Chapter 1511 (1/2)

The unfortunate truth that became immediately obvious as the recruits set about their current task of building themselves a shelter was that there was a wide disparity in terms of architectural understanding amongst them. Each individual came from a different background; there were thousands of worlds with wildly divergent building styles. Raymund’s world, for example, primarily relied on tents for their dwellings, so he felt rather nonplussed when he was given bamboo as the primary material.

He was somewhat gratified to see that most of his fellow elite recruits were just as miserable as he while they attempted to make for themselves a private space. These people had been groomed from a young age; they had never been asked to make themselves a home.

There were, of course, some exceptions.

After two hours that he spent fruitlessly stacking bamboo, Raymund looked on with several other stunned recruits as Charlotte Wick put the finishing touches on a picturesque bamboo hut. It was only a single room, but that room was large enough for a bed and also came with a working door. Just as she allowed herself the brief respite of settling underneath her perfectly aligned roof and coolly regarding her audience, a wet drop hit Raymund’s face and forced him to look upward.

The gorgeous hanging nebula above the Nexus was completely obscured by a thick layer of water vapor that hung in the air. Their sky was filled with dark grey clouds. With a dull rumble of thunder, it began to rain over the Fifth Cohort Rally Station.

Benjamin Rex, who had selected a spot next to Raymund to set up his dwelling space, frowned upward through the hastening raindrops. “Are there weather patterns on the Rally Stations?”

Raymund just shook his head wordlessly. The cool sensation of rain hitting his fur was surprising, but not unpleasant. His fur was naturally oily enough that most of the moisture slid off of him. As it was, he set aside the seemingly hopeless task of building a home and focused on his garden.

After being shown a box of seeds, Raymund had randomly selected two as the plants for his garden. One seemed to resemble a rather large nut and possessed a thick brown shell. The other was a tiny blue bean. When Raymund had inquired to the assistant overseer watching the box what they were, he had been told that the man ‘was not a gardener’ and that the best way to find out would be just to grow the seeds.

Which was a practical solution, but not one that was reassuring, with the hanging threat of a punishment from the Ghosthound if his garden wasn’t satisfactory. Considering he had absolutely no experience with gardening, Raymund was justifiably worried that he would be the one receiving that punishment.

For the moment, Raymund could only sigh and settle down on his haunches as the rain began to fall harder around him. The precipitation smacked lightly into the dusty areas between the cultivatable land of the gardens and seeped into the ground. But more than the rain in his immediate vicinity, Raymund’s attention was periodically pulled upward by the noise of the rain falling into the bamboo forest. The tall stocks rustled and swayed from the storm. It was a dull, background static that somehow became a part of the task.

This activity is certainly not what I expected from Drill Sergeant Ghosthound… Raymund frowned down at his clawed fingers. Just how intense is the typical training that even a man so stubborn as he was convinced to include this sort of diversion as part of the training regimen…?

But despite the strangeness of the current circumstances, Raymund was surprised to find that gardening was a surprisingly effective way to keep his mind off of how mentally exhausted he was. While he dug small holes in his garden and carefully placed the thick-shelled nut in the holes on the left side of the garden and the blue beans within the holes on the right, the small mundane tasks of cultivation put Raymund’s perception primarily in his body. The humidity in the air, the sound of the rain, the soft grains of the soil between his fingers, the near weightlessness of the seeds…

His senses became the reprieve from his mind. So although every action required constant stimulation from his image in order to move his body, he achieved an equilibrium in his image usage that meant he was no longer constantly exhausting himself as he mimicked normal life.

Once all the seeds were within their holes and covered with soil, Raymund closed his eyes. Even his breathing slowed to near stillness. The rain simply washed over him as he crouched over his small garden. His mind was completely blank. He allowed his image to recede. He was almost a statue, completely devoid of biological needs, a sentry standing watch over the garden. Time slowly slipped past.

His senses grew and grew, becoming everything. For a few moments, he felt relaxed. The pressure of his current circumstances gave him a brief reprieve.

Then, aware that this opportunity would not last forever, Raymund came back to himself. He stood and stretched, still slightly stiff in his movements due to his unfamiliarity with how to use his image in this manner. But he was improving. Then he looked up toward the sky. The rain was clearing up, but it was an appropriate demonstration that a dwelling with a working roof would quite easily improve his quality of life while staying here. So Raymund turned his attention to his house.

No one would ever call him a carpenter, but the squat shack he threw together could honestly be described as ‘practical’.

Around two hours later, Heiffal called for everyone to gather: it was time to begin their training in earnest. Perhaps out of nervousness, one of the other recruits turned in a Tree Coin and another wave of warm energy was released over their group. Feeling refreshed, Raymund paid attention as Heiffal explained their next task.

...and promptly joined the rest of the recruits in grimacing at the pronouncement. They were going to work on improving their base physical abilities.

“Head Drill Instructor Ghosthound places enormous importance on physical capability,” Heiffal was saying. “A strong body supports a strong image. So your first task will be running underneath the influence of a gravity array. A gravity array on top of the suppression array that takes away your Stamina. Those of you who somehow made it this far without developing a passive physical Skill… I hope you saved a free Skill slot. Otherwise, this will be an extremely difficult few hours for you.”

Although in this case, our images are the only reason our bodies are able to move, Raymund thought grumpily. So shouldn’t you say a strong image supports a strong body?

Raymund had a love/hate relationship with physical fitness. On the one hand, he found it profoundly tiresome. Even with the System, there was a limit to how strong you could physically become. Therefore, training with Skills or images was much more fruitful.

On the other hand, Raymund inexplicably was very good at those sorts of physical exercises. Even toward the end, when Techetadore had surpassed him in every other aspect, he could keep up during the daily physical exercises that Techetadore put himself through. For that reason, physical fitness held a special place in Raymund’s heart: it was the activity the two brothers had always done together.

Heiffal led the group of recruits back toward the central area, where an entirely new building had been erected while most of them struggled to cobble together a competent enough shack to keep off the rain. Raymund definitely believed this was done purposefully as a mental prod at the recruits. The suitably chastened recruits then followed Heiffal as he walked jauntily forward into the tall dome that had been erected to the West of the central bell. Yet while Heiffal could continue calmly forward into the interior of the building, the leading recruits collapsed immediately with a strained groan.

Heiffal turned behind him with an expression of surprise on his face, his body perfectly at ease. “Oh? Even this is too much? Well, I guess we won’t even need to turn on the main formation for your first training session. My, my, my. Perhaps you should have been grouped in the failures column.”

Raymund felt a flash of pleasure as he watched the strained figures of those unlucky few who thoughtlessly led the recruits. The grey dog had been one of the first to step across the threshold and collapse. Now it growled and struggled to stand.

Somehow, Raymund felt his legs carrying forward past the hesitating other recruits. In other areas, he perhaps wouldn’t have been so bold. But as long as it was physical fitness… in only that area, he could keep up even with Techet. And sure, the pressure within the room would be more than was comfortable, but Raymund gambled on the fact that half of the initial failure of those recruits was due to surprise. But this was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss.

So Raymund Ballast walked past the threshold, his image bracing for the change. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Even though he expected it, the change still hit him like a sledgehammer across his back. His vision briefly swam from the impact and he couldn’t help but hunch forward and brace himself. But with a strange vindictiveness that Raymund hadn’t realized was present within his heart, he forced his back straight and raised his chin. Then he did his best to appear nonchalant as he strolled forward.

At the last moment, he glanced to the side, down at the massive grey dog, which continued to struggle upward. Their eyes met. Raymund smirked. Then he looked away; he had more important things to care about.