Ch3: Hellish training and a new friend

(3rd pov)

Sitting in the back of the classroom filled with kids that are between 10-11 years old, near the opened window looking at the outside with breeze of winds coming from it is a blond hair green eyed kid, who didn't seem to like the fact he is here. And on his right, is Samuel looking at his notebook filled with runic combinations and words, some scrapped, some marked and others circled. After finishing writing what he has to write, he looked up from his notebook and closed it just in time for the teacher to enter.

Said teacher is middle aged women in a sister attire with a cross hanging on her neck and her hair, just like all other nuns, is hidden by her headscarf.

( MC pov)

" Hello everyone, I'm sister Sophia Miyacova and i'll be your teacher for the magic theory, you can either call me by sister Sophia or teacher, but before that. Let me introduce you to a new student who will be attending the training program with you." Saying this, one of the students stood up. He looked aroumd the same age as us, with golden hair and green eyes and a relaxed posture.

"Nice to meet you all, my name is Dulio Gesuald, i will be with you all for the next 4 years, let's get along" after which he sat back.

"Dulio here is the weilder of Zenith Tempest, the second strongest sacred gear, so he will be a great help in demonstration of how elemental manipulation and how powerful sacred gears are"

Hearing this, all of us were still stunned looking at him, me included. Then there was an eruption of greetings, screams of excitement, questions until the teacher hit the table to make us quiet down.

"Sit down sit down, you can all discuss about this later. Now let's start with the presence before beginning with the lesson" saying that, she began taking presence before starting the lesson, which was pretty disappointing all things considered. I think I may have been too advanced for this class, but it's the best thing I had to choose.

For the exorcist training system, all trainnes have 3 mandatory classes: physical training, combat training and holy scriptures. for the other 2 subjects, they are given to the student himself to choose from marksmanship, magic theory, swordmanship, archery and general weapon mastery.

I choose magic theory and swordmanship, since for ranged combat I will mainly focus on magic, as for the sword, I choose it because its the main thing I have been training with and there are a shit ton of strong swords out there compared to any other type of weapon, maybe I will pick spearmanship later, if i see that magical theory class is useless.

So my schedule is: Magical theory first, then sword training, physical training, an hour break then holy scriptures and finally combat training.

After a boring class, in which she introduced the concept of magic, what a mana core, etc... We were out for a 10 min break before heading to the next class, swordmanship training in which Dulio was swarmed by a group of excited kids while I decided to just head to the next lesson. While his presence here is great opportunity for me to have a decent sparring partner and friend in the future, that will be for later when things finally quiet down.

Arriving at the traning ground with the kids, we found there waiting for us was a middle aged man with black hair and wearing black church vestments. All in all he looked like a mob boss. Just give him a black fedora, a cigar and a long black coat and boom: We have ourselves an Al Capone after his holy church update.

" My name is Ewald Cristaldi, I shall be your sword for the duration of the next 4 years. I would like to first state that this will not be easy" he fixed us with a slight glare to emphasise his point

" You are all training to become protectors of humanity against the dark forces that prowl this world. As such, the Devils will not be your only enemies; there will be many more such as the Vampires, Youkai, Fallen angels and many others. It is not an exaggeration when I say that a lot of you will die. Knowing this, will you continue to persist?"

The students looked a bit uneasy at this point but stayed regardless, earning a nod of approval from Ewald.

"Very well. Then I shall teach you how to combat evil with the sword" He picked up one of the wooden swords that laid on the ground before continuing his speech.

"During my sessions the sword shall be your main focus. I shall hammer everything I know into the lot of you. It will be harsh, it will be painful and it will be tiring, but that is what you signed up for. As such, I do not want to see complaints of my teaching methods, is that understood?" he fixed us with another glare, earning multiple nods.

All students moved towards the pile of wooden swords and took their weapon. I took one too and swung it around with familiarity born from 4 years of using it. This swords are bit too light if I was being honest, which made me think, are Light swords heavy? For that matter, does Light even weight anything? Questions for later.

"Does everyone have a weapon?" he received a chorus of nods before continuing

"Good. Now, I'm going to show all of you a couple of stances and see what I'm working with. Choose any one of the stances you feel the most comfortable in". He began to get into a couple of stances, holding the sword in either both hands or switching to a single hand.

Looking at the stances he made I choose the one that seemed to be closer to the one I'm using, taking the sword with 2 hands, and started swinging it as he did. Ewald came over to check our stances one by one, correcting them as he went along by smacking them into place with his sword. When he came over to me, he looked me up and down before smacking my legs. " Widen your legs, otherwise your balance will be disrupted" he ordered. I complied immediately as I widened my legs; it's best not to anger the man who was smacking you with a wooden sword.

Then he smacked my hands, eliciting a hiss from me as my sword nearly fell out of my hands." Your grip is weak. Tighten it or you will lose your weapon". Once again, I followed his order and tightened my grip, ensuring that my sword wouldn't fly out of my hand again. He looked me over one more time before looking satisfied and moving on to his next victim.

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I left the training room with a groan, massaging all the sore areas on my body. I didn't bother changing my outfit since I was going to have Physical training next. For the rest of the session, we had our stances constantly corrected until we reached a satisfactory level in Ewald's eyes. By the time we finished, our bodies had been riddled with injuries. Even after we left the training ground as a large heap of pain and misery.

