The conversation between the three took an unexpectedly long time. After Nero was done convincing them to focus on their personal development rather than revenge, he took the opportunity to learn from them what they had been through over the years at KMA. While it was not necessary that his experiences would be the same, they would at least be similar.
While they did not have enough time to go over the past few years in detail, Nero managed to learn about the major events at least.
By the time he returned to the mess, it was nearly midnight. Nero had a feeling that his return would not be so simple, but his three seniors could not be bothered about it. As far as they were concerned, being punished was a part of the academy experience. It was impossible to get through the five years and never get punished even once. After all, even if Nero himself never did anything wrong, he would sooner or later be punished for something his battalion did.
A little punishment was nothing more than character building in their eyes - not to mention they were extremely familiar with all he had been through growing up.
Nero, of course, would prefer not to get punished. His time was valuable, and he didn’t want to waste it. Unfortunately, that night there was nothing he could do about it. Just as he was about to return to his barracks, a passing patrol stopped him. After determining his identity, the patrol officer looked at him with an amused smirk.
"It seems you’re doing pretty well here in the academy. You don’t even need sleep, huh?" he asked.
Nero, unsure if he should respond or not, looked at the patrol like a cadet with a guilty conscience. It was best to cooperate with the patrol, and make him feel like Nero was afraid of him. Resisting or showing indifference would only make his punishment worse.
"Sir I-" Nero began to say, but the officer cut him off.
"Attention!" he barked, and Nero immediately stood straight, coming into the required position.
Then... then the patrol just left, leaving Nero standing there in front of his barracks door in the middle of the night. While externally Nero retained a straight face, internally he could not help but feel like smiling wryly. He could already anticipate how long he would have to stand like this, and how this night would go.
While Nero had grown much stronger as an Initiate, and his requirement of sleep was less than it used to be, it wasn’t as if he could ignore the need for sleep entirely. The next day was destined to be an exhausting one.
As the hours passed, many passing patrols came and questioned Nero. Naturally, he explained why he was standing there like that - because he had been ordered to attention without being allowed to relax. Until someone gave him orders allowing him to relax, or do something else, he would have to continue standing there. Leaving would amount to breaking orders, and his punishment would be even worse!
Thus, Nero spent the whole night standing there, right up until morning call. As the cadets within the barracks were woken by the siren, the same patrol that had ordered Nero to stand still finally returned. He glanced at Nero once, and nodded seeing that he had not moved at all.
"Alright, go report for your drills. I’ll bet you’re still feeling energetic after a refreshing night out in the fresh air," he said.
Nero merely saluted and ran off. He was still wearing his uniform so he could have shown up just like that, but he went, grabbed his spare uniform and quickly went to shower. He had no intention of spending the day in old, sweaty clothes if he could help it.
Since Nero dashed at full speed, he was able to report to the drill field in time. He was feeling slightly fatigued, but that would not stop him. In fact, Nero had spent all the free time he had last night planning out his next few days. Even though he was tired, he did not plan on taking things easy.
Unlike yesterday, a special weighted body suit had been prepared for Nero. In fact, Nero could tell that the weight was slightly greater than what it was supposed to be, but he had not been told by how much.
"Sergeant Renald," Nero called as soon as he had put on the suit. "I hope we can do more than just a warm up today."
Saying something like that was a bit provocative, but he did not need things to be easy for him. Instead, he needed pressure. Only under genuine pressure could he push himself to his utmost.
Renald showed no reaction to the words, and simply looked at Nero plainly for a few seconds before speaking.
"50 laps. If you don’t finish before breakfast, then you can run all day."
Nero did not waste even a second, and immediately started to run! A single lap of the ground was 2 km, so fifty laps meant 100 km (62 miles). As if that wasn’t enough, he had to do it in under an hour since the time from when the drill started until breakfast was about fifty five minutes. On top of that, he had to achieve all of that while wearing over 150 kgs (330 lbs) of weight!
He wanted to curse himself for wanting a challenge, but he could not bear the second that doing so would slow him down. In his mind he did the maths, and discovered that he needed to do just over one lap per minute. Yeah, no problem at all. That wasn’t even slightly insane.
Nero did not question whether he could do it or not. He only focused on completing a lap in under a minute, adjusting his speed accordingly.
Renald showed no real change in expression as he saw Nero run.
Due to his speed, as well as the weight of his body, each one of Nero’s steps was akin to a stomp, causing light tremors in the ground and leaving a noticeable footprint in the dirt. When all the other cadets saw him running, they cleared out of the way, not even risking being close to him as he crossed them. After all, he was not going to cross them just once!
Honestly, Nero was not meant to actually be able to complete the drill. This was meant to reign him in, lest his ego grow too much. After all, Renald had already heard that Nero had spent the night standing outside his barracks.
The more skilled a cadet or soldier was, the less they could afford to be casual or cavalier with their duties, lest they go astray. Forcing them to hit their limits and then causing them to repeatedly fail in tasks was one tried and tested way to reigning such cadets in. If their character was sufficient, they would learn. If their character was weak, then they would be broken down mentally before being rebuilt to suit the army’s needs.
Unfortunately, as Renald saw Nero completing a lap in under a minute, and then slowly and steadily increase his speed as he went through more laps, he realized that Nero really was as competent as his ego claimed. That was even worse, for it would be harder to reshape him.
Halfway through the laps, Nero had actually built up somewhat of a lead, but it was also at that point his speed started to reduce. His legs were on fire, and so were his lungs. No matter how much he ignored the pain and forced his body to obey, it was inevitable that his performance would be affected.
Nero, however, anticipated this already which is why he had built up that lead in the beginning. Thus, in his last few laps even though each lap took him about 75 seconds, he still finished in time!
Breathing hard, and finally covered in sweat, Nero grinned towards Sergeant Renald. Without using his innate ability, it was obviously not easy to keep his body temperature down.
"That was great, sir! I look forward to the drills at noon!" he exclaimed, and then saluted. In truth, he was totally spent, to the point where he had to do everything in his power to keep his legs from trembling.
He maintained his upright and casual demeanor all the way until he reached the mess, at which point he just collapsed onto one of the tables.
"Bella... get me food..." he said in a hoarse and raspy voice.
Watching him collapse after such an insane performance did not make the cadets look down on him. Instead, seeing that he had been putting on a show in front of Sergeant Renald, they were even more impressed!
The battalion, who themselves were thoroughly exhausted, were cheering and chatting about the unbelievable laps that Nero had run... just as he had planned. By showing strength, and weakness, he could build a closer relationship with his battalion. If he was too impressive, that would instead go against the image that he wanted to build.
Nero did not want to be seen as some kind of prodigy. He wanted to, instead, be seen as someone who worked for everything he had.
As he struggled to recover, taking deep breaths, his mind assessed the situation around him with perfect clarity as if he wasn’t the one who had just run 100 km. He could not afford for his mind to be exhausted. The day was far from over. In fact, it had literally just begun.