Chapter 209: What It Means To Keep Going

Chapter 209: What It Means To Keep Going

Endurance.

The theme of the next day was endurance. When Boldwick awoke them, he greeted them with the cheerful morning hello of a cup of coffee and the good word of Endurance. Which, of course, made no sense at all to the three-bleary-set-of-eyes of the already exhausted initiates. Other than that, Boldwick was being nice. Suspiciously nice. He brought a mysterious green rug sack with him and pulled out two bottles of water for everyone— he demanded they get their full contents down.

Boldwick leaned in towards their dying fire, poking the embers and kicking up ash as he sipped from his steel canteen. After his sip, he had too-happy of a grin on.

In the light of the early dawn, Erec thought he looked a little too close to a demon.

“Right? Everyone done with their water?” Boldwick announced, taking a deep swig of his coffee.

“No,” Colin replied.

“Then drink the rest of it now.”

“I’m already full. One bottle was enough.”

“Drink it.”

Colin downed the rest of his leftover bottle, to which Boldwick gave one bark of a laugh then stood. “Right. Endurance. What does endurance mean, young ones?”

“Vigor,” Erec replied, the most obvious answer. Of all the Virtues, it was the ability of your body to both sustain damage and to keep going longer than normal. Stamina, in the world before. But now quantified and taken to a nearly extreme level—to him, it meant the ability for his body to keep up with his overwhelming Strength and contend with the power of any foe who shared a similar power.

Boldwick simply shook his head and grinned wider. “Next.”

“The ability to cast magic without tire.” Colin tried.

“Next.”

Garin scratched his head... “To keep going?”

“Closest. By the end of today, I expect you all to have an appreciation for what that word means. Now—here.” Boldwick walked over to his bag and pulled out more backpacks. At least, at first glance, that is what they appeared to be.

On a second take, Erec realized they were more like vests—Boldwick let out an ‘oof’ and threw one towards Erec—which he tried to catch, only to be knocked flat on his ass as the sudden weight hit him and threw off his sense of balance.

It was heavy. So heavy.

[Weight training?]

“Put that on,” Boldwick commanded—then fished out two more, tossing one to Colin and one to Garin. Based on their reactions, they also had a load of weight attached to them, though, Erec thought, not quite as much as his own.

Struggling, Erec put the best on, having to secure several straps to get the loose weight conformed around his body and as comfortable as possible. Standing wasn’t the most comfortable thing; he could feel the tension in his muscles, but it was possible; already, a small sweat was breaking out on his chest as he moved back into position to face Boldwick.

“Today, we’re going on a run again. This one, though, isn’t about distance. We’re going to run laps around the steel curtain. And you’re going to run until I say we stop. You won’t be taking a break until I say we are. And those breaks will end exactly when I say they do.” Boldwick said.

“Run? With this?” Colin asked, tugging at his own vest and wearing a mask of shock and confusion.

“Endurance. You will persist until you cannot, until your body breaks down and fails you. On a battlefield, you must keep going until the end. Whether that be the end of the fight or the end of your life. You’ll have no choice but to keep dragging yourself forward. Today, we’re going to all experience what that feels like. If you want to complete today, you will dig deep.”

“And if we fail?” Colin asked.

“Good point. I’d love to say, ‘You will not see the growth you’re looking for,’ but I’ll be realistic. Today will test your limits. All of you will want to quit. To dig deep, to really dive deep down into the depths of motivation and find the will to pull through, the endurance to keep going, there must be the threat of a loss. So, if you fail, you will not be training with us tomorrow. After tomorrow, should you make it, there will be a reward. One which I promise you all want. After that, and listen closely, if you fail this, I will personally deny you the right to compete in the tournament.”

There was a shocked silence at that.

“We didn’t agree to—“ Garin tried to contest.

