Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 209: What It Means To Keep Going

Endurance.

The theme of the next day was endurance. When Boldwick awoke them, he greeted them with the cheerful morning hello of a cup of coffee and the good word of Endurance. Which, of course, made no sense at all to the three-bleary-set-of-eyes of the already exhausted initiates. Other than that, Boldwick was being nice. Suspiciously nice. He brought a mysterious green rug sack with him and pulled out two bottles of water for everyone— he demanded they get their full contents down.

Boldwick leaned in towards their dying fire, poking the embers and kicking up ash as he sipped from his steel canteen. After his sip, he had too-happy of a grin on.

In the light of the early dawn, Erec thought he looked a little too close to a demon.

“Right? Everyone done with their water?” Boldwick announced, taking a deep swig of his coffee.

“No,” Colin replied.

“Then drink the rest of it now.”

“I’m already full. One bottle was enough.”

“Drink it.”

Colin downed the rest of his leftover bottle, to which Boldwick gave one bark of a laugh then stood. “Right. Endurance. What does endurance mean, young ones?”

“Vigor,” Erec replied, the most obvious answer. Of all the Virtues, it was the ability of your body to both sustain damage and to keep going longer than normal. Stamina, in the world before. But now quantified and taken to a nearly extreme level—to him, it meant the ability for his body to keep up with his overwhelming Strength and contend with the power of any foe who shared a similar power.

Boldwick simply shook his head and grinned wider. “Next.”

“The ability to cast magic without tire.” Colin tried.

“Next.”

Garin scratched his head… “To keep going?”

“Closest. By the end of today, I expect you all to have an appreciation for what that word means. Now—here.” Boldwick walked over to his bag and pulled out more backpacks. At least, at first glance, that is what they appeared to be.

On a second take, Erec realized they were more like vests—Boldwick let out an ‘oof’ and threw one towards Erec—which he tried to catch, only to be knocked flat on his ass as the sudden weight hit him and threw off his sense of balance.

It was heavy. So heavy.

[Weight training?]

“Put that on,” Boldwick commanded—then fished out two more, tossing one to Colin and one to Garin. Based on their reactions, they also had a load of weight attached to them, though, Erec thought, not quite as much as his own.

Struggling, Erec put the best on, having to secure several straps to get the loose weight conformed around his body and as comfortable as possible. Standing wasn’t the most comfortable thing; he could feel the tension in his muscles, but it was possible; already, a small sweat was breaking out on his chest as he moved back into position to face Boldwick.

“Today, we’re going on a run again. This one, though, isn’t about distance. We’re going to run laps around the steel curtain. And you’re going to run until I say we stop. You won’t be taking a break until I say we are. And those breaks will end exactly when I say they do.” Boldwick said.

“Run? With this?” Colin asked, tugging at his own vest and wearing a mask of shock and confusion.

“Endurance. You will persist until you cannot, until your body breaks down and fails you. On a battlefield, you must keep going until the end. Whether that be the end of the fight or the end of your life. You’ll have no choice but to keep dragging yourself forward. Today, we’re going to all experience what that feels like. If you want to complete today, you will dig deep.”

“And if we fail?” Colin asked.

“Good point. I’d love to say, ‘You will not see the growth you’re looking for,’ but I’ll be realistic. Today will test your limits. All of you will want to quit. To dig deep, to really dive deep down into the depths of motivation and find the will to pull through, the endurance to keep going, there must be the threat of a loss. So, if you fail, you will not be training with us tomorrow. After tomorrow, should you make it, there will be a reward. One which I promise you all want. After that, and listen closely, if you fail this, I will personally deny you the right to compete in the tournament.”

There was a shocked silence at that.

“We didn’t agree to—“ Garin tried to contest.

“I hear a lot of talking. This is the way things are, and this is the training we’re doing. Do not question it. I suggest you quiet down and focus on yourself. Believe me. You’ll need to look deep inside yourself if you have any hope of finishing this challenge.” With that, Boldwick clapped his hands and then turned toward the horizon. “I’m not asking you to keep pace with me. But you must keep jogging. You must always go forward. Stumbling, falling, whatever—as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward, then you are still alive and in this.”

