I asked the maid to tie my hair and put on comfortable clothes, and I warmed up at the training grounds of the Allen family.

 

The knights and soldiers who were originally training here looked at me with wary eyes, but I didn’t care.

 

There were more than one or two people who looked at me like that.

 

Regardless of what they thought of me, I just had to do my job.

 

The plan was already set.

 

The research on how to raise character specs most efficiently had already been completed a long time ago.

 

The first thing to do was to increase stamina.

 

Stamina is useful when raising any character.

 

Because the higher your stamina, the more actions you can take in a day.

 

For exploring specific locations.

 

For meeting various NPCs.

 

For the training I needed right now.

 

Stamina was a stat that had to be raised in Soul Academy unless you had the concept of a sickly magician.

 

So how could you raise this stamina? This would vary depending on the time of day in the game, but the method usually used in the early stages was running.

 

It wasn’t a skill or a special method, but the one everyone used when moving around simply.

 

There are other ways, but they only become effective in the middle.

 

In the beginning, it was best to just hold a weapon in both hands and run while building up stamina and weapon proficiency at the same time.

 

So, from now on, I was going to just run like crazy with my mace and shield in my hands for about two weeks, except for the time I spent eating and sleeping.

 

This is the most efficient build when raising a character in Soul Academy.

 

After finishing my warm-up, I started running around the outside of the training grounds without thinking.

 

I already knew how to do things like posture and breathing when running.

 

If you’ve been in the military, you’ve probably done a lot of running.

 

It’s been a while since I was discharged, but what I learned back then was still ingrained in my body.

 

There was no problem when I ran the first lap.

 

I was a little out of breath, but that was it.

 

I felt fine after running around the wide training grounds once.

 

The two elixirs of increasing stamina were really working.

 

After some time had passed and I had been running around the training grounds for about an hour, I felt something was wrong.

 

I still had a long way to go before I could achieve my goal, but I already felt out of breath.

 

Can I run all day like this? Even if I try my best, I feel like I’ll collapse after running for an hour or two? Even as time passed, and I forgot how many laps I had run; I was still running.

 

My leg muscles were screaming.

 

My lungs were sore from overuse that they felt like they were going to burst.

 

My arms, holding my mace and shield, were hanging limp, so I was more like limping than running, but I didn’t stop.

 

If it was before possessing Lucy, I would have given up a long time ago.

 

I wasn’t a person with this much grit.

 

If I joined a gym for three months, I would work hard for a week and then waste the remaining two and a half months.

 

How could I endure the pain of feeling like I was going to collapse and keep moving? There was a part that I could guess.

 

Skill.

 

Just like when I took the elixir before, the fear overcoming effect was activated and my fear disappeared, so now the skill I had put in when I created my character was probably effective.

 

In this case, I think it might be the effect of the unbreakable will.

 

The description of the Unbreakable Will skill says, “Even death cannot break your will” In the game, it was just a simple instant death prevention skill, but it could help like this.

 

Thanks to that, I gained confidence.

 

I had the confidence to run like the character in the game did this week.

 

I have a will that even death cannot break, so why can’t I run? I was so excited that I forgot the word “pacing control” and blindly increased my speed.

 

That was a mistake.

 

One thing I overlooked was that having a will, doesn’t necessarily mean that your stamina will recover.

 

Will is will, and your body is your body.

 

No matter how strong your will is, if your body reaches its limit, you will collapse.

 

I felt this keenly as I collapsed on the cold stone floor of the training ground.

 

This is why pacing is important.

 

You have to run until you collapse from exhaustion to know.

 

Next time, I should run more carefully.

 

“Miss Lucy?!” I could hear my exclusive maid screaming, but I couldn’t move a finger.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

‘Yes… I’m okay…’

 

“It’s okay. My ears are ringing, so be quiet.”

 

“I’m so sorry.”

 

I’m just tired, so I’ll get better with time.

 

So, can you stop making a fuss next to me? I feel like I’m going crazy because you’re so flustered.

 

I was afraid that if I said it out loud, it would be translated as harsh words, so I kept quiet, but then I heard the footsteps of someone other than the maid.

 

“Miss Lucy, if you don’t mind, can I move you to a better place to rest?”

 

I forced my stiff neck to turn to check, and it was one of the knights of the Allen family.

 

I don’t know his name.

 

However, I remember that he was running and commanding his soldiers

 

“If you rest like this, your body will recover more slowly. You should recover properly when you rest.”

 

First, who would have thought that someone would approach Lucy?

 

How strange.

 

Lucy is treated like nuclear material within the Allen family.

 

If anyone approaches, they will be exposed to Lucy’s antics, so everyone except Benedict would sneak away when they see her.

 

The exclusive maid and subordinate to me can’t help it, but I never thought that someone else would approach me first.

 

Hmm.

 

My mouth was already about to turn because of the cold stone floor, but this is good.

 

Since he offers to help, I will gladly accept it.

 

‘Yes, please do so.’

 

“Okay, you sloppy knight I will allow you to touch my body.”

