Let woke up peacefully, remembering the dream he had last night, which meant he had slept well.
The dream he saw was quite interesting. In it, he was pretending to be a god in front of an ant and had even given it a name: Victoria.
Curious, Let used his mental energy to check on the queen ant's condition. She appeared completely normal, which left Let feeling a bit disappointed.
Due to the darkness, he couldn't distinguish the colors around him and thus failed to notice that the queen ant's antennas had turned blue.
Unaware of the reforms happening in the ant colony, Let headed to the military barracks.
Military service in this world was much easier. Every city had a barracks, and everyone went to their local one to receive combat training.
Weekends were off, and the government covered all military expenses. This system would continue until the main story began, roughly a hundred years later.
After that, when the two worlds became completely separate, people would have no one to fight but themselves.
The atmosphere of this world contained mana, which was produced by monsters and leaked from underground to the surface. Moreover, technological devices were made from monster parts and drew energy from the mana in the air.
Once the monsters disappeared, world peace would suffer greatly, but that wasn't Let's problem. Long before these events occurred, he would have escaped to another world in hopes of extending his lifespan.
The entire day was spent following a physical training regimen in a massive stadium: running, completing obstacle courses, doing push-ups, sit-ups, and other body-strengthening exercises. Instead of breaks, there were drills to practice saluting.
Let didn't have time to meditate, so he decided to turn the crisis into an opportunity. He used this basic military training as a chance to practice life energy.
Life energy didn't directly increase Let's attack power, but it could meet the energy demands of his muscles. While others' arms ached from excessive push-ups, Let felt more energetic than ever.
After a tiring day, Let finally got the chance to sleep in a bed in the military barracks. If he didn't count the prison cell's bed, this was the first time he had slept in a bed since coming to this world. He struggled to hold back tears.
Tomorrow, instead of physical training, there would be theoretical classes where they would learn how to use the mana in the air to strengthen themselves.
General Lesson Schedule:
Monday: Physical Training
Tuesday: Theoretical Training
Wednesday: Weapon Training
Thursday: Theoretical Training
Friday: Physical Training
This was the regular training schedule unless there was a war simulation. War simulations began at completely random times, and rewards were given based on performance.
More than half of the soldiers in the barracks slept with the weapons used in war simulations. These weapons couldn't kill but were designed to incapacitate.
Let decided to follow their example and took his own weapon.
Before sleeping, Let checked on the queen ant. This time, Victoria was behaving a bit differently. She was now walking without letting her front two legs touch the ground.
---
At midnight, alarms in the barracks began blaring. Several of the recruits who joined on the same day as Let cursed aloud—they didn't even know how to use their weapons yet but were required to participate in a war simulation.
Despite their lack of experience with weapons, Let's group bravely fought on the front lines and still earned some success points. Let, however, hid in the back throughout the battle and received the lowest score.
Surprisingly, no one commented on Let's cowardice; instead, everyone was focused on the flies around them.
During the battle, the enemy shot at random flies five times instead of targeting Let's team. Someone on the opposing team even shouted, "The flies are picking sides!" in frustration.
The opposing team should have won under normal circumstances, but they miraculously lost. Even though they won, this didn't excuse Let's cowardice, so he was punished by being made to clean the toilets.
The next day in the theoretical class, a fly entered through the open window before the instructor arrived. Due to the events of the previous day, the entire class focused on the fly.
Acting as if nothing had happened, the fly elegantly landed on the smartboard's power button and turned it on.
At first, everyone thought it was a coincidence, but when the fly started playing chess against the AI on the smartboard, they realized something was wrong.
When the fly moved the rook to b3, someone shouted, "Close the windows! This is an intelligent lifeform! We can't let it escape!"
At that moment, all the soldiers snapped into action, rushing to close the windows to prevent the fly's escape.
A female instructor entered the room, and the fly exited through the open door. The instructor, noticing the soldiers standing at attention, ordered them to sit down.
Seeing the chess game on the smartboard, she accused them of misconduct and threatened to punish them with toilet cleaning.
A few soldiers mentioned the fly, but they were kicked out of the class and assigned toilet-cleaning duty.