6 Chapter 05- The Life Of a Failure (Part 2)

After a brutal 25 minutes of running, Arthur was completely spent. Never before had he felt this exhausted. Not even when he spent days without sleeping, his weak muscles were truly as weak as wet mush.

What made him even more upset was the fact that he only finished less than 1/3rd of the required distance he needed to run.

"I'm as weak as a toddler…" Sighing, Arthur forced himself up a little as he sat down on the stairs of the park. Looking around him, people were running, just like him. However, the exception was that they didn't seem as brutally tired as he was.

Arthur couldn't stop himself from feeling jealous of them. "You lucky bastards and your strong muscles and endless stamina. I curse you all to get tired just like me!" He grumbled like a sore loser before he helped himself up.

'I need a bottle of water. That could help me rejuvenate a little so I can run back home. I will finish the distance in the evening.' He thought to himself before he approached the vending machine near him and bought himself a bottle of water.

After that, he chugged down the whole bottle greedily. Then, he used the rest to wash his head.

The cold sensation was heavenly, to say the least, as it birthed some kind of energy within Arthur.

Taking a deep breath, he turned around and started running even though his body screamed at him to stop.

'Shut up, me! I'm not gonna listen to you, me! We're gonna run till we're crippled!' He yelled in his head.

His run back home was an ordeal far harder than anything else he had ever done in his life. Every step he took felt impossible. But, Arthur didn't stop, he didn't allow himself to stop. As he ran like a madman, the counter in the corner of his vision slowly increased.

[-Run 200 Km. (3/200)]

…

[Run 200 Km. (4/200)]

By the time he reached back home, he was utterly unable to move a muscle anymore. Arthur had to literally crawl toward his apartment like a lizard of some sort. Luckily, he didn't meet any of his neighbors in that state and was able to safely enter his house before he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

He didn't even have time to reach his bed. Not even a thought occurred in his mind before he completely fell into deep sleep.

A few hours passed before Arthur's tired eyes finally started opening again. 

"U-Ugh, where… am I?" Lifting his head up, he instinctively wiped the drool that got stuck to his face.

"Oh, yeah… I came back home. Ouch! My body hurts!" Just merely moving his body ached him terribly. His muscles were very sore.

But, Arthur still stood up and walked slowly toward the bathroom before he got undressed and jumped in the shower. The cold water fell on his body, washing away his dizziness and relaxing his muscles.

Never in his life felt this great before. It truly made him feel like his jog was well worth it.

"I still need to finish another 2 Km." He murmured to himself.

After the shower, Arthur wore fresh, comfortable clothes before he walked toward his room. However, on his way, he almost stumbled on an empty can on the ground. 

"..." Looking down, he picked up the can and looked at it. Then, he silently took a sniff of it.

"What the fuck?! Blurgh! This is disgusting!" Frowning hard, he quickly retracted his head. The smell of the can was like that of rotten food mixed with mold.

'This apartment is really filthy.' He thought to himself.

At that moment, Arthur felt a tickling feel on the back of his hand.

"Hm?" Turning his hand, his eyes widened slightly when he saw the reason for the tickling feeling. A massive cockroach was disgustingly moving on his hand. The boy froze in his place for a moment during which, the cockroach suddenly flew in the air and landed right on his face.

"AGGHHHHHHH!!" A loud scream echoed in the house as Arthur frantically moved his hands, trying to hit the roach.

Luckily, the insect flew away as Arthur quickly dashed toward his room and closed the door.

"Hah… Hah… What the hell?! It landed on my face! On my face! I will never mentally recover from this!" His heart was racing and his breathing was ragged from the panic that hit him.

Sliding down to the ground, Arthur held his face.

"I need to clean this garbage dump of an apartment." He murmured as he stood up and flipped his sleeves.

Although Arthur was no fan of cleaning, he suddenly found the motivation to clean the apartment after god knows how long.

A few more hours passed as Arthur collected the garbage, dusted, washed the dishes, and did everything he hadn't done for the past year or so. Bags upon bags of garbage filled his house that he got rid of.

He also had a brutal battle with the abomination that flew throughout his house. Luckily, the fight ended with Arthur's victory over the evil enemy. 

In the end, by the time the sun was setting, Arthur finally finished his cleaning spree and could finally rest. Or so he thought.

'I need to start the pushups and squats.' He realized that he was falling behind literally on the first day even though he worked harder than ever before.

But, before he could do that, Arthur decided to actually have a meal. After all the training and cleaning, his stomach was grumbling to him. 

"Hmm? No food in the house?" 

His kitchen was basically devoid of food after he cleaned it so he had to leave again to buy some food.

"Tsk, it's all for the future, Arthur. It's all for the future." Appeasing himself with those words, he picked up the Divine Pen again and was about to pocket it. The whole day, the Pen was always on him. After the warnings of the Divine Editor, Arthur was anxious to lose the pen even if he could summon it back to him.

"It would be convenient if I could make it vanish and then appear at com-" Before he could finish his words, the pen suddenly disappeared.

"..."

Rubbing the back of his head, Arthur silently tried to summon it back, and shockingly, it did come back. Doing it a few more times, Arthur made a dry laugh.

"Plot convenience sure feels good when you're the one experiencing it." He said before he made it vanish again and then headed out of his house.

Reaching the convenience store, Arthur instinctively headed toward the ramen aisle. That was the only food he had been consuming for the past 2 years as he didn't want to cook at all.

But, midway, he halted.

'Eating only instant noodles wouldn't be healthy. I need to start eating healthier so that I can increase my stamina.' 

But, the question is, how does he start eating healthy? Should he simply add vegetables to his food and that's that?

"Ah well, I will just use any vegetables I think are healthy." He shrugged and changed his path.

In the vegetables and fruits aisle, he picked up a few different types. He still didn't know what to cook with them, however.

As he was leaving the aisle to go and pay, his eyes fell on someone nearby that he recognized.