"Ugh, well, at least I'm alive, so I get to meet Dalin as my recruit."
It's definitely better than dying without even meeting her. Rolling around in a pile of dog crap is still better than dying.
It felt so strange to think that Dalin, who everyone saw as me in the original story, was now a recruit under my watch.
‘She’s so much like me...’
...No matter how much I thought about it, it pissed me off to think that I was similar to such a disaster of a recruit. But for now, Dalin hadn’t done anything wrong to me directly.
Right, it wouldn’t be right to hold a grudge against Dalin just because of the original story...
‘...But didn’t she start by saying ‘Hello’ the moment she came in?’
The fact that Dalin was a walking disaster was confirmed in my eyes. XX.
***
I decided to calm myself and start mentoring Dalin step by step.
When I first saw Dalin’s innocent face, my blood pressure spiked. This must have been how the senior soldiers felt when they first saw Patty and Matty.
Dalin unpacked her things following Benny’s guidance and had a meal with her. My intent was to minimize my blood pressure rise caused by Dalin’s presence.
But now, the real time had come—I had to take charge of Dalin’s training.
“Hey, run!”
“Huff, huff, I can’t do it...”
“You can! I said you can!”
“When will it end...”
“Shut your mouth and run, stop talking!”
“It’s so hard...”
“Yo?! Yo?!”
The hellish new recruit training had begun.
I glared with fire in my eyes as I drilled Dalin, and she ran across the training field with a tearful face.
“Damn it, just do it already!”
“Can I take a break in five minutes...?”
...It was a mess.
Eventually, Dalin collapsed onto the ground, and I couldn’t help but smile brightly. It was a smile so pure that Jason, watching from afar, probably flinched.
‘What are you staring at, you XX?’
Of course, as soon as Jason saw my expression, he quickly scurried away, like he was running for his life.
“Dalin, you can really do it...”
I spoke in a soft voice, the gentlest I had ever been. Dalin, barely able to catch her breath, managed to respond.
“Huff, huff, but...”
“No, Dalin... there’s no ‘but.’”
I could almost understand now why April had that sweet, gentle tone in her voice.
If you’re desperately trying to hold back your anger, it’s inevitable that an artificial, fake kind of kindness will slip out.
That wasn’t kindness—that was a voice trying to hold back anger.
“Really. You can do it...”
Dalin could definitely handle any difficult training.
Although she hadn’t started swordsmanship training yet, Dalin didn’t realize it, but according to the original story, she used a light attribute aura, which meant she had the bloodline of Arkon flowing through her.
That meant she had an inherent talent for physical abilities as well.
She hadn’t realized it until now, having never really pushed her body this far... but with enough training, Dalin could awaken that power herself.
“Salvia-nim... Do you really believe that?”
Her voice sounded almost moved as she asked, and I smiled again, answering her warmly.
“Yeah, Dalin, of course. You can do it.”
Because I was going to make sure of it.
I narrowed my eyes and whispered softly to her.
“You seem to lack resolve because you're training alone. From now on, your seniors will run alongside you. You’ll be fine. Heh. Hey, Jason! Why aren’t you calling in the others? Get moving!”
“Ah, just a moment, just a moment, I think I can do it on my own...”
“Is my time yours to waste? This is senior time! What, you think you can just take it freely? Hey, Jason! What are you waiting for?”
“Sa-Salvia-nim, just a minute...”
I chuckled to myself as I watched Dalin get up and start running again. Violence and fear really do save everyone.
“Don’t worry, Dalin. You’ll never die because of monsters...”
After all, half of the four recruits from last time had already died, so I had planned on pushing the new recruits harder.
And now Dalin had come in at just the right time.
Getting Dalin to do her part would probably take more effort than the others, but that’s exactly what I was prepared for.
So, I made a firm resolution in that moment.
“From now on, Dalin is my personal responsibility...”
***
"No, XX, tighten your stomach! Tighten, tighten!"
"Huff, huff, I can't get my body up..."
"Milphy! Where's Milphy?!"
"I think I can do it...."
Over the course of a week of rookie training.
"My arms... I really don’t have any strength left..."
