Chapter 34: Week One of Training (2)

Below the cliff, Louis glanced at the twins energetically playing in the snow before turning back to address his audience.

“Isn’t it easy? Just fly ‘whoosh’ and then fall down ‘plop’! Remember only two things! Whoosh! Plop!”

”…”

“You don’t understand?”

”…”

Still, there was no response. Instead, all 300 individuals began backing away from Louis. Eventually…

“S-Spare me!”

“Dad, Mom!”

“I-I don’t want to die here!”

The entire group started fleeing with one common goal - escape.

However, this reaction was anticipated by Louis. He snapped his fingers.

Snap.

An invisible barrier surged forth, enveloping the crowd.

Krrrrrk.

“Huh?!?”

“Ack!”

People started bouncing off the invisible wall as they tried to flee in different directions. Louis approached them with a benevolent smile on his face.

“Yes, yes. I understand how you feel. You’re scared, but this is well within your capabilities. Just muster up a tiny bit…just a smidgen of courage.”

“No, no way! Don’t we have a say in whether we want to be thrown into that dialysis machine?!”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“P-P-Please spare us!”

“Oh please… Who said anything about killing anyone?”

“Who would do such insane things?!”

“You will.”

”…N-no, we can’t!”

“For goodness’ sake, I keep telling you it’s possible. Hmm… Perhaps seeing someone other than a seasoned trainer demonstrate might convince you better?” Louis scanned the crowd and spotted Pablo.

All three hundred eyes were now fixed on Pablo.

“Eep!” He stumbled backward, terrified.

Louis approached him with feigned kindness. “So, can you do it?”

“I-I’m not very brave…” Pablo stammered, pale-faced.

In response, Louis smiled brightly, although his words were anything but cheerful.

“Ha-ha-ha. Boys, our chief claims he’s not brave. Let’s toughen him up using the dialysis machine.”

“Yes!”

The eyes of all three hundred guild members gleamed menacingly, their faces filled with venom.

It’s all because of that human!

Bandits number one and two were at the forefront of the mob. They quickly surrounded Pablo, who started cursing them out.

“Let go of me, you bastards!”

“It’s because of you…”

“Get your hands off me!”

“It’s all your fault…”

“I said let go of me, damn it!”

“It’s because of you…”

“P-please release me…”

Normally, Pablo could easily fend off three hundred guild members, but he couldn’t bring himself to use violence with Louis watching intently. Besides, the guild members’ tenacity was impressive as they clung to him like zombies despite getting beaten up.

Soon after…

Fwip!

“Ahhhhh!” Pablo flailed his arms and legs as he shot straight up into the sky.

“Oh! I was worried about your size, but you’re doing better than expected!” Louis looked pleased as he watched Pablo descending with his parachute fully deployed. He then turned around.

“You saw that, right? Now, who’s next?”

“…Ah!”

The three hundred stunned guild members finally came back to their senses.

Oh my God…

Please save us.

It dawned on them that it was now their turn.

And so…

Bam!

“Ahhhhh!”

Bam!

“Eeeek!”

Bam!

“Aaargh!”

Screams echoed from atop the cliff for quite some time, and eventually, this place became known as the Wailing Wall.

A few weeks later, Louis, who had been desperately practicing basic martial arts, gently rubbed his chin.

“Hmm…”

He appeared troubled by something. After pondering for quite some time, he finally spoke up:

”…Will this be enough?”

Louis was grappling with concerns about both the basic martial arts and his guild members. No matter how exceptional the basics were, they still served as just that—the foundation.

That’s where his dilemma began.

Can mastering these alone protect my future self?

What if highly skilled adversaries targeted his Grow Fruit? He would undoubtedly lose his chance at gaining those extra centimeters.

“Uh… I’ll need to teach them some advanced techniques as well…”

However, the problem was that Louis didn’t know any high-level martial arts himself.

Actually, there was one technique—a martial art from the distant future wielded by the greatest warrior of humanity, the Sword Saint. Louis possessed one of the most advanced martial arts manuals ever created.

“Hmm…” He retrieved it from his pocket dimension and spent some time reading through it with a furrowed brow.

“This is quite…difficult.”

The Heroic King’s martial arts theory was incredibly complex—even for Louis, who far surpassed ordinary geniuses.

It’s completely different from holy magic. No, this transcends all existing martial arts.

There were numerous martial arts in the world, categorized based on the weapon used—swordsmanship, spear techniques, fistfighting, etc. However, the Heroic King’s martial arts encompassed them all as a comprehensive system.

Trying to learn the Heroic King’s martial art was akin to a child who had just started learning how to read attempting to tackle a university textbook written in a foreign language. Despite spending more time studying it, Louis only confirmed that mastering this technique would not be easy.

It’ll take me quite some time.

If he found it difficult, there was no way he could teach it to those still lacking even the basics. Of course, even if he did master it, he’d need about five hundred years of deliberation before considering sharing it with them.

“Ugh… What should I do…?” Louis groaned.

Time was running out, and there seemed to be no other means of acquiring advanced martial arts techniques.

He scratched the back of his head.

I’ve taken great care to nurture these two, so it’d irk me if they came back beaten from their training.

