"Outstanding, Master! That posture was perfect!"
The Knight Commander was very welcoming to his new ten-year-old disciple.
"Would you like to join the Knights Corps. It would be refreshing to teach someone as talented as you!"
"I feel sick. My whole body is sore." The Marquis decision was truly outstanding. The Commander of the knights was the only one who could train Evan without constantly considering his identity. He fully lived up to the Marquis' expectations, and Evan struggled so much through the combat training that he had to rest his slime training for two days, after only being trained by the Commander for one day.
"Master, are you really only ten years old? By the way, how you mean that your body is sore? While I wandered this land, I met a lot of soldiers, but Master your body is really.…"
"Oh, don't touch me."
"I think you can practice a lot more today. Now, the rest is over. Let's start again from the basic posture."
"Ahhhh!"
The Knight Commander could guess Evan's existence level was beyond normal…. At least more than a child with normal physical strength. He quickly grasped that Evan was incomparable to other children's level, and he was amazed.
'How did he guess it?' Evan himself did not know, but right now, in this situation, his five senses, as well as his physical ability, helped him a lot as they had already developed remarkably. He was thankful that he had steadily raised the level of existence beforehand. His situation judgment and intuition, along with his body's control, was admired even by the Knight Commander.
"Awesome, really awesome. Master, your stamina is already above the standard knight level!"
"Don't be ridiculous! You're just lying to train me like other knights!"
"Well…. I guess we can speed it up a little more."
"Don't do that! Don't!
From then on, the actual marvelous abilities of the Knight Commander was revealed, who had accurately understood Evan's level. He designed a training course with breathtaking difficulty that Evan had to endure. Then they started the real training.
"You have to avoid taking rest all the time; otherwise, you won't become fit!"
"This is not like swordsmanship, this is fighting arts! Oops!"
"The core of fighting skills consist of necessary steps to end the battle completely. It is a training method that I established after 17 years of trial and error. You should consider yourself lucky to be learning all of this from me!"
'Huh, I will die like this. I will really die even before the start of the main story!' Evan regretted asking the Marquis' for learning fighting skills. 'If I had known that, I wouldn't have opted to be trained by such an ignorant man in such a terrible way, I would've escaped training altogether, saying that I was getting stronger by myself!'
'This is not a fighting technique, I know. It's not even one of the fighting techniques that appeared in the game!' Evan was desperate. His body was tired, and he was frightened by the sound of the sword banging the armor every time he swung it. Was it even called martial arts?
'I thought it would require only a basic posture and some fighting skills to kill your opponent. I also know that if you repeatedly hit a target, barehanded by not using your weapon, then your mastery automatically increased!'
"Okay, so, now as we have gone through the combat training steps, I think it is time. I'm looking forward to seeing how much you have learned today. Hahaha."
'I feel like I will die any day now because of the Knight Commander…' Evan was exhausted. 'This isn't like in the game or as I knew it. I don't even know if it increases efficiency or not!' No matter how much Evan cried inwardly, it was useless.
After a few days, Evan assessed that the 'ignorant training' was increasing in intensity every day and every moment.
"Haha, your fist is faster than yesterday, Master!"
"It's because I want to kill you, Knight Commander….!"
"But it's too early for that, Hahahaha!"
If it were Evan from the game, he would've started screaming after the first day of this painful and challenging training. In fact, even for Evan, who had awakened with the memories of Yeo Ban Min and was somewhat mature, fighting skill training was still very difficult.
However, the Marquis would become really upset if Evan stopped training his fighting skills. And, the Knight Commander was not such a soft man that he would let Evan quit so easily.
Above all, Evan realized that the more he trained with the Commander, the more he was growing rapidly. Because of these reasons, words of protest did not leave his mouth.'
'Yes, it's clear now why most of the Yo-Ma Great War players didn't know how to practice effective fighting skills. The fastest and best way was to train under the Knight Commander, but they were fools. But now I really envy these stupid guys, look at me! Hahahaha!'
In his previous life, he liked it when he was playing on the monitor. Slime training, as well as weight training, was worth it. At least it wasn't so tough back then!
However, learning martial arts inevitably included fist-to-fist battles, and even if the Knight Commander restrained much of his strength, he was still strong enough. The punch of a man who had defeated the army of four thousand of the Demon King was absurdly strong for weak Evan. It hurt him. It was so painful sometimes that he thought he would die.
"It's so painful! It hurts!
"You will get healed afterward by the priests. They do not leave any scars."
"Alright."
He couldn't complain much. After every battle, a priest who was put on stand-by would restore Evan's wounds and health, cleanly.
Evan thought he would rather want to die than endure the pain again. But his death here was impossible. It could not happen. This training ground was one of the safest places in the world.
Evan was always saved by the healing treatment.
The Knight Commander, whose stamina was still intact, tried to roll Evan back. Evan was pretending to have exhausted his stamina and to have fallen due to tiredness. But, this thin trick could not fool the Knight Commander….
"A drop of sweat in training replaces a drop of blood in battle, Master!"
"I'm not sweating! I'm actually bleeding here!"
"Haha, even though you say so, you follow the training very well, which is why I'm impressed by you."
Evan thought the Knight Commander was putting up an act, but it seemed like he was truly proud of him.