"Benny, aren’t you supposed to be managing the new recruits?"
"...But I'll keep trying..."
Dalin tried to fall behind eleven times out of ten, but...
"Is there any free time?"
"Free time? How about free time with Sanchez?"
"...I meant I’d rather just keep training without any free time..."
After much effort on my part, Dalin finally completed the same level of training as the others. Of course, it was a tough process...
Sigh, poor me, struggling to train Dalin.
"Huff, Milphy-nim, I’m so relieved the training is finally over for the new recruits. The past week has been hell..."
"Jason, don't relax yet. From what I can see, Salvia-nim is planning to make us work even harder."
"Are you talking about me? Border Defense Army exercise #4."
Despite all of it, Dalin had improved a lot. Of course, she still lacked awareness and strength, but at least when I gave her an order, she’d try to do her best.
"Dalin, go get the storage key from Isina-nim."
"Yes."
Hmm, technically, Dalin still had swordsmanship training left before she could finish rookie training.
Later, when the other soldiers are doing their training, I’ll have to take Dalin to Aquila and have him teach her.
Thinking about it, I hadn’t seen Aquila in a while after spending the whole week with Dalin.
In the original story, I had completely lost touch with my relationships, but now it seemed like Aquila had no interest in Dalin at all.
Well, Dalin had gotten better, so maybe I could ease up on her training a little...
"Dalin..."
"What, already back?"
I looked up, surprised to see Dalin return so soon. But there was something missing—she wasn’t holding the key.
"Where’s the key?"
"It’s not that... it’s that Blair-nim and Topio-nim asked me to hurry and get them."
"...Wait, are you talking about Blair and Topio?"
If those disasters from Batch 85 called me...
"Did you cause some trouble?"
"Well, I thought they were Isina-nim and I spoke to them..."
"...You mean Isina-nim?"
Damn, my mistake. All the memorization tasks I gave her had long been forgotten.
‘I’m screwed, seriously...’
Management level 1, up a notch.
***
"Salvia, are you not managing the recruits properly? What’s wrong with these kids today?"
"XX, do we really need to manage recruits at our level?"
"My bad."
I probably sounded like my teeth were gritting while speaking.
"XX, when did we get named Isina? We're two people, how could we be mistaken for Isina? You do it, Topio, you want to be ‘Sina’?”
"Ha, ha, do you even know what honorifics are? Seriously, 'Isina-nim, Salvia-nim needs the key?' What is this XX?"
I kept a straight face while enduring the storm of complaints from the Batch 85 disasters, who were definitely making this worse.
How could I mess up in front of these guys? I swear, Dalin...
Finally, after their rant was over, and they moved on, I lifted my arms from the ground and turned back to Dalin with a sweet smile.
"Dalin..."
"I'm sorry..."
"To think that I would be on the ground in front of a new recruit... how humbling..."
"I-I’m sorry..."
"Bow your head, you XX."
The era of the human peach, human apricot, and human grapefruit was over. Before me stood the era of the ‘human low blood pressure treatment.’
"You memorized the names and positions last time, didn’t you? You said you did! I made sure to emphasize the honorifics at least twenty times!"
"I... I remember, but..."
"Then why can't you remember something this simple?"
"I have bad memory..."
"I know you're good with memory, stop lying! If you put your mind to it, you can memorize anything, you XX!"
In the original, the male leads were all touched by how well Dalin remembered their little comments, and now she's telling me she has bad memory?
"Do you remember the names of your superiors?"
"Ah, Alexander-nim and Jenny-nim..."
"How can Abraham and Nero turn into Alexander and Jenny?! Seriously!"
In my fury, I was trying to drill every memorization task into Dalin’s head when Isina appeared, tired-looking.
"Salvia, calm down."
"Are you siding with the recruit now?!"
"...What? No, I’m just seriously concerned about your blood pressure."
...That makes sense.
"Wait, but Dalin—"
"Drink some water and calm down."
Isina tiredly shoved the water bottle into my mouth, and I was forced to swallow the water pouring in.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.
...Drinking cold water helped calm me down a bit.
"...But Dalin was the one who—"