────────────────────────
[Answers]
────────────────────────
| A month later… |
...
After the last dueling class, things continued just as normal. Day after day, Dan and the others went to learn, while Kuina and Zoro dueled constantly—slowly but steadily climbing through the count between them, which now stood at 1,612.
Another monthly dueling day had come and gone since then. This time, Dan only fought regular opponents. No more surprise challenges arose.
During all of it, he kept using Tireless to train during the evenings so that he could end his days with a healthy dose of limit-pushing before going to bed.
The results were nothing short of amazing—it was almost like his already-doubled rate of improvement had doubled again on top of it.
His swordsmanship was still moving at roughly the same pace as before. But his strengthened muscles were making his attacks and movements passively sharper, even without any direct improvement to technique… which there was, but not as significant nor as fast as his physique's growth.
He would obviously prefer to wake up fully overpowered one morning—but the gap between him and Zoro and Kuina was at least closing.
At the rate he was going, two or three months was all he needed before he could put up a proper fight against either of them.
—In one-on-one duels. Not both at the same time. Let's not get crazy.
Though with Tireless, maybe there would be a chance.
As for NP farming… that had sadly not gone well.
He could officially say… it had reached its current limit. The villagers were on maximum alert after the merchant incident, which made pulling a similar stunt now the same as handing himself over gift-wrapped.
And fighting the villagers was still something he wasn't capable of. Plenty of them were trained swordsmen, after all.
So, unless some new and unsuspecting people wandered onto this isolated island in the middle of nowhere, he wasn't getting anything from the system for the foreseeable future.
For now, his best move was to do the best he could with what he had.
Training.
And that was exactly what he was doing.
"Huff... huff..."
It was evening, an hour or two before nightfall. He was swinging a long bamboo stick he'd found in the forest—longer than the ones at the dojo, heavier for it—while working through different motions, breathing steadily all the while.
His eyes flicked briefly to his system screen, then back to the motion.
"...Thirty minutes left. I'll stop at five—wouldn't want to collapse face-first in the dirt." He muttered amidst his faint gasps.
Decision made, he pushed the rhythm up. His swings became faster and more constant.
No sweat came. His breathing didn't change. For the level of intensity he was putting out, it was a deeply abnormal sight.
Abnormal enough that it had apparently unsettled a certain someone nearby.
-Rustle...-
A bush not far off shivered slightly.
Dan slowed his swings and turned to look at it, eyes narrowing.
A little cautious, he deactivated Tireless—not wanting to have something unexpected drag on until the effect wore off and he went down without warning. The remaining time would hold until he activated it again.
The exhaustion landed on him all at once. Not enough to put him down yet, but enough to force a loud huff out of him, his back curling forward and his hands dropping to his knees as the bamboo pole clattered against the hard ground.
It took a few seconds before he was able to straighten back up, and even then, his body felt heavy. Still, he pushed through it and made his way toward the bush.
In the worst case, like it being a bear stalking him, he'd just flip Tireless back on and make a run for it.
-Rustle!-
As he got close, however, whatever was inside the bush decided it didn't want to be found. The moment he took his first step toward it, something scrambled to get out and bolted.
Dan frowned and went after it.
As he began running, he caught a glimpse of a figure breaking through the forest and sprinting away—slightly faster than him at the moment.
Not about to let it get away, he activated Tireless again, pumping his speed to max gear in an instant.
For the next few minutes, the chase stretched through the trees—the low evening light and thick vegetation doing their best to keep the figure hidden.
But that didn't last long.
Because eventually, someone ran out of steam.
That not being him.
At last, the figure slowed, stumbled, and finally stopped against a tree a short distance ahead.
When Dan caught up, his eyebrow twitched.
"The hell?"
Wheeze—
Leaning against the trunk with her back to him, wheezing like she'd just run for her life, was Kuina—as if facing away from him would somehow make her harder to recognize.
Out of respect for her apparent desire for anonymity, he decided to be tactful about it.
"So it was you, Kuina. Mind telling me why you were spying on me?"
"Ugh..."
She pushed herself upright and turned to face him with an indignant expression—her nose still very much gasping for air in the background.
"Spying on you? Who do you think I am? I was just passing by here, nothing more and nothing else."
"Then why did you run the moment I noticed you?"
"I remembered I had something urgent to take care of at home."
Dan's expression went flat.
She sure wasn't about to admit it. That much was clear.
"..."
"...!"
"..."
"...!"
They stayed like that for a moment, each waiting for the other to crack first.
However, with her being the one in the wrong, she was inevitably the one who broke—unable to keep standing there while he looked at her like she was the strangest thing he'd ever encountered.
"Fine, yes, I was watching you!" she snapped, jabbing a finger at him. "But don't get the wrong idea. I just came to figure out the weird things you keep pulling off!"
"Weird things?"
"Like your abnormal stamina—and don't try to deny it. Even my father would be at least a little winded by some of the training you pull off when you think no one's looking. You don't even break a sweat!"
Dan raised a single eyebrow, unbothered.
"I think you're just parаnоi—"
"And don't even try to deny it right now either, because after running for five minutes straight, you're not even slightly winded!"
Dan blinked. His gaze slid briefly to his still-active Tireless indicator, a bead of sweat running down his temple.
Then he deactivated it.
Immediately, he dropped to one knee, gasping.
Kuina gritted her teeth. "Stop it, I know you're faking!"
"...I'm… not."
Kuina's pointing finger wavered. The gasping was starting to sound genuinely real.
—Wheeze…—
A confused look crept in as her arm slowly fell.