Evan was just ten years old. Moreover, since he was born the second son of the Marquis, he must have lived a comfortable life so far. It was an achievement in itself to have endured such hard training.
The Commander had heard that Evan was training to go to the dungeons, but it was a completely different scenario than this one. He admired Evan's condition. He was trying to match him to the level of training that Evan could follow. He couldn't refuse the Marquis' request, and Evan was the disciple he had to teach.
'But what was up with him when I first started the training?'
The Knight Commander had to admit that he was arrogant when he first laid his eyes upon Evan. Evan's body was already in a staggering state, but at times he was more durable than any rookie knight. Sometimes even surpassing trained knights, who were adults selected through hard training for 10 years!
'It's not just that his body his good.' Since Evan's body was that perfect, the Commander thought he could teach him a special article with time, even if he was a little behind. But, even that was ignorance on his behalf.
Although Evan couldn't be referred to as a tremendous genius, he became brilliant enough to do skills on his own once he was taught. His body was smarter than his brain.
'It was said that if the body was in bad condition, the head suffered with it. But when the body was healthy, even if the brain is asleep, there was no problem.'
In particular, once you learned the basics of fighting skills, it was easy to apply them. Among them, Evan's speed of learning the battle steps had become very fast because of his excellent ability to detect things that approached him. Even a thief who is being chased by someone for 24 hours could not be so sneaky.
'The training plan that I had initially envisioned was completed.' The Commander's initial plan was to train Evan to take him to the level of the new knights, but his revised plan was to cultivate a successor for himself. Fortunately, Evan didn't know about it yet, or he would have gone mad.
Evan felt that his training's difficulty was increasing little by little, but he kept catching up to it while thinking about his death. The Commander was impressed by Evan's position and his stamina, which did not run out easily.
"I'm sure Master has the talent of a warrior. He also has a level of physical skills in which no one can beat him. Better than anyone I've ever seen!" The Commander was raving loudly about Evan's accomplishments at such a young age. Evan nodded at his words with a dead fish-like expression. Then he said,
"Knight Commander, can you train my exclusive servant Shine too? He has self-learned double swordsmanship. Since he's training by himself, there is a limit to what he can achieve."
"Master's exclusive servant…. Oh! You're talking about that dark-skinned boy."
As Evan learned for himself, combat skills did not increase by punching or using a dagger only. The ability itself may level up, but it surely became complicated when it went into practice.
When Shine entered the dungeon in the game, it was difficult for him to face the monsters and survive. So, Evan was also worried about him equally.
The Knight Commander nodded softy. "Not so long ago, I had a conversation with the butler. I heard from him that he was training to enter the dungeon with you, Master. He is certainly a child full of talent enough as he already learned double swordsmanship by himself. Sure I can make time for him and teach him while you are resting."
".…Even so, aren't you tired at all, Knight Commander?"
"I'm never tired. That's the advantage of training constantly."
The Commander showed off his biceps and laughed. Evan thought he wanted to pour poisonous tea in his mouth, but he was satisfied with his achievements, for now.
The next day, an additional screamer entered the training ground.
"Huh."
"You're still fast and delicate, but you're weak compared to me. This is how you will learn to protect yourself.
"Yes….I will train Master…!"
"Then stand up and go!"
Shine accepted Evan's suggestion when he said that he could become stronger. As a result, Evan was able to roll all over the floor during his break.
Except for a higher skill level than Evan, Shine lacked in everything. So, in a sense, his training was even more arduous than Evan's. But, Evan noticed that Shine was getting stronger in real-time.
Instead, he was willing to fight a battle with the Knight Commander himself.
"I can still stand… let's go again. Please again…!"
"Haha, that's really great. Very good! Hang on in there as much as you can!"
The two children didn't even know about their dreams, but as the Knight Commander took turns dealing with the children overflowing with passion and resistance, a thought occurred to him.
'I shall continue to train these outstanding children. My turn to guard the dungeon floor is coming, so it will be beneficial for all of us….'
He was originally a knight in charge of the dungeons, but he didn't like it because he had a pure character. Not training beforehand, but just advancing in the dungeon to level up was something that he much despised.
Of course, there were times when he was forced to go into the dungeon because of the Marquis's commands, but he was never enthusiastic about the dungeons. He had never gone deep.
'I hate the dungeon. It was said that as you went farther, you got new artifacts and skills…. But unless the Marquis was in a crisis, I never wandered into it. If I continue to teach these geniuses, sooner or later, I will start lacking in my own skills to the point that I might have to learn from these children. Moreover, they will enter the dungeon at one point or another. If they do, they might surpass me in skills and strength. I can't allow that.'
The Knight Commander had held the most influential position in the army for a long time. To him, this felt unbearable.
Looking at Evan and Shine, new emotions aroused inside him. What was the point of acquiring this much growth and power when he couldn't even help these children? He would also be able to better serve the Marquis, so it was time to change his mind.
'I have to think about going into the dungeon.'
His mind, which hadn't been changed by anyone, even after long talks with the Marquis many times in the past, was converted by these two young geniuses.
However, Shine and Evan kept rolling and grunting on the floor, without knowing that they had transpired such a big change.