As I opened the door to my flat, Aoi landed on my face, wrapping around it, and putting her head on Taury.

“I exited the maw of a predator to enter the grasp of another.”

“Gahk, can’t breathe.”

“Bleh, Taury smelled icky.”

I smiled.

“Being almost eaten by a frog girl will do that to you. Anyways, get off, Taury needs to take a bath.”

“Okay.”

She flipped and landed in a chair.

“So, how’d the run go? Anything interesting happened~?”

“Well, she apparently has a crush on me.”

Aoi looked interested.

“Oh really, what made you think that?”

“The overexaggerated drawings of me as a muscled hunk crushing demons with my biceps.”

She blinked and snorted.

“Yep, definitely a crush.”

Taury had already drifted off and I heard the sound of rushing water in the bathroom.

I sighed.

Then Aoi asked.

“So, what’s this about her nearly getting eaten by a frog?”

“Well, Maven’s world is a very survival of the fittest world, and a frog fey tried to grab her to eat. She ended up with a singed tongue, complaining that prey wasn’t supposed to fight back.”

“Heh, seems like she got what she deserved.”

“Yeah, but we also met a deer guy and a lion girl, and we thought they were okay with each other, but Maven said that the deer guy was likely eaten shortly after we left.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty brutal world.”

“I wonder if Maven would be fine with me hunting.”

“Ma-… What?”

“I’m saying, I wonder how fey animals compare to regular animals.”

Then I heard Taury shout from the bathroom.

“We could have frog legs.”

I snickered then I looked at Aoi.

“Even if Maven does allow it, don’t go after wolves. I’d rather not tick her off.”

“Okay.”

_

The next few days were normal, then I decided to visit another counselor. Maven also said no, as she wanted humans to remain off limits, and she couldn’t justify it if we could hunt.

“Who should we visit?”

Taury looked at me, so I sighed.

“What about Astella? I’ve not met her yet.”

“Oh, she’s a fun one. She loves training her strength. Her species is capable of magic, but they don’t touch it, they use their strength alone.”

“Wow, what do they live in, a labyrinth, a castle?”

“As far as I know they all live in various personal gyms. Each family has its own work out place. I’ve seen Astella’s and oh boy, I’m pretty sure she sleeps on the equipment.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’ll see when we get there.”

Then we appeared in a gym, where a brown furred minotaur was bench pressing a bar as wide as me and double my length, with weights that were the size of three of me.

“Oh…”

The walls were painted red, and the floor was a wooden pattern. It looked like a school’s gym. Of course, there was about three times the amount of equipment as a subscription gym.

There were bench presses, treadmills, and even some stuff that looked like it was made to perfectly skin someone, and something else that looked like it was made to rip your limbs off. There were several other tools that looked like torture devices.

Several minotaurs were in here, bench pressing and other things.

Then the minotaur we were looking for stood up and walked over.

“Hello there. I hear you are the mist that yelled at the Pixie.”

“That’s me.”

“Interesting, well, what do you want?”

“I just have been getting to know the councilors and thought that I should introduce myself.”

“Well, little monkey, you’ll need to prove your strength if you want to know me personally. Each one of these people have proven their strength before being able to enter my gym. You got in by nexus, so you got to prove yourself, or I’ll throw you straight back through.”

Why did all council members try to be scary? It worked too.

“I’ll… take the challenge, what is it?”

“Heh, accepting before knowing, I like it. Pick that up.”

I looked at a bar that I saw a minotaur try and fail to even roll.

“This seems a bit unbalanced…”

“Listen, I don’t like the monkeys being in my realm, much less in my gym, to prove you have the metal to make me respect you, lift it. No magic.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Taury looked at her in shock.

“Astella, this is a bit ridiculous.”

“Please, if the human can’t pick it up, he has no reason… to… be here?”

I lifted up one edge. All of my muscles stretched and tensed. I got under it and edged the other side the slightest bit in the air before collapsing, dropping it behind me.

I breathed deeply.

“I didn’t lift it long… but I lifted it… Do I pass?”

Astella grinned,

“Yes, little monkey, I suppose you do.”

She helped me up.

