Chapter 15: Fun and Games

After the first day of Bootcamp, Bridget changed.

Gone is timid Bridget who couldn’t do anything by herself without messing up. Instead, she’s been replaced by cold blooded, battle hardened, adventurer Bridget.

Where did this Bridget come from?

I have no idea. But all of a sudden, Bridget can do Samantha’s exercises with full weight, and easily evade Chloe’s spells.

I’ll be honest. I’m jealous.

Bridget’s transformation is incredible, and I’m super happy for her. But, that doesn’t make me happy about it.

To add insult to injury, I haven’t progressed at all.

Sure, my strength and conditioning is improving, but I still can’t do Samantha’s exercises with full weight, and every time I step into Chloe’s class I get ground-pounded by her magic.

Two weeks have passed, and both Bridget and Wolf continue to make incremental improvements. I’m slowly being left behind, and that’s frustrating.

If there’s a bright spot in any of this, it’s that Bridget’s transformation only applies during class.

Outside of class, she’s still the same clumsy and lovable Bridget.

Yesterday, she tripped while carrying her lunch to our table in the cafeteria. Any other day, that wouldn’t have been so bad, but yesterday the lunch special was soup.

Bridget’s soup went flying, splattering all over a burly adventurer who had just stood up from his table.

Thankfully, the adventurer forgave her after she apologized several dozen times, and the cafeteria lady gave her another serving of food, so all’s well that ends well.

I know. I’m a horrible person. But, after that incident, I felt a little better about myself.

“Whoa,” Bridget says, tripping over air and face planting into the ground.

The two of us are standing in practice room eight, mentally preparing for Samantha’s tortur– I mean training session, or as I like to refer to it, hell on earth.

“Are you okay?” I ask, offering Bridget a hand.

“Yeah,” she says, taking my hand and pulling herself to her feet. “I’m fine. But, it’s…frustrating.”

“Frustrating?”

“Yeah. While I’m less clumsy during classes, I still struggle outside of them.”

“True, but you’ve come so far in such a short time.”

“I know. I’ve made a lot of progress, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s frustrating.”

I understand where she’s coming from. In fact, I’m the same. Even though I’ve made progress since the start of bootcamp, all I can see is the fact that I’m not improving as quickly as Bridget and Wolf.

After Samantha’s tortur– I mean, training session, Bridget, Wolf, and I head off to the cafeteria.

Recently, the three of us have been eating lunch together and it’s been a lot of fun.

Maybe it’s because we’ve all been through Samantha’s training together, but ever since Benton’s Hill it feels like the three of us have become closer. How did that saying go?

Oh, right. Misery loves company.

In other words, being miserable is the best way to make friends.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve learned a lot about Bridget and Wolf.

What they like to eat. What they like to do in their free time. What their favorite colors are. The list goes on and on.

Wolf likes to workout. No, Wolf likes to workout a lot.

If Samantha is a weapon otaku, then Wolf is a muscle otaku.

Everyday, after class, Wolf heads off to the guild’s gym to train. Meanwhile, I’m over here falling asleep the moment I finish dinner.

Bridget is a little more normal. While she does the training, she doesn’t mind complaining about it, unlike Wolf who always seems like he’s enjoying himself.

“Today’s circuits were too hard,” Bridget says, slumping back in her chair.

“They were fun,” Wolf says, taking a bite of his sandwich.

“No way,” Bridget says, scowling at Wolf. “Doing 1000 push-ups with 150 kilograms on your back is not fun.”

I agree. Doing anything while carrying 150 kilograms is not fun.

Two weeks into bootcamp I can finally lift 150 kilograms without my legs giving out, but I still can’t do anything while carrying it.

Thankfully, Samantha is understanding, and she doesn’t force me to do the exercises with the added weight. Instead, she has me do three times as many reps, which is slightly better? Probably?

Today’s circuit consisted of 1000 reps of squats, lunges, box jumps, glute lifts, squat jumps, and calf raises, which sounds fine until you realize that we had to do the circuit 10 times.

We were supposed to have a 30 second break between each circuit, but Samantha has a bad habit of counting too fast and skipping numbers, so our longest break was probably less than 10 seconds.

Samantha is an absolute slave driver during class. No matter what we do, she never gives us any praise.

Sure, I get it, that’s the adventurer way. But, it can be a little demoralizing at times.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m not getting anything out of Samantha’s training sessions.

Even though I don’t do the exercises with added weight, I’ve still seen a large improvement in my fitness level.

That’s the beauty of training everyday. It gets results.

“I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” Bridget says, leaning back in her chair and sighing.

“Same,” I say, “those circuits were brutal.”

Whump. Bridget over balances in her chair, and topples backwards.

Automatically, I scoop up both Bridget’s and my food from the table to prevent it from being launched across the room as Bridget catches her foot on the edge of the table, sending it flying.

“Ow,” Bridget says, cradling the back of her head in both hands.

Yup, even though she’s made stellar progress during classes, outside of them, Bridget is still a klutz.

After lunch, the three of us jet off to Chloe’s “magic” class, which is somehow more brutal than Samantha’s physical training.

