At the same time, since a number of the slave warriors had been injured by Night's own hands, he had been careful not to strike any vital areas.
Even so, a feast was held to comfort and reward them.
That evening, the slave warriors drank deeply.
As did Night himself.
Everyone indulged freely.
To ease the exhaustion on his nerves from emerging out of the simulated universe, he did not restrain himself.
That night, when Amy and Aira(Ella) came to assist him with his bath, he had the two handmaidens scrub his back, releasing the tension built up from the sustained high-intensity simulations.
Once they had finished, Night stood up from the bath...
The two young women let out a startled cry.
What they should not have seen, and what they should not have...
No. A figure like a statue of Donatello's David had no association whatsoever with anything impure.
And as his handmaidens(maids), they had no right to interfere with their master's display of physical excellence.
Even so, that physique, worthy of Apollo himself, had a way of stirring their hearts no matter how many times they had glimpsed it.
Both Amy and Aira's faces turned a deep red.
Flustered as they were, neither made any effort to conceal the heat burning in their eyes.
The passion, openness, and boldness carried down from ancient Hellenic tradition meant that women were no less bold than men when it came to pursuing what they found beautiful.
Well ... Night had long since known that both little handmaidens spent their days with their minds fixed on him.
Seeing this, he looked at the blushing beauties and smiled.
"Take a bath, and once you two are done, come to my room to give me a massage."
As he spoke, he rose and stepped aside to make room for them.
The young women happily and obediently shed their garments, lowered their heads, and slipped into the bath, looking forward to spending the evening with their master.
Had the master finally decided to favor them?
With that thought in mind, an eager Amy and Aira finished washing and changing, then made their way to Night's room, where he had already been waiting for some time.
After they asked what the master had in mind for the evening,
Night told them that while his handmaidens would not need to go to battle, they still needed to learn some basic combat skills, at minimum enough to defend themselves.
He had no use for useless ornaments at his side.
They would begin with Amy tonight.
Huh?
The two didn't expect that coming here at night would mean physical training.
So, hearing her words, Amy and Aira were caught off guard, though they quickly adjusted their composure.
Even so, as Amy thought about what this might involve, she felt a mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
Learning to fight? We need to learn to fight too?
She thought back to the scene that afternoon of Night single-handedly taking on hundreds of Spartan warriors.
All with wooden swords and wooden shields, of course.
But his vitality and power were too overwhelming, too ferocious.
Particularly in terms of the scale of his arsenal.
During the fight with the Spartan warriors that afternoon, he had not used his full strength in the slightest.
His most powerful weapon had remained concealed the entire time.
Yet just a short while ago, while helping him bathe, Amy and Aira had been fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the very tip of that iceberg, and had nearly stopped breathing from the shock.
It was the kind of thing one glance was enough to know.
Something an ordinary person could never possibly wield.
It was precisely because of this that Amy and Aira understood their master's terrifying nature better than even those warriors did.
And now they were being asked to learn directly from such a formidable master.
They were only ordinary handmaidens, nothing like the Spartan warriors with their extraordinary strength.
Surely there was no need for them to learn combat skills, right?
Amy began to shrink back, losing her nerve.
And yet, had they not both fantasized and looked forward to exactly this sort of thing before?
(Ella ..ah let's call her Aira) Aira, on the other hand, felt a flicker of disappointment, and even a quiet indignation.
It was not her turn today?
So, she stepped forward and suggested. "Master, perhaps both sisters could learn together, since we're twins after all."
Sisters in spirit! Learning together would mean faster progress for both!
That remark immediately sparked a sense of urgency in Amy.
How could a handmaid disobey her master's command?
How could she disappoint the master she adored?
Her own sister was already far more eager and proactive than she was.
She immediately shoved Ella out the door.
"Wait outside," Amy said firmly, and shut it behind her.
Ella stumbled back a step, then stood there in the corridor, blinking.
Night looked at Amy. "We start simple," he said. "One movement. Repeat it until I say stop."
Amy nodded, her expression determined.
Ten minutes later, she was already grimacing.
Twenty minutes in, sweat was dripping from her chin.
An hour later, her legs were shaking with every repetition.
"Master," she said between breaths. "Master, please... I think my knees are going to..."
"Again."
"Master—"
"Again, Amy."
She let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan and kept going.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought, I should not have pushed Ella away. At least if Ella were suffering beside her, it would have felt slightly less miserable.
In the end, Amy, with her slender arms and legs, truly could not take any more and let out a shriek.
Night crouched down and looked at her with a calm, assessing expression.
Her arms were trembling.
Her legs had given out completely. She was staring up at him with the most pitiable expression he had seen in quite some time.
Looking at her, he sighed.
After all, it wasn't her fault.
Her physical condition was simply too poor, and pushing too hard too fast would not do.
At that moment, Ella, who had been lurking just outside without leaving, suddenly worked up her courage and burst in.
