Hero or Villain, Both
Chapter 92: Training the troops

Chapter 92: Training the troops

"Keep going! You still have ten more laps!"

"Yes sir!"

Though they responded in strong voices, I couldn’t help shaking my head as I watched them.

There weren’t any people that had been as talented as Mia and Leaf that had come to my recruitment.

But since I still needed people now that I had accepted the role as chief of this town, I had no other choice but to accept them. Other than those that were just as skinny as twigs, I accepted most people that had a normal physique.

I even accepted a few that seemed skinner than normal.

It was all because I had no other choice.

At this point, I was just feeding them out of my own pockets in hopes that they would be able to bulk up to the point where they could be considered normal.

Though I was disappointed with the people that volunteered, I had no choice but to train them.

What they lacked in talent, they did make up for in spirit at the very least.

Even if they didn’t have the power or stamina, they at least had the will to push through the training that I put them through.

But even then, I wasn’t that hopeful.

"Was this a mistake?" I couldn’t help thinking to myself as I watched them.

"Don’t worry, I’m sure that they’ll be able to make it through training." Mia said all of a sudden.

I slowly turned to look at her with a surprised look.

She had gotten much better at using her stealth lately that even I had problems keeping track of her with my sharpened senses. The only real way that I could keep track of her was if I used mana sense to sense her before she approached.

After all, there was no way that her stealth would be able to hide her from the natural energy that was in the air.

Though there was a part of me that did think that she would be able to figure out a way to do so eventually.

That was just how much of a genius Mia was.

In comparison, these recruits didn’t seem to have anything.

"Sometimes, it’s better to remain optimistic. There’s no telling what you’ll find out about someone."

I raised one brow to show my doubt as I looked at Vanessa who had come to watch the training, but I didn’t say anything in the end.

I just turned back to watch as they continued running around the field.

It took a while, but they were able to finish the laps that I gave them. Though it did take them much longer than a normal person would have taken to finish these laps.

At the very least, they had spirit...

It was just that everything else was lacking...

As I was about to say something else, Vanessa added, "Maybe you can try something else. There’s no need to push them that hard if they just aren’t suited for certain things. It’s better to give them something else to try in that case."

I still looked at her with doubt and a bit of complaint since she was disturbing the training of my people.

But in the end, I admitted that she was right.

Perhaps they might have some kind of hidden talent.

So instead of giving them more running, I called them all over and pointed at the rack of weapons that had been prepared before saying, "Pick up one of these weapons and come at me. We’ll be sparring so I can see how good you are."

There were fearful looks that appeared on their faces when I said this, but that wasn’t the only expression that was on their faces. I could see that some of them actually became a bit excited when they heard this.

For most of these people, it was their first time touching weapons in the first place.

Even if they were blunt weapons that couldn’t really hurt people, they were still real weapons.

Real weapons were completely different from practice weapons made of wood.

But it wasn’t as if real weapons were easier to handle, they were actually much harder to handle.

Once they picked up their weapons, they came at me together.

It seemed that even if they didn’t have experience, they at least knew that fighting together would give them a better chance. But even if they knew this, it wasn’t as if they were able to do anything to me.

I was much stronger than them and had much more combat experience than them.

That was why it didn’t matter how many of them there were, it only took a single swing from my sword to push them back.

"Is that all that you have?"

Once I said this, I charged forward at them.

When they saw this, they all scattered apart.

However, I could see that they didn’t do this because they were afraid. I even praised them for understanding that it would be in their best interest to split up like this.

After all, there was only one of me and many of them.

If they split up like this, then I wouldn’t be able to chase after every one of them.

But then again, this was a training session where running wouldn’t actually do anything good for them. As such, I just chose the person closest to me to swing my sword down at them.

When they saw this, they immediately raised their weapon to block my sword.

It was useless as I was far more experienced than they were.

As they raised their weapon to defend, my sword bent all of a sudden and went right past their sword. Then when it came all the way down, I suddenly brought it back up at this person to knock their weapon out of their hand.

This was a technique that I had picked up from Gran Jurad’s training, it was just that I never thought that I would actually have a chance to use it.

Seeing this, it seemed that this training session would turn out as I imagined.

Still, it was a good way to show them the world and how little they were in this world.