Devil Training!

By the time everyone else in the slack-off formation finished their five hundred push-ups, the slack-off instructors lost any excuse to slack off and had to announce the next event once more.

The instructors led them between two buildings, where ropes spanned across overhead from one towering structure to the other.

"Fifty rope climbs, back and forth! Start now!"

Wude and Hina arrived at the rooftop one after the other, grabbing the ropes with their hands and hooking them with their legs, and began climbing in tandem.

Meanwhile, the other trainees cast odd looks at the pair.

How come these two added extra training beforehand? Are they out of their minds?

Are they not tired, still talking while climbing ropes?

I am tired.

Then shut your mouth, watch out you don't fall to your death!

An instructor passing by reprimanded.

"But... why are they on the same rope?" A trainee muttered softly.

"..." The instructor fell silent, then glared at the person.

That trainee clamped their mouth shut, feeling the sting of unfair treatment when someone clearly openly flirted with a girl without consequence.

Wude scrambled across to the opposite side early, squatting at the edge of the rooftop and watching Hina climb over.

Hina reached the rooftop and began the climb back, with Wude following behind her.

"Hurry up a bit."

"I can't go any faster. Who asked you to follow me?"

"You're the one following me."

"..."

That made a lot of sense; she had subconsciously followed right behind him just now.

Still, they didn't play favorites, so men and women had the exact same training volume.

Some instructors stood on the rooftops to supervise, while others stayed down below to take charge of safety.

Looking up, the overhead was filled with dense clusters of "little spiders" hanging from ropes as they crawled back and forth.

Rope climbing was also a grueling physical conditioning event; slip up the slightest bit and you would plummet down.

Your arms had to be strong enough to grip tightly and pull yourself forward. While your legs coordinated with your arms, they also had to hook the rope securely, keeping your body well-balanced to prevent a fall.

After fifty repetitions, a small fraction of the worst performers inevitably dropped due to mistakes or exhaustion.

The instructors down below had waited in advance, and their sole job was to catch people.

As for landing mats?

There were none! It was all about creating psychological pressure, which was also part of the training.

"Anyone who falls within thirty repetitions gets twenty added to their baseline volume!"

"Anyone who falls past forty gets ten added!"

The instructors' harsh penalty pronouncements reached the ears of the many trainees, making them tense up all at once.

Yet the remaining people had no choice but to grit their teeth, their limbs desperately and firmly hooking the ropes while the veins on their hands bulged.

Hina finished much faster this time, having already completed her fifty climbs.

The reason: at first she hesitated and glanced at the neighboring rope, but unwillingness to be looked down upon by a certain someone drove her to keep pace with the monster's progress. In the end, watching him leave her far behind was a massive blow, so she gritted her teeth and pushed hard to keep up.

On the return trip, that annoying guy right behind her stayed close, urging her onward.

Hina had no choice but to grit her teeth once more and claw her way forward for all she was worth.

"Still going?" Crouched on the rooftop, the two discussed the matter of extra training.

"Let's rest a bit." Hina's limbs trembled, worn out to the bone as she panted heavily, sweat soaking her clothes.

"Mm."

Nearby, the instructor who had lost a fair number of knuckle-flicks from betting on how much extra training Wude and Hina would do wore a bitter expression.

Earlier when he won, he had derived immense joy from flicking the other instructors' foreheads.

As a result, he was suddenly backstabbed by the pair.

He noticed the crowd of guys around him staring with cannibalistic gazes as they closed in around him.

Surrounded by a whole bunch of instructors, that poor instructor received a flurry of wild forehead-flicks.

"Hahaha, that's what you call retribution!"

"Who hit a couple extra slaps? That's going too far!"

"Which bastard? No kicking allowed!"

"Aah-ah-ah—!"

Up on the ropes, a few trainees accidentally let out a laugh, their minds loosening for a split second before they lost their grip and plunged.

The instructors below laughed happily.

The supply of toy trainees for the instructors' amusement had just increased.

