The Academy's indoor training center.
There are many advanced training devices here.
There are all kinds of exercise equipment, as well as rooms that create holograms of virtual dungeons and monsters, rooms that measure the magic power in your body, rooms that quantify the damage done, and so on. ....
But the best piece of technology is the room called the 'Gravity Room'.
In this room, you can adjust the amount of gravity applied to you at will, and it will keep a record of how long you last at that level.
Of course, if you push yourself too hard, the gravity in the gravity room will randomly disappear and your record will be reset.
And now.
… Push!
The door to the first-year gravity room opened, and a sweaty man walked out.
A well-trained, muscular, black-haired boy.
He was 'Grenouille des Leviathans', the third son of the Leviathan family.
"Wow. After all, seven times the gravity without using mana is tough. It's like the weight of destiny that noble people carry from birth..."
Grenouille smirked, enjoying the stares of awe around him.
Considering that most students struggled to withstand even six times the force of gravity, withstanding seven times the force of gravity for over half an hour was definitely a record.
Grenouille felt like he might throw up a little, but he swallowed hard and wiped the sweat off his face in a nonchalant manner.
... but?
The looks of admiration and envy directed at him seemed a little off.
'Not me?'
Grenouille shifted his gaze to where the other students in the weight room were staring in unison.
There it was.
"...!?"
There was a sight that made Grenouille's eyes widen.
It was the instrument panel of the other gravity room right next door.
Gravity Room F-2
.
.
A whopping 8x gravity.
And an almost hour-long entry time.
Records that are still being updated even at this very moment.
'No way!'
Grenouille's mouth dropped open.
Half an hour in 7x gravity was enough to make him dizzy and nauseous.
But who on earth could survive an hour in eight times the force of gravity?
'If the user's condition becomes severe, the gravity will dissipate on its own and the records will be reset. Does that mean that the person in here... is actually withstanding this gravity?'
There are very few people who can withstand a gravity field of 8x without using mana, not even in the first year, but in the senior class.
And that's only for about an hour....
Then.
Pause.
The gravity chamber has stopped working.
Only at exactly one hour did the door open and a thick steam burst out from inside.
'Who is it, the one who can withstand 8x gravity?'
Grenouille peeked inside in a cold sweat.
There are few monsters at the Academy who can withstand this much gravity.
'Not in the Hot Class, maybe a Tudor or Sancho in the Cold Class.'
Grenouille finished his thoughts with a shit-faced expression.
But. it was a different face that emerged from the gravity room.
Vikir.
A commoner schoolboy who always wore an expressionless face.
Grenouille's face twisted at the sight of him.
"No, how can that weakling withstand eight times the force? Isn't there something wrong with the record... huck?"
But Grenouille didn't finish his sentence.
As the steam cleared, the body underneath Vikir's face began to show.
His body, which had always looked skinny and thin under his clothes, was now fully exposed.
His muscles are trained to the extreme, and there is no flab at all, making them look even more prominent.
The lines of the cut muscles were so sharp that it felt like a cutting.
Grenouille swallowed hard at the sight of a body that didn't look like it belonged to someone his age.
"That's right, with a body like that, it's possible to do 8x if you manage to squeeze it, yes. But it would be impossible to go any further than this without using mana. That's the inherent limitation of a guy with poor mana reserves… … uh?"
Grenouille's voice trailed off this time.
Crackle-.
As soon as Vikir exited the gravity room, he went to the instrument panel and adjusted the gravity coefficient upwards.
Gravity Room F-2
.
With that, Vikir returned to the gravity room and began to withstand 9x gravity.
"This is ridiculous. He won't last even a minute like that!"
Everyone, including Grenouille, thought the same thing.
Inside, however, Vikir didn't seem to mind the strain on his body.
'Mana is more active in a healthy body, so you should train your pure physical body without using as much mana as possible.'
Vikir was still an adolescent, so his height was short and his muscles and skeleton were not fully formed.
Normally, it would have been impossible for him to withstand this much gravity.
But the seven minutes he spent in the Styx River at birth, his grueling childhood training, and the strong survival instincts he developed in the depth have made him a force to be reckoned with beyond his weight class.
Furthermore, the three wraiths of high-level monsters imprisoned within the magic sword Beelzebub were tempering Vikir's body to become even stronger and tougher, and the karma he had earned from slaying demons so far had hardened his soul.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Muscles and bones screamed from every part of his body, but they were instantly restored by a level of regeneration that transcended humans.
The muscles tear, heal, tear again, and tear again, until they are even more stretched and torn.
