Relaxed Jog

"Do any of you guys know what that was about back there? Who are those people in black and red robes?"

"Why would we tell you old man?"

Samantha seemed determined to make things difficult for me until the end.

"I'd also like to know guys. Do you know anything."

Once again it was Alex that came to the rescue. Samantha looked like she was ready to mock me once more, but then Jessica stepped forward and spoke for the first time.

"Those people should be the Red Eyes. They are an inspectorate that monitor the people for any unusual activity."

Everybody seemed to be surprised at the new information so they forgot about making things difficult for me. Greg followed up.

"How do you even know about that?"

"Well, they are kind of training me to be a soul magician as well, so my teacher has told me all about them. They are the pinnacle of soul mages in this country."

They really did train these two to be mages huh? And even something as dangerous sounding as a soul mage at that. I was once again reminded of how deeply disappointed I was.

"What was all that about singling us out though? Do you know anything about that Jessy?"

Seems Alex had a nickname for Jessica. Maybe they were closer than I initially thought.

"Well, I'm still pretty new at all this stuff, but it was probably because our worldviews are so much different. My teacher always says you need to be able to empathize with a person to peer into their mind and soul."

Wow, it looks like she even got a worthwhile teacher. The difference in treatment was baffling.

I decided to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"I'm surprised you guys were able to become mages in the first place. Weren't they afraid that we might become a threat to them?"

Everybody in the group looked at me strangely, but Alex decided to clue me in.

"Um, I guess you don't remember because you were knocked out the first day, but they performed some sort of aptitude test and then placed us all in our aptitudes. My aptitude was strength, Greg's was senses, Samantha magic, and Jessica was soul. Now that I think about it though, yours ended up being magic, but I guess they just wanted you to be a warrior?"

Ah, I see how it is now. Just like my old world, I drew the short stick. I would say they wanted me to become a warrior because of my bad heart, but they had already introduced Bruno before I had any problems. For whatever reason they really did want to prevent me from becoming a mage, and I would never forgive them for that.

Perhaps after noticing the much colder expression on my face, everybody looked nervous and the conversation was becoming strained.

"Sorry, I think I'll take my leave now. Thanks for answering the questions."

With that, I walked to an area to be by myself, but nobody said their goodbyes to me.

Eventually everybody had their weapons and Bruno was in front of us once more.

"Alright, everybody is here now and ready to go. As I said before, anybody who comes in behind the old man will score low. Our path to the mountains is really simple. Just follow this road we are on the entire way through. If you see any monsters on the way, it is up to you to attack or flee on your own. Nothing past the initial stage will get past the knights so don't worry about a hopeless fight. Also, keep in mind nobody will be coming to save you. You can help your fellow trainee if you want, but nothing is required so always keep your own survival in mind."

With that, he told everybody to begin and began jogging down the road himself. I was also surprised to see that the mage trainees were running just like everybody else. I figured that they would use magic or something to speed them up not just try to run like all the warriors.

Soon everybody followed after Bruno, but I decided to stretch a little bit first. I once again got weird looks from those that happened to see me, but this time they at least seemed to be happy with the strange situation. Just you wait, boys. I'm kind of angry right now, so I'll be trying as hard as I can with this run.

I stretched for a little bit longer until I could barely see the group on the horizon. At this point, all the trainees had started the run and I was only left with an annoyed looking knight. Looks like this guy was in charge of making sure I didn't run off. Looking over at him, I nodded.

"Shall we?"

Then I began to jog down the road as well. I started off slow to get a feeling for how my body would perform. It was a bit awkward having to carry my polearm while running, but even with the increased load, I found that it was far easier to run than ever before. It truly did feel like I was young and strong once again.

With a smile on my face, I started imagining what the other trainees would look like as I caught up. I began to increase my pace, but thinking that this would be more of a marathon than anything, I didn't go too fast. It would be much better in the long run to keep a fast, but sustainable pace than to go all out and have to walk to recover.

I spent my time leisurely running through the countryside while focusing on controlling my breathing. I could feel my blood warm up a bit as I got further into the exercise, but it wasn't painful so I figured everything was fine. Soon though, I began to catch up to my first trainee. As soon as I got close enough, I decided to taunt him since I probably wouldn't get another opportunity like this again.

"Wow, you are as slow as a worthless old man while still in your prime. It would definitely suck to be you."

After confirming that I was the old man with his own eyes, his faced paled.

"Fuck."

He was already breathing hard at this point, but he forced himself to start sprinting ahead. I shook my head thinking that this guy probably didn't even exercise his body. As he ran off, I called out to him.

"There he goes. Just make sure you keep running this time."

I let out a laugh knowing that since he was sprinting now, it was only a matter of time until I caught up to him once more. I started to wonder just how hard he would push himself to prevent getting a bottom ranking.

I continued to run at my same pace while enjoying the scenery and fresh air.

Eventually, I came across the same guy as earlier walking and talking with another trainee. I was still a bit out, but I could barely pick up their conversation.

"I'm telling you that old man has already come this far. It's only a matter of time until he catches up."

"Please, this joke has gone on long enough. That old guy could barely walk around just yesterday and now you are telling me that he is good at running?"

I smiled as I got closer to them.

"Sorry boys, but I'm a new man today. You are going to have to try harder than this."

Both of them looked at me and spoke at the same time.

"Fuck."

Then they started sprinting once more. I shook my head with growing amusement. What, were these guys the same person now? They had the exact same reaction to the point that it almost looked weird. I was amused thinking that I would eventually have a whole group of people sprinting to get away from me.

I continued running and catching up to the stragglers until we eventually came upon a larger group. I didn't know why they were stopped on the road until I spotted a large boar attacking them. I just thought that it was a regular animal and not one of those initial stage monsters that everybody kept talking about until it charged forward and crashed into a tree after barely missing a trainee.

Instead of the small impact that I was expecting, the boar completely destroyed that section of the tree causing it to fall over shortly after. That looked more like a truck ramming into a tree after speeding down the highway. And to make matters worse, the boar barely looked injured after what it just did.

A lot of the trainees looked panicked, but then the stragglers that I was chasing joined up and gave them a new idea.

"Hey, that old man is right behind us. Why don't we just set the monster on him and run away?"

"What are you talking about? How could the old man…"

He then looked down the road and saw me coming their way.

"Fuck. Alright boys, get the monster's attention, we have a helper on the way."

Seeing their plan, my eyes grew cold. If they thought I would just let them dump this monster off on me, then they had another thing coming.

I had been running at a fairly consistent speed this entire time until now, simply because I thought that would be most optimal in the long run. However, I was almost certain that these people thought it was my max speed. That would be their downfall.

They quickly made a rough formation to get the boar to charge at them at which point they would dodge causing the boar would continue down the road towards me, but before anything happened, I picked up my speed greatly.

I couldn't remember a time where I went so fast in my entire life, but before I knew it, I was passed their formation and running on the other side of the boar. Perhaps because I was simply running by it and didn't hurt it in the slightest up until this point, the boar just let me go. As I ran, I yelled back to the group.

"Better luck next time boys. This old man won't fall for such petty tricks."

After seeing me run further and further away, the whole group yelled out at the same time.

"Fuck!"