Wude and Hina talked about them and burst out laughing.

A joyful atmosphere permeated every corner of the scene, of course, except for Sakazuki's formation.

Although the training volume was the same over there, the punishment severity was higher, plunging everyone into gloom.

"Time's up." An instructor looked at the portion of people who had completed the event. "All trainees who have finished the target, listen up! Gather together and head to the athletic field to start eighty laps of running. Time limit: an hour and a half. Those who fail will have forty laps added!"

The trainees who completed the objective followed a group of instructors, while other instructors remained behind to keep watching the ones who hadn't finished.

Wude and Hina joined the rest, quickly forming a new squad and arriving at the athletic field.

"Start!" The instructor roared.

Wude and Hina ran back and forth amidst the streaming formation, lap after lap.

"Good-for-nothings, you bunch of trash! If you don't stick right behind the leaders from the very beginning, the gap between you and them will only grow wider and wider! Give me everything you've got to catch up! Move!"

In Sakazuki's formation, an officer bared his scar-covered upper body, clutching a wooden stick as he trailed closely behind the running trainees, cursing at the top of his lungs.

"No matter how strong someone's talent is, it's all for nothing without hard work!"

"Train like you're dying out here! We don't need trash!"

"One day, through your hard work, you too will grow incomparably strong!"

Hearing the angry rebukes of the officer from Sakazuki's camp, Wude and Hina lied to themselves in their hearts that he was their own instructor, and ran all the harder.

Having rested for a short while, their physical strength had recovered somewhat.

These two acting "tail-enders" of Kizaru Film Academy had already fallen far behind many trainees by this point.

Eighty laps was too long; it would exhaust many newbies until they collapsed.

The originally neat and uniform formation had long since lost its shape, with everyone running individually—getting as far as they could manage.

Even if someone collapsed from fatigue, not a single person would stop to offer a word of encouragement.

Before the grand competition, they were competitors.

Wude left the crowd of trainees far behind, running at the front, though he didn't accelerate and maintained a steady pace the entire time.

He lapped Hina once more, coming up beside her: "Don't rush, don't let your breathing get out of rhythm, just maintain this pace."

"Mm!" Hina nodded. She was exhausted to the bone, but after glancing at the trainees who had collapsed from fatigue and were forcibly hauled away by instructors to walk it off, she fixed her gaze firmly on his back and followed closely behind.

Even though her legs ached and her entire body lacked strength, a voice inside kept urging her to stop.

Yet her proud and confident nature would not allow her to do so.

Keep up with him, keep your eyes locked on him as you chase! If you stop, he'll leave you completely in the dust! Hina wanted to be called a "same-term monster" too; Hina wanted to become incomparably strong as well. Even though Hina was two years younger than him, her willpower could not be weaker!

Keep going!

Lap after lap, Hina chased closely behind him until later on, it felt as though her body formed a muscle memory, following along without stopping.

Pacing her!

Hina looked at Wude with gratitude; right up until the end when he had finished his own run, he was still running.

Recalling the pacing method he had told her about, Hina bit her lower lip, unwilling to let her pacing partner down.

Until the very end when she truly could not hold on any longer, Wude slowed his pace.

Hina saw that Wude never sped up, staying right in front of her and occasionally patting her clothes.

She stubbornly grabbed a fold of his clothes and, utterly exhausted with a pale little face, desperately kept running alongside him.

"Can't fall down."

"Mm."

At noon, in the cafeteria.

The slack-off faction and the other two veteran vice-admiral factions arrived. A crowd of trainees swarmed like locusts plagued by a disaster, queuing up solidly for food and carrying away several portions of meals per person.

Wude and Hina sat at a table near the food-serving window, the two of them burying their heads and devouring their food like maniacs.

One large and one small wolf swallowed wildly, their eyes glowing green from hunger, ignoring even Smoker who came over to sit at the opposite side.

Meanwhile, the trainees of Sakazuki's faction, who returned a bit later, stared in sheer terror at the long line. Is there even any food left?