After three hours of hiking, we finally reached the old academy building. From the outside, it looked like something out of a horror novel: a crumbling mansion straight out of a vampire flick, or maybe a haunted house from a theme park that had seen better days. Weathered wood, overgrown vines, windows like hollow eyes staring back at us.
Inside, though, it was surprisingly intact. Probably because they reused it every year for this exact training camp. The structure was sound. The furnishings were serviceable.
But the dust? A full year’s worth. Layered thick on every flat surface.
Naturally, our first mission in this month-long boot camp turned out to be exactly what you’d expect: cleaning. From top to bottom, we had to scrub every inch of the main building and the dormitory. No room was spared. Dust, cobwebs, and even a few suspicious stains that looked older than the academy itself. It all had to go.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, we were filthy, exhausted, and more than ready for dinner. After the meal, we were finally granted access to our assigned dorm rooms.
Each room was designed for four people, with polished wooden floors, four desks, and two bunk beds. Our squad, however, only had three guys, which meant we’d been lumped together by default. No vote. No swaps. No escape.
“Looks like we’re all in the same boat,” Arthur Markham muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with a sigh.
He wasn’t wrong.
Brian Short, the silver-haired miniature aristocrat, still hadn’t said a single word to me. Not once. Not even a glance. He behaved as if I didn’t exist, as if the very air around me was more deserving of acknowledgment. And while I wouldn’t call myself some saint who let insults roll off his back, I was more than willing to return fire when someone threw the first punch.
The guy’s whole problem with me boiled down to one thing: I was a Villager. Beneath him. Not worth speaking to. Just the dirt under his polished shoes.
I’d been tempted to sock him once or twice, sure, but Lilith had warned me that violence on academy grounds was a serious offense, even during training. Especially when the “provocation” came down to attitude and silence. If I threw a punch, I’d be the one punished. No exceptions.
So instead, I did the next best thing.
I glared at him.
Every thirty minutes on the dot, like clockwork, I gave Brian Short a death stare so sharp it could cut steel. And I didn’t hold back. I leaned in, eye contact so intense it looked like I was about to kiss him. The kind of stare that would’ve made a Showa-era delinquent proud.
To his credit, the guy was a master of passive-aggression. No matter how many times I threw daggers with my eyes, he never flinched. Never reacted. Just kept pretending I wasn’t even there.
With this silent war brewing between us, it was no wonder Arthur looked like he was aging by the hour.
“You two are children,” he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose before patting my shoulder.
Then he leaned in with a resigned sigh.
“Y’know, Ryuto… I think Brian might actually have a point.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
Arthur hesitated for a moment, then gave a small shrug, as if he didn’t want to say it but felt someone needed to.
“Look, no offense, but… I think you’re probably one of the ones who won’t make it through this camp. Your aptitude’s Villager, right? Honestly, I’m more surprised you even managed to pass the entrance exam. That alone’s impressive.”
Wow. A compliment and a death sentence in the same breath.
“But,” he continued, his tone turning serious, “now that you’re here, we’re all on the same playing field. And if we’re working together, I need you to keep up. So just don’t drag the rest of us down, alright?”
“Got it. So you’re one of those guys too…” I scratched the back of my head, already over the conversation, and picked up my pre-packed toiletries from the bunk. “Whatever. I’m hitting the bath.”
By the time I returned from the large communal bath, the dormitory hallway was alive with voices, movement, and nervous tension. Something had changed while I was gone.
Every door now had a notice posted.
Groups of students clustered in front of the rooms, murmuring among themselves. It wasn’t just idle curiosity; it was a rising unease. Some kind of announcement had clearly set the dorm on edge.
I spotted Arthur and Brian among the crowd, but I didn’t bother talking to them. Instead, I made my way to the door of our room and focused on the paper taped there.
Whoa… you’ve got to be kidding me.
The posted notice was short, but what it said sent a ripple of disbelief down the hall.
The notice listed the daily training schedule in precise, merciless detail:
6:00–7:30 — Warm-up and a 10-kilometer run
7:30–8:30 — Breakfast
8:30–9:00 — Morning meeting
9:00–10:00 — Strength training
10:00–12:00 — Magic theory lectures
12:00–13:00 — Lunch
13:00–14:00 — Another 10-kilometer run
14:00–15:00 — Bodyweight exercises
15:00–16:00 — Close-quarters combat training
16:00–17:00 — Practical magic training
17:00–18:00 — Yet another 10-kilometer run
18:00–19:00 — Dinner
19:00–20:00 — Equipment-based weight training
20:00–21:00 — A final 5-kilometer run, followed by bathing
21:00–22:00 — Free time
22:00 — Lights out
And at the bottom, in cold, matter-of-fact lettering: “All training must be conducted while wearing the Shackles of Golgotha.”
