Muscles Are Always Right (2)
"Ugh!"
The historic first squeak(?) burst out loudly. At that moment, when he first stood tall while lifting a dumbbell, Marosh thought,
'Can someone like me… become muscular?'
He didn't know.
No.
Now, he had to become one.
Muscles had become a necessity.
Without them, he'd just end up like grilled lightning meat.
To survive here, he had to build muscle, he had to gather the strength to finally remove the sacred sword from his waist!
So…
'Lara, I'm sorry!'
Marosh choked up as he called out the nickname of the sword that had looked after him for fifteen years. Then, he quickly brushed away the tears that were about to form at the corners of his eyes.
"Hup!"
Tears were a luxury he couldn't afford now. He felt like he had to hold onto the sensation of that first successful "deadlift," the feeling that had engraved itself into his body in that moment of success.
"Uwaaaaah!"
"One more rep! One more!"
The cheers poured in.
Within them, Marosh put the dumbbell down. Then grabbed it again. Got into position. Focused his strength!
"...Grrggggh!"
Maybe he'd already used up too much energy.
He couldn't do it like before.
He could barely get up.
And then—
"Hey! Your battle cry! Use the one from earlier!"
The Demon King's voice echoed faintly.
In that instant, Marosh changed his battle cry.
"...Argh!"
Poof!
The moment he changed the cry, as if casting a magic spell, power surged into his body!
"Another success!"
"Wooooooaah!"
"One more! One more!"
".....!"
A spark of pleasure flickered in Marosh's eyes.
Roaring cheers and applause.
Waves of support and encouragement.
And within them, the tingling sensation in his worked muscles!
Was that a sense of accomplishment? Or the first taste of adrenaline in his life?
He couldn't tell.
But one thing was certain: that squeaky battle cry strangely suited him very well.
"Aaah!"
His breathing naturally came under control.
His core tensed up on its own.
His focus shot up like never before.
Thanks to that, he felt like he could bring out strength beyond his limits!
"Aaaah! Aaaah!"
"Uwoooooooooogh!"
"One more! One more!"
As the rep count climbed, his limbs started to tremble. It felt like his spine might collapse. But he didn't stop. He felt euphoria.
And so, when he finally succeeded in completing the tenth rep of his first set—
"There! Ten reps! One extra to commemorate!"
"One more! One more!"
"...!"
The Demon King called for one more.
The cheering squad shouted for one more.
Marosh's eyes shook.
'Excuse me?'
He'd just barely finished ten, you know?
That was hard enough already, you know?
And now you want one more?
"One more! One more!"
"...Aaaah!"
Without realizing, Marosh completed an eleventh deadlift.
And thought—
I actually did it.
Even though they made an unreasonable demand for one more, I still managed to pull it off perfectly.
"......"
The emotional thrill zapped his triceps!
That euphoric high of accomplishment directed at himself!
But the feeling didn't last long.
Because, all of a sudden, someone—who knows from where—crept up unnoticed and shouted.
It was the Demon King again.
"Ohhh! That last rep had bad form! You were about to round your back! And eleven? That's an ugly number! Round it off! Make it twenty! One more!"
"One more! One more!"
"...!"
Stop it, you psychos.
'No more… please…'
He had barely gotten through eleven.
And now they were telling him to do nine more without rest? Just to round it off at twenty?
For a moment, everything went black.
The focus he had been holding onto slipped.
Before he knew it, the dumbbell slipped from his hands.
"...Ahh! Failure!"
"Booooooo!"
The cheering squad's reaction instantly turned to boos!
And as expected, a red lightning bolt struck down!
The cheerleader's chant burst out again!
"...Tt-dada!"
Asurat, who had been regenerating through his passive ability, was now charred black again. Even more murderous intent gleamed in Asurat's eyes as he glared at Marosh.
"...T-tss... tsss... w-watch... your... f-form...!"
".....!"
Don't take it out on me!
Go yell at your Demon King, will you?!
He wanted to scream in protest.
But he had no strength left.
From that day on—
Marosh's charging-focused special training continued almost daily.
Each day, the cheering squad gathered. Each time, a storm of cheering, jeering, threats, and unsolicited advice poured onto Marosh with no mercy.
It got so bad that Marosh even protested directly to Kim Jangcheol once.
"Um… I really feel like I'm going to lose my mind! Can't you please stop gathering the cheering squad?!"
"Nope."
Kim Jangcheol replied with a bright smile, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because, you know, unless you remove that sacred sword, we can't even get started with our work."
"...Excuse me?"
"Ahh, yeah. Removing the sacred sword is how we can properly purify the Swamp of Decay. Ahh. Only when the Swamp of Decay is purified will the Combat Engineering Corps that came all this way find meaning in their work. Ahh. And only when they work with a sense of purpose will the Swamp of Decay turn into farmland."
"..."
"Ahhh. When rice stalks grow in the swamp-turned-paddy field, smiles will bloom on everyone's faces. Ahhh. In the piles of rice sacks, everyone's happiness will simmer. But… ahhhh. Because Marosh can't build muscle, he can't remove the sacred sword, and because he can't purify the swamp, he can't grow rice, and so, everyone starves. Ahhhhh."
"..."
