“Eeeeeegh.”
“Yeah, right, exactly. So they say the first Titan was made for two pilots. One person handled the detailed controls, while the other took charge of all the overall movements, you see?”
“Urrgh.”
“And by entrusting those detailed Titan controls to an artificial intelligence, then improving and optimizing the core form overall, you get the current Duke Luna! Hey, hey, are you listening?”
“I, urrgh, am.”
Impossible.
My body collapsed onto the floor. It made a wet slap, like a water-soaked towel.
It was hard to breathe.
The bastard who invented the plank had definitely not been a trainer, but a torture specialist.
Even if he had been a trainer, the moment he invented the plank, he had undoubtedly changed jobs into a torture specialist.
“Deep, are you okay?”
“I’m, fine. I can, get up.”
A week had passed since finals ended.
For me, this was the most frightening time.
I never knew when that sense of helplessness would come back, or when the burnout that betrayed all the effort I had put in so far would arrive.
All the lectures that had given me a familiar daily pattern were gone.
The maid café, which had been club activity, had also gone on break for vacation.
I’d gotten fairly used to the gym by now, but there were far fewer people.
It was only natural.
Most cadets submitted applications to be dispatched to the front line their family belonged to.
Those noble cadets had no need to wait until the dispatch date; as soon as vacation began, they returned to their family estates.
So the ones left were a few commoners and lowborns, and—
“Why don’t you just do one or the other, lowborn?”
Noble cadets who had applied to be dispatched to a front line other than the one their own family belonged to.
Seeing him even during vacation was starting to get sickening, but if Aaron hadn’t been here, my daily routine might have fallen apart.
Or maybe not. Ailey was here, and Ian was here too, so maybe I would’ve been fine.
I planted my knees and slowly pushed myself up.
As I caught my breath, Aaron slowly let go of the gym machine and stared down at me.
“You come to the gym every day, but what you do is bodyweight training, and your mind is off listening to whatever that AI is telling you. I seriously don’t know what you’re trying to do.”
Then wouldn’t it be solved if he just didn’t care?
I wanted to say that openly, but honestly, he wasn’t wrong.
What I was doing right now was closer to desperation.
The moment my daily pattern got twisted, I didn’t know when my original suicidal impulses, depression, and helplessness would all come rushing back at once.
I could never forget those horrible memories.
The first time I slapped myself across the cheek with my fist was still vivid.
That suicidal impulse and helplessness, like a 5,700-character suicide recommendation letter every second, was something I absolutely never wanted to experience again.
“What, is something chasing you?”
“It, it is.”
“What the hell is?”
“Some, something.”
That sensation like my personality was being gnawed away.
I couldn’t feel it right now.
That was a relief. It meant this desperate struggle of mine was working.
Ailey, who had seen me bashing my head every morning, was also helping me earnestly, so honestly, I wasn’t mentally exhausted or worn out.
I was just scared.
Scared I’d go back.
Aaron roughly scratched the back of his head.
“Lowborn, do you know today’s the day grades are announced?”
“Ye, yes.”
Only after the semester was over did I check the academic schedule.
No, to be honest, I only found out there was an academic schedule because Ran told me.
I tried to log into the academy site to check the schedule, but I was a little flustered when my account was suspended for a week.
I had no idea how many posts and comments Ailey had spammed, but the reason listed was spam.
Thank goodness I didn’t get permanently banned.
No, seriously, what the hell do you have to do to get a forum-posting AI gyaru?
“Time-wise, probably—”
Beep beep beep beep beep!
Before Aaron could even finish speaking, my smartwatch rang.
Aaron and I raised our smartwatches at the same time.
Just as I was about to bring up the hologram, Aaron quickly blocked the space above my smartwatch.
“Why, why?”
“Wait. Let me see your rank first.”
No, why go out of his way to do that?
That was what I thought, but honestly, I was curious about my rank this time too.
This wasn’t like last time, when I had fought at a low ranking.
Lord came from a baronial family that had become nobles through military achievements.
He couldn’t help but be serious about combat and sparring, and he was on a completely different level from a cadet like Joshua Otto, who had risen through commerce and barely set foot in the middle ranks.
Against that Lord, though not by my standards, I had won overwhelmingly enough that Lord himself said he hadn’t managed to land a single effective hit.
Then what would the academy’s standards say?
What else? Obviously, they’d be closer to Lord’s standards. That was common sense.
I knew that too.
My standards were those of monsters so stagnant they had rotted, and the actual academy standards would be much closer to Lord’s.
Of course, I absolutely wouldn’t get my hopes up, and I definitely knew my place, and the professors grading me might give me a garbage score because I was lowborn.
But still, just maybe, couldn’t I really be in the twenties like Lord said?
“Huh.”
After checking the hologram while hiding it with his hand, Aaron made a strange expression.
Not smiling, not flustered, not dumbfounded.