The entire lesson was just an introduction to sword training, thus it was just going over the basic stances and such. After the break, we headed towards the training rooms, which are just like the training grounds but indoor. Our instructor was already there waiting fo us, doing some stretches. He was a young aged man with black hair and brown eyes. He looks like a calm man, I think that this is a nice change of pace compared to Ewald.

"Alright everyone, it's time for physical training!" our instructor roared. No, seriously, he actually roared it out at the top of his voice. Who the hell said that he looked like a quiet guy?

"My name is Lorenzo D'Aiello or just Mr D'Aeillo! I'm going to be your PE instructor for the next few years!" he pumped his fist into the air before shouting " IT'S TIME TO GET FIT!"

"Yeah!" A small cheer could be heard at the back of the room, followed by "Shut up Nero", a smack across the back of the head and a cry of indignation.

"Let's begin! To start off, I want everyone to stretch your muscles! After that you'll run around the grounds with me at the lead! Come on, let's go!" We spent the first 5 to 10 minutes stretching our bodies before Mr D'Aiello began to run, leaving us a behind. We chased after him and kept at a steady pace, not wanting to use up all of our stamina too early. I was running somewhere near the back, conversing as much stamina as I could. It's times like this that I'm thankful for building my stamina at a young age.

We ran about 10 min before the instructor decided to kick it up a notch. He increased his speed and looked back to see some of us struggling. I was doing relatively okay and so were a couple other boys, Dulio included. But the rest were beginning to slow down already. I made sure to keep up with Mr D'Aiello at a steady pace, not wanting to waste all of my stamina this early into the lesson.

"Alright everyone, that's enough!" All the students were happy to oblige as they collapsed on the ground, out of breath. Lorenzo just shook his head in disappointment but there was a glimmer of approval for the boys who weren't out of breath.

" You get 2 minutes break before we move on!" he announced, earning a couple of groans from the downed students. In the end, they complied to his words and used the 2 minutes to gather their breath back.

"And now, we're going to do a hundred push-ups! LET'S GO!"

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"Finally, food!" I cried out as I entered the cafeteria. After an entire day of being smacked by a middle aged man with a stick, followed by being chased by an overexcited PE teacher, I was left a groaning hungry mess. As soon, as the training finished, i went full speed to the cafeteria, because when you have dozens kids feeling tired and hungry after a trading session, you can bet your ass they'll have taken all the good stuff if you're not first.

Sitting down and planning to start devouring my stuff, I was interrupted by someone asking me a question.

"May I sit here with you?" Looking over, it's Dulio who asked me this. Looking around us, there were students standing around awkwardly, having missed their chance to invite Dulio over.

"Sure suit yourself, I don't mind" Dulio took place at my right hand and placed his tray with a tired sigh. He then looked at my lunch and raised his eyebrow before smirking.

"A fellow enjoyer of food, huh" to which I responded with a smirk and saying

"Indeed, the name's Samuel by the way, Samuel Willis" extending my hand, he accepts the handshake and says

"Probably already heard it, but I'm Dulio Gesuald, nice to meet you"

After that, we just ate in silence until I heard

"Samuel? Who's this?" I turned to the voice to see Lint and Sieg standing to my left looking at Dulio curiously.

"Lint, Sieg. Meet Dulio Gesuald. Dulio, meet Lint Sellzen and Siegfried " I introduced them to each other before they sat down and started chatting. After which I told them about the fact he is the weirlder of Zenith Tempest. Suffice to say, they were very much shocked and excited. Then we started chatting about any and all that there is.

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"Alright everybody, calm down" said the old man standing in front of the class.

"Now that I have your attention. My name is Micheal Gascoigne, you can call me either Father Gascoigne or Sir Gascoigne, I will be your teacher on the subject of holy scriptures. We will be studying all kind of rituals, verses, blessings, their history and what they do. So to get started, I'll be taking the presence". Saying that we begun to listen as he introduced us again to the history of the supernatural Christian history, but manly into the various saints, angels and messengers of God. It was a fairly interesting class even if its probably incredibly biased and full of thinly veiled propaganda.

After taking a 10 min rest we headed to our last class for the day, combat training, in the training grounds. Arriving there, we were greated by a menber of the faculty and a female exorcist.

" Alright everyone, I have some news for you" waiting for all children to quiet down and pay attention he continued

" Your instructor, Father Jushua, has been put back in the active forces, meaning he won't be able to come in everyday anymore. Fortunately, they have decided to send another instructor to teach you" he suddenly directed his gaze towards all of us. There was a strange sense of...pity held in it?

" She's a high-ranking member of the church: you're all quite lucky that she took the time to come here. She'll be your instructor for the next couple of years while switching with Father Joshua from time to time" As he said his piece, he turned around and gave us one last message.

"Good luck, you're going to need it" At this, the female exorcist narrowed her eyes and I suddenly have a bad feeling about this.

"It's nice to meet you all. My name is Griselda Quarta and I will be your combat instructor for the next 4 years" Griselda greeted with a smile. It was such a kind smile that I was reminded of my mother from my past life. It's a shame that her smile greatly contrasted with her next action as she picked up 2 wooden swords.

"Let's get along with each other, alright"

We are so fucked aren't we?

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I don't care what anyone says, Griselda Quarta is not a nun; she is a monster in human skin.

She put us through what can only be described as torture because last time I checked, chaining us up and dragging us around the training yard does not focus on "building endurance". It was just a slaughter fest where every trainee was thrown all over the training room-wait,no, that's literally what happened during today's session.

Remembering that this will be my life for the next 4 years, I wondered to myself if power is really worth it.