Chapter 32 – Complaining Is a Terrible Idea

【Valerius PoV】

The training ground felt like a battlefield after the war ended.

I collapsed against the stone wall, my legs screaming in protest and my lungs burning with every breath I dragged in. Mei sat a few feet away, her back pressed against a training post, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and dirt smudged across her cheek like war paint.

We looked like survivors of a natural disaster.

“Water?”

I pulled out a canteen from the supply crate near the wall, my hands shaking so badly the metal clanked against the stone. Mei nodded weakly, too exhausted to form actual words with her mouth.

I tossed the canteen to her, the throw pathetic and wobbly, but she caught it with both hands and immediately pressed it to her lips. She drank like someone who’d been lost in a desert for three days, water dribbling down her chin and onto her training clothes.

She finished and tossed it back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Your master is insane.”

“Yours is worse.”

Mei let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob, sliding down the post until she was sitting flat on the ground with her legs sprawled out in front of her.

“At least Jin explains things, Yuna just attacks me and tells me to figure it out.”

“Jin doesn’t explain things, he delivers cryptic wisdom and then punches me when I don’t immediately become enlightened.”

“That’s still better than my master throwing knives at my head for ‘reflex training.'”

I took another swig of water, the cool liquid doing nothing to soothe the fire in my muscles. Everything hurt, my shoulders felt like they were filled with broken glass, my thighs were trembling with fatigue, and my pride was somewhere in the dirt getting trampled by reality.

“Do you think they actually enjoy this?”

“Oh absolutely, did you see Yuna’s face when I tripped over my own feet? She looked like she’d won the lottery.”

Mei groaned and tilted her head back against the post, staring up at the sky like she was praying for divine intervention or a quick death.

“Master looked so happy when you fell into me, I swear she was taking mental notes for future torture sessions.”

“They’re sadists, both of them, actual certified sadists who get off on watching us suffer.”

“The worst part is we can’t even complain because they’re both stupidly strong and could kill us with their pinky fingers.”

I laughed despite myself, the sound coming out wheezy and strained. Mei cracked a smile, her exhaustion making her guard drop completely.

“Jin told me my stance looked like ‘a drunk giraffe attempting ballet.'”

“That’s weirdly specific.”

“He has a gift for creative insults, yesterday he said my footwork reminded him of a newborn fawn on ice.”

Mei snorted, then immediately winced and clutched her ribs where Yuna had landed a particularly brutal strike during their drill.

“Yuna told me I move like I’m wearing invisible chains made of incompetence.”

“Okay that’s actually worse.”

“Right? How do you even respond to that? Thank you for the feedback, Master, I’ll work on removing my incompetence chains?”

We sat in companionable misery for a moment, the afternoon sun beating down on us like a judgment from the heavens. A light breeze drifted across the courtyard, carrying the scent of cherry blossoms and crushed dreams.

“Do you think they were always this terrifying?”

“Probably, people like that don’t just wake up one day and decide to become nightmares in human form.”

Mei shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make her entire body scream in protest, her movements slow and deliberate like an old woman with severe arthritis.

“I bet Jin was born looking disappointed in everyone around him.”

“And Yuna probably came out of the womb throwing knives at the doctor.”

“The doctor deserved it for not meeting her standards.”

I grinned, the absurdity of the conversation making the pain slightly more bearable. We were two traumatized students bonding over shared suffering, finding humor in the darkness because what else could we do?

“You know what the worst part is?”

“The pain? The humiliation? The certainty that tomorrow will be exactly as terrible as today?”

“No, the fact that they’re actually making us better.”

Mei went quiet, her expression shifting from exhausted amusement to reluctant acknowledgment. She picked at a loose thread on her training pants, her movements listless and defeated.

“I hate that you’re right, I can feel it, the changes, my reflexes are faster, my awareness is sharper, but it doesn’t make the training any less miserable.”

“Progress shouldn’t hurt this much.”

“Tell that to our masters, I’m sure they’ll nod sagely and then make us do twice as many drills.”

I took another drink of water, savoring the brief moment of peace before we inevitably had to stand up and face more torture. The courtyard was quiet except for the rustle of leaves and the distant sound of someone else training on the other side of the estate.

