Chapter 31 - Cat Dog

And so, I once again become a trainer.

Gotta drill em all, I guess.

Princess Isabella and her two shield maidens, Celestine, Leon, Moon, and Night are all here to train. It's been a while since the last time I saw Night as she follows Leon to Tusk Plains base.

Well, then again, Leon would be more like my helper here. As he still has his arm broken.

Of course Jane and the five mage squad members are also here as they all also stay in Stadford mansion with me.

“Okay. So today, we will be having a fun time training. And what is it Trainee Katherine”

“I have a lot I want to ask but first… Why did you wear heavy full plate armor? Are we going to train our body or are we going to a battle?”

"Trainee Katherine, to tell you the truth, I like training. No, let me rephrase myself. I LOVE training”

I can hear someone sigh and say "Not again” from the area around my followers. Sorry my man, I can't help myself. What's the use of transmigrating to isekai if you can't act pretentious from time to time?

Anyway, let's continue on with my speech about how I love training.

“I LOVE running. I LOVE doing weapon training. I LOVE wearing heavy armor. I LOVE training my arm. I LOVE training my chest. I LOVE training my chest. I LOVE training my back. I LOVE training my abdomen. I LOVE training my legs”

“I could do it anywhere, be it in a room, in the field, in the forest, or in a mountain. I can do it anytime, be it in the cold winter or in the hot summer. Be it sunny, rainy, snowy, or stormy. I will never forget my training like my daily meal”

"I LOVE it when my muscles are all pumped from my training. I LOVE it when my sweat is falling like a waterfall. I LOVE the sensation of growing stronger by each repetition I do”

"I LOVE…"

“Okay young master. Let's cut it short or the reader will accuse us of wastefully adding word count"

“Jane, why are you stopping my speech? Or rather than that, why are you breaking the 4th wall?”

"Did I say something weird, young master? It must be just your imagination”

I swear Jane just said something earth-shaking. But why did my mind suddenly go blank when I tried to remember it?

“Is there something wrong, young master?"

“No, it's nothing"

Well, it's not important anyway, let's just ignore it. Ignorance is bliss.

“I'm sure our guests would like to start immediately. Shall we start now, young master?”

“Okay then, let's start today's training!"

“Hold it. I don't agree with this!"

“And what do you not agree with, Princess? Training your body?”

"No, not that. I listened to your lecture before and I agree with your point of training both the body and mind so it's not a problem! The problem is why are there commoners training with us!?”

"Commoners? They are indeed commoners but they are my subordinates now…”

"Are you teasing me again?”

"Ah, you found out?”

Ah, she snapped again. She is holding her head while banging it up and down while also trying not to scream.

This is dangerous. Teasing her is such fun, I can't stop.

"You know that is not what I meant, right!? I'm asking why the saintess in training is here? Do you intend on making me train in front of the commoner's eyes?”

“Excuse me? You royals and nobles are all the same. Always try to keep all the good things for yourself while making the commoners work to death to obtain it. I'm here because I had a deal with Emilio and it had nothing to do with you”

Katherine and Kimberly immediately reacted at the first sign of confrontation but I held their movement back with my shadow bind while giving them signs to stand down.

This kind of animosity is not a bad thing for my purpose of training them after all.

“Yes, I did have some deals with Ms. Celestine here”

I said that as I looked at Isabella and then I moved my gaze to Celestine.

“On the other hand, Miss Celestine, I also had a deal with my master to train Princess Isabella. And the thing is, I am a busy person. I can't train the two of you separately. So I just train you both together. If you have any problem then you are free to leave but you will never again got the chance to receive my training”

They seem to have calmed down a lot for now. Well, they can be hostile to each other but let's not spend those hate unproductively.

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“Both missus, the only thing mattered in my training is not your social status, not your sense of justice, not who your family is, not all of that crap. What matters is your perseverance. You can hate each other. But let's not express that in an unproductive way. You can just beat the other one in the training. It would be humiliating if they lose in the training right? Now do your best in the training!”

“... I hate to agree with this guy but, his word make sense"

“I also hate to agree with him, but are you saying that a commoner like you has a chance against me?”