“Well, as you already know, I am Astella, queen of the minotaurs, ruler of the Labyrinth. Now, introduce yourself.”

“Labyrinth?”

“Yeah, I ruled it back when I took a trip to your world.”

“Did you know Theseus?”

“Theseus? Hm… Oh I remember him, the prideful kid no one liked.”

“Cool, but I’m William.”

“Cool. Yeah, I hope you’re not like Theseus, prideful as he was, I can’t deny his skill with a blade.”

“Really, wh-oh.”

She turned around, revealing a massive scar on her back.

“The brat thought he killed me, the only human who bested me… with his paralyzing poison of course.”

“Oh, what do you mean don’t be like Theseus, just don’t attack you? That should be easy.”

“Nope, I’m saying that if you do attack me, face me like a man. A stab in the back gives no honor.”

I smiled.

“Glad to see we agree on that.”

She smiled back.

“Well, you know me now, go work out if you want to.”

“Uhm.”

“What is it?”

“Could you tell me what that’s for, because it looks like it’s intended to delimb you.”

She snorted.

“It was originally made for that, but we realized that it’s much better to test your arm strength, if your arm gets ripped off, you lose.”

“Oh…”

“Wanna try it?”

“I’ve lost my arm in recent days, not too interested in losing it again.”

She looked at me confused.

“You lost an arm?”

“And a leg. It was a whole situation.”

“Then how do you have them.”

“Magic, tons upon tons of magic.”

“Wow, that’s actually impressive…”

She looked genuinely impressed.

I looked at her.

“Where would you suggest I start?”

She smiled.

“Well, since you graciously came to me for advice, I’d suggest the crusher.”

“The… crusher?”

“Another repurposed torture device. This one tries to flatten you.”

“… Yay…”

I was right, they were torture devices.

_

Taury became her big form, as apparently she’d been here before, and worked out as I struggled with the crusher.

True to it’s name, it tried to crush me. I held it up.

According to another minotaur, I was supposed to see how long I could hold it as it’s pressure increased.

Taury nodded and said that was correct, so for the next hour I stood there.

At this point, it was as heavy as the bar, but the gradual build-up tired me, so my legs had begun shaking.

Suddenly, it pressed down.

I realized I couldn’t hold it much longer and shimmied to the edge where I collapsed as it slammed down.

I breathed intensely and the minotaur who told me about it looked in shock.

“That was the longest a non-warrior has ever held that. How strong are you?!”

“I guess I’m decently tough. Gramps training was ironically harder.”

I looked up and saw that numerous minotaurs had begun to look at me.

“Wow, he actually held it for a full hour.”

“How could that human do that?”

“He has to have a broken bone.”

“Yeah, he probably used magic.”

“A human with magic? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Who’s ridiculous? Say it to my face.”

“I just did!”

“Oh, come here, you!”

Then a brawl opened in the gym, and Astella was doing arm curls with the bar I could barely lift and sipping her water.

I’d assume being double my size would help her, but she did it so effortlessly that it was almost like she was born able to bench this.

Her muscles tensed and released in a perfect synchronization.

It was oddly fascinating.

I stood up and walked over.

“How do you have that perfect of a curl form?”

“Been training my whole life, not like I woke up one day able to do it, how’d you get as strong as you are?”

“My gramps trained me, and I have shinobi training as well, so I had to learn how to be really strong.”

“Hmph, I assume you surpassed your teachers then?”

“Nope, Gramps could probably sleep and hold that up.”

Astella laughed.

“No human is that strong.”

“I thought so too, until he showed me his collection of demon stones.”

Astella’s eyes widened.

“C-collection.”

“Yep, hundreds of the things.”

“Okay, humans may be a bit stronger than I first believed.”

“I think it’s just Gramps.”

“Hopefully, if humans can take on hundreds of demons en masse, then there would be no one who could stop them, especially given how populous they are.”

“Yeah, that would be terrifying.”

“Anyways, let me see your curl form.”

She gestured to the stand, and I grabbed one that was labeled 40 pounds. I could easily curl it.

I began curling.

“I see, you keep releasing this muscle early.”

“Ah, I didn’t even notice that.”

So, me and her went over specifics in exercises.