"Huh?"
Dan took a few seconds, then straightened back up and met her eyes with a perfectly impassive look despite still breathing like he had been drowning a few seconds ago.
"You were… saying?"
The smug/exhausted combination on his face left her with absolutely nothing to say.
She knew he had to be lying… But he was disturbingly good at it.
Watching her expression cycle between suspicion and genuine uncertainty, Dan let out a slower breath and felt a small pang of guilt at the gaslighting.
'...I suppose I can at least give her something so she can have some peace of mind.'
Revealing the hacks was out of the question. Beyond keeping the surprise factor, it was standard practice in stories—the ROB's readers probably wouldn't appreciate it.
And he didn't particularly want to find out what happened to him if they complained. Maybe the ROB would come to smite him.
Plus, he simply liked having it be his secret. That was reason enough.
So…
"Ahem," He cleared his throat, regaining Kuina's attention, who, until then, had been in a deep internal conflict between believing him and keeping her suspicions.
Once he had it, he shrugged, lifting both hands as if he had been discovered.
"Alright, you caught me," He said, a slight smile appearing on his face. "This ability is a hereditary thing. In simple terms, it allows me to hold off exhaustion so it doesn't slow me down, then release it all at once afterward."
It was the perfect excuse. In a world like this, that wasn't even that insane to believe.
"Stop spouting nonsense, that's insane!"
—Though apparently she didn't see it that way.
Dan sent her a flat stare. "Believe me or don't, that's your choice."
And without much else to add, he turned and started walking back.
It was her call whether she believed him or not—even though he was lying.
Whatever other reason she might have had for coming here, it wasn't his business.
Plus, he was feeling pretty tired. Since his training had been interrupted, he might as well end it here and go to sleep early.
Thus, with such thoughts, he began diving back into the vegetation, leaving a stunned Kuina behind.
"Ah…"
Kuina stood there a moment longer, watching his back with an unreadable expression.
For a moment, she truly considered simply going back and leaving things here.
—But since the fact that she'd been sneaking around watching him was already out in the open, she wasn't leaving until she had at least something more to show for it.
She hadn't gone through this shame just to get a flimsy fairy tale for an answer!
"Hold up!" She ran after him.
...
°
°
°
| Minutes later... |
...
In the end, she accompanied him all the way back while continuing to ask questions on the way, much to Dan's exhaustion.
So, not wanting to accidentally slip up during the questions—considering his tired state—he offered to, rather than answering, show her from up close how his "ability" worked.
Luckily, she accepted.
After that, Dan resumed his earlier training while Kuina watched seated on a cut-down log. Of course, while toning the intensity down compared to earlier, since he didn't want her to see him hit the floor the moment the effect cut out.
Her expression kept shifting between fascination and outrage through it all.
After all, now she was clearly able to see from up close how, despite the long duration of the training and the immense intensity, Dan did not even look the slightest bit tired.
No sweat, no heavier breathing, no lessening in his speed.
It was almost mystical.
And her expression only turned more baffled as she saw him collapse on one knee the moment the training ended, and with it, all the characteristics mentioned above that had been missing came back in a tidal wave. Ending up with Dan gasping for breath on the ground for a few seconds, before he was at last able to stand up… barely.
"Unbelievable..." she murmured, staring at the exhausted-looking Dan like he'd grown a second head. "So you can just... hold your exhaustion off? Like actually telling it to come back later?"
"More or less."
She passed a hand through her face and let out a breath that leaned toward relief. "No wonder you've been improving so fast. You can push yourself to the limit without anything stopping you."
"I'm pretty talented too, you know," Dan added.
That part was technically also true—He just had a hack for it. But she didn't need to know that.
"..." She didn't refute it, still turning the whole thing over in her head.
Then, Dan smiled at her, eyes narrowing slightly.
"By the way—if you were so curious about all this, couldn't you have just asked, instead of creeping up to my home and watching from a bush like a stalker?"
Kuina flinched and immediately leveled a finger at him in outrage.
"You…"
But no actual answer came. Not one she was willing to say out loud, anyway.
After a moment of visible hesitation—
"Sorry," she said.
Not entirely genuine, given her prideful nature—but enough that it held some weight.
So in the end, Dan accepted it with a shrug and left it there. "Sure, whatever."
Then he slowly hauled himself upright, swallowing the groan that tried to come with it, and patting his clothes to brush off the dust.
"Well, if that answers everything, I'm going to go collapse on my bed now, if you don't mind."
"Oh." Kuina gave an absent nod, saying nothing as he turned and headed toward the cabin a short distance away.
-Slam!-
Then, the door shut with more force than strictly necessary, snapping her momentarily out of her trance.
Once the place fell back into silence, however, she went back at it, apparently not in a hurry to go.
She sat there for a while after that, still working through her thoughts.
—Snooooore—
Until the loud and completely unrestrained snore rang out from inside, rattling out of that cabin like Dan had been unconscious before he even hit the bed.
"..."
At having her train of thought interrupted once again, and by a snore of all things, her expression went deadpan.
But in the end, it was enough of a wake-up call.
A moment later, she stood up, let out a sigh, and turned to leave, her gaze a little less clouded than it had been in the days since the dueling class.
Though not entirely settled, either.
With such eyes, she began walking away, back to the dojo.
Leaving behind only the beautiful sound of nature and the snores of an incredibly exhausted kid.
...
────────────────────────
-To Be Continued...-
────────────────────────
(A/N: Rain's gonna be pretty heavy these days. Hopefully there won't be a blackout.)