In any case, Louis had invested so much time and effort into training them. He wanted to teach them only the best techniques, but that was easier said than done.

As he pondered his options, two small shadows suddenly appeared behind him.

“What’re you doing, Louis?”

“Having fun all by yourself?”

The twins, who’d been preoccupied with tormenting other guild members lately, hadn’t approached Louis in some time. They stood on their tiptoes, craning their necks over his shoulder. Caught off guard, Louis flailed his limbs wildly.

“Ack!” He hastily tried to hide the book, but it was too late; they had already spotted it. Bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught, Louis clutched the tome tightly against his chest.

However, the twins’ reaction wasn’t what he expected.

“It’s martial arts… Louis… You’re studying?”

“That’s boring…” The twins caught sight of what Louis was reading and quickly lost interest, their faces falling.

Louis breathed a sigh of relief at their unexpected reaction but then cautiously asked them something that had just occurred to him.

“Have you guys seen anything like this before?”

“Yes, lots of times.”

“There’re tons in Dad’s storage!”

“Oh really?” Louis’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“By any chance…do you remember any of it?”

“I know five Kani moves!”

“I memorized ten Khan moves!”

“Well, I learned twenty!”

“How about me? A hundred!”

As he watched the twins boastfully bicker, Louis couldn’t help grinning.

Well, they are dragons after all!

Despite their childish behavior, Khan and Kani were still dragons at heart. They wouldn’t forget anything they had seen once. Moreover, any martial art found within a dragon’s lair would be of exceptional caliber.

Louis produced ten empty notebooks from his inventory with a sly grin and handed them to the twins.

“Oh, stop fighting like that. Just compare notes after trying them out yourself!”

“Try them out? Why?”

“…Ugh, this is such a hassle.”

“Aren’t you arguing over who memorized more? You can find out by practicing these moves! And let’s make it interesting: Whoever uses better techniques wins. The winner will have memorized more!”

“A bet? Sure. Let’s do this!”

“I’m gonna win!”

Louis easily goaded the twins into accepting his challenge. They quickly separated to opposite sides and started filling their notebooks with spells.

A satisfied smile spread across Louis’s face.

Just then…

“Luuuuis! I finished what you asked me to do!”

“Oh, really? Got it! Be right there!”

At Fin’s voice, Louis hurried away.

Shhhf, shhhf.

The twins were too engrossed in their competition to notice that Louis had left them behind.

Shhhf, shhhf.

Meanwhile, martial arts manuals rapidly piled up next to them at lightning speed.

A few hours later, Louis and Fin returned to their lodging.

“Good job, both of you. You did excellent work!”

“Heh-heh. Pablo was better than I expected.”

As Louis engaged Fin in conversation, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the twins running toward them.

Once they reached him, each twin held out a book they had written.

“I won, Louis!”

“No way! Khan won!”

“But Kani wrote one more!”

“That’s because you snatched it before I could grab it!”

“It still counts since I wrote one more!”

Louis watched with confusion as the twins bickered in front of him.

“You’re already done?”

“Yes!”

“We finished!”

Seeing how eagerly the twins nodded, Louis looked skeptical.

These rascals… Did they rush through this?

How could they write eleven books so quickly? Louis took the notebooks from them and counted the volumes.

Khan wrote five, and Kani did six…

Still skeptical, he began skimming through their work. Soon, his expression shifted dramatically.

Oh! Look at this.

Louis’s hands flipped faster and faster through the pages. It didn’t take him long to review all eleven notebooks.

Tak.

After closing the last one, Louis stared intently at the twins with his jaw dropped.

Are you serious?!

It was true. The twins had indeed written down martial arts for eleven notebooks, not haphazardly but meticulously and perfectly. Moreover, every single martial art they recorded was of high caliber. A couple would likely cause chaos if unleashed upon human society.

It was astounding that all these martial arts had originated from the Chaotic Twins. Had Louis given them more than eleven empty notebooks, they would’ve filled those as well. Despite their impressive feat, the twins themselves seemed rather unimpressed.

Khan and Kani bounced on their heels, gazing at Louis with twinkling eyes.

“Louis, who won?”

“I did, right?”

“No way! I’m sure I won!”

Louis shook his index finger at the bickering siblings. “This round is a tie!”

“What?!”

“A tie?! No way!”

Khan and Kani glared at him suspiciously.

“Although Kani wrote down more techniques, Khan’s were of higher quality. Therefore, it’s a draw!”

“Heeey…”

“Tsk.” The twins sulked.

On the other hand, Louis looked quite pleased as he gathered up the eleven volumes of martial arts.

Great, now that I have martial arts manuals. It’s about time…to leave.

With most of his goals accomplished, Louis felt it was finally time to depart. They had been staying in this location for four weeks already. Although it was all for the sake of gaining those precious centimeters, remaining any longer would be too risky.

“How is your training going, Fin?”

“Yes, sir! Everything is progressing well! Don’t worry about me!”

Louis nodded resolutely at Fin’s enthusiastic response.

“Excellent! The moment has arrived!”

It was time to showcase the grand finale and bring their journey to its climax.