As I got closer to the workout equipment I began to hear grunting and yelling. I should realistically still be thinking about my face getting chopped into but that felt weirdly normal now. My mind was still on May and how much she seemed to have changed in the ‘short’ time I’ve been away, but the yells of pain and exertion started to grate my ears. Try to imagine hearing gym bros grunting in slo-mo, it's aggravating as all hell.
I saw that there were only two people at the workout station. There was a buff and gruff looking one legged man and Bobby Grant.
Now the grunts might be annoying but when I saw the weights that Bobby was lifting I decided that a little grunting was appropriate. I wasn’t a huge weightlifter back home so it was hard to tell exactly how much he was lifting. All I know is that it was more than I had ever seen a human being lift, even more than people from the olympics and strongman competitions I saw on TV. The bar was way thicker than the one’s the people back home used and it was warping. It wasn’t just bending, the weight was steadily dipping lower and lower to the ground. The only reason the weight was still on was thanks to some smaller bars that were put into grooves at the end of the weight holding sections on each side. Bobby was making some normal grunts you might hear in a gym while lifting all of this.
“Stop.”
Bobby tried to re-rack the weight but realized that if he let go the bend in the bar would still fit his body and the bench so he just let it rest on the ground.
“Well that’s one more broken bar, I’m going to need some new equipment here soon.”
Bobby continued to lay on the bench breathing hard with his eyes closed in pain. Soon he opened them and saw me standing there awkwardly watching and he gave a very un-Bobby-like smile.
“Holy shit Tony you’re alive!”
Who are you! What have you done with Bobby?!
“Uh, yeah I guess I am. Bobby you seem… different.”
Bobby just smiled wider, but it was the one legged man who spoke for him.
“Don’t worry he’ll go back to normal in a few minutes. He gets a little high from the combination of mana and endorphins released when he goes beyond his limits. It’s normal for people from the other world when they haven’t been here too long. Anyways, who are you? I’ve only had Bobby to train till now but I haven’t seen you around at all.”
“Heretic.”
Short, simple, and to the point. I expect everyone in the castle knows about the heretic at this point.
“Oh you’re the one scribbles hates.”
“Scribbles?”
“Suppose you'd know him as the summoning saint.”
I thought about the constantly moving tattoos on Walton Payce who had orchestrated my little ‘trial’ and thought the nickname fit well.
“So what’s your max bench heretic?”
“Uh, I have no idea.”
“Let's find out then.”
The one legged man that the officer had called Creed made Bobby move the twisted bar and set up a reasonable amount of weight then waved me over. He didn’t seem concerned about me being a heretic and there wasn’t even a change in expression when he found out. I decided to just go along with whatever he told me just in case he was also an ‘officer’ who would stab me practically unprovoked, but the impression he gave so far was really neutral.
I got under the bar and tried to lift the weight. I got it up but god it felt heavy for how little looked to be on it. I brought it down to my chest and realized that while I could push it up a little bit I couldn’t get it all the way back to where I pulled it off. Creed quickly reached out with one arm and helped me put the weight back.
“Damn heretic you’re pretty weak huh?”
“Wasn’t much of an athlete back home.”
“Shame, oh well we’ll get you started with dumbbell presses first then and work you up. What was your power again?”
“Regeneration.”
“Hmmm.”
He put his chin in his hands and thought for a while.
“Can you even get stronger?”
Well…. Shit. He asked a really awkward question. I can’t believe that not a single one of the researchers thought to ask if my muscle mass and strength could change with regeneration but this Creed thought about it immediately. Well I can’t really afford to lie here, it’ll become obvious if I’m working out here every day that I can get stronger despite my muscle regenerating.
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“I… I’m pretty sure I can.”
“Hmmm… we’ll just have to test as we go. But if you get to heal between sets and your muscles are still allowed to grow you might have some impressive growth. Today we’ll test your max for multiple lifts and go from there. Not much time left today. Bobby, you spot him.”
It took me till about right then to realize the absurdity of the exact situation I was in. Here I was in another world with magic and demons, labeled a heretic and pushed into military service, and here I am getting a training regimen built for me by a one legged man who for some reason has perfectly normal looking workout equipment (if a bit oversized) with the help of the resident asshole jock that is all smiles. Man life is fuckin weird sometimes.
The rest of the gift training session went about how you’d expect. I was hopelessly weak and all my starting weights were abysmal. Bobby got off his high after a few minutes and started complaining about how easy my first day was compared to his. It was weirdly… relaxing, comforting? I don’t know the right word but it felt so… normal. And normal is so nice compared to how my days have been going.
