After getting settled into the room, not that I had much luggage anyway, I asked Hera if I could meet some staff and maybe get a head start on my fellow students. After all, every moment counted for us heroes. Hera agreed, and took me into the 'Freshman' district. This area also contained the offices of the teachers who taught these courses, so if any were on campus they would be here right now. Hera said she knew of someone who would definitely be here right now and led me to an office deep in the 'Freshman' district.
The name on the door read Oephilia. As Hera knocked I pondered who might be on the other side, but no matter who I had pictured I was not ready for the figure that came out. The figure easily stood a head taller than me, an average height man, which meant that the figure's chest was at my eye level. And boy was I glad for that, the figure, obviously a female, had a voluptuous chest that threatened to suffocate whoever dared to venture into its depths. Her low cut crop top showed off her caramel skin and heavily muscled abs and arms. Her brown hair was cut short, and her yellow eyes threatened to bore holes through me. Needless to say, I had a very confused boner.
"Ah, who is annoying me at this time, don't you know the semester hasn't started yet?" She seemed peeved at our interruption, but when she saw Hera her expression quickly changed. "Ah, Hera! Long time no see!" The woman, Oephilia, pulled Hera into her embrace. It was a rather lopsided hug, as Hera was shorter than me, so it almost looked like a mother and her child. I chuckled internally at that thought.
Hera finally pulled away after almost a minute of being one-sidedly embraced, "Geez, Oephi, wasn't that a little much." Hera spoke with a mock pout, it seemed that this Oephilia was close enough to Hera that she could be her lighthearted self as opposed to her cold persona. "Besides I'm here on business right now, so restrain yourself, okay?" Hera wagged her finger like a mother scolding her child, well in this case her oversized, voluptuous child.
"Sooorry," Oephilia said, stretching the word out and blinking her eyelids rapidly in order to appeal to Hera's emotional side. Hera simply sighed, used to her outlandish behavior. "So, what's your business? Does it have to do with this strapping young man here?" She said with a predatory smile as she looked me up and down.
"Yeah, Caesar, this is Oephilia, monster hunting and swordsmanship instructor for the 'Freshman' class." Oephilia bowed at her introduction, winking towards me. "Oephilia, this is Caesar, a summoned hero." I bowed back, keeping an eye on her reaction towards the word 'hero'. I was a bit disappointed, not that I was hoping she'd fawn over me immediately or anything, but her reaction was more of an 'oh, right, they're here' as opposed to 'oh my god a hero'.
"What'd you want me to do with him? Their 'training' doesn't start 'til tomorrow, you know that, Hera." She used her pinky to pick her ear as she spoke, scooping a bit of earwax before flinging it off behind her. She was obviously more of a care-free soul than I had been expecting.
"Um, yes, but he's my charge and he wanted a bit of a head start, is there any way you could oblige him?" Hera spoke in a sort of pleading tone, using her puppy dog eyes to their fullest extent. Oephilia bit her lower lip as she looked towards the pleading Hera, before turning her gaze on me. I could feel her stare picking apart every aspect of my body, almost seeming to see through my thoughts as well.
"Ah, why not. His body's not bad, so I'm not opposed to it. I was getting bored anyway." She walked towards me and draped her muscular arm over my shoulders, pulling me close to her. Her oversized breasts pushed against me as she did so. She leaned her mouth close to my ear before speaking in a whisper, "After today, you won't be able to stand without pain. Look forward to it, boy." I stiffened at her threat, causing a chuckle to erupt from her, "Come along, boy, we're wasting daylight." She pulled me along, her arm continuing to rest on my shoulders.
This was going to hurt.
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"Keep those swings coming! And don't you think about slacking on form! I want one thousand done by the end of the hour, and I won't count the ones with sloppy form!" Oephilia was currently yelling at me as I swung a wooden sword inside one of the practice arenas. I was only swinging downwards, the simplest of sword moves, but the strain of swinging again and again was getting to me. My breathing was already ragged, we had been at this for an hour, with no end in sight.
"Come on, you're only halfway there! Remember why you're doing this! Sure, leveling up will raise your stats but you can always level up later, if you don't train your stats now you won't be able to later! And that boon given by that Goddess also affects your stat raise while training, so make the most of it!" Her constant yells actually helped me keep focused on the swings, making sure that I wasn't going on autopilot and instead was focusing on maintaining perfect form with each swing. "Good! But you're still not even close to done, keep going! If you haven't raised each of your physical stats by one by the end of today I'll personally strangle you to death!"
Death wasn't something I wanted to experience just yet, so I kept swinging, and just like that, an hour passed by. By the end of the hour, I hadn't quite reached the thousand swings, I was at nine hundred and fifty ish. Truth be told I had swung more than a thousand times, but fatigue had made me sloppy and Oephilia hadn't counted quite a few of them.
