Within the heart of Kars' domain in the morning, Kobeni and Esdeath were standing together some distance away from Kars' mansion, where a hundred of the homunculus soldiers stood guard and patrolled the perimeter.
"That's where the boss mansion is..." Kobeni pointed at the gray mansion with a black roof as she looked at Esdeath beside her. It was finally time for them to part ways here after the older woman was babysitting the girl.
"Thank you for guiding me here." The younger girl patted Kobeni's arm with an appreciative nod before she walked to Kars' mansion while the older woman sighed in relief as she finally got rid of the girl.
Last night and this morning was quite miserable for Kobeni, as she had to pay for Esdeath's food and bathing fee with the credits she was saving to buy new clothes...
"I just hope I don't have to deal with this kind of troublesome thing again..." She mumbled as she turned back and headed to the Kolosseum for her new job while trying to be optimistic about her future.
Unbeknownst to Kobeni, the tribal girl was intended to repay her back in the future in a way that the older woman definitely didn't need or want...
As Esdeath walked up to the mansion, the homunculi immediately turned their glowing green eyes toward her.
"Halt, you are approaching Kars' mansion. State your intention at once!" One of the homunculi thumped the butt of his spear on the ground and demanded the reason for her visit with his low, raspy voice.
"I'm visiting Kars Aloha to test my martial skill against him!" Esdeath declared her business proudly, but the homunculi were silent as they looked at each other questioningly.
"Wait a minute." One of them said to Esdeath before they huddled into a comically big group and whispered among themselves.
They were discussing what they were supposed to do, as Kars' instructions didn't cover someone asking for a duel...
"Let's call for someone higher up to deal with this!" One of the homunculi suggested it while the rest nodded in agreement while mumbling how a genius idea this was.
"Wait here, I'll bring someone to talk to you." One of them said to Esdeath before he jogged inside the mansion to bring someone.
"Alright..." Esdeath watched everything play out, with some of her excitement dying down...
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
Before the breakfast and Esdeath's arrival at the training ground beside Kars' forge. Kars was standing in front of Juri and the sleepy Kruri in their training outfit as he was showing them something on the table.
"What we are going to do today is this!" Kars slapped a wooden table that had a pair of full-body weighted suits that strapped 20 kilograms of iron to the wearer. He had crafted these two suits specifically for the girls so they could start getting buff like a real man.
"What... is this?" Juri touched one of the suits with curiosity as she felt something hard was stuffed inside the gaps all over the suit to make it heavy. She now had a premonition that she wasn't going to like this one bit...
"It's the new training tool for you to build strength, stamina, and speed at the same time!" Kars explained to his little apprentice as he watched her face turn lifeless in real time.
"Could we not...?" Juri asked without much hope, as she could imagine the suffering this heavy suit was going to bring her.
"No, you could not." Kars smirked as he used his telekinesis magic to forcefully put the two girls in the weighted suit, ignoring their protest. He would make sure they would be strong whether they wanted to or not.
"Ehhh... me too?" Kruri complained as she was floating in the air while the suit equipped her body. The dupe girl was fully awakened, and now she wasn't looking forward to waking up every morning anymore.
"Even if you knew some fighting techniques, your body is still just a little girl! You need muscles to be great!" Kars said to Kruri as he put both of them down.
The girls were struggling just to stand and move around while Kars walked up to them with a grin.
"Let's start by running laps!" Kars then heartlessly pushed them both to run, but his two apprentices could only walk like they were old frail people.
"Give it your all, brats! Or do you want to be here all morning?!" He knocked softly on their heads with his fists as he encouraged them.
"Ugh... this is too heavy...!" Juri cried out in protest as she walked with difficulty as her limbs felt like lead. The suit was weighing all of her limbs down so much, and just moving slowly was all she could do.
"Don't slack off, you lazy bum!" Kars watched them like a hawk, and he spotted his self-proclaimed daughter was predictable, slowing down, and clearly taking it easy, so he had to encourage her with a visual image of him pulling out a metal whip.
"This is abuse...!" Kruri quickly sped up next to Juri in fear as she didn't ever doubt her daddy's willingness to oppress little girls.
"You will run 5 laps today even if you have to crawl in the dirt, so don't think you could go anywhere before you complete your task!" He whipped the ground near them with a supersonic boom just to make a point and made the two girls squeal in fear.
The deep fissure Kars left in the ground with his metal whip of love really motivated the two girls to try their best...
Then after half an hour, the girls managed to complete their task and collapsed on the ground, looking like they were about to die. They were soaked with sweat and panting heavily, too tired to even speak.
"Good, you made it! I knew you had it in you!" Kars praised them before he went to their sides and healed them up with his soul magic that siphoned energy from the souls in his massive reserve.
Golden energy flowed out from his hand as a torrent of the healing light enveloped the girls on the ground like serpents, healing their damaged muscles and restoring their stamina.
"Now get up," Kars commanded them as he used his telekinesis magic to remove their weight suits. "I'm going to teach you some sorcery next!"
