SWNOVELXO Chapter 150
TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 150
Outstanding physical strength comes from a resilient body.
No matter how confident you are, if your body is in shambles, it’s just vanity-filled arrogance. As the strongest in this worldview, at least in spirit, I was diligently exercising again today.
“Ricardo, what are you doing?”
“Exercising.”
The Young Lady, watching me do pull-ups while hanging from the doorframe, asked with a Question Mark on her head.
“Exercising…?”
Having only ever exercised her jaw muscles in her life, the Young Lady couldn’t comprehend what I was doing.
“Why are you doing it?”
“Just because.”
“Hmm…”
The Young Lady was not fond of exercise.
Even going near the Training Grounds made her go, “Ugh… the smell of sweat,” as she kept her distance. She was not someone who got along with sweat.
I exhaled lightly, repeating my pull-ups on the doorframe, while the Young Lady, lying on the bed and yawning, spoke in a languid voice, seemingly bored.
“Ricardo, you look like a frog hanging from the ceiling.”
“That’s a rather peculiar way to put it.”
“But it’s true.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
Since the estate lacked proper Exercise Equipment, I had no choice but to hang from the doorframe for pull-ups, and even to me, my appearance looked rather pitiful.
Resolving to create Exercise Equipment that the Young Lady and I could use together, I focused on my workout.
“321.”
“322.”
“423.”
“Ricardo, the numbers suddenly jumped!”
“It’s just your imagination.”
Surprisingly, the Young Lady seemed to care more about my health than I thought.
For the sake of the Young Lady’s eye health, I stopped doing pull-ups and switched to push-ups.
By the time I surpassed 400 repetitions,
I caught a glimpse of the Young Lady twitching, seemingly inspired.
“Eeeek!”
The sight of the Young Lady flopping on the bed, flailing about.
With a Small Smile, I watched the Young Lady passionately attempting to exercise and said,
“What are you doing?”
“Exercising.”
“That’s not exercising; it looks more like you’re imitating a fresh mackerel.”
“Eeeek! Hiiik!”
“You look like a mackerel.”
Exhausted, the Young Lady collapsed onto the bed, panting heavily.
“Huff… Huff… Huff… I’m dying.”
It seemed that for someone who had severed ties with exercise, the weight of gravity was too much to bear.
Even though she was doing push-ups with her knees on the ground, I knew how difficult it was for her to lift her body using only her upper body strength without the help of her thighs. I tried not to laugh at her efforts.
“Pfft…!”
But I couldn’t hold it in.
The sight of the Young Lady flailing on the bed was just too shocking.
“Pfft…”
“Don’t laugh!”
“Pfft… How can I not laugh when it’s so funny?”
“Eeeek!”
As if to refute my teasing, the Young Lady puffed up her cheeks and repeatedly tensed her body.
“Eeeeeeek!!! Oneeeeee!”
“Fail.”
“Ughhh…”
As expected, the Young Lady was not on friendly terms with exercise.
After laughing for quite a while,
I reached for my shirt and began unbuttoning it. The material of the shirt wasn’t great for sweat absorption, and unbuttoning it when it got hot was a habit ingrained in me.
Forgetting for a moment that the Young Lady was beside me, I unconsciously unbuttoned my shirt.
“Oh…”
The Young Lady, witnessing this scene, was staring at me with sparkling eyes, her breath quickening.
“Ricardo, your chest is huge!”
“Ack! What is this! That’s harassment!”
“Oh…”
Startled by the Young Lady’s lewd remark, I wrapped my shirt around myself and hunched my shoulders. Her sparkling eyes, fixed on my body, seemed rather indecent.
How should I put it? It felt like a switch had been flipped in the heart of an innocent girl. The Young Lady, who had likely never seen a man’s body up close, looked more animated than usual, her ears turning red.
The Young Lady, with her eyes sparkling, stared at my hands clutching my shirt. With a mischievous smile, she said,
“Show me!”
“Show you what!”
“Your body!”
“No!”
Could a Noble Lady really behave like this?
Flustered by the Young Lady’s audacious remark, I shook my head, my face turning red.
“Saying you want to see someone’s bare body is extremely improper!”
“Eeeek! Show me!”
Once the switch had been flipped, the Young Lady showed no signs of backing down. Puffing up her cheeks, she reached out her hands, fumbling to push away mine, which were clutching my shirt. Embarrassed, I fled.
“Pervert!”
“I’m not!”
“What do you mean you’re not? You’re so indecent!”
“Eeeek! Then look at mine too!”
“What? Uh… that’s…”
Looking at the Young Lady’s huffing face, I fell into brief contemplation.
Once at her face.
And once at her mischievous intentions.
For a fleeting moment, the indecent thought of “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad” crossed my mind, but clinging to my reason, I took a Deep Sigh and steadied myself.
“No!”
“Why not! Show me!”
“No! Go back!”
The Young Lady made a large circle with her hands, giving an exaggerated review of my Pectoral Muscles. Though her comparison was greatly exaggerated, saying they looked like two massive rocks, her snorting made me place a hand on my forehead.
“This big!”
“So what if they are!”
“They’re magnificent! They look so sturdy I want to touch them!”
“Why are you suddenly interested when you never cared before!”
“Just because.”
The Young Lady gave a nonchalant reply, tilting her head slightly. Letting out a sigh, I flicked her forehead to put an end to the commotion.
