While the first-year recruits were being thoroughly broken in by their merciless instructor-in-training, the newly promoted second-years were experiencing something entirely different.

“Wow, this place looks completely different now.”
“It’s bigger… and sturdier.”
“Wasn’t it just an empty space yesterday…?”

The tunnel their instructor had dug.

A tunnel that connected the academy to the back mountain behind the instructor’s house—several dozen kilometers away.

It had already been an impressive feat last year, but now the space had expanded even further. If properly utilized, it could function not only as a tunnel but as a shelter capable of housing nearly a thousand people in an emergency.

Which made it even more astounding.

That something of this scale had been built by a single person.