"That's why we cheer for you. Seriously. Because we don't want the kids to go hungry."
"...!"
How in the world does all that connect?!
'This is pure nonsense!'
But he couldn't argue.
Because he had no strength.
Because if he failed, it felt like he'd die.
Amid the cheers, coaching, threats, and madness that seemed to drive him insane, he lifted the dumbbells and sweated, doing as he was told.
Of course, Kim Jangcheol didn't just relentlessly push Marosh.
'To build muscle, rest and nutrition are just as important as working out!'
He recalled his days back in Korea.
To be honest, he'd never really been into fitness. But one of his juniors at the lab had been obsessed with muscle loss, constantly worried about it.
'Seongjin used to chant "carbs-protein-fat, carbs-protein-fat" like a mantra every day.'
Thanks to that guy—
He'd heard so much talk about fitness that he was able to craft a solid workout routine, diet, and rest plan for Marosh.
"Right after your workout, cool your muscles! Sirgi!"
"...…"
Sirgi, the Four Heavenly Kings' blade of frost, sighed and drew six swords. Cold, chilling air flowed from the blades as she swung them around Marosh.
Skkak!
"…..!"
The sword tips grazed Marosh's body with only a one-millimeter margin!
Each time, it felt like he was being blasted with freezer-like cold.
But Marosh couldn't even flinch.
Skak! Skakak!
The blades passed over his head, neck, arms, and legs with barely a sheet of paper's thickness in between. If he so much as twitched, something would definitely get chopped off.
And… if that actually happened, it didn't seem like Sirgi would feel even remotely sorry!
"......"
Sirgi swung her blades with an emotionless gaze!
But Marosh, standing right in front of her, could see it. The way she slightly bit her lip! The truth—that she was deeply pissed off at having to wield her swords for a pathetic guy like him!
'So… so scary…!'
In a certain sense, Sirgi was scarier than even the cheerleader, Asurat.
But his fear didn't end there.
"The meal plan decreed by our Lord. Eat it. Leave not a single grain."
Clack.
Once Sirgi's cold therapy was done, another Four Heavenly King, Hartok, guided him to the dining table.
And pushed forward a mountain of food.
"...…"
Corn thicker and longer than his forearm.
Potatoes bigger than his head.
And the beans—so many beans.
Even the jerky, supplied by the Combat Engineering Corps, was unbelievably tough!
"If you can't eat it, just say so. I'll shove it in for you."
"...…!"
Hartok had the iron will to make him eat every single bite, no matter if his stomach burst or not!
To stay alive, Marosh stuffed himself. Even when he felt like he was going to explode, he kept eating. When he wanted to throw up, he forced down the potato chunks.
Ten days passed, then two weeks, and finally a month.
During that time, Marosh changed—for survival.
"Bench press! Starting now, squeak!"
The weight he could lift with his charging strength steadily increased. Thanks to proper rest and nutrition, his body bulked up rapidly.
And as the muscles grew, the blood flow to his brain decreased.
His thoughts became simpler.
He spoke less.
Instead, everything he said started ending in a squeak.
That battle cry, which he used desperately to complete his sets, had become a full-on speech habit.
And finally, the day arrived.
"A month of charging. Marosh grew rapidly stronger, squeak."
"Oh wow. But his brain got worse and his speech got shorter."
"Still, not enough yet, squeak."
"Right. He's about as fit as a high schooler who just started working out?"
"What's a high schooler, squeak?"
"It's a thing. Anyway, you're going to try today?"
"I can do it, aaaah."
Marosh wore a solemn expression.
He looked down at the sacred sword clinging to his waist like a magnet—the worn blade of Camilan.
"Lara still doesn't want to part from me. But now, I think I can do it, squeak."
"Hmm, really?"
"I mean it, aaahh."
"Why?"
"Because the sword hanging here gets in the way when I'm charging. It bumps into the dumbbells and machines, messes up my form, reduces range of motion, breaks isolation, aaah."
"......."
"That causes muscle loss. That's a serious problem, squeak."
"I—Is that so."
"Exactly. So I must take it off, squeak!"
Marosh grabbed the sacred sword with both hands.
And exerted strength.
"Aaaaah!"
.
.
.
.
.
.
!
...!
The sacred sword flinched.
Marosh applied more force.
He poured his whole heart into his charge-driven sincerity(?).
"Marosh's goal is muscle! Muscle gains today and tomorrow! Aaahhhh!"
Muscle gains.
What a beautiful word. To obtain muscle—what a fragrant ending that is.
Muscle is precious.
With muscle, many things become easier.
Can't get a champagne cork out because it's too tight? Just chop off the neck with your palm and drink it in one go.
Need to get to work but the traffic is jammed? Pick up the car and run with it.
Need to go on an overseas trip but a blizzard grounds your flight? Toss the plane into the sky and sprint onboard midair.
That's the benefit of muscle!
That's the goal of lifting!
That's the utopia of muscle lovers all around the globe!
Thus, Marosh had fully understood and adopted the ideology of all the world's muscle fanatics, whose bodies were so saturated with muscle that they even packed it inside their skulls.
Thanks to that—
"Aaahhhh!"
At the moment he let out a battle cry filled with sincerity—
…Thwap!
At last, Camilan's sacred sword detached from his waist.
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