“Eeeek! Why did you hit me!”
Rolling on the bed with a Degururu, the Young Lady clutched her forehead, voicing her resentment.
“Because you were in the wrong.”
“That’s unfair!”
“It can’t be helped.”
“Idiot!”
My face burned.
Truly.
*
The evening after an incident that left my face burning hot.
In the room where darkness had settled, I was exhaling rough breaths.
“1,001.”
“1,002.”
Sweat was pouring relentlessly from my body as I did push-ups with my shirt off. Beads of sweat clung to the sharply defined muscles of my back, dripping to the floor along my chin, while veins bulged fiercely from my arms, which seemed ready to burst from the strain.
Doing push-ups in a handstand position seemed to be far more effective than I had imagined.
[Limit Break is testing the limits of ‘Physical Strength.’]
“Hoo…”
I gave it some thought.
About what I needed to do to become stronger.
It was a simple question to ask but one that required much contemplation to find the correct answer.
I had to consider the story.
I also had to think about the protagonist’s growth, which made it difficult to recklessly absorb fortuitous encounters.
The fortuitous encounters available to me were limited to those of the heretics and the ones mentioned in the side stories.
For now, the only thing I could do was consistent training. It was the most reliable method and the royal path that did not rely on luck.
But still.
I had a persistent feeling that there might be a faster way to reach my goal. That by using shortcuts, I could easily achieve it.
A way to maximize what I had and rapidly increase my strength.
“Hoo… 2,301.”
I was convinced that such a method existed.
And I found that method not far from me.
[Limit Break]
This was the best shortcut I knew.
By the time the hot sweat had soaked the floor thoroughly.
“How long are you planning to leave me like this?”
A familiar man’s voice echoed from the crystal sphere placed on the bed.
The familiar man’s voice, bound entirely in chains and unable to move, let out a long sigh as he spoke to me.
I stood up lightly and replied to him.
“Until your answer satisfies me?”
“…”
“Have you thought about the proposal I mentioned?”
“…”
“I’d appreciate it if you could give me an answer quickly.”
The person trapped inside the crystal sphere was Hans.
Hans, who was confined within the ‘Sealed Jewel,’ a fortuitous encounter of the heretics, had his head lowered.
He couldn’t lift his head out of shame, and he bowed deeply because of the proposal I had made.
I looked at Hans and smiled.
“Make your choice quickly.”
Hans wasn’t inherently a bad person.
Of course, he was a bad guy who killed people to become stronger, but he only killed those who deserved it.
The moment Hans truly began to break the boundary of his ‘goodness’ was when he killed the Master of the Magic Tower with his own hands.
I remembered the scene that appeared briefly in a flashback when Hans chose to sacrifice himself to protect Yuria and the protagonist’s group.
-Still, I’m a bad guy.
The people Hans killed for the sake of Dark Magic Awakening were villains.
People who killed others in dungeons for money. Soldiers who covered up crimes for bribes.
Of course, the fact that he tried to kill me wasn’t something I could forgive, but he was still someone who knew how to follow a certain moral code.
I extended my hand to Hans.
Not to ask him to become a spy for the heretics or anything so troublesome, but to ask for something a bit more burdensome.
What I asked of him was simpler and more straightforward.
To protect the Young Lady.
To become stronger, I had to defeat stronger opponents, but the threat of injury was an inevitable issue.
Hans’s martial arts weren’t enough to be of direct help to me, but he wasn’t weak. I thought he could be a card to use as a last resort.
With his head still bowed, Hans asked me a serious question in a solemn voice.
“What’s in it for me?”
“Survival.”
“…Certainly, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.”
“Right?”
Hans nodded with a hollow smile and began chanting a spell as he emerged from the Sealing Sphere.
“What are you doing?”
“The Wizard’s Contract.”
“You’re really doing that?”
“If I’m going to do it, I might as well do it properly.”
The Wizard’s Contract.
A forbidden magic among wizards.
It was an absolute magic that bound one’s life to the contract, leading to death if broken. It was used when swearing loyalty to a master or serving a lord in a lifelong pact.
For Hans, doing such a thing was like willingly placing an unbreakable shackle around his own neck.
The walls began to fill with spell formulas containing the terms of the contract. As I watched the walls fill with crimson letters, I muttered softly.
“Do I need to clean this up?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Then that’s fine.”
The terms of the deal were simpler than I expected.
“I, Hans, declare a Wizard’s Contract with Contractor Ricardo.”
The terms of the contract were subordination to ‘Ricardo’ and ‘Olivia.’
It prohibited any harm or even statements that could cause harm to them, with the penalty being.
“If the deal is broken, Contractor Hans will die from his heart bursting.”
I added one more clause.
“Let’s make it the head instead of the heart.”
“…”
“We need to be thorough.”
The deal was sealed.
With a defeated expression, Hans sat on the bed and spoke to me.
“So, what should I do first? Protect Olivia?”
“No. Do that when I ask you to. For now, let’s start with this.”
I pulled out a magic tome, one that was supposed to fall into the hands of the heretics, and handed it to Hans.
“Let’s balance things out first.”
And Hans.
“Brother.”
Became a loyal dog.
***
In the distant future,
Hans wiped his sweat as he stood before the colossal Ricardo’s Statue.
“That makes 1,301. Glory to Him…”
Ricardo looked at Hans and said.
“Cut the crap.”