. This time they started with a horse stance, changing stances every half hour. Pierce would hit the body parts that had a mistake with his stick until they corrected the mistake. Pierce was ruthless about it and didn't take pity on William either. After the horse stance, they ran a duck walk, a squat-style move, and a bumpy path.

On the fifth day, it wasn't that painful. This time they were learning to ride horses. William had never seen a horse before, but he quickly realized that this horse was nothing like the horses in his world.

This horse was blood red. Its eyes were shining like rubies. Its hooves were like metal. Its tail resembled a whip. It wasn't made of hair like in his previous world. It was like a lizard's tail, but thin. At the tip of its tail, it looked like a spearhead. It was one and a half times as tall as the horses in his previous world. Pieces of all of the animal's muscles were visible under its thin skin.

Pierce said they were the most docile creatures in the black forest. So they were relatively simple to tame. These horses were one of his family's two main sources of income. Even after decades of accumulation, they only had about sixty of these horses. The price of a live one was as high as fifty gold. It should be remembered that with ten gold coins, a family of five could spend the year lavishly.

As he leapt atop the horse, he was greeted with ruby-like eyes. Fear rose within him. 'This horse is a wild animal!' he thought. After a while, the horse took its eyes off him. William finally relaxed.

The main purpose of this training was to hit the obstacles on the road with the logs in their hands while on the horse. William had barely caught a single one. He had only been able to lightly touch the corner of one of them. He didn't have a problem with the horse, it was very cooperative, but he couldn't do it because of his heavy stick.

The sixth day was the last day of training. This time there was real combat training. Everyone had sticks of white ironwood in their hands. He wielded a relatively small wooden sword compared to the others his father had used to train him. However, the wooden swords in the hands of the other soldiers almost looked like a door.

This was motivating William to constantly get stronger. He felt that the day he could train in the same way as those men were not far away. Until noon, they imitated the poses and strokes Pierce had shown them. They learned the cutting, punching, knocking, and disabling strokes. But the afternoon training tired him the most. Pierce split everyone into groups of two, and one side told them to duel 'till they die'. Since William was the twenty-first person, he had no rivals. Just when he thought he had survived the training, Pierce said he was his rival.

Perhaps he had died at least fifty times in that afternoon's training. Each time Pierce had picked him up and beat him again and again.

He was enjoying the sleep he hadn't felt in his other life for a week. The sleep after the healing bath was the best. Even though he was mentally tired, he was happy to see his body come alive with every bath. He felt stronger already. He was so sure of his strength that if he went to his previous world with this state, he could knock out the strongest boxer with one punch.

He spent his seventh and final rest day in his father's study, reading.

He was beginning to understand this world more and more. For now, there were almost no books on warriors and mages. He could understand a little that they had to be a secret and were monopolized. In general, knowledge book-style encyclopedias were also limited to this circle.

Take, for example, the 'Black Forest survival handbook' he is currently reading.

It was a finger-thick book. According to what he heard from his grandfather's stories and mentions, there were too many kinds of creatures in this world to count. If you started counting all of them now, except for the ones that haven't been discovered yet, he was sure that the way from the Jade Tiger Town to the Jade Wind Kingdom's capital would be.

The book he was holding contained only the part from Jade Tiger Town to a hundred kilometres deep in the Black Forest. The author of the book referred to himself as 'Strong Torim'. Even with that title, he could only go a hundred kilometres deep, and this area was still considered 'outside' the Black Forest. 'God knows how deep it is.' He added at the end of the book.

Even in these outer regions, gold-rank creatures that he didn't know yet were prowling. Most of the creatures were territorial. For example, the area closest to the Town belonged to the jade tigers. Seeing another creature in this area was a sign that things could go wrong. At any moment the town could fall victim to an animal attack. One of the two remaining meanings was that that creature was tired of living and wanted to be the food of the Jade Tigers. Last but not least, it was a territorial war. It was another kind of powerful creature that had come to fight for the territory with the leader of the Jade Tigers. The stampede caused by the war between the two was the end of the adventurers who were in the jungle at that moment. Creatures fleeing from war would smash everything in their path at the cost of their lives.

The town was also mentioned in the book. He was talking about how this town has great potential and could be a paradise for adventurers. The only problem was that the territory of the Jade Tigers was very large. Therefore, animal diversity was less. He could not go a hundred kilometres deep, even his father did not dare, and it was comforting to read these words from someone who had visited this forest. This meant that Baron Seth and the other two didn't want their land for that reason. All he could think of was that they wanted something from his family. He immediately thought of the healing bath.

He learned that this healing bath was made with herbs collected from the region of the Jade Tigers. William did not know what these herbs were. The number of people who knew in the family was limited. He guessed that, apart from his family, only their doctor, Mr Huya, knew.

Mr Huya was an experienced doctor and also a magician. He had thought that his affinity was definitely with plants. He had only seen himself once, preparing the healing bath with the servants. He was throwing grasses that turned into dust into the water. He was a lovely old man. He had been working in the barony since his grandfather's time.

Finally, the overwhelming majority of the information he gained from the book referred to the types of creatures. Hundreds of creatures were introduced. There was dozens of information about each creature, including its name, appearance, strengths, weaknesses, and what it liked and hated. All the creatures that were legendary in his previous world were present here. Most of the creatures looked like mutated versions of the creatures of his previous world.

Having acquired this information, he could only guess how strong and patient Torim was. 'He must have spent a lot of time watching, recording, and fighting all these creatures.' he thought.

'This man is not paid what he deserves.'

Then he left the book in his hand on the shelf where he had taken it and went back to his room to sleep.

…

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