Remember how Chloe told us that she was going to train our minds?

Well she does, but not in the way you might expect.

Instead of meditation or mantras to improve our focus and mental well being, Chloe’s class focuses on improving our mental fortitude. In other words, her class teaches us how to function while enduring extreme pain.

Why is this allowed?

Two words: recovery magic.

Break a leg? Recovery magic.

Lose a limb? Recovery magic.

Have a 60 centimeter icicle stabbed through your chest? Don’t worry, recovery magic is here to save the day.

As long as you aren’t dead, recovery magic can make you as good as new. It’s a miracle drug that can bring you back from the brink of death.

If recovery magic is so awesome, why do people still die?

Two reasons. Healing magic can’t save people from old age, and the people who can use healing magic are super rare.

According to Chloe, there are only a handful of people in the entire Empire who can use recovery magic, and fortunately, or unfortunately, Chloe happens to be one of those people. As she likes to tell us, whenever she has the chance, she is the best practitioner of recovery magic in the Empire.

Chloe isn’t exaggerating. Her recovery magic is the real deal.

How do I know?

Because, she heals me with it on a daily basis.

During her classes, Samantha goes out of her way to make sure we don’t get injured. Chloe, on the other hand, could care less.

In fact, Chloe goes out of her way to make us feel pain, because as she likes to remind us, “no pain, no gain.”

Today, we are playing one of Chloe’s favorite games, which is also one of my least favorite.

Chloe calls it “Evasion Gauntlet”, but Bridget and I like to refer to it as “Death”.

Surprisingly, Wolf agrees with us on this one. He might like suffering through Samantha’s workouts, but he isn’t a fan of pain, so after class, he doesn’t hesitate to join us in our griping sessions.

What is “Evasion Gauntlet”?

It’s pretty simple. Think sharks and minnows or British bulldog meets dodgeball crossed with ballistic missiles.

The three of us stand on one side of practice room eight while Chloe stands in the middle, kind of like sharks and minnows.

However, instead of the cue to run being something cute like “Dinner Time” or “British Bulldog”, the round starts when Chloe shouts, “Time to Die”. Once the round starts, the three of us try to run across the room while Chloe uses her magic to try and stop us.

Whoosh. A fireball flies past my ear, burning my skin. The smell of singed hair fills my nostrils, as I duck to avoid another volley.

A stream of high pressure water slams into my shoulder from behind, spinning me around, and a chunk of rock the size of my fist grazes my cheek, drawing blood.

Ignoring my burning cheek, I dive over a high velocity chunk of ice, and roll underneath an air blade. Then, breathing hard, I come to a stop against the wall of the room, and collapse to the ground.

“Everyone still alive?” Chloe asks.

I reach up and touch the cut on my cheek. It’s bleeding, but it isn’t very deep, so it doesn’t count as a major injury.

As I learned on the second day of class, unless you have a hole in your abdomen or a broken neck, you don’t have a “major” injury. In fact, unless it prevents you from moving, Chloe doesn’t consider broken bones or torn ligaments to be “major” injuries.

The three of us shake our heads.

“Great,” Chloe says, “time to die.”

After class ends, Wolf heads off to the gym, leaving me and Bridget to grab dinner together. As the two of us are leaving practice room eight, we run into Samantha, who’s standing outside the door.

“Hey, Sage,” Samantha says. “Can I speak to you in private for a moment?”

I glance at Bridget, who gives a slight nod.

“Sure,” I say, stepping off to the side of the hallway. “What did you want to talk about?”

Samantha waits until Bridget reaches the end of the hallway and disappears from sight before she starts to speak. “I’ll get right to the point,” she says. “What do you think of Bridget?”

“W-What do you mean?” I stutter. What kind of question is that?

“I mean, what do you think about forming a party with her?”

“Oh. I see. I’m not sure.”

“This conversation will stay between the two of us, so give me your honest feelings. Do I want to party up with Bridget or not?

I mean, I’m more than a little jealous of her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like her. If I had to pick between her and some random stranger, I’d definitely choose her. She’s super nice, and easy to get along with. I’m sure that being in a party with her would be fun.

“Yes, I wouldn’t mind forming a party with her.”

“Great. That’s exactly what she told me too.

“By the way, what exactly happened on Benton’s Hill?”

“Nothing really, we just had a couple of near death experiences.”

“Oh?” Samantha asks, raising one eyebrow. “What happened?”

“Well, first we took a tumble while climbing up that near vertical stretch of trail, and then I nearly died when one of the boards on the bridge gave way.”

“Oh, sorry about that. I’ll make sure that the Guild issues a quest to fix the bridge before you have to climb Benton’s Hill again. I didn’t even notice it was rotten since I usually skip the bridge entirely.”

I guess it’s exactly as I suspected. Real adventurers don’t need bridges.

“I should be going,” Samantha says, “I have a lot of planning to do for tomorrow. Have a good dinner.”

“Thanks, you too.”

“Look forward to tomorrow,” Samantha says, giving me a wink. “I have a big surprise for the three of you.”