Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Training Helps a Lot

Five days later, E Building.

This was the building where the academy's lowest-ranked cadets lived.

From the nearby training ground, cries had been echoing since early dawn.

"Haa, haa...!"

"Kgh, khah...!"

"Ugh...!"

Every Class E student was drenched in sweat.

They looked so haggard it was hard not to think they had spent the whole night at the training ground.

"Guaaah... at this rate, I, I am seriously gonna die..."

"Cough, I can't breathe..."

The training had already gone on for eight hours with no sign of a break.

None of the cadets could even speak properly anymore, just cough in short bursts and gasp for air.

They were all training in the same place, but each person's routine was different.

"Hup...!"

"Swing harder! Your strikes got pathetic!"

"Damn it! You think I don't know that? I am out of strength...!"

"Quit whining and come again!"

"Haa, haa... hup!"

Clang! Claaang!

On one side, students kept sparring with weapons crashing against each other.

On another side, students cast magic and set off explosion after explosion under the ceiling.

Some just worked on stamina and strength, while a few others sat in meditation.

"Fuck, how many laps did we run around this ground today...!"

"Not even close to enough! You should be able to run double this!"

"I'm already dying hereee!"

"Hyung-nim said it, didn't he! Once your stamina goes up, your magic gets way better synergy!"

"I am doing it! I said I am doing it! I keep running, don't I! Damn it, I can't ignore hyung-nim's words...!"

They kept up the night training, correcting each other and pushing each other forward.

It really was a hot-blooded page of youth.

Each student had a booklet in hand.

"Hoo... and what did it say to do next from here?"

"It says to rely more on feel than calculation here..."

"Mine says I should mix in some hand-to-hand. Is it telling me to develop a battle mage style?"

"It says I should reverse-calculate magic itself..."

"Mine says a bow suits me better than a sword. So I switched my main weapon yesterday and started using that."

"This is insanely detailed. The content and methods are all different person by person."

"When did hyung-nim prepare all this...?"

"I heard he cut into his sleep every night to write this for us..."

It was feedback.

I had written every bit of it by hand, one line at a time, for each student.

I pointed out their weaknesses and wrote long explanations on how to improve them.

"Because there were so many of them."

My goal was to raise every student in Class E.

But with this many people, there was no way I could fully coach each one in person.

So I came up with this method instead.

I organized everything each person needed and handed it to them like secret manuals.

To prepare it, I lay in bed and kept scribbling with a pen every day.

"Roughly... it took almost a month, I think."

I started right after getting the quest.

That was why I had spent so much time in bed.

"Training methods and meal plans are the basics... and it even covers each person's weak points."

"The amount is crazy. Hyung-nim prepared all this alone?"

"As expected of hyung-nim..."

"I almost feel guilty, like we are being taken care of too much."

The manuals were extremely thorough.

Halfway through, I even started adding random things because I was having fun.

It came out smoothly, like writing strategy guides in my previous life, and the pages filled up fast.

In the end, I handed each person a thick manual with over 200 pages, and the kids got moved all on their own.

A few even had red eyes.

"It had everything, recommended training routines, suitable combat styles, points they needed to improve, potions worth taking, even all the miscellaneous details."

I also did not forget to give them encouragement before training.

-I wanted to do this together with all of you.

-We were not stopping at Class E, we were climbing higher together.

-I would help you run toward higher classes and higher realms.

-If you trusted me and followed me, I would not give up on you either, and I would help you to the end.

After I gave them just those few lines, all of them sharpened their eyes and threw themselves into training.

The intensity was high, but not one dropout had appeared yet.

Maybe it was because these guys had always been full of competitiveness, ambition, and inferiority.

Once I showed them a path, they ran like people possessed.

Because of that, even in just five short days, a few students had already started showing results.

"What the hell... didn't you use a sword before? You look way better with a bow."

"Hyung-nim wrote that my sorcery would fit better with a bow."

"The power is insane. What kind of principle is that...?"

"Of course, I still lack proficiency. The power is strong, but the accuracy drops a lot..."

That spread to the others, and the rest also latched onto training harder.

There was a reason no one complained even though I dragged them out at dawn to train like this.

They were thankful to me.

They wanted to get stronger.

