Chapter 62: Round After Round.

Images of eating them and sensations of how delicious it would be to eat them kept appearing in his mind. The worm also kept pestering him for food.

Despite these distractions, he managed to focus on his work.

When the worm said, “You can’t keep doing this, and you can’t keep putting off your hunger forever.”

He smiled and said, “What are you talking about? I can do this forever.”

He said that, but he was glad when he reached for the next club an hour later, and there was none.

“Is that all of them?” he asked.

“That’s it. You’re done,” Frank said, confirming his suspicion.

He immediately sighed in relief and said, “That’s good.”

Then he asked, “So what’s next?”

“You will have to repeat the whole thing.”

“How many of them this time?” Alexander asked, examining the 23 clubs.

“All of them,” Frank replied.

Alexander’s eyes widened in disbelief as he said, “All of them?”

Frank nodded.

“But why? I thought you said I would repeat with fewer clubs.”

Frank, nodding, said, “I did say that. But I also said you were supposed to say which one was most suitable for you.”

“When I asked you to evaluate their performance, you always shrugged and said that they were all good.”

Alexander protested, saying, “I couldn’t tell which one was better. They all felt the same to me. You know I don’t have experience with weapons.”

“Plus, you said you would evaluate my performance by watching me. What happened to that?”

He also hadn’t really been paying attention to how the weapon felt in his hands. He had been too focused on thinking about the invisible force that had crept around his head earlier and how to destroy the tree stump that looked like the person who had violated him mentally.

But he didn’t want to tell Frank about that. He just didn’t think this was a safe place to bet his heart out like that.

Frank shook his head and said, “Your feelings about a weapon matter too. In fact, it matters greatly because an innately compatible weapon will grant you a better range of control and movement.”

“Either way, the evaluation of weapons is something we have to do together. So we have to take it from the top.”

“Fine,” Alexander said dejectedly.

“You can rest before you resume. You can call it a day, even,” Frank suggested.

Then the green-skinned shrugged and said, “If you don’t want to train anymore, no one can force you.”

“At least, I can’t force you. But maybe your commanding officer can force you. So think about that before you quit training.”

Alexander didn’t need to think about what Tessa could do to him if she got wind that he was lazing about, because he didn’t need her avoiding her punishment as motivation to improve himself.

After what he just experienced, he had all of the motivation he needed, so he said, “Let’s have another round.”

Frank nodded and said, “In that case, let’s take it from the top.”

Then he handed the large wooden club to Alexander. Alexander grabbed it and turned to walk away.

He left the weapon rack and headed toward the innocent tree stump. When he reached the tree stump, he continued beating it for crimes it did not commit.

As satisfying as it was to beat a defenseless copy of the villain who raped his mind, he didn’t let himself get carried away. This time, he tried to get a feel for the clubs whilst he swung them into the tree stump.

He didn’t know what made a weapon good, so he prioritized which club was comfortable to use. To determine which club was comfortable, he paid attention to how the impact of the collision between the club and the tree stump affected his hand.

If the weapon was nearly knocked out of his hand, he deemed it uncomfortable to use. But if it was easy to maintain his grip on the club and transitioning into another swing was fast, he rated it as comfortable to use.

He didn’t know if his criteria for judging suitability was low or wrong, but it was all he knew how to do. Plus, Frank said it was good enough. Since his trainer said it was good enough, he didn’t question it.

Like that, he spent another hour trying out new clubs and sorting them into two groups. After the first round, the second round began in earnest.

Of the 23 clubs, they sorted 11 into the group of suitable weapons. Now he had to swing the 11 weapons 200 times each to test their depth of suitability.

Frank had said, “The 11 all feel suitable to you. The best way to test their differences is to use them for a much longer amount of time. The longer you use them, the more their weaknesses will show.”

When Alexander heard this, he said, “Does that mean I will swing the third round for an even longer amount of time?”

Frank nodded and said, “It is good that you’re prepared.”

Alexander didn’t think he was prepared for the work. But the alternative was not to train, and he didn’t want that. So, even as the worm called Frank a hack, he started the second round.

“He is a hack. He is a charlatan. I am convinced he is doing this to weaken you so that he can eat you,” the worm said anxiously.

“If using a weapon is so difficult, just use your hands and teeth to fight. How great are weapons anyway?”

He couldn’t be bothered to argue with the ignorant glutton in his mind. This wasn’t about the worm being stubborn and comparing the lethality of weapons to fists. It was more about the worm being blissfully unaware of what had happened earlier.

The worm didn’t know the things he knew, so he couldn’t take its opinion seriously. But yes, he thought the worm was stupid, and there was no way he’d take its advice.