I got a chance to look around between sets and see what my fellow summoned fellows were up to. Some were struggling to draw magic in the air like they were finger painting with light, some were doing normal laps or training with weapons. I saw May training with the man that, thanks to Creed, I will now refer to as scribbles. I wasn’t surprised to see one saint training a saint candidate. To me it mostly looked like they were talking while they both had holy power flicking on and off in their hands, maybe a kind of focus training.
I saw Kristen working with a bow and making perfect shots at a target, but next to her were multiple weapons so it looks like she hasn’t picked a specialty yet.
Julian was the most bizarre one to watch. The giant of a man was hunched over a table filled with different implements that looked like the dining setup of a noble. I wondered why the hell he would be having snacks while everyone else trained until I saw him slowly and gently pick up a teacup, only for it to shatter halfway to his mouth. I could hear the elderly but well dressed lady next to him shouting about control and waving a stick in his face while he looked defeated. Looks like they’re trying to train him to control his sudden increase in strength by dealing with delicate implements. It still made for a strange picture with a depressed giant having tea-time with a noble old lady in the middle of a training courtyard. It gave me a bit of a real smile, I’ll have to give him shit later.
The session was over before I knew it and it was finally time for lunch, which meant I could finally talk to my friends freely again.
We all moved into the dining hall and got our food and sat down. I noticed Julian had special metal plates for his food while everyone else had normal ceramics. He saw me snickering while looking at his plate and flicked a bit of something that looked like mashed potatoes at me with an oversized spoon. Unfortunately for me, Mashed potatoes still hurt when they hit terminal velocity and the potatoes he flicked casually were too fast for most people to even see. I saw as Julians face twisted from a grin straight into panic as he realized he just launched a missile at me. I managed to get my arm in the way and it went through the sleeve and I felt a bruise that immediately healed.
“I’m going to be honest, I have never seen any form of potato used so effectively as a weapon.”
Seeing that I was fine, Julian looked less defeated, until he looked down at the twisted metal pretzel that used to be the spoon he used to flick food at me, and his face scrunched up again.
“Y’know Tony, I thought we might actually have a serious conversation now that you’re back. That was a dumb hope wasn’t it?”
Kristen was scoffing on the side, but she was still looking at me with wary eyes. She probably was still thinking about what my face looked like while May was losing control…. Speaking of which.
“I might think about it, but only if May lets go of my arm.”
“No.”
“I don’t get a choice?”
“No.”
“I feel awkward here.”
“That sucks.”
“May, by any chance, have you become a yandere(1)?”
“What is a yandere?”
I glanced at Julian while this conversation was running and when I mentioned the term yandere he nodded subtly, then changed his mind and shook his head. Must be hard to tell. That’s… not good. It doesn’t help that she has been straight monotone the whole conversation.
“Ok let's change the questions a bit. WHY are you holding my arm?”
“They won’t touch you while I’m attached because they’re afraid of me.”
“....”
I changed my mind, having a do or die ally is not worth seeing May like this.
“May I told you I’ll be fine.”
“Losing your jaw whenever you talk is not ‘fine’!!!”
She suddenly screeched and the conversation at the other tables fell off and it got awkwardly quiet. We started a back and forth with her getting louder and louder while I kept trying to calmly explain. After a minute or so she was shaking and starting to get incoherent. I don’t know how to work with this, I don’t know any subtle way to approach this that will get through to her and this absolutely cannot continue. If she tries too hard to defend me she will probably end up dead herself. Just her being next to the explosive collar on my neck is unacceptable to me. I have to nip this in the bud, by any means necessary.
Extreme measures it is then.
“May.”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
“May.”
I steadily picked up a knife from the table with my free hand.
“Tony?”
Kristen saw me picking it up and looked scared, questioning what I was doing.
“May look me in the eyes again.”
“NO!”
“LOOK. AT. ME.”
I emphasized the words one at a time. Her shaking intensified but she finally looked up, she had tears in her eyes; I had a bad feeling there were about to be more soon.
“May. Nothing they can do to me is a threat. Everything that you’re afraid about is irrelevant, and I’m going to prove that right now if you don’t let go of my arm.”
At this point she saw the knife in my other hand and grew more pale, but she still didn’t let go. Everyone was silent at the table except for Julian frantically trying to calm us both down.
I let out a long sigh.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath.
I brought the knife slowly to my own throat while looking May in her terrified eyes, but she still didn't let go.
So, while maintaining eye contact, I stabbed sharply under my collar and dragged the knife from jugular to jugular.
Then the screams began.