25. "If only she wasn't a girl."

"Is there no one else?" Thyra shouted. "Come and face me."

Thyra stood inside the arena. The arena wasn't the proper term to call the round clearing separated by rope. There was not just one, but five of them. Thyra stood inside one with a man lying down at her feet.

When Thyra asked if anyone was willing to fight against her, he was the first to come forward and also the first to bite the dust.

The next one to come forward was a girl. The girl was almost the same height as her. Thyra was already 160 cm tall, which could be said to be taller for her age. Even for the girl, it was tall.

She had a cloth tightly wrapped around her chest. Still, Thyra could tell they were a lot bigger than her. However, instead of wearing the training clothes, she wore a few pieces of fur to cover her wrapped breasts and nether regions.

"Rika. Rocksloth tribe."

The sudden introductory scream startled Thyra a little. Thyra noticed she was waiting for her to say something.

Thyra smirked, saying, "Thyra. Hoax viscounty."

The girl gave a soft nod before taking a fighting stance.

'She isn't a novice.' Thyra could see it from her stance. Rika lunged at her, trying to grab her waist. It was too easy for Thyra to dodge.

But Rika was faster. She stopped and turned to follow Thyra's movements before tightly grabbing Thyra's waist. Before Thyra could understand what was happening, Rika raised her in the air and slammed her on the ground.

The silence buzzed in her ears as she stared at the popcorn-like clouds in the blue sky.

"Ahhhhhhh." Rika gave a thunderous victory cry, and it was greeted with cheers from the recruits.

As she stood up, Thyra realized she had made two mistakes. Although this body was well fed, her current body was nowhere near trained enough to copy the movement from Earth accurately, and…

"I have underestimated my opponent," Thyra mumbled.

Rika caught on to the words. Thyra felt someone was glaring at her. She had no problem understanding who it was. Thyra smiled at her as she removed the cuffs from her hands.

"Once more," That was what Thyra wanted to say. But to her surprise, it was Rika who had asked for it.

Thyra nodded as she handed the cuff to Kaya. She looked into Rika's raging eyes, asking, "Come."

Rika charged at her and grabbed onto her like the last time. However, her feet left the ground. The next moment, the sky and earth exchanged positions, and her back hit the ground.

Before she could understand what had happened, she heard Thyra say, "Again."

Again, the area was deafened by the silence. But there was cheer this time.

Rika stood back up on her legs and glared at Thyra. Thyra could feel that something had changed in the glare. It was not just her glare; her eyes began to glow red.

"Barbarians."

"She is a barbarian."

The recruits were surprised, and so was Thyra. According to what she had heard from Jullia, barbarians weren't the type who would go well with others., much less join the army.

"Now that I think there were a few others with her too," Thyra looked around to find four of them. It didn't come as a surprise that they were also glaring at her.

"In the name of great rock-sloth." Rika charged at her, trying to grab her shoulder. Thyra had no problem receiving her attack. With their fingers interlaced, it soon becomes a test of strength.

"Ahhhhhh…"

"Do you really need to scream?" Although Thyra asked the question jokingly, she too had to become serious as the strength of the opponents continued to increase.

'Looks like she had also absorbed an essence,' Thyra thought, concentrating on her hand. The Longhorn tattoo soon became apparent.

Rika couldn't see it but could feel Thyra's strength increasing continuously. It wasn't just strength. She could feel a tingling sensation from her hand spreading throughout her body.

"Yeeeaaaa…" Rika, too, began to gather more energy.

Thyra could see swirls of red energy coming out of her body. Then she saw it. It was like an illusion behind Rika.

At first, she felt it was a bear with red hair. Closer inspection made her realise that it had the head and claws of a sloth.

"Rocksloth," she mumbled. However, she didn't have the time to be wary about it.

Although Thyra wanted to hide it, Rika could see blue sparks in her eyes.

Before she could understand what it was, her body went numb. Her hand turned into tofu, and her legs gave way. The red energy vanished in thin air as she slumped to the ground while holding Thyra's hand.

Everything in front of her eyes was momentarily white. Although she could think, she couldn't control her body. She looked towards Thyra, only to get her face covered with a cloth.

'It smells good." That was her first thought. Taking it off, she realised it was Thyra's shirt.

"Cover yourself."

Only when she looked down did she find that it wasn't just her limbs that she had lost control of momentarily. She was sitting in a puddle of warm liquid.

As a barbarian, she didn't care about such an obvious matter. Yet, when Thyra pointed it out, she couldn't help feeling shy.

"Young chief." Her supporters came running.

"Don't call me that," Rika refuted. She wrapped the cloth around her waist and walked out of the arena. By the time she looked back, Thyra had already put on another shirt.

"If only she weren't a woman," Rika mumbled.

Thyra had no idea that the list of women aiming for her seed grew, and she continued explaining her techniques to other recruits.

"This is called horse stance." This exercise helps you stabilise your centre of gravity." Thyra continued to explain, not remembering that most of them didn't even know what the centre of gravity was.

"The first thing I showed you was squats; after that, it was push up, then burpees and planks."

"My lady, isn't this just a child's play? Will it help us to fight the war?"

Although the recruits had become more respectable towards her after the show of strength, it was yet to reach the stage where they would blindly believe her. However, Thyra noticed another problem.

"From now on, call me Leader." Thyra noticed they had given her various names, so she had to clear it out first. "And which one do you think is child's play?"

The one who had asked the question hesitated before answering, "The one where you stay on your elbow."

"Plank?" Thyra smirked. Although she knew it would be better to start doing it for a short time, she said, "Anyone, I mean anyone, who can stay in a plank for five minutes without using their essence will receive ten gold coins."

"What?" The shock was apparent to the recruits. With that much money, their family could pass the winter comfortably.

"And among the recruits who would stay the longest would get two gold coins." Thyra put her carrot-and-stick strategy into motion.

Thyra smiled as most of the recruits tried the plank, adding, "The timing of tomorrow's training won't change even if you can't move from the bed."