"Really, Daddy!" Kruri was the first to bounce back from the ground, her purple eyes shining with excitement. She had been bucking him to teach her some cool spell for a while now, and he always made excuses for being too busy to teach her. "Teach me the Fireball spell, you must!"
"Maybe next time, brat..." He messed up her hair and enjoyed looking at her pouting face. "You two will learn reinforcement magic today!"
"Are we studying...?" Juri sighed as she got up from the ground and looked at Kars with a reluctant expression. She hated studying from books and listening to long-winded explanations.
"Don't worry, I know you girls are stupid, so I'm not going to make you read the textbook and hope you actually figure out something." Kars hummed as he ignored the two girls, who gave him a glare.
"Come here, I'll help you learn." He beckoned for them to come close, but the two girls just looked at each other, reluctant to be the first to experience whatever Kars had prepared for them.
"Don't waste my time!' Kars clicked his tongue and got close to them. Then he grabbed both of their heads with his glowing green hands as use his mastery in soul magic to directly interact with the two girls' souls.
"Ahh?! What are you doing?!" Juri squirmed her body with a flustered expression as she felt something touching her all over.
"Are we going to do it, Daddy? Right here, right now?" Kruri said more calmly, but the excitement in her eyes was undeniable. She didn't expect him to put his hands on them so soon, but she was 100% welcome it.
"Don't slander me, Brats! You are still too small for me to put inside!" Kars' lips twitched as he shook their heads with his hands to get their minds out of the gutter. What he was doing right now was stimulating... no, teaching their souls how to use the body reinforcement magic by instinct and bypass the tedious process of studying.
Then after teaching their souls how to use reinforcement, Kars told them to try it out.
"Mmmmhhhhhh..." Juri focused intensely with her eyes closed as she tried to feel around inside herself before she "touched" something and immediately pulled it out and "wore" it over herself like a second skin.
"Did I do it right?" Juri opened her eyes and touched her body before she glanced at Kars with a puzzled look since there was no special visual effect, so she didn't really know if it was supposed to be right this...
"Hmm, I don't feel practically stronger either." Kruri, who also succeeded in using reinforcement beside Juri, chimed in and tilted her head slightly as she looked at her hands.
"Heh, only one way to find out." Kars smirked before a wooden baton flew toward him as he grabbed it from the air before tapping the baton against his palm.
"Eh... wait—ahh?!" Before they could ask for the second opinion, Kars mercilessly hit them both on their head with a baton. The impact was loud enough that any normal girl would have a concussion from that.
"Oww... wait, it doesn't hurt much?" Juri said in surprise as she was holding her head and braced herself for the throbbing pain, but she only felt the usual tolerable pain when Kars hit her with his disciplinary knuckles of love.
"Now you know it's working." Kars chuckled, and then he began teaching them some tricks in using the reinforcement magic before he had them spar with each other with reinforcement on.
As time passed while he watched the girls wrestling on the sandpit, he felt someone approach the training ground.
"Elsa? What is it?" He turned to look as the assassin sauntered here with someone following her from behind.
"You have a guest, a cute one too~" Elsa stepped aside and revealed a girl around 12 years old with long blue hair and blue eyes standing boldly as she stared at Kars with unblinking eyes.
"Mmh? Aren't you that brat that I saw in the Kolosseum?" Kars raised one of his eyebrows as he looked at her with curiosity. He remembered this girl was eyeballing him among the crowd in the stands.
"My name is Esdeath. You are strong. I want to duel with you!" Esdeath declared her intention straightforwardly with visible fighting spirit reigning in her eyes.
"Oh? You want to fight me?" Kars was taken aback at first before he soon smiled, holding his chin with his fingers while observing her up and down with his amber eyes. "Do you know that someone like me is not a man you can demand lightly?"
"That's right, my daddy demanded you pay up if you want his attention!" Kruri, who showed up out of nowhere beside Kars, declared haughtily with her chin raised up.
"Who said you can stop the spar?" Kars grabbed her cheek and pitched her chubby meat. He had the urge to make it red...
"Ahhh... Mommy! Daddy is abusing me again!" The dupe girl cried out as she wriggled herself free from his fingers and took refuge behind the amused Elsa. Like hell she was going to miss the chance to slack off.
"You little bum..." Kars glared at the cheeky girl hugging Elsa and using her as a shield before he sighed and looked back at Juri, who was squatting with her hands holding up her head.
"You can take a break for now!" Kars told her as Juri stood up with a tired sigh and walked out of the sandpit toward the group to join them.
"Now then, you, that girl earlier, did make a good point. What can you offer for my time?" Kars hummed as he looked at Esdeath while he walked up to her, his imposing form slowly towering over her.
"What can I offer for this...?" The blue-haired girl muttered with a naive blink of her eyes. She seemed to be thinking hard that she was even forgetting her surroundings.
"You could offer yourself, little girl..." Elsa suddenly offered Esdeath bad advice with a mischievous smile. She moved behind the girl and held her shoulders while looking at Kars with a sultry look. "The boss should appreciate another capable warrior in his service, no?"
"..." Kars glanced at the assassin with a speechless look. He wondered if she knew how bad that was going to make him look when the rumor spread...