_

How did this happen?

Astella told me that if I wanted more training then I’d need to stay the night, so she tossed me a sleeping bag, told me the top of the delimber was the most comfortable and disappeared.

I looked at Taury who seemed contemplative.

“What?”

“Normally, she throws us to the curb after training.”

“What do you mean?”

“As soon as her gym closes, she usually forces everyone back into the nexus and locks her point, I’ve never seen her let someone stay over, I’d suggest remaining cautious, she likely wants something.”

“I see, what do you think it is?”

She looked at me.

“Do you really think I know?”

“I don’t know, but you know her better than I do.”

“There are various potential reasons. Firstly, she may want to learn how you regrow limbs. Secondly, she may want you to serve her instead of Morgan. Thirdly, she may want to just actually train you. There are various other reasons.”

“So, she could want to train me, or she could want to eat me.”

“Eating you is quite unlikely but that’s pretty much the variety.”

After some thinking, I sighed.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“My magic is begging for release.”

“What?”

“It’s built up and now it’s spasming.”

“Nice.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re finally at your natural power level.”

“How do most fey handle it?”

“Try leaking it.”

“Leaking it?”

“Like cause the slightest magical movements and use that to drain it to a level you can sleep.”

“Sorta like walking around when you can’t sleep due to built up energy.”

“Exactly.”

So, I thought of which of my magics would be best to use.

“Fire’s a no, light would keep both of us up… Really earth is the way to go.”

“Yeah. Try simply expelling a bit of it.”

“Okay… will that affect my leg… since it’s made with earth magic?”

“I… don’t know. If it goes wrong you should be able to fix it, though.”

“Alright.”

So, I began to leak my magic, my leg was fine. I didn’t do anything deliberate.

Eventually, I was tired enough to fall asleep.

_

“Wake up, human, something happened last night, and I think you can explain to me what it is.”

“What happened?”

“Well, my gym is on top of a mountain.”

“Cool, so what happened?”

“It wasn’t on a mountain yesterday. Nor were there mountains anywhere near it…”

“So… what happened?”

“Do you have earth magic?”

“A bit… yeah?”

“You created a mountain.”

“… HEH?!”

Astella’s words shocked me awake.

“Th-that’s impossible.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“I just released my magic so I could sleep!”

She blinked.

“Taurael, is this true?”

“It is… a mountain?! That’s ridiculous!”

“I’d think so too, had I not nearly fallen after walking out my front door. It’s lucky my gym is more secluded, or other homes would have been thrown around.”

I blanched.

“How did I do that?!”

“I don’t know, you only leaked your magic to sleep and you had that much? Take off that relic and show me your full aura.”

“What?”

“Your power feels like that of a higher fey, but I can tell that little amulet is blocking most of it. Take it off, now!”

I flinched at the ticked off minotaur and reached to take off the amulet.

The moment it passed over my head, Astella leapt back and braced against the wall, and Taury instantly enabled her magic and braced herself.

“What?”

“William… that aura… it’s almost as strong as a demon’s…”

“What?”

“W-w-what are you?”

“I’m a human.”

“Liar, no human can have that much magic, even Arthur was restricted to mid-level fire!”

Taurael nodded.

“He is a human, just an incredibly powerful one, it seems.”

She looked at me.

“Put the amulet back on.”

I did so, and both of them relaxed.

“You sure he’s a human?”

“Yes, he is definitely a human, he just seems to have an abnormal magic attunement.”

“That’s a bit more than abnormal, he could probably overpower higher fey.”

“Probably.”

Then I sighed.

“Could we just train?”

Astella thought for a moment,

“Sure, but meet with me in my quarters this evening.”

“Okay, so what’s todays training?”

“Making an entrance to my gym.”

She smiled and I groaned.

“Oh, and use your fists, no tools. No magic either.”

I sighed.

“Taury?”

“Oh, don’t look at me, I’mma run through drills with Astella, I’m not the one who made a mountain.”

I grimaced before walking carefully out the door.

Then I saw just how big a mountain I made; I could see an entire city in the distance.

“This is Himalayan size…”

And… I had to make an entrance… with no magic… in one day.

“Yippee…”

So, I set out to work.