“I hear a lot of talking. This is the way things are, and this is the training we’re doing. Do not question it. I suggest you quiet down and focus on yourself. Believe me. You’ll need to look deep inside yourself if you have any hope of finishing this challenge.” With that, Boldwick clapped his hands and then turned toward the horizon. “I’m not asking you to keep pace with me. But you must keep jogging. You must always go forward. Stumbling, falling, whatever—as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward, then you are still alive and in this.”

With that, he took off at a very slow pace compared to the previous runs. Erec looked at his friends, rolled his shoulders, and took off after the Master Knight.

The rest fell in line shortly after.

Thing very quickly became... Hard to track. Time stretched and lost meaning beyond the brief periods of respite that Boldwick allowed them to drink more water; Erec could’ve sworn there were pockets of it in which it stood still, and no time passed at all.

Sometimes, he fell. When he did, Colin and Garin ran by, always offering their own comments, telling him to keep going.

When they fell, he did the same, pushing them forward.

They ran around, the only constants to this was the feeling and smell of sweat—the huffing of all three of them carrying onward with their charges. And the pain. The pain never went away; at times it came with the sparks of Fury.

When he first tapped into it, Boldwick stopped them and offered him a choice. He could use it, could fall into the depths of Fury and find Strength in it, if he needed. But Boldwick would add more weight to compensate for his boosted Strength.

How much weight, Boldwick wouldn’t say, but Erec got the impression it wouldn’t improve his situation.

Fury was not the key to endurance; it didn’t matter one way or the other, and this challenge didn’t burn him up and make it impossible not to use it... So Erec would let the sparks die whenever they appeared from the pain, not needing them to catch.

Not that it mattered. As he ran, as the steel curtain accompanied them with every single mile, he fell into his own kind of peculiar trance. A state of being of pure exhaustion and pain that reminded him very dearly of Fury. Whenever he fell, he broke out of it and was forced to consider each time: why. Was there a point to this suffering? He saw the blinking dot in the corner of his vision, sure, but that was a consolation prize.

He knew that, eventually, his Virtues would grow. They didn’t need this form of torture to keep expanding.

Yet, each time, he saw his friends run by, saw their backs as they got further and further away, and found it in him to crawl back to his feet, tears and blood ignored as he returned to the jog.

Hours passed.

The sun went from rising in the sky to sinking beneath the steel curtain.

With the coming of night, he thought they would be done. His skin felt cool and slick with sweat as his brain buzzed, and his stomach felt empty like it had never felt before—surely now, now that the sun was gone, they could rest and call it a day for training.

No. They didn’t.

The moon rose, clearing the steel curtain beside them, and the four kept running.

Did I die? Is this hell?

That was the thought in his head, watching his friends suffer beside him, feeling the aching pain in both his lungs as he ran. The breaks only included water, yet a full day without food like this... Erec didn’t understand how Garin could keep himself from just biting that fat squirrel on his shoulder. Well, maybe just tossing them onto a stick and making a quick flash fire with one of Colin’s spells.

One time, he vaguely recalled, Colin asked about food.

Boldwick said there was no point, since they’d just vomit it out anyway, then, after that, they had been back to running again.

By the time the moon reached its full height in the sky, Erec forgot all else.

Who he was. Where they were. What the point of even living was.

All that mattered was that his friends were going forward. They didn’t give in, and neither would he.

The air began to thicken with mist; in it, Erec began to see the faces of the people in his life. Enide—Bedwyr—his father... Even his mother. They stood, silent figures of water, watching him go on, and on, and on... Expressions blank as he ran by, kept moving.

What did they think if they really existed?

The mist stretched into an endless maze—Boldwick disappeared ahead; gone—the world began to spin and swirl around him, a blended mixture of reality that unraveled and split. VAL buzzed, but the words didn’t track.

Beneath him, the dirt became mud; slick... His feet sank into it.

Next to him, he saw his friends still going, slowing. Lost, now, all of them.

The mud below became deeper, and deeper, his legs harder to move.

Then, Boldwick appeared, his teacher had a sad smile on his face—he spoke to, his words not reaching Erec nor the rest of them—then he pressed a hand to Erec’s head...

The last thing he knew was blackness.