In other words, no enhancement spells. No magic-assisted strength. No shortcuts.
“This is insane.”
The words left my mouth before I even realized I’d said them. This wasn’t a training schedule; it was a war crime.
The shackles, from what I’d heard, were designed to suppress magical flow and nullify all non-physical boosts. The rule didn’t just ban body-enhancing enchantments; it banned the very use of magic points for anything other than spellcasting, which meant no shortcuts. No stamina boosts. No reflex amplifiers. Nothing.
They want us to push through this entire nightmare on raw, unmodified muscle alone.
Here’s the catch most people didn’t understand: “pure muscle strength” wasn’t the same as the “Strength” stat on your character sheet. The former was literally what your body could do without help. The latter was a combination of base stats and magical multipliers. When someone cast a body reinforcement spell, it temporarily spiked that number to supernatural levels.
Take me, for example. My body was so unnaturally durable that even when the instructor slugged me earlier, he took more damage than I did. In modern-day Japan? You’d need to bring out an anti-materiel rifle just to leave a scratch. It was absurd to think about.
Now, I could give you the full breakdown of this world’s stat system, but we’d be here all day. Long story short: even without casting enhancement spells, our physical capabilities were constantly augmented by our accumulated base stats. The world’s rules naturally reinforced our bodies based on those numbers. It was like passive buffing, embedded into reality itself.
Which is exactly why the Shackles of Golgotha are such a problem.
“A cursed item? What are we, prisoners?” Arthur grumbled nearby, voicing exactly what I was thinking.
To his credit, he gave the clearest explanation. The shackles were originally used to restrain convicts and slaves. Their enchantment overrode all stat-based enhancements, forcibly suppressing every boost and leaving only what your natural, unassisted body could do.
For most of the students here, whose stats probably weren’t far off from regular townsfolk, that didn’t make a huge difference. But for me? The difference was massive. The second I put those shackles on, it would feel like someone had ripped the engine out of my body. If a high-level monster attacked while I was wearing them… Let’s just say it wouldn’t be funny.
Luckily, I’d already learned a trick for that. I could slip out of the shackles in under a second if I really needed to.
Brian’s indignant voice cut through my thoughts.
“This is absurd. We came here to study magic, didn’t we? And yet, the majority of our time is being wasted on physical conditioning. Not even magical conditioning. Just brute-force strength training. It’s inefficient.”
And he wasn’t wrong.
If you really wanted to get stronger in this world, the best route was leveling up through combat, raising your stats by defeating monsters, or refining your enhancement-type spells. Pure physical strength? It was limited. No matter how hard you trained, there was a ceiling. For a normal human, that limit was running a hundred meters in roughly ten seconds, and that was pushing it. In this world, though? If you wanted to be taken seriously as a combat class, even as a magic user, you needed physical stats on par with an Olympic athlete. That was the baseline for a rookie adventurer.
Arthur’s frustration was boiling over now, fueled by Brian’s cold logic.
“They don’t want to train us,” he growled, hands clenched at his sides. “That’s not what this is about at all. They’re just screwing with us, bullying us until we quit. That’s the whole point!”
“Indeed,” Brian said, voice low and grim. “At this stage, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion.”
“This place is supposed to determine if we’re fit to be magic users! Instead, it’s just abuse. This whole thing is insane!”
But me? I couldn’t help but grin.
“Huh. So this facility’s actually not half bad after all. In fact, I’m surprised. The instructors are way more considerate than I expected.”
Arthur whipped around, his shoulder-length blond hair swishing behind him, eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean it,” I said with a shrug. “This isn’t bad. Honestly? I think they’re being pretty kind.”
Brian scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain.
“You don’t even understand the basics of how to grow stronger, do you? Incredible. I didn’t think your idiocy extended to your brain, too. Being assigned to your team isn’t just useless; it’s actively detrimental.”
I didn’t bother replying. With a sigh that came from the bottom of my soul, I turned away and stepped out into the hallway.
Let them huff and puff. I’ve got more important things to focus on.
“Whatever. I’m turning in. According to that schedule, tomorrow starts bright and early. Night.”