# Enhanced Translation

Exceptional physical prowess comes from a strong body.

No matter how much confidence you have, if your body is a mess, it's just vanity-filled arrogance. Though my mind believes I'm the strongest in this world, I was diligently exercising today as well.

"Ricardo, what are you doing?"

"Exercising, Miss."

Miss looked at me hanging from the doorframe doing pull-ups and tilted her head questioningly.

"Exercise...?"

For someone whose only exercise in life was jaw movement, Miss couldn't understand me.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Just because."

"Hmm..."

Miss wasn't friendly with exercise.

She was someone who kept her distance from the Training Ground, saying "Ugh... sweat smell" whenever she went near it.

I was repeatedly exhaling "Hoo" while pulling myself up on the doorframe. Watching me from the bed while yawning, Miss spoke in a languid voice, clearly bored.

"Ricardo. You look like a frog hanging from the ceiling."

"That's quite the expression, Miss."

"It's true though."

It certainly was true.

Since there was no exercise equipment in the mansion, I was making do with pull-ups on the doorframe, and even I had to admit I looked rather ungainly.

I made a mental note to create exercise equipment that Miss and I could use together, and focused on my workout.

"321"

"322"

"423"

"Ricardo, the number suddenly jumped."

"Just your imagination, Miss."

Miss seems more interested in my health than I expected.

For the sake of Miss's eye health, I stopped doing pull-ups and switched to push-ups.

Around the time I passed 400 repetitions.

I caught a glimpse of Miss starting to squirm, apparently inspired.

"Eeeeeeek!"

Miss was flopping around face-down on the bed.

With a small smile, I watched her passionate exercise attempt and said:

"What are you doing, Miss?"

"Exercise."

"That's not exercise, that's imitating a fresh mackerel, isn't it?"

"Eeeeek! Heeeeek!"

"You look like a mackerel."

Exhausted, Miss collapsed face-down on the bed, breathing heavily.

"Huff... haaah... huaaah... I'm dying."

Apparently, gravity itself was too burdensome for Miss who had severed all ties with exercise.

She was attempting push-ups with her knees on the ground, but knowing how difficult it was for her to lift her upper body without using her thigh muscles since she couldn't move her legs properly, I tried not to laugh at her efforts, but...

"Pfft...!"

I couldn't hold it in.

The sight of Miss flailing around on the bed was just too shocking.

"Puhaha..."

"Don't laugh!"

"Puhaha... I can't help it when it's so funny."

"Eeeeek!"

As if to counter my mockery, Miss puffed her cheeks full of air and repeatedly strained.

"Eeeeeeek!!! Oooooone!"

"Failed."

"Huaaaa..."

Miss really wasn't on friendly terms with exercise.

After laughing for quite a while.

I brought my hands to my shirt and started unbuttoning it. The material wasn't good for letting sweat evaporate, and unbuttoning when hot was a habit ingrained in me.

I momentarily forgot Miss was beside me and unconsciously unbuttoned my shirt, and...

"Oh..."

Miss, witnessing this scene, brightened her eyes and exhaled sharply.

"Ricardo, your chest is huge!"

"Eek! What! That's sexual harassment!"

"Oh..."

Startled by Miss's lewd comment, I clutched my shirt closed and hunched my shoulders. The gleaming eyes with which Miss was staring at my body looked quite lecherous.

How should I put it? Like a switch had flipped in an innocent girl's mind. Miss, who had never seen another man's body before, had more vitality in her eyes than usual, and her ears were flushed red.

Miss stared at my hands holding the shirt with sparkling eyes. Looking at my hands with a profound gaze, she smiled "tee-hee" and said:

"Show me!"

"Show you what?!"

"Your body!"

"No!"

Is this acceptable behavior for a noble young lady?

I blushed and shook my head at Miss's shocking words.

"Wanting to see someone else's naked body is extremely improper!"

"Eeek! Show me!"

Once Miss's switch had flipped, she showed no signs of backing down. She puffed her cheeks full of air and reached out to remove my hands from my shirt. I blushed and fled from her frantic gestures.

"Pervert!"

"No I'm not!"

"What do you mean no? You're being so lewd!"

"Eeek! Then look at mine too!"

"What? Um... that's..."

Looking at Miss's flushed face, I fell into thought for a moment.

I looked at Miss's face once.

And at Miss's wicked mind once.

For a moment, the indecent thought 'That might not be bad' crossed my mind, but barely winning the battle with my reason, I took a deep breath and composed myself.

"No thank you!"

"Whyyy! Show me!"

"No! Go back to your room!"

Miss made large circles with her hands while commenting on my magnificent pectoral muscles. Though greatly exaggerated, she compared them to two large boulders while exhaling sharply. I put my hand to my forehead at her metaphor.

"They're this big!"

"What's the big deal about that?!"

"They're magnificent! They look so firm I want to touch them!"

"Why are you suddenly interested when you never cared before?!"

"Just because."