“If I die during training, tell Clara she was right about everything.”

“If I die first, tell my master I went down fighting and definitely didn’t trip over my own feet.”

“Deal.”

We shook on it, our grips weak and pathetic, two soldiers making a pact in the trenches. The sun continued its slow arc across the sky, indifferent to our suffering.

“Do you think they’re watching us right now?”

“Don’t jinx it.”

“I’m serious, what if they’re lurking somewhere taking notes on our complaining?”

Mei glanced around nervously, her eyes scanning the courtyard perimeter like she expected assassins to burst from the shadows at any moment.

“We’re fine, they’re probably inside drinking tea and laughing about how pathetic we looked.”

“That’s somehow more disturbing than them watching us.”

“Everything about our masters is disturbing, that’s their whole aesthetic, terrifying competence wrapped in casual cruelty.”

I was about to respond when I heard it, the soft sound of footsteps on stone, measured and deliberate and absolutely familiar. My blood turned to ice, every muscle in my body locking up with pure dread.

Mei heard it too, her eyes going wide with horror.

We turned our heads in perfect synchronization, moving like characters in a nightmare sequence. Jin and Yuna stood at the edge of the courtyard, their arms crossed and their expressions a matching study in amused disappointment.

Jin’s eyebrow was raised a fraction of an inch, the universal signal for “I heard everything and you’re about to regret your life choices.”

Yuna was smiling, that particular smile that promised creative and prolonged suffering.

“Sadists, were we?”

“Nightmares in human form?”

My mouth went dry, every excuse and apology dying in my throat before I could form the words. Mei made a small squeaking sound like a mouse caught in a trap.

“To be fair, Master, we were speaking hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically?”

Jin’s voice was dangerously calm, the eye of a storm that was about to become a hurricane.

“Yeah, like, in an alternate universe where you might be considered slightly intense.”

“Slightly intense.”

Yuna repeated my words with the kind of precision that suggested she was memorizing them for future mockery. She walked forward, each step deliberate and measured.

“Well then, hypothetically, let’s double your training regimen, since you both clearly have so much energy left for creative commentary.”

“Wait, we can explain.”

“I’d love to hear it.”

Mei looked at me with desperate eyes, silently begging me to come up with something brilliant that would save us both. My brain was completely empty, wiped clean by terror and exhaustion.

“We were just, uh, bonding? Team building through shared hardship?”

“By calling us sadists.”

“In the most respectful way possible?”

Jin stepped forward, his shadow falling across us like a death sentence being delivered.

“Laps around the entire estate, fifty of them, followed by stance training for two hours, then weapons drills until sunset.”

“But Master, the sun doesn’t set for another six hours.”

“Then you’d better get started.”

Yuna clapped her hands together, the sound sharp and final like a judge’s gavel.

“And Mei, darling apprentice of mine, you’ll be doing all of that while carrying weighted packs, twenty pounds each, because apparently your incompetence chains need some actual weight behind them.”

Mei’s face crumpled, all hope abandoning her body like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

“This is a nightmare.”

“No, this is what happens when you complain loud enough for your instructors to hear.”

Jin’s voice carried the weight of absolute authority mixed with genuine amusement at our suffering.

“Now get up, both of you, your extended training starts immediately.”

I tried to stand, my legs protesting violently and threatening to collapse entirely. Mei managed to get upright through sheer force of will and the terror of disappointing Yuna further.

We stood there swaying like trees in a strong wind, exhausted and defeated and absolutely certain this was the worst day of our lives.

Tomorrow would probably be worse.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

Yuna’s voice stopped us mid-turn toward the training field.

“Next time you want to bond over criticizing your masters, maybe check that we’re not standing within earshot first.”

“Lesson learned.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Jin gestured toward the path that circled the estate grounds, the route that now represented our immediate future of pain and regret.

“Fifty laps, go.”

We went, our footsteps heavy and our spirits crushed, two students who’d learned that complaining about terrifying instructors was a terrible idea that led to immediate and creative punishment.

Behind us, I could hear Yuna’s laughter echoing across the courtyard, bright and merciless and absolutely delighted by our misery.