“It makes sense, but it pisses me off.”
If he was going to react that ambiguously, shouldn’t he have just let me look with him from the start?
1st, Revan.
2nd, Saya Aslan.
3rd, Aaron Dyke.
“Ha, I knew I’d lose it.”
Beside me, Aaron held his forehead and let out a deep sigh.
This noble bastard, was he reacting not to my rank, but to losing his second place?
When this bastard had been third place originally.
“What are you looking at, lowborn? You think your rank’s gonna be in the single digits? Hurry up and scroll down.”
I held back what I wanted to say and slowly scrolled down.
I thought he’d say something about me scrolling too slowly, but Aaron didn’t say anything.
Single digits, obviously nothing.
Top ten, that had been getting ahead of myself. Honestly, I hadn’t expected that anyway. Obviously nothing.
Top twenties.
Now my heart began to pound.
I slowly scrolled down.
21, 22, 23, 24,
“Ugh.”
“Uh, ah, no!”
Aaron grabbed the scroll and dragged it down all at once.
28th, Deep.
“I did….”
“You did?”
“I did it!!!!!!!!!!”
Aaron clapped both hands over his ears.
“You live alone or something?! Stop screaming!”
Top twenties.
For me, this mattered more than anything.
Because the benefits in the market based on ranking began to truly be felt from the top twenties onward.
The discounts before this were usually 5 percent, 10 percent at most.
But from the top twenties onward, discounts of up to 20 percent became available.
For me, who needed anti-corrosion and waterproofing treatment before going to the western front, it was the most necessary discount of all.
I couldn’t hold this in.
I immediately turned on the hologram with my smartwatch and took a screenshot of the ranking.
“Hm? Deep, where are you sending it?”
“To, the group chat.”
I immediately threw the screenshot into the group chat with Ran and Ian.
Wow (10:02 AM)
Congratulations! (10:02 AM)
Ran replied right away.
I was happy.
Happy for this pure congratulations, and happy that I had something to be congratulated for.
It had now been almost four months since I came to this world.
Unlike at the beginning, I no longer had much trouble communicating with other people, and I no longer shrank back too badly under their gazes.
There had been no time when I was ignored every single time because I couldn’t win.
I had proved it with a clear ranking. 28th place.
Dog (10:03 AM)
Trash (10:03 AM)
[Screenshot] (10:03 AM)
What?
No, how well did he think he did?
[ 1st, Ian. ]
I froze after seeing the screenshot.
At the same time, my excitement rapidly cooled.
They said that stimuli inducing immediate dopamine release maintained focus for about 47 seconds.
Just then, a treadmill came into view.
“Hey, lowborn. Are you even listening to me?”
“Should, should we exercise?”
“Huh? Well, sure. Got it.”
Ah, damn.
That killed the mood.
Ah, no. Wait a second.
“Um, Aaron.”
“Since when did you stop adding ‘sir’ when talking to me?”
“I’m, planning to do a group purchase at the market with my teammates. If, if both my teammate and I are ranked, do the discounts sta, stack?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Deep-ki-yahoo.
3 km, 15 minutes 34 seconds.
The stage of recovering my body had already passed.
My body was growing at an absurdly fast pace.
***
“No, this is weird.”
“Um, Deep? I know that’s not the kind of person you are, but standing in front of the mirror like that gives off a certain kind of vibe?”
After showering, I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself.
It would be hard to say my body was amazing, but while I was thin, the lean muscle was definitely there.
It was the sort of frame most pilots aimed for—not fully muscular, somewhat lean, with excellent stamina and the ability to withstand acceleration well enough.
Even if the upper body didn’t look particularly solid, as long as the lower body strength, core muscles, cardiopulmonary endurance, and, more than anything, mental strength were excellent, you could withstand gravitational acceleration.
Four months had passed.
Was it possible for a body that couldn’t even run 3 km in under 20 minutes to break into the 15-minute range in just four months?
Was there some early boost-up, or maybe a bonus from my past life?
As if. This wasn’t a game, but reality.
I slapped my dazed face with both hands.
“De, Deep!”
“Ah, um. I was just trying to get a hold of myself.”
I see. If I do something like this, of course Ailey has no choice but to worry.
I should be more careful next time.
Ian said he had begun the coating and waterproofing work.
It probably wouldn’t take that long. Because we had thrown money at it instead of effort so that it wouldn’t take long.
According to Ian, since he didn’t want to put much effort into this work, he had also worked pretty hard to take first place.
He also said he hadn’t meant to brag, but since I had struck first with my own bragging, he’d only done it in response.
Couldn’t he just congratulate me? Seriously, not a single normal person here.
Well, anyway.
“It’s in two weeks.”
“Yeah, two weeks. Are you nervous?”
Three weeks after vacation began, or two weeks from today.
The front-line dispatch would begin.
“I’m nervous.”
And at the same time.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Would my skills work on the front line?