Miss gave a simple answer while tilting her head, and I sighed and flicked her forehead to end the incident.

"Eeeeek! Why did you hit me?!"

Miss rolled around on the bed clutching her forehead after being flicked, venting her frustration.

"Because you misbehaved."

"That's mean!"

"Can't be helped."

"Stupid!"

My face was burning.

Truly.

*

In the evening after that face-heating incident.

In the darkened room, I was breathing heavily.

"1001"

"1002"

With my shirt off doing push-ups, sweat was streaming down my body. Sweat beads formed on my savagely defined back muscles dripped from my chin to the floor, and veins bulged fiercely on my swollen arm muscles.

Push-ups while in a handstand position seemed to be more effective exercise than I thought.

[Limit Break is testing the limits of your 'strength'.]

"Hoo..."

I thought about it.

What I needed to do to become stronger.

It was a simple question to ask, but one that required much consideration to reach the correct answer.

I had to think about the story.

I also had to consider the protagonist's growth, so there were many obstacles to simply absorbing memories.

The memories I could obtain were limited to those of the heretics and those appearing in side stories.

In reality, all I could do now was consistent training. This was the surest method and the royal road that didn't rely on luck.

But you know.

I felt there must be a faster way to reach my goal. I kept thinking there must be a shortcut that could be reached easily by using unconventional methods.

A way to maximize what I had and boost my strength in one go.

"Huff... 2301"

I was certain there was a way.

And I found the method not far from me.

[Limit Break]

This was the best shortcut I knew.

By the time hot sweat had thoroughly soaked the floor.

"How long are you going to leave me like this?"

A familiar male voice was coming from the crystal ball on the bed.

The familiar voice of a man bound by chains all over his body, unable to move, was speaking to me with a long sigh.

I gracefully stood up and answered him.

"Until your answer satisfies me?"

"..."

"Have you thought about my proposal?"

"..."

"I'd like you to answer quickly."

The person trapped in the crystal ball was Hans.

Hans, trapped in the "Sealing Jewel," one of the heretics' memories, was hanging his head.

He couldn't raise his head due to shame and was deeply bowing because of the proposal I had made.

I smiled at Hans.

"Choose quickly."

Hans wasn't a bad person.

Well, he was bad in the sense that he killed people to become stronger, but he killed people who deserved to die.

The point where Hans's boundary of "goodness" truly began to collapse was after he killed the Master of the Magic Tower with his own hands.

I knew the scene that appeared briefly like a flashback when Hans chose to sacrifice himself to protect Yuria and the protagonist's group in the story.

-Still, I'm a bad person.

The people Hans killed for the awakening of black magic were evil people.

People who killed others in dungeons for money. Soldiers who took bribes to cover up wrongdoings.

Of course, it doesn't excuse the fact that he tried to set me up, but he was still someone who knew how to maintain certain principles.

I extended my hand to Hans.

Not to ask him to become a spy for the heretics or anything so troublesome, but to ask for something a bit more burdensome.

What I asked of him was something simpler yet more straightforward.

To protect Miss.

To become stronger, I needed to defeat stronger opponents, and the risk of injury was something I had to accept.

While Hans's fighting ability wasn't enough to help me significantly, he wasn't weak either. I thought he could be a card I could use as a last resort.

Hans, with his head bowed, asked me in a solemn voice:

"What's in it for me?"

"Survival."

"...That's certainly an offer I can't refuse."

"Isn't it?"

Hans nodded with a resigned smile and began to recite a magical formula after emerging from the sealing orb.

"What are you doing?"

"A mage's contract."

"You're doing that?"

"If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it properly."

A mage's contract.

It was a magic considered taboo among mages.

It was a lifelong contract that led to death if broken, an absolute magic used when swearing loyalty to a master or serving a lord.

The very act of making such a contract was like Hans voluntarily putting an unbreakable shackle around his own neck.

The wall began to fill with magical formulas containing the content of the "contract." Watching the wall fill with red letters, I quietly muttered:

"Do I need to clean this up?"

"I'll do it."

"Then that's fine."

The terms of the deal were relatively simple.

"I (Hans) declare a mage's contract to the contractor Ricardo."

The content of the contract was servitude to "Ricardo" and "Olivia."

It prohibited causing any harm to them and even forbade speaking about it, with the penalty being:

"If the deal is broken, the contractor Hans's heart will burst, resulting in death."

I added one clause:

"Let's make it the head instead of the heart."

"..."

"We need to be certain."

The deal was made.

Hans, with a resigned expression, sat on the bed and said to me:

"So what do I do now? Protect Olivia?"

"No. You can do that when I ask you to. Let's start with this first."

I took out a magic book from my chest, a memory that would have gone to the heretics, and handed it to Hans.

"Let's balance things first."

And Hans...

"Brother."

Became a faithful dog.

***

In the distant future,

Hans was wiping sweat while looking at a massive statue of Ricardo.

"That's 1301. Glory to him..."

Ricardo looked at Hans and said:

"Please stop this nonsense."