All I did was quench that thirst they already had.

"It does feel a little burdensome that their loyalty keeps rising too high, though..."

Still, good was good.

If I raised dependable hands and feet like this, I could respond flexibly when incidents broke out later in the academy.

At minimum, I needed trust high enough that if I told them to jump into danger, they would do it without doubting me.

In that sense, we still had a long way to go.

"Not that I have even the slightest intention of giving an order like that for real..."

The point was to max out goodwill farming.

Anyway, later on these guys would also join the war with the fate of the world on the line.

In the latter half of the original story, Grandia Academy collapsed, and the surviving students joined the Continental Allied Forces to fight the Calamities.

"If I raise all of them to B-rank, we will gain a massive advantage in the final battle."

Of course, the cutoff was high.

A total B-rank stat profile meant roughly upper Class A level even inside the academy.

From total A+ and up were usually professors or top powerhouses across the continent, so that was already a serious weight class.

Honestly, unless it was a peak-tier character, B-rank felt like the ceiling of what a student could reach.

"Though... there is one student who's already A-minus rank even now."

The top freshman overall.

Rin Glacia.

She was a different species, so I set her aside.

By senior year, she turned into a complete monster who could even duel Javert one-on-one.

"...Though at that point, it was after Javert had killed herself."

I could think about those two later.

What was right in front of me came first.

"Ahem."

Among the Class E students under my care, the one I focused on most was Alice.

"Shall we begin?"

"Ah... y-yes, yes!"

Alice had been standing there tense, then flinched and nodded.

Her blue eyes shook wildly, as if she might panic at any second.

That made sense. Her power itself was basically trauma.

The girl bit down hard on her lip.

"Th-then... I will try!"

Alice closed her eyes.

Soon, black aura spread around her, swallowing the scenery.

Kugugugugu-!

"..."

Like during the practical, when she had been swallowed by the Nightmare and gone berserk.

That same ominous energy writhed around the girl.

A dark red mist rose in curls.

"Hoo..."

A long breath escaped her.

Before long, a black crown had formed over Alice's head.

Still, its form was heavily downgraded compared to what I had seen before.

If what she showed during the rampage was the completed form, this crown did not seem to hold even one tenth of that power.

"Good. Keep it like that, slowly."

"Hoo, hoo..."

She took repeated deep breaths.

If she forced the Nightmare open too hard, she could take mental damage.

So my guideline was to get used to the lower stages of the Nightmare first.

Alice kept focusing with her eyes closed.

Flap.

Soon, a black cape wrapped around her slender back.

Clumsily, the girl recreated the form of the Black Queen.

"...Awaken."

Black hair whipped in the backwind.

Through that turbulent air, the Queen's lips moved.

Kkududuk-!

Right after that, shapes flickered inside the dense mist.

Playing cards. Thin arms and legs attached to them, making them look oddly cute.

As those soldiers appeared one by one, they lined up in front of the Queen as if forming ranks.

"Mm...!"

Exactly six entities.

Alice shouted at the Card Soldiers.

"At, attack...!"

Kkududk, kkududeuk-!

With that cry, the Nightmares started moving.

Their target was a tree thirty meters away.

The Card Soldiers swung their weapons at it all at once.

Kraack! Kwa-deuk-!

The target was smashed apart in an instant.

Even though they were the weakest entities she could summon, each one looked about two-star monster level.

On top of that, these things were judged as "dreams," bizarre entities that normal methods could not damage.

The only practical method was to subdue the caster.

"Next attack! N-next attack...!"

She kept issuing commands, gradually increasing the number of entities.

The Card Soldiers had already multiplied to nine.

I signaled for her to continue.

"Good. Up to here, it is stable."

"Y-yes! Then next is..."

But the problem started right after that.

The exact moment the number of cards reached ten.

Flinch.

<[......]>

The soldiers slipped out of Alice's control and froze in place.

The cards soon turned pitch-black and started convulsing.

Human arms and legs burst out. Guts and blood spilled.

In an instant, the cards mutated into grotesque forms.

<[

<[

Their bodies shook violently, then they attacked in all directions like they had gone berserk.

Alice stumbled backward, startled.

Her commands did not seem to work on them.

"Ugh, uhh...!"

Only then did I step in.

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