Harem Training System: Every Girl I Train Makes Me Stronger!

Chapter 62: 62. Power Without Discipline Is a Slower Way to Die

William, fighting down a smile he suspected neither of them would appreciate at this particular moment, helped brush the remaining leaves out of Ellie’s hair and did a quick, cursory check for any actual injury beyond her thoroughly wounded pride.

"You’re not hurt...?"

"Just embarrassed... And smoky." Ellie sniffed at a strand of her own hair and made a face. "This is going to take forever to wash out just because of my bright pink hair..."

"But still... I didn’t know you’re still here, Instructor Wade." Ellie blushed.

"Just strolling through... anyway, small progress is still progress, even when it ends in a hedge," William said, unable to help himself with the sarcasm. "Ten percent increments technically worked for the first five increases."

"You just forgot that ten percent of something bigger is also bigger."

"I’m aware of the math now, thank you."

"I’m just saying, from a certain angle, this is basically a success."

"From what angle exactly," Ellie asked, gesturing at herself, singed and disheveled and thoroughly unamused.

"The angle where nobody got seriously hurt and you learned something valuable about exponential scaling."

Ellie stared at him for a long moment, clearly torn between irritation and the reluctant, creeping realization that he wasn’t entirely wrong, and finally let out a long, exasperated breath that dissolved into laughter despite herself. "Uhh..."

"You’re impossible," Ellie pouted.

"I’ve been told."

"By whom?"

"Everyone, mostly..." Willian giggled. "It comes up a lot."

Ellie huffed, brushing another leaf out of her hair, then paused, glancing over at the scorched hedge with a wince. "Do you think anyone’s going to notice that?"

"It’s a hedge, Ellie... Somebody’s going to notice a hedge shaped like a firework went off inside it."

"It could grow back."

"Hedges don’t grow back from that."

"They might."

"They will not."

Clara, watching the exchange with her usual quiet amusement, finally closed her journal and tucked it back under her arm. "We should get her cleaned up before curfew... Also possibly report the hedge damage before someone assumes it was intentional."

"Good thinking," William said. "Go on, both of you."

"And Ellie, tomorrow... an actual ten percent." William tapped her forehead with his finger. "I mean it this time."

"Yes, Instructor Wade... An actual ten percent," Ellie repeated dutifully, still picking leaves out of her hair as she and Clara set off toward the dormitories, their voices trailing back toward him, Clara already narrating some detail about mana scaling that Ellie was groaning about having to hear a second time.

William watched them go, the small, chaotic warmth of the moment settling something in his chest that had gone tight and heavy over the course of the evening, and by the time he finally made it back to his own room, the weight of everything Albert had told him had softened, just slightly, into something he felt more capable of carrying.

He slept poorly that night regardless, Catherine’s face hovering at the edge of every half-formed dream, the image of her hand hovering beneath that white-hilted sword refusing to fully let go.

...

William found her already seated at her desk when he arrived the next morning. The office was flooded with pale morning light, but it couldn’t seem to penetrate the stillness that clung to Catherine like a second skin.

She was hunched over a stack of reports, her pen moving across parchment with mechanical precision. She looked less like a knight and more like a ghost trapped in a ritual of bureaucracy.

He hesitated at the doorway for three heartbeats, weighing the risk. He couldn’t walk in here and ask about eight-year-old trauma.

That would be a grenade thrown into a minefield. He needed to tread lightly to be the student and colleague without demanding anything from her soul.

"Good morning, Catherine," he said quietly, stepping into the room.

He kept his posture relaxed, deliberately nonthreatening. "Looks sharp as ever, eh?"

She didn’t look up immediately.

"Good morning, William." Her voice was level and controlled, but there was that familiar hollow quality beneath it, the sound of someone who had learned to speak without feeling.

"I hate to interrupt your workflow," he said, leaning against the doorframe. "But I’ve been wrestling with something since yesterday’s training session."

Finally, she lifted her gaze. Her eyes were sharp, assessing.

"The training session with Lia?"

"Exactly." William nodded. "Her technique is coming along faster than I expected, but I think I’m hitting a wall with her progression."

"Her instincts are raw, but she lacks the foundation..." William crossed his arms. "I think there’s a whole framework of formal stances and defensive postures. I’m missing the kind of structured theory that helps a student build a reliable muscle memory."

He offered her a small, genuine shrug. "I figured you might know your way around the combat reference archives better than I do."

"I’d like to check the library if you’re up for the walk."

It wasn’t entirely a lie. He genuinely wanted to find the texts on advanced sword theory, the kind that might hold clues to the specific combat styles the Crown favored, but the real reason was simpler: he wanted to see if he could find a crack in the armor.

He wanted to see if she was still in there.

Catherine stared at him for a moment, her pen hovering over the parchment. William watched her closely, reading the minute tension in her jaw.

Then, slowly, she set the pen down.

"The formal stances are in the east wing," she said.

There was something almost relieved in her tone, a subtle loosening of the shoulders. "The newer manuals are decent for basics, but if you want real framework, you need the old treatises."

"The ones written by the old guard."

"Then lead the way," William said, smiling faintly. "I’d rather not wander into the poetry section by mistake."

A ghost of a smile, or perhaps just the shadow of one, flickered across her lips. "I’ll make sure you stay on course."

Catherine, apparently grateful for any excuse to escape the suffocating confines of her paperwork, stood and gathered a few small notes. The two of them made their way across the academy grounds, walking side by side.

The mid-morning air still carried a faint, biting chill that the sun hadn’t quite managed to burn off, and the wind rustled through the ivy-draped buildings.

"How is she holding up?" Catherine asked suddenly.

Her question was casual, but William caught the underlying concern. "Lia... Is she showing signs of fatigue through all that hard training?"

William took a moment to consider. "I wouldn’t exactly call it fatigue... but just impatience."

"She wants to move faster than her body allows where she has that... hunger." William held his chin. "The kind that gets people killed if they don’t learn to temper it."

Catherine’s expression darkened momentarily. "Hunger is dangerous in a real fight situation..."

"It blinds you to the subtle shifts in the air, and... It makes you think you’re the predator when you’ve already become the prey."

"I’m trying to teach her control," William replied, "but she’s more interested in power."

"Power without discipline is just a slower way to die," Catherine said flatly.

"That’s true."

They reached the library, a towering edifice of ancient stone and dark wood that seemed to absorb the sunlight rather than reflect it. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with the smell of old paper, leather bindings, and something metallic: the faint tang of residual magic that always lingered near concentrated knowledge.

The library was quiet at this hour, the only sound being the occasional scratch of a quill from a student hunched over a distant table. William followed Catherine through the maze of winding shelves, their footsteps echoing softly on the polished wood.

They turned into the combat theory section, where the shelves grew taller and the books thicker, bound in heavy hide and iron.

But as they rounded the corner toward the advanced treatises, William’s instincts flared. Someone was already there.

A figure stood at the end of the aisle, backlit by a shaft of dusty sunlight. The stranger was tall and unnaturally still, their presence cutting through the scholarly calm like a blade through silk.

William’s hand instinctively twitched toward where his sword would normally hang, his mind already calculating exits and attack angles.

’Someone shouldn’t be in this section this early,’ William thought, his eyes narrowing. ’This isn’t a student’s territory...’

’This is where the dangerous knowledge lives.’