"Master, if Amy can't do it,"
She announced, stepping inside with considerably more confidence than she actually felt, "Then teach me instead." I can definitely do it!"
Night looked at her for a long moment.
'Well then. You have nerve, little Ella.'
A slow smile crossed his face.
"Come then."
Faced with such a challenge,
Night naturally was not going to go easy on her.
Although she lasted longer than Amy had, albeit a few minutes, by the end of it she was on her hands and knees on the floor, hair sticking to her face, arms refusing to cooperate with anything her mind told them to do.
He trained her until she was nearly in tears, and she quickly followed in Amy's footsteps.
Another little weakling!
Night stood over both of them and looked down with the expression of a man who had just evaluated two new recruits.
"Two little weaklings," With that verdict delivered, he finally, and with some reluctance, wrapped up his enthusiastic instruction for the evening.
He furrowed his brow slightly.
He had given these two special attention, and neither of them had lived up to it.
Those Spartan warriors had cracked ribs and never made a sound, getting back up and continuing to fight.
These two had barely lasted a few hours before tapping out?
Well, fine.
They were ordinary people after all, nothing like the Spartans with divine bloodlines hardening their bodies, nor the battle-hungry Thracian warriors.
If his two handmaidens had no love for training, he was not going to force them.
That was enough for today.
Time to rest.
Nate drifted off to sleep as well, and when he opened his eyes the next morning, he glanced at the side.
Amy and Ella were both asleep on the floor of his room, curled up where they had apparently collapsed the night before.
Amy had her cheek pressed against her own arm.
Ella had somehow ended up with her back against the wall, head drooping forward.
Both were sleeping with the absolute totality of the completely exhausted.
As a benevolent master, he had no intention of waking them.
So, after watching them for a moment, he quietly rose.
However, even so, they stirred on their own at the sound of him moving.
"Master—!"
The word came out of both of them at once, and then came the consequences of trying to move muscles that had not yet forgiven them. Amy made a sharp, involuntary sound. Ella went rigid and pressed her lips together hard.
Night held up a hand. "Rest, "
"Both of you. Recover properly first."
He paused and then finished the rest. "When you are ready, we continue. Next time I will teach you spearmanship."
The days that followed developed a rhythm of their own.
During the day, Night drilled his gladiator legion on the open ground before the estate. The clash of wooden weapons, the thud of bodies hitting earth, the shouted commands—all of it rolled on from morning until the light began to fade.
Then in the evenings he would come to Amy and Ella, teaching them how to hold a spear and how to counter and fight back against an opponent's thrusting strikes that surged forward like a dragon.
But Amy and Ella, though not pampered girls by any means, were light-limbed and simply not built for combat.
Under the punishing high-intensity training, the two handmaidens wailed and groaned every single day.
Yet they were extraordinarily devoted, even occasionally asking Night on their own initiative to push them harder.
They wanted to become useful to him as quickly as possible, to help ease some of his burden.
"Master," Amy said, standing in the doorway one evening, posture straight despite the fact that she was visibly exhausted. "We would like to continue tonight, if you are willing."
Night looked at her, then past her at Ella, who was nodding with an expression of fierce agreement.
He stepped back from the door and let them in.
'Two little weaklings,' he thought again, watching them take their positions.
'And yet here they are.'
Had they gotten addicted to training?
Seeing the handmaidens showing such a drive, Night applauded in his heart.
In any case, he had been recuperating in the real world for quite some time now.
Perhaps because fighting Spartan warriors every day had grown somewhat dull, after all, the opponents were too weak.
But while there was a red dragon nearby, she was far too powerful to be a match for him.
Or perhaps it was truly because of Amy's and Ella's thoughtfulness that his mood had eased considerably and the weight on his mind had lifted, but Night felt ready to enter the simulated universe once more.
It was worth mentioning that during this period, the entity called Herta had passed along another piece of good news.
Due to the soul contract, the next time Night entered the simulated universe, he would be able to bring Helena along.
Perhaps he could make use of her combat strength to help him accumulate great deeds.
It would be a lie to say he was not tempted.
Dangerous as that dragoness was, her combat power was genuinely enticing.
Even his fully buffed self standing on Roman soil could not kill her.
His land blessing bonus even surpassed the native homeland blessing of the neighboring world of Tsukihime.
When a heroic spirit of the Archdukes stood on Romanian soil, their combat power could rival even Heracles himself.
And Night's bonus was more extreme still.
If the world were large enough, with almost no ceiling, prolonged time on Roman soil could even permanently alter certain weaknesses in him.
And yet even so, he still could not defeat Helena.
His rough estimate was that this dragoness, placed in the age of ancient Hellas, would be a monster among monsters, at minimum no weaker than the legendary beasts Heracles faced during his twelve labors.
And if one factored in that Helena was still a young dragon in her growth phase, it became even more absurd.
After weighing it all,
Night thought: ...
To hell with it!
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