“Challenge accepted"

Well, for now, it seems the situation calmed down a little. The sparks are still there but it is a good spark for training so I just let it burn.

One more thing, both Celestine and Isabella don't seem to be disturbed by the two beast girls joining the training. I understand Celestine as she has already met one of them before but Isabella only reacted to Celestine's social status.

I thought I could help them open their worldly view about not looking down on other races but they are bothered more with other things instead.

Kimberly and Katherine just keep silent while taking their position behind Isabella.

“Anyway, answering Katherine's question from before, the reason why I and my subordinates wear armor is to make it harder for ourselves to train. Of course, not everyone can do this so it's more like a self-challenge situation. As the two of you are tier 1 knights, you can also put on some weights too to help your training if you feel the training are not challenging”

“And of course, not as much as what we wore"

Oh, Katherine looks angry. Did she feel being looked down upon? Well, let her pride be her downfall then.

“Well, the real reason why you don't get to wear armor like us is because I don't have a spare. So you will only wear weighted bags if you want to. I already provide some on the side so feel free to take it if you feely training is not that challenging”

“And this is your training course. Your objective is to run 10 times in this course"

I said that as I show a military style obstacle running course behind me. It has everything that a modern military obstacle running course have. It has crawling course, balancing beam, jungle gym, rope net, skipping rope, wall climb, and many other basic obstacles.

It's just in the level where a healthy normal human could finish all the obstacle without trouble albeit feeling extremely tired afterwards.

In the few years I trained my soldiers, I feel that this method is the best to comprehensively train them. On top of that, it is also fun to do. Well, more fun compared to other kinds of training.

This traits of comprehensive training effect and fun factor made it quite popular with the kids so I ended up implementing it in the orphanage too. Celestine has tried it before in her first visit to the orphanage. And I heard she has come to train a few times more after that as she does not feel comfortable training in the hunter guild.

And yeah, there's one too in the hunter guild.

Anyway, I showed them how to run the course and explained the method to the new trainee. After I done explaining all of the obstacles, a question comes my way again, as always.

Pointing at the risen hand, I call out the name of the one asking, giving them the permission to ask.

“Yes, trainee Katherine?"

"When can I wear the weight?”

"Anytime you want. It would be better to wear it after you tested the course by the way. So you can get a feel of the course first and adapt on the situation”

And without listening to the rest of my explanation, Katherine immediately move out to wear the weight. Well, don't say that I didn't warn you.

“And also, it wouldn't be fun if there are no risk involved in the training. So to keep you guys motivated and run with all your strength, I will be shooting fireballs at you if you are too slow. Don't worry, even if you are injured because of the fireball, we have healers so the training won't stop until you reach 10 laps or you fainted. But if you fainted, you will be counted as being disqualified and will receive another loving session of training from yours truly”

Some of my subordinates were smiling when they heard my threat. There's a sense of schadenfreude in their smile.

“Oh, and you are not allowed to take off the weight once you put them on. So yeah, it is a risky move without any benefit so please be careful with it"

And so, the training started. Leon is watching the group in the front while I accompany the newbie group.

Katherine followed my subordinates group and dashed away from the start while Kimberly followed Isabella's pace. No one else in the newbie group took the weight.

But Celestine is a bit faster than Isabella as she has already experienced the course before. And seeing Celestine in her front, Isabella is also increasing her pace and sticking to her side. Of course Kimberly also follows the princess forward.

“Oh, why don't you just take it easy in the first lap to get used to the course first? No need to follow my pace you know? Or you will be out of breath soon enough"

“Hmph, there's no way I will let you run in front of me. I am a royal and I've grown up with the best education and nutrition. How can I be inferior to a commoner like you"

“Well, don't blame me for not reminding you then. We’ll see how long you long you could keep up”

Oh, the trash talk is starting. Great progression you two. Keep going. I will be burning your ass back here if you start to lose ‘motivation’.

I was in the back doing a squat-kick step forward so I won't run too fast and push the newbie too far.

Ah squat-kick training. Such a great combination training. The training not only burns my leg muscles, it also burns my cardiovascular system good. And with my weight armor, the pressure is just enough for my tier 2 knight body.

This way, I can watch over the training while also not losing my own training time. It's a nice method as I also have multitasking ability.

