Black Badger

Why is this person even here.

Staring in disbelief, I looked at John Mühlen, who was standing behind me like a statue.

He really is tall.

But he’s way too skinny.

“Huh? The physical test is next week!”

Meanwhile, Giacomo Ro was the same as ever.

He shouted at the Badger who was standing blankly next to John Mühlen and had spoken to him.

“Do you not even know when the physical test is?”

I didn’t even realize he was behind me.

Last time too, I hadn’t noticed Yun approaching at all. This time as well, I hadn’t sensed any presence whatsoever, so I’d thought all the seniors in the training hall were staring at me.

Realizing just how dull my senses had become made me feel depressed.

If this keeps up, I won’t even need an Elder or Kyle—I’ll get beaten to death by a level-five Creature.

And there’s no guarantee it’ll get better, which makes it even more grim.

Of course, I didn’t have time to stay gloomy for long.

Ro spotted me.

“Oh, Sunde!”

At least he remembers the ‘de’ part consistently now.

“Here to work out?”

“Yes.... Senior, but why is Senior Mühlen here?”

“I brought him to train.”

Why would you train him though....

...No.

If I explain that there’s no need, would he even listen?

“Seriously, you heartless bastards! Aren’t you worried this kid’ll fail the physical test and get his enhanced body scrapped? You’re all such awful assholes.”

“No!”

Chen shouted from inside.

“No, you can’t! You can’t! We’ve been telling you for years! That’s not it! That’s not how it works!”

“Senior, just give up. Ever since the Black Badgers were founded, there’s never been a time when Senior Giacomo didn’t do this.”

“He looks even more like a cactus now, doesn’t he?”

“And so it begins again. The John Mühlen abuse show....”

“The one getting dragged in is ridiculous too.”

“Why don’t we have intelligence tests?”

I heard seniors talking ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) as they set down Black Badger kettlebells.

“We really should.”

Maybe Ju and my peers didn’t actually need to worry about me.

I thought that as I walked into the training hall.

In reality, none of the seniors in the vast hall seemed particularly interested in me. Most were people I’d never spoken to, but there were also quite a few familiar faces—people I’d gone on missions with—yet they were all too busy with their own workouts to pay attention.

Chen shook his head at Ro dragging the genius scientist inside, then headed over to the pull-up bars.

Thud! Sylvia slammed down a deadlift bar with a heavy sound.

Bobby was running hard on a treadmill, earphones in, not caring who came in. Leonard was loading plates meant for Black Badgers, and Gregory had a headset on, throwing violent punches into empty air while staring at himself in the mirror.

The only one who greeted me was Carl Dow, who had just finished bench pressing.

The senior slowly walked toward me, wiping sweat away with a towel.

It felt like the first time in a while I’d seen his face without a mask.

“How’s your body.”

“I’m monitoring it.”

Unable to say that I was fine, I answered with a bitter smile.

“I rested too long. I came to start slow.”

“Don’t push yourself.”

The capable senior replied briefly.

“Nothing going on at headquarters?”

There’s really no need for everyone to worry this much.

I said that aside from some strange messages, nothing had happened—and that I wasn’t paying any attention to those messages anyway, so there was no need to worry. Carl stared straight at me.

The man with deep blue eyes quietly observed me, then lightly tapped my shoulder.

“If you need help with your workout, say the word. I’ll be here another two hours.”

I wasn’t planning to lift heavy today, but I smiled and nodded.

“Yes. Thank you.”

I asked if he needed any help, but Carl waved his hand dismissively and went back to the weight plates.

The main training hall was packed with the latest equipment.

I’d arrived thirty minutes earlier than my appointment with my peers. I didn’t want to show them how pathetically my stamina had collapsed and end up sulking in front of them.

I went to a corner and stretched. After warming up, I tried some light bodyweight exercises.

And in less than ten minutes, I was crushed.

This is insane.

My body is completely wrecked.

“Is this for real....”

This had never happened before.

Born with a healthy constitution, and having learned Absorption after becoming a child of the World Tree, I’d normally been robust. I’d never lived with the fear that my body wouldn’t recover. Even though I hardly ever used Absorption, there’s a world of difference between having a last resort and having no last resort in sight.

And I’d never once heard of someone recovering after their leaf veins were damaged.

In the Empire, stories about those whose leaf veins were severed weren’t even told.

