“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!”
It was nine in the morning, and my desperate, depraved cries of agony were sullying the solemn grounds of the old shrine.
Looking down at me as I lay in a sobbing heap from the recoil of Fourth Field (not to mention the pain in my crotch) was the prison warden in charge of my torture. She held a bag of tortilla chips in one hand.
“Hmm. It seems you can still take more.”
“Like hell, you jerk!”
You can’t just train your junk to be tougher! Goddamn it! I can’t believe my stats are even weaker now than they used to be! This blows!
“You gain nothing by complaining, Master. As I am using my time-freezing abilities on my little sister, the amount of power I can spare for you has been reduced. You would do well to resign yourself to this truth.”
“I…get that…but…”
I was struggling just to breathe. This was one of the major drawbacks to Albi using her time-freezing abilities to seal Keraunos.
Unlike End of Zero, which was a one-time payment, continuously freezing Jupiter’s time required Albi to keep using spiritual power to keep it active. Essentially, it was like attaching another faucet to the water supply and leaving it running all the time.
At any given moment, Albi had to spend spiritual power to maintain her form in our world, feed me a steady stream of power, seal my sister’s curse, and keep the seal on Keraunos active. Even the Goddess of Time herself had her limits, and it was starting to show.
The amount of spiritual power she had could be increased if I improved my stats and leveled up, but that wasn’t going to be doable in the short term. So she’d cut the least crucial drain on her spiritual power—the part she sent me.
I was getting only about two-thirds of what she had been sending me before she sealed Keraunos. To put it bluntly, my combat abilities had decreased significantly.
My stats had always been pretty bad. But there was no escaping it now—I was weak as hell.
Fourth Field was the skill most impacted. It required a steady stream of spiritual power to maintain. Now it had been nerfed to the point where it could put my life at risk. And yet…
“Don’t you think aiming for a new uptime record for Fourth Field is kind of insane in my current condition?!”
That question was rhetorical, of course.
Forcing me to attempt to break my previous record while I had only two-thirds of my former spiritual power was absolutely evil. It was completely unreasonable.
“I believe I’ve already answered that question. You will benefit even more from your training right now, when the amount of spiritual energy you receive is at its lowest.”
My devil of a training coach was clearly not backing down.
The wicked goddess’s reasoning was this: The true test of a spirit user’s mettle, the deciding factor that separated the pros from the amateurs, was their ability to use spiritual power as efficiently as possible.
Spiritual power was the energy from the other side sent to a person by their contracted spirit. It was the foundational energy that made it possible to use Astral Skills. The larger the scope of the skills used, the more spiritual power expended—this was common knowledge to all spirit users. But there was a step beyond that basic knowledge, and that was the crux of this training.
“We need to maximize results while simultaneously minimizing the energy required. Processing, refining, circulating, and discharging—if you can learn to do each of these steps more efficiently, you will greatly decrease the amount of spiritual power expended.”
According to Albi, the better the user, the less energy they used when manifesting their skills. Or, taken another way, the less experienced a spirit user was, the more spiritual power they wasted. That meant getting better at conserving energy would improve my skills in general.
Conceptually, it all sounded fairly similar to the proficiency system from the original Dungeon Magia, which allowed players to improve their abilities with their weapons and skills the more they used them. This is a fairly common system in a lot of games, so it’s not too hard for players to get used to. But now that it had become my reality, it seemed like a bunch of BS. It’d be fine if I could just beat up some weaklings to improve my proficiency, like in the game, but…
“You honestly expect things to be so simple?” Albi made it clear that it was a no-go. It was a tough world out there.
“I’m not trying to dismiss this training out of hand or anything. Now that I have less spiritual power, I can feel how important it is to use it efficiently. But…” I clutched my groin with both hands as I spoke. “…Why the hell do you have to kick my balls every single time I fail to beat my record?!”
“Compared to your prior training, when I was aiming to destroy your disgusting private parts regardless of your success, I believe I’ve made quite a few concessions in your favor.”
“Why do you have to kick me in the crotch in the first place?!”
That was what this all boiled down to. I had nothing against the training—what I didn’t like was being kicked in the nuts. Why did she have to hit my one and only weak point?
Ugh. It still hurts. They’re throbbing in pain.
“Do you plan to complain the entire time, Master? You realize the outcome of your next battle will rely on how long you can keep Fourth Field active, yes?”
“Guh…”
Calm down, Kyouichirou. She’s purposefully using false logic. There is absolutely no correlation between extending Fourth Field’s uptime and her kicking me in my pride and joy.
I didn’t care what she said. I knew the two were unrelated.
“You must accept reality, Master. Based on our previous findings, when you’re afraid of being kicked in that silly bulge of yours, you summon up more power to prevent it from happening. That is proof that the training is working.”
“That’s got nothing to do with anything. It could be a total coincidence.”
“It is no coincidence. My wealth of experimental data points to one truth: You work harder when you’re being kicked in the testicles.”
“Quit talking like I’m some kind of sexual deviant!” Despite my complaints, my body braced itself for the “training” at hand.
“Well, now. It seems your body speaks the truth even when you speak falsehoods. How sensible of it.”
“If I had any sense, I’d escape from this hell while I still have the chance.”
Ugh, this freaking sucks. I know it’s gonna hurt like hell, but my body’s acting on its own.
As much as I hated to admit it, it seemed I was subconsciously prioritizing the safety of my friends over the safety of my crotch. That concern was making my body put itself in danger, regardless of how much I wanted to resist.
How heroic of me. I ought to reward myself with a gold star and a punch in the head.
“Look, I’ll try my best. So please. Just don’t kick my crotch anymore.”
“You seem prepared, despite your pathetic whining. Now, let us resume!”
The beautiful girl, her features pure and white, rushed across the sun-drenched shrine grounds. I knew if I took a kick at that speed, my crotch would be absolutely obliterated.
“Goddaaaaamn iiiiiiit!”
I threw up Fourth Field, trying to protect my manly dignity.
What a cruel world. Would Kyouichirou Shimizu ever know peace?