Meanwhile, the two VIP girls also went through the obstacles one by one. They crawl, they hang, they climb, they balance, and they keep on running.

The world is peaceful for a moment.

Change started to be seen in the 5th lap. I can see the one who had run off first to follow the subordinates group slowed down. Nice, I have a feeling that I can use my fireball magic soon.

Katherine has slowed down. She's starting to lose ‘motivation'. Well, that's why I told her to pace herself better at the start.

By the way, Kimberly also put on the weight after the 1st lap. But she has been pacing herself well behind the 2 VIPs. And she is not really slacking in fact. After she saw my weird movement, she seemed to understand what I'm doing and she started running faster in a zigzag pattern so she could still be in the back of the princess while challenging herself.

There are also other changes with the two VIPs. Specifically, Isabella started to let out an electric spark randomly from her body. She seems to have mastered the way to circulate her mana in her body to get the strengthening effect. And they also keep their silence to save their breath but the hostility in their eyes to each other is still burning.

Isabella was getting left behind by Celestine a moment ago and now Isabella starts gaining the distance back. And finally take over Celestine who was in the lead. But Celestine seems to be unperturbed by the sudden upset and keeps maintaining her pace.

By the 7th lap, both VIPs managed to overtake Katherine who had gassed out of energy. Even Kimberly stopped running around in zigzag to maintain her strength so she could finish the drill.

And finally, at the 8th lap, the moment that I have been waiting for has come. Katherine has become too close to me because of her lack of ‘motivation'. Thus, motivation she will get.

“Keep on running, Trainee! Move those lazy legs! Move move move!"

BOOM!

I throw a fireball to explode behind her. And as I expected, it gave her a new ‘motivation' to keep on running. But her ‘motivation' didn't last long so I kept on throwing fireballs at her.

“Keep on running, trainee! For I am the storm that is approaching! Let me be your motivation to complete this training!”

While I keep on motivating Katherine to keep on running, there seems to be another upset between the two VIPs! Celestine actually managed to revolve her mana in her body too! She looks sparkly now as the effect of her light affinity and she gradually reduces the distance with Isabella.

I never taught her that. How did she do it? Is the influence of a rival really that big of a stimulus to grow? Indeed I have taught her about mana sense which could be the starting key into revolving mana in the body but that is like jumping over a few steps in the process to reach that.

But yeah, with an example in front of her, it is easier for her to realize the existence of revolving mana technique but such a hint is very hazy and most people would never notice it, yet Celestine managed to read the hint and reverse engineer it.

All I can say is: as expected from the one who got the Saintess title albeit still in training.

And by the 9th lap, she managed to catch up with Isabella and they are currently racing head to head with each other.

On the other hand, even fireballs start to lose its motivational effect on Katherine. But I don't want to hurt her too much so after a moment of thinking, I decided to zap her with electricity. If I reduce its power to the lowest possible, it might lose its paralyzing properties but it will still sting her if she gets hit with it. Well, I can only make hypotheses, time to test it out.

“Come on! Keep running! Why are you slowing down? Did fireballs not enough for you anymore? Then have a taste of this! Sting!”

"Kyah!”

"Oi oi oi oi that was such a nice squeal! Sing more for me! Sting! Sting! Sting! Sting! Sting!”

"Ai, ouch, kya, stop, okay, kya, I got it, Uu, I’ll keep running!”

"Nice seeing you get ‘motivated’ trainee! Keep running!”

In the end Katherine managed to finish the 10 laps of the obstacle course with the last of her strength. She just fell down after reaching the finish line while being drenched in her own sweat. Well, that teaches her to not be too overconfident.

Meanwhile, for the VIPs’ race, Celestine managed to win the race without any tension. Isabella has depleted her mana as they are getting close to the finish line. That is only natural as she starts revolving her mana around the 6th or 7th laps while Celestine only starts at the 9th.

Even so, Isabella still showed a stubborn expression. She still doesn't want to admit defeat.

The two are glaring at each other and I don't know why, I saw a silhouette of a cat and dog on the two.

Well, good luck with your rivalries then. I have a feeling that I won't be as bored in the near future with those two around.