People avoided even mentioning those who had lost their sixth sense.

Those sentenced to the harshest of punishments.

Cast out of society, living lives worse than death....

What if I never recover?

One hundred fifty proper push-ups feels hard.

Is this even a body?

“Sunde!”

Shocked by how utterly useless my body had become, I didn’t immediately realize Ro was calling me.

“Hey! Sunde! Kumde!”

“Yes?”

I lifted my head and dumbly pointed at myself.

“You calling me?”

Ro was standing next to John Mühlen.

Today was the first time I’d ever seen that long, lanky genius scientist without his white lab coat.

John Mühlen was lying blankly on a bench press station.

Ro leaned against the bar resting above him and crooked his finger at me.

“Yeah, you. Come here.”

I trudged over to him.

“Help him with the bench.”

Ro spoke as soon as I stopped.

“Stand behind there.”

John Mühlen can bench press?

I lowered my head to look down at the luminary of the scientific world.

I could see the gray-haired man’s upside-down face.

The scientist was blinking while staring up at the bar....

Ro brought plates and loaded them.

“Total forty kilos?”

I checked the weight and raised my eyebrows.

“Is this really okay? You don’t exercise at all beyond breathing.”

“Ah, he’s got an enhanced body too, so it’s fine!”

Ro shouted as he took a step back.

“He even warmed up with the empty bar earlier.”

Oh. So he can handle around twenty kilos without much trouble.

A little surprised, I looked down at Mühlen.

The genius scientist lay expressionless, then raised both hands to grip the bar at Ro’s words.

His wrists were bent far too much.

I carefully adjusted Mühlen’s wrist angle.

“If you grip it like that, your wrists will hurt.”

The scientist obediently followed my instructions, as if he had no ego of his own.

Is it really okay for him to be listening to me....

“This weight is really okay, right?”

There was no answer.

He just stared blankly at the ceiling.

Does he even understand what situation he’s in right now?

As I was seized by a fundamental doubt, Ro spoke to me.

“Help him rack it out.”

Following his words, I carefully helped Mühlen lift the bar.

I took some of the weight with both hands, guided the bar and the scientist’s arms into position—

And now I need to let go of the bar....

...It’s fine to let go, right?

“What are you doing? Let go!”

Ro shouted.

“Forty’s a warm-up weight even for female Badgers!”

Well, he’s not wrong.

I carefully released my grip on the bar.

Fully prepared to snatch it back if it suddenly dropped.

But John Mühlen held the forty-kilogram bar just fine.

I let out a small sigh of relief.

“Alright, now lower it to your chest.”

Maybe I’ve been underestimating the power of enhanced bodies.

“Lower it, then push it back up.”

Now that I know how these things were created, it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

My stomach twisted with guilt toward Seunghyun, who’d been turned into an experimental subject.

Even so, if someone who never works out can lift 40 kg, then the effect must be incredible—

Thud!

John Mühlen’s elbow buckled.

“Ghk.”

Shit!

I yelped and immediately lifted the bar.

“Sunbae!”

John Mühlen’s face had gone pale.

“Are you all right?!”

It looked like he’d been hit straight in the Adam’s apple.

I hurriedly racked the bar, bent down, and checked the scientist’s condition.

The man lay slack. My heart was pounding as I examined him.

No wonder—

the 40 kg bar had slammed directly into Mühlen’s neck.

The world almost lost an unparalleled genius right there.

“Sunbae. Are you okay? Sunbae?”

“What the hell.”

Ro furrowed his thick brows.

“He can’t lift this?”

This won’t do.

After checking Mühlen’s neck and everywhere else to make sure he was unharmed, I quickly started removing the plates from the bar.

I’d checked him while he was lying down, but even so, he clearly wasn’t in a condition to handle weight.

I had to clear the bar before Ro tried to make him lift anything else.

After quickly returning the bench press bar and plates to their places, I walked up to Ro and said,

“Sunbae. Weight training really isn’t it.”

“Is this even a human body?”

“Let’s do bodyweight exercises.”

Granted, bodyweight training can be high difficulty too.

But what I meant were exercises even a complete beginner could do.

Crunches or sit-ups, for example....

“Get up!”

Ro accepted my suggestion and was now yelling while gripping both of John Mühlen’s legs.

“Get up! Get up, I said!”

Sunbae Mühlen....

I watched the scientist twitching pitifully.

