The woman clapped her hands together, the loud crack cutting through the heavy air. Her eyes snapped away from Noen and swept across the rows of silent recruits.
"SO, LOAFED AROUND LONG ENOUGH! EVERYONE KNOWS WHERE TO GO, RIGHT?"
The crowd nodded in perfect, unsettling unison. Without a single word or murmur, they immediately broke formation, scattering silently across the massive grounds like a colony of ants. Noen, however, remained standing right where he was, completely frozen.
The woman turned back to him, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"So... you Absolute Zero." She bit her lip, desperately trying to stifle a laugh. Noen rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.
"This is how it works with us: Every day, a different stat is trained! Today endurance, tomorrow focus, etc..." She casually spun her weapon around in her hand, the metallic click rhythmically breaking the silence. "Thanks to the training, the people here become good show soldiers..."
Noen blinked, caught off guard. "Show soldiers?"
"That doesn't matter for now," the woman said, waving her hand dismissively. "Since we focus on a different stat every day, your system will also spit out LP for this stat... mostly."
She shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Sorry kid, you only get off this training ground when you are at the limit for all stats, which for you is, haha... zero."
The absolute gravity of her words hit him like a physical punch to the stomach. His legs gave out under the sudden realization, and Noen fell to his knees in the dry dirt. "W-What if I refuse—"
"Then we shoot you," the woman said grinning, instantly shifting her stance and pointing the weapon right at Noen's face. "Don't even try it."
Noen swallowed hard, staring down the dark barrel of the gun. But beneath the terror, a strange, stubborn heat began to rise in his chest. He tightly clenched his fists against the gravel, looking up through his hair.
"As long as I can kick this Azhuron's ass afterward!" He grinned.
–The system didn't show a countdown or some sort... so even if my mother should, must, die in the meantime, the system can, somehow, save my mother!–
The woman chuckled dryly, the cruel amusement returning to her eyes. "You're not going anywhere afterward."
Noen's grin vanished instantly. "What?"
"Nothing. AND NOW MOVE OUT! Dawdling around here! Lazy bastard!"
"Yes ma'am!" Noen said, snapping into a frantic salute.
He scrambled to his feet and turned, sprinting off in a random direction. He had absolutely no idea where he was actually supposed to go, but looking back at the trigger-happy medic, he certainly didn't dare to ask any more questions.
Noen didn't have to run aimlessly for long. The sheer size of the crowd made it impossible to miss the gathering at the far edge of the training grounds, where the metal floor abruptly gave way to the deep, shifting dunes of the wasteland.
He slowed to a jog, his chest already heaving slightly, and slipped into the back of the silent formation.
At the front stood the young man who had yelled earlier, holding a massive, rusted megaphone. Behind him lay rows upon rows of thick canvas harnesses, each attached to a heavy iron sled loaded with jagged stones.
"TODAY IS ENDURANCE!" the man roared, his voice echoing off the distant facility walls. "THAT MEANS WE DON'T STOP UNTIL THE SUN HITS THE RIDGE! TWENTY KILOMETERS THROUGH THE DUNES! IF YOU DROP THE ROPE, YOU DON'T GET WATER. STRAP IN!"
In perfect, terrifying unison, the hundreds of recruits stepped forward, grabbed the harnesses, and strapped the heavy leather across their chests. Noen swallowed hard, walking up to the nearest empty sled. He gripped the harness. It felt incredibly heavy just holding it. He dragged it over his shoulders and clicked the rusted buckle into place.
"MOVE!"
The crowd surged forward. The sound of hundreds of heavy iron sleds scraping against the sand was deafening. Noen leaned forward, digging his sneakers into the earth, and pulled.
Instantly, his body screamed.
His legs began to tremble. Crunch. Drag. Crunch. Drag.
He looked around. The other recruits were staring dead ahead, their faces blank masks of pure apathy. Sweat poured down their faces, but no one groaned. No one complained. They just marched, dragging their iron anchors through the deep, unforgiving sand.
At the fifteen-minute mark, Noen's vision began to blur at the edges. His lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass. Every step sank deep into the loose sand, requiring twice the energy to pull his foot back out.
I can't... I can't...
His right knee buckled. Noen crashed hard into the burning sand, the heavy harness biting deep into his shoulders, pinning him down. He gasped frantically for air, the world spinning in nauseating circles.
A shadow fell over him. A heavy boot kicked him squarely in the ribs.
"Get up, Zero!" one of the patrolling guards snarled, a rifle slung over his shoulder. "Or I'll leave you here to bake!"
Noen gritted his teeth, the pain in his ribs flaring, and forced himself onto his hands and knees. He dug his fingers into the sand and pushed upward, his entire body shaking violently. He took a step. Then another.
Suddenly, his stomach convulsed.
Noen dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach as a violent wave of nausea overtook him. He gagged, his body rejecting the sheer level of physical trauma, and vomited violently into the sand. He retched again and again, throwing up nothing but bitter, yellow bile, his throat burning with stomach acid. Tears streamed down his dirt-streaked face.
He lay there in the sand, coughing, his eyes rolling back in his head.
–It's hell. This is actual hell.–
Spitting the acidic taste from his mouth, Noen somehow managed to grab the ropes of the harness with bleeding fingers. His muscles tore, his joints popped, but slowly, agonizingly, he dragged himself back to his feet.
He leaned into the weight, closed his eyes, and took one slow step after the other.
⸻
After multiple, unbelievable painful hours:
"SO, CALL IT A DAY!"
The word had barely left the man's mouth before Noen's remaining strength completely vanished. His grip tore away from the leather straps, and Noen collapsed. Once more, his face slammed hard into the dirt, his limbs sprawling out like a broken doll. He lay there, hyperventilating, his chest heaving violently as he tasted the copper of blood and the bitter sting of bile in his mouth. He couldn't move a finger. He was entirely done.
But as he lay paralyzed on the burning ground, his vision swimming in darkness, a sharp, digital chime echoed in his mind.
His System flickered to life right in front of his face, hovering just above the sand:
[0.5 END added to END Stat]
Noen screamed: "All this? For 0.5?"
Clenching his fists into the dirt, Noen threw his head back against the sand, opened his mouth, and let loose an earsplitting scream of pure, unadulterated rage, agony, and defiance that echoed all the way across the wasteland.
And that....was just the first day.