Vikir finally makes it through another hour and steps out of the gravity room.
Push-ups.
Every time Vikir endure it, he can feel his muscle mass increasing.
Outside, the students, who had been watching Vikir's gravity room time steadily increase, are now giving him openly surprised looks.
"Wow, look at your body, I didn't realize it when you were wearing clothes...."
"Indeed, without using any mana and based on purely physical strength, he must be the strongest in the first grade."
"What's a freshman, I will rub it in with the third year seniors as well. No, maybe even to the graduating seniors."
"But what's the point, he's a mana pool after all."
"That's right, it's all about mana. The concentration of mana."
"That's too bad. If only he had a better family and better support, he'd be at.... by now."
While everyone admired Vikir's record, they also felt a certain amount of disrespect, jealousy, and condescension.
However, the students' views are shaken by Vikir's next move.
Geek-
Gravity Room F-2
.
.
Vikir has increased gravity again.
* * *
When Vikir exited the gravity room, he found Tudor and Sancho in the fitness room.
"Holy shit, Vikir. Did you just go through 12x gravity and survive? Is it possible to do that without a mana boost?"
"You're insane. I can't do that even when I'm hitting 1000 on 3. No warrior among my peers in the North has ever been able to withstand 12x gravity with their bare bodies. What is your secret, and if you set the gravity that high, won't you lose muscle?"
Vikir nodded, accepting the towel from Tudor and the protein supplement from Sancho.
Tudor chuckled.
"Grenouille's asshole watched you defy gravity and then ran off at 10x. That was hilarious, that asshole."
Unconcerned with the judgment of those around him, Vikir merely nodded silently this time.
Then.
"Vikir! Vikir, are you here?"
The door to the fitness room swung open and someone walked in.
It was Bianca, who rarely comes here.
She turned and stared at Vikir in the middle of a group of surprised boys.
She blurted out.
"Mosquitoes!"
Bianca's shout made everyone in the gym turn their heads.
Bianca shouted again.
"That mosquito, you knew about it, didn't you?"
No one understood why she would come out of the blue and say something like this when they rarely talked.
Not even Vikir himself.
"...?"
Bianca repeated in frustration when Vikir just shook his head.
"And again, aren't you the one who was on the roof on Freshman Welcome Day, smelling that rum!"
"Hey, stop it and get out of here, this is the men's area, why did you come here and not the women's area?"
"Because I'm not interested in you!"
"You think I'm interested in you? I heard you just got a part-time job at a cafe. Get a part-time job, moron."
"Why do you know I got a part-time job at a cafe, you crazy bastard?"
"Let's get this straight. I only heard about it because Sinclair started working part-time at a cafe, so I asked and heard that?"
Tudor stops Bianca in her tracks and sends her away with a wave of his hand.
Sancho, meanwhile, was watching the scene, sharing a protein supplement with Vikir.
"Vikir. Don't you think they look good together?"
Vikir shook his head at Sancho's question.
"Nope. They look like enemies."
"Yeah, but they're always interested in each other, even when they're bickering."
"Isn't that because they hate each other?"
"...Hmm. Maybe, but I keep having a hunch otherwise."
Sancho looked at Tudor and Bianca with a wry smile on his face.
'You've got a sixth sense.'
Vikir put down the barbell he was holding and thought back to his memories before the regression.
Clearly, Tudor and Bianca would grow to love each other in the future.
Their love story, which had been a constant battle since they were childhood friends, was the kind of small talk that spreads to the battlefield and becomes the kind of thing that everyone knows about, and everyone cheers for, except for Tudor and Bianca.
I'd been wondering about it, because there was no sign of it at all once they were back together, but Sancho, who was close to Tudor, seemed to see something in his eyes.
"I know. I'm not very good at this sort of thing.'
Vikir thought to himself as he pulled out some clothes from the cabinet.
Burr-
As he was putting on the shirt, Vikir suddenly felt a slight twitch in his left wrist.
Madame Baby can be seen sitting on Vikir's wrist, looking up at him with a sullen expression.
[haeghaeg-]
The cub rubs its stomach with its two legs as if it were hungry.
It seems to have digested the poison that Grenouille had sprinkled on it.
"Hang in there, little one. I'll make sure you're full for tomorrow's midterm practical."
Vikir patted Madam Baby's head and said,
Tomorrow, in just twelve hours, the midterms would begin.
Before going on a demon hunt, Vikir was making plans for tomorrow.
No matter how fake my identity was, since I was a student, exams were important.