He failed to complete a sit-up, trembled, then collapsed flat onto the floor with a splat.

Ro clicked his tongue.

“This won’t work. Hey, sit on his feet.”

“Yes.”

I obediently followed Ro’s instructions.

Ro stood up and pointed at John.

“Hold him until he does thirty.”

He won’t be able to do thirty.

“Make him do it no matter what. Hey, you can do it. Got it? You can do it!”

Ro clenched his fists and shouted beside the scientist.

“You have to do it! You’ve gotta pass the physical test!”

You don’t even need to take it....

But even if I pointed that out, he wouldn’t listen.

Thankfully, Ro left John in my care and went back to his own workout—after issuing a special order that, no matter what happened, I was to make him complete thirty sit-ups.

I sat down, held Mühlen’s legs, and looked down at him.

The cactus-like man lay staring at the ceiling, fingers interlaced behind his head.

“Sunbae. Do you think you can do thirty sit-ups?”

Mühlen shook his head.

As expected.

“Then... can you do ten?”

He shook his head again.

“Then let’s just do as many as you can.... I know you don’t need to do this, but I don’t think Ro sunbae will let it go.”

John Mühlen seemed to process my words and attempted to rise.

He managed it twice.

But from the third time on, his body began trembling halfway up, like a phone on vibration mode.

I gave a bitter smile and lightly pulled on his shoulders.

“I’ll help you, so shall we just do thirty, sunbae?”

There’s no harm in exercising at times like this.

“Just twenty-seven more.”

Even if you look at me like that, there’s nothing I can do.

You’ll have to blame yourself for following Ro....

I sat on the mat and helped the genius scientist through his sit-ups.

Tom and Hesh came over midway and looked down at me in confusion, but I didn’t stop.

“What are you doing?”

“Assisting sunbae with exercise.”

“And what is sunbae doing here?”

Tom looked completely lost.

“What’s this? Crunches?”

I planned to send him back to the lab once we finished the count.

But just as I carefully grabbed the scientist sprawled flat on the mat and helped him up, Ro approached. Thud! He threw the bar down so roughly it felt like the training hall floor might crack.

“Did he do thirty?”

Mühlen nodded fairly quickly.

“Oh, good. Nice work. You’re responsible for training him today.”

“Me?”

“You’ve gotta protect the lamppost’s enhanced body again!”

Giacomo said that and thumped my back.

“You can do it, right?”

“Um.... Yes. I’ll do my best.”

“Good. Knew you were a kid with heart!”

The senior ruffled my exhausted hair and grinned.

“I like you.”

And so, until Ro completely forgot about Mühlen’s existence and left the training hall that day, I ended up in charge of training a genius scientist....

***

“What’s he doing.”

“What are you doing~?”

“I haven’t seen someone who can’t even hang on for thirty seconds in a long time....”

Lying on the mat, I spoke in a tired voice.

“If Sunbae Mühlen ever ends up hanging off a cliff, please rescue him within twenty-five seconds.”

“What the hell. Is that guy even human?”

Jonathan and Ricardo stared at me in disbelief.

Yun, who entered behind them, spoke in a puzzled tone.

My mentor looked down at the scientist collapsed beside me.

“I thought he was asparagus.”

Ricardo’s green eyes rolled over toward Mühlen.

“You watched him all day~?”

“Yes.”

I really did watch him carefully.

Later on, I even got curious about John Mühlen’s paper-thin stamina and made him try a few other things.

I’d never seen anyone with less potential than Deltei, so it shocked me a bit. Ro had completely misunderstood my intentions, though.

Among the seniors watching me with sympathetic eyes, the curly-haired senior popped out, grabbed my shoulder, and gave a thumbs-up.

‘Oh, good work. You did great. Let’s grab a drink after the physical test.’

‘I’m fine, sunbae.’

‘No need to decline. I was planning to drink with the Personnel Director soon anyway. Join us.’

‘What?’

‘The week after next. The place is.... Where was it again? I forgot. Go ask the Personnel Director.’

After saying that, Ro vanished before I could even express my refusal—

without sparing a single glance for the collapsed John Mühlen.

All while humming some strange little tune.

‘A real solid one came in.’

“And that’s how I ended up with a drinking appointment with the Personnel Director....”

“Oh dear.”

Jonathan spoke with genuine sympathy.

“You’re in trouble.”