In the twilight of the dawn, they went back towards the cage. It wasn't like earlier that night, where 5 men and 2 monsters were present. Right now, 2 small rabbits and some human bones were the only things that could be found inside.
They swiftly removed the cage and started bringing it back towards their outpost, before anyone could ever find out those men were locked up and didn't get slaughtered by monsters in a normal way.
Upon arriving at the outpost, Butch prepared to speak towards his Legion.
"Guys, keep an eye out for now!" Butch said as he spoke towards the entire outpost. "Something's changed, and that darned Obsidian Corps is looking for something. Those 5 men you saw earlier were waiting in ambush for Olivia. We know this because they were surrounding a trapped animal. In other words, they weren't just looking for food. They were looking for something else and we don't know what. Just to be safe, don't venture out on your own, move in groups. Report to me or Cara when you find anything suspicious!"
Everybody nodded, they felt like they would have to be more careful and train even harder.
The one who thought about training harder the most was Steve.
In this new world, he had found a group of people willing to help him. He had found a group that would protect him from Earthling-hunters by keeping his identity a secret. He trusted them and wanted to help them as much as possible. This was a group of people he would protect at all costs.
That afternoon, Steve increased his workload and started training harder than he ever did before. His usual jog became a sprint.
"Would you look at fatty Steve! The guy is absolutely mental running around at that pace for an hour!" said Tom towards some of the other training agents, that were running some warm-up rounds. To say he wasn't impressed would be a lie.
"You shouldn't call him a fatty anymore, look at him!" Cara said while a slight blush suffused her cheeks.
Since he had arrived in this world, Steve had trained quite well for the past month. He had been pushing himself to the limits every day and started losing some weight. Steve was quite quickly turning back into the fit man he once was in his twenties.
His training sessions were starting to get less exhausting compared to those in his first days. As he gained more and more stats, he didn't have to push himself to the limits as much anymore.
"Well, we can't exactly call him Slim Steve though can we?" one of the others answered.
"How about Diet Steve?" another quickly joined the banter.
The bunch of men started laughing pretty hard at their lame jokes. At least, there was some amusement going on at the legion again.
Steve wasn't exactly amused at his new title, so he gave them a quick fierce glare. He quickly let it slide though, after seeing the good spirits the men were in. After all, he really was starting to lose weight rather quickly. Mysteriously quick even...
[Ding!]
[Gained new title: Diet Champion]
[Diet Champion: when this title is active, you lose weight 20% faster!
Go and run, you fatty!]
....
'This system is really trolling me again!' is all Steve could think. 'I don't need to lose weight! I need to get stronger! Give me muscle increasing titles, not fat removing titles! I'm not even fat! Your mom is fat! Your entire family is fat!'
He still equipped the title though, accompanied by a lot of grumbling.
Fortunately, his anger at the system made him train even harder. He took up his sword and started attacking one of the wooden dummies. He swung his sword faster and with more raw power than he ever did. And for each swing he made, he quickly followed it up with another.
KRWRKK
For the first time since arriving here, he had actually broken one of the training dummies. He had split it into 2 halves by relentlessly attacking the dummy with his sword.
"..." Steve stood there looking dumbfounded at the dummy.
'Did I really break that dummy?' he thought while looking down at his hands. The dumbfoundedness quickly changed into pride though, as he had only seen the older agents do stuff like this!
'I'm not calling him Diet Steve anymore!' Is what some of the men having fun at Steve earlier thought after seeing him destroy that dummy. It wasn't even long after being on the receiving end of Steve's glare earlier...
'He's finally starting to progress a bit...' is what Cara thought, while she was happily observing today's training.
Steve didn't stop after breaking that one dummy though. Instead, he picked up even more pace. He started swinging his sword non-stop for about 2 hours. A sweaty aura was starting to spread around him. He was exhausted and still kept going. He wasn't even thinking anymore. All he could think of was his sword and the desire to get even stronger.
It was almost as if Steve was gone from this world, and was using sheer willpower to continue his training. His muscles that were usually barely visible were now bulging out. His swings that looked weak a month ago now looked refined and heavy. Not one person in the outpost would want to be on the receiving end of those swings.
'Scary...' was all that the other agents could think.
At this moment, Steve was on the verge of collapsing from overexerting himself.
"Stop training right now," Cara said, although it sounded more like a command. If someone were to observe the strict looking woman carefully, they would notice she was quite worried about Steve.
Steve didn't even hear her and it was too late anyway, as he actually collapsed right then and there. He didn't even notice the new message that showed up on his retina.
I guess that was close to a month's break... Masters dissertation is done though! So I guess I have time to spend now on writing a novel :)
Thanks for sticking with the story.