Each day, he swung his sword amid the roar of machinery, the sparks struck between blade and iron billet hotter than his sweat.
He could hone his skills and produce supplies at the same time, accomplishing both at once.
"Compared to this place, my old training was practically child's play..."
His cravat came undone and his suit came off, revealing the contours of a body tempered a thousand times over.
It was not that his past training had lacked rigor, but that an ordinary person's muscles and bones could only endure so much. Push them too hard, and they would break instead.
"I'll go prepare something to restore your strength."
The woman responsible for logistics turned and left, taking the girl with long, pale blue hair along with her.
Only one figure remained in the training ground, gazing up at the sky, a clinging sigh all but melting into the air.
"This isn't quite... what I imagined."
Compared to the shadowy organization of rumor, this place felt more like some sort of establishment for faith **.
At Butlerage Port, the salty, fishy wind carried desolation.
While some people honed themselves through sweat, the balance of power in the North Blue was silently shifting.
This port city, whose defenses had once been torn open by an outside force, had begun slowly suffocating ever since a certain family's forces withdrew.
Fortunately, the Raiders in the nearby waters had suffered successive setbacks, and no new threats descended on this coast for the moment.
But the ravaged city had long since exhausted its reserves, and large numbers of merchant ships had sunk in the recent conflict, as though the shipping routes throughout these waters had been seized by the throat.
A port without goods flowing through it was like a furnace slowly cooling.