 

“It is my honour, my lady.”

 

The knight came near me and carefully hugged me.

 

Only then did I notice that everyone in the training grounds was looking at me.

 

Most of those gazes were filled with concern.

 

They were not concerned about me.

 

How could they worry about me when I’ve done so many things? Those gazes were concerned about the knight who had hugged me.

 

This knight who did me a favour is worried about what Lucy will do to him.

 

That’s a bit too much.

 

Even if Lucy is a bitch, why would she even yell at someone who helped her? Did Lucy find fault with the maid who was polite to her and kick her out?

 

Did she make a scene in the kitchen because the chef served her food she didn’t like?

 

Did she swear at the teacher for telling her to study?

 

She’s done it all.

 

Hmm.

 

I’m worried.

 

Thinking back on Lucy’s past actions, this knight who helped me seemed even more strange.

 

With such a brilliant record, why did he come first to help? Did his superior order him to go help? “Miss, can I ask you one thing?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What?”

 

“Why are you running around with a mace and shield?”

 

I was speechless at the unexpected question.

 

“I understand that you want to train your physical strength, but I think you’re pushing yourself too hard from the start.”

 

Listening to what the knight said, I suddenly appeared in the training grounds and ran with a mace and shield, which seemed strange.

 

If you think about it objectively, it couldn’t help but seem strange.

 

A girl who had never exercised before was suddenly running for over an hour with a weapon.

 

But I couldn’t explain the situation.

 

How can you tell people living in this world that running with a weapon increases their stamina and skill proficiency at the same time?

 

I don’t want to add more to the rumours about Lucy that has been spreading among the maids these days.

 

That’s why I couldn’t say anything.

 

When I kept my mouth shut, the knight laughed in vain.

 

“If you want to start training, ask us, isn’t this what we do every day? We know better than anyone how to train.”

 

It was a persuasive argument, but I had no intention of listening to the knight.

 

I truly believed that what I was doing was right.

 

Of course, my skills were working the same in this world.

 

This was just a game system.

 

So, if I just use the build I used in the game, I can become stronger faster than anyone else, so how can I give that up?

 

“Miss?”

 

‘Thank you for your consideration, but it’s okay.’

 

“Shut up, you sloppy knight. Don’t tell me what to do.”

 

You damn Mesugaki.

 

Where did you get that sentence out of “Thank you for your consideration, but it’s okay?”

 

Huh? Do you have a disease that causes you to die as soon as you say thank you?

 

The knight, who heard an answer that wasn’t even slightly pretty, apologized and shut his mouth.

 

I didn’t plan on doing this.

 

If it’s translated into Mesugaki, as a polite rejection, and it’s impossible to do that.

 

Haa.

 

Damn it.

 

How can I fix this? It’s okay now because we’re in the mansion, but if it’s like this when I enter the academy, it’ll be difficult.

 

Am I really being bullied by who put me here?

 

Erin, Lucy’s exclusive maid, looked at her master, who was running hard in a corner of the training grounds.

 

Lucy, who had been running around the outskirts of the training grounds for three hours today, was drenched in sweat.

 

She staggered as if she had no strength in her body, and it would not have been strange if she had collapsed at any moment.

 

However, Lucy did not collapse.

 

She moved her feet forward steadily as if she would die if she stopped.

 

Why was she so diligent? It had already been three days since Lucy started running, but Erin still could not understand her.

 

The Lucy she knew originally was not the kind of person who would do something like that.

 

The Lucy Erin knew was a bad-tempered little girl who thought she was the master of the mansion.

 

She would get angry if even the smallest thing did not go her way, would find fault with everything around her, and would insult others to fill her self-esteem.

 

How bad must her personality have been for the position of her exclusive maid to have been vacant so many times?

 

Usually, becoming the exclusive maid of a young lady in another family was a kind of honour.

 

It was recognition that she had the skills to support a precious person of the family.

 

Once you become an exclusive maid, you would never voluntarily give up your position as an exclusive maid, even if you are forced to step down by your superiors.

 

However, it was different at the Allen Mansion.

 

Being an exclusive maid to Lucy was not a position of honour.

 

The words “resignation” in the name of an exclusive maid were a sentence that revealed how being Lucy’s maid was evaluated.

 

That’s why when Erin was assigned to be Lucy’s exclusive maid, it felt like the sky was falling down.

 

I thought I had been doing a good job so far, but did I incur hatred without realizing it?

 

Did I do something rude to the head maid?

 

Was this a warning to leave quietly?

 

The night she was assigned to be Lucy’s exclusive maid,

 

Erin couldn’t sleep and kept thinking about what she had done wrong.

 

Always staying by Lucy’s side, even meeting her briefly, was like falling into hell.

 

Erin had to continue to go along with Lucy’s tyranny.

 

Because of that, the days of constantly bowing my head during the day and shedding tears at the head of my bed at night repeated.

 

Then one day.

 

On that day when Erin was anxious about the fact that morning had come again.

 

Lucy changed.