"Not bad, newbie. But not good either. Next, stretching! Come take a seat in front of me, kid." I sighed in relief, the sword swinging was grueling so I was glad it would be something easy next, after all, stretching was something calm and relaxing that you would do before and after workouts…
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!" I screamed out in pain. The 'stretches' we were doing were nothing like what I knew from on Earth. Instead it was like she was trying to tear apart my body limb by limb, pushing and pulling my joints to their limits.
"Ah, quit bein' such a crybaby, even my grandmother could do these, and she's dead!" Oephilia spoke as she once again twisted my body into a new 'stretch'. A small crunch sound could be heard as my joints broke past their limits in order to bend to Oephilia's will.
"That's fucking morbid,"
Crunch.
"AH!"
After what felt like a lifetime of contortion and pain, but was actually only around half an hour, Oephilia finally stopped twisting me like a pretzel and stood up. "Alright, last thing for today, fifty laps around the arena. No walking!" I shifted my drained body to look up at her from where I lay on the ground. Screw walking, I couldn't even stand up right now. Oephilia looked at me with a frightening gleam in her eyes. "If you don't get up and run I'll do stretches with you 'til dawn, so move your ass!"
I peeled my destroyed body off the ground and slowly arose. There was no feeling in my limbs, only pain, but I ignored it and simply began running. It was monotonous, one foot in front of the next, again and again and again. But when compared to the rest of the training it was easy. I could just shut my brain off and run.
While I ran, brain off with no regards to my surroundings, I was unaware of the conversation taking place between Oephilia and Hera. "Hera, this kid's got guts. Most people wouldn't even be able to take half of what I'm throwing at him right now. He's a real gem. An unrefined, vulgar gem, but a gem nonetheless." Hera smiled at Oephilia's praise. She would never say that in front of Caesar, in fact, unless Oephilia was really close with the person, she would never compliment them to their face, ever. It was the one part of Oephilia's personality that Hera didn't like. Still, she was used to it at this point and didn't say anything, choosing to ignore that about her instead.
"Yes, I thought the same, minus the vulgar part." Hera looked up at the darkened sky as she spoke. They had been training for almost four hours, and night time was rapidly approaching. "I'm not sure if he's practical, rational, or competitive, but whatever is driving him is incredible. I'm very glad I was able to convince James to let me be his guide." She thought back to her conversation, which ended up as more of a debate, with James. At the time, she wasn't sure why she felt so strongly about becoming his guide but she knew that if she backed down there she would regret it for the rest of her life.
Oephilia raised her brow at Hera's confession. From what she remembered of Hera, she was a shy girl who didn't interact with many men, so she naturally felt uncomfortable around them. But that very same shy girl had grown up to not only work at a male dominated church, but now fight to be a man's guide. Oephilia almost felt like a mother watching her kid grow up.
She pulled Hera into her embrace once more. "All right, I've decided." Hera looked up at Oephilia questioningly. "I'll help that boy, just for you. So don't you worry, Hera, leave it to your big sister here." She declared while puffing her already voluptuous chest out in bravado. Hera laughed at her exaggerated antics, allowing herself to fully rest in her embrace.
"Then I'll leave it to you, sis." The two girls stayed stuck to each other while I continued running the track. And roughly forty five minutes later, I finished the fifty laps and collapsed on the spot. My breathing was beyond ragged, coming out in raspy breaths that didn't even sound like breathing at that point. My head was spinning, and the only reason I didn't fall over was because I was already on the ground.
The two women walked up to me, Hera kneeled next to me and brought my head into her lap, giving me a lap pillow. Unfortunately, I couldn't appreciate it as my mind was too focused on trying to breathe.
"Good job." Hera spoke before she raised her hand above me and muttered. "Recovery." A dull golden glow wrapped around my entire body, just like the heal spell that James had casted wrapped around my nose, and my tattered body slowly began to rebuild itself. "It's late, we should go back. Can you stand?" I weakly shook my head, there was no way I was standing so soon after the ordeal I just went through. In fact, it felt like I wouldn't be able to stand for a week at least. Hera pursed her lips in thought, trying to find a way to heal me faster, when Oephilia spoke up.
"Ah I'll just carry him, I want to see where you're living anyway, Hera." She reached down and hooked one arm under my legs while her other arm wrapped around my back, it was a princess carry. When I realized how she was carrying me, my face burned up, undoubtedly red as a tomato. Hera paid no attention to my embarrassed face and instead nodded towards Oephilia before leading the way. The two girls talked about various things as they walked, but I couldn't focus on any one thing, the embarrassment of the situation combined with the fatigue in my body making my mind a hazy mess. The next thing I knew we had already entered my dorm, and Oephilia laid me out on my bed.
"Don't worry kid, Hera's magic will refresh you for tomorrow." She smiled towards me and turned to leave before quickly looking back at me. "Ah, also I've decided to help you out, so from now on you'll be getting special treatment from me, brat. Which means we'll be training like this everyday from now on, look forward to it." She winked, before finally leaving my room entirely. Thinking of her last words to me my blood ran cold, but the fatigue in my body quickly overtook that fear and I fell into a deep sleep. The grind with everyone else started tomorrow, I was somewhat looking forward to it.