The training was quite severe

---

“…Ughhhh…”
“Phillip!?”
“Is he crying!?”

He must have remembered something, as Phillip’s eyes welled up with tears, and then he covered his face with his hands.
So it really was something that I shouldn’t ask about.

“…Ohh…. Excuse me. I forgot myself there…”
“Not at all…”
“I have never seen him look so weak! He is usually so silly!”

Phillip wiped away the tears and apologized to us.
I wasn’t sure what to say after that.
But Tilura did not hesitate to speak her mind… Well, it wasn’t far from the truth.
He had been like that in Range village.

“Well, in any case. We were talking about the training…”
“Uh, yes.”

While he looked a little hurt by Tilura’s comment, it seemed that he would continue to talk about his training.

“First, we were taken to the forest near the house.”
“To the forest?”

What did their training as guards have to do with the forest?
Now that I thought about it, Tilura and I were also going to the forest. Perhaps Mr. Ekenhart just liked to go there.

“The forest was filled with traps that he prepared.”
“What kind?”
“Pitfalls, and flying arrows. Of course, none of the traps would kill you immediately, but…you would still get injured. We had to make our way through the forest while carrying a wooden statue.”
“A wooden statue?”
“Because we couldn’t use real people in our training. So we protected a wooden statue instead. But since it didn’t move, we had to carry them.”

I guess they could practice guarding and carrying supplies at the same time then.

“Navigating your way through the forest while avoiding traps is quite draining mentally. Also, if someone else was caught in a trap, then we had to help them. Unless you could not…”
“What happened to those you couldn’t help?”
“They get left behind. And so they must stay there for the whole night. And someone would help them the following morning… Even though there were no monsters in that forest, you still had to stay there for the whole night. When it happened to me, I thought I was going to die.”
“Well…you have my condolences…”

I did not want to think about what that would be like.
It could rain while you were inside of a pit. And in a dense forest, you would not be able to see the sky.
It was no wonder that he felt like he would die there.

“Our main priority was to escort our target out of the forest safely. So even while the others were dropping like flies, you had to continue to carry your target.
“Hmm…”
“And once you reach your destination outside of the forest, the training is over. And then comes the evaluation.”
“Evaluation?”
“Yes. To see if the target is alive… If there is any obvious damage to it, then you have to do it all over again. And with only a short rest inbetween. That is why we were so desperate to get it right the first time.”

Well, it certainly sounded tiring both physically and psychologically.
As I was just listening to his account, I could only imagine how severe it was. But it definitely did not make me want to experience it.
It sounded like something you might do in the military.

“Well, that was just one of the ways we trained. Some of the other ones were worse.”
“Father…was doing such things…”

While I felt a little afraid, Tilura sounded more like she was impressed.
That was a strange thing to be proud of your father for…

“And once we went through that training, we started to train with swords and other weapons.”
“So it was after…”

I suppose he wanted to toughen them up and build their bodies first. It was quite different compared to the way he trained Tilura and me.

“As for the weapons, we test with various ones to see what suits us the most. And then we train with that weapon. That training is also quite hard… Would you like to hear about it?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“…!”

Tilura and I were training with weapons, so it was close enough. Besides, even if I was somewhat interested, I felt bad for making him talk about his training.
Tilura must have felt the same way, as she also shook her head.

Next Chapter

My Beloved Dog is the Strongest in Another World