With that, he took off at a very slow pace compared to the previous runs. Erec looked at his friends, rolled his shoulders, and took off after the Master Knight.

The rest fell in line shortly after.

Boldwick led them rapidly out of the city—right to the steel wall once more. His pace was at a relaxed rate, slowing to meet the three of them where they were at. And damn, did he need to slow. With the weight of the vests on him, Erec struggled to put one step in front of the other. After ten minutes, his breath was labored, after thirty minutes, his legs ached… After an hour, enough sweat coated his body to make him wonder if he was going to die.

The sun took its place high in the sky—drying out the liquid on his skin at just the right rate to keep him going. Next to them, the steel wall they ran laps around, both a welcome friend and enemy at times. A friend when it let them have easy access to wind, Eeemy when it blocked off any fresh air from giving them a reprieve.

Another hour later, Erec was sure he was going to collapse at any moment.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Sweat coated every little bit of him; his lungs ached, and every so often, as he ran, he felt like the world was slipping away from him, disappearing from consciousness. Behind, when he could summon the energy to look, he could see Colin barely stumbling forward.

Garin had fallen twice. Both times, Boldwick didn’t even stop—it was on his best friend to give his best effort to catch up with them. Still, both times, Garin managed to catch back up, his face red.

We might die.

The thought circled in Erec’s brain as they kept going two hours in, and not a single break.

Two hours in, and his legs felt like jelly.

The third hour in, his thoughts changed.

We will die.

Inevitably, at this rate, the frequency at which they fell kept increasing. After the fourth hour, Erec had his own first fall—his weak legs trying to push forward and finding the wrong spot in the sand, sending him tumbling over as his calf muscles gave out.

[This is absurd.] VAL buzzed.

“Back up,” Colin huffed as he jogged past Erec. “Keep it going, Tin Can.”

Garin was next—giving Erec a look of sympathy and his own grimace as he pushed his muscles well past what they should have been capable of.

Erec shoved both hands under him; the sand warm, his body exhausted, his mind blank, then he pushed himself back up again. There was too much at stake. He’d asked for this and wouldn’t abide by letting himself not even compete in the tournament, let alone fail in front of Boldwick. No. He had to keep going.

Thirty minutes later, when he fell again, that resolve was tested. Yet, he got back to his feet.

Fifteen minutes after that, by the grace of the Goddess, Boldwick had them pause and drink more water; he wasn’t sure how long he sat there, upon the sand, with water pressed to his lips—no one talked. They all focused on making use of every precious second of recovery they had before it began again.

[You are already dehydrated.] VAL reported.

“I’ll drink more water, then,” Erec shot back and did just that with another sip.

[For what? In another two hours of this, you’ll be back to dehydration. Not to mention the number of calories spent. Tell Boldwick to cancel this training—I can tell you’re better off then your friends. Can’t fathom how they are even still moving. Regardless of him giving them less weight.]

Erec set down his water for the first time, trying to take in both Colin and Garin.

Colin was pale, his jaw set, and his eyes resting on Boldwick as if challenging the Master Knight to a fight. In his eyes, Erec saw common fuel for himself. Out of spite and hate, Colin had found his way to keep going this far, but this was only the first break. There would be more running. The Goddess knew how much running. The sun was still bright in the sky—not that its going down was a guarantee that they were done.

Garin, on the other hand, almost looked non-responsive. He was already a walking corpse, staring deeply at his water, Munchy chattering in his ear. The big squirrel stopped and pressed his head to Garins, nudging his best friend again and again, trying to get a pet. But Garin only stared at the water, drinking more every handful of seconds.

Lastly, he turned to Boldwick. The Master Knight looked impassive, not a single bead of sweat on him. He wasn’t running with weights. And this pace wasn’t challenging in the least.

There was no compassion there, no worry. Only the stern eyes of a judge as he took in their conditions, as the seconds filtered by before he ordered his exhausted soldiers to get back up and begin the march again.

“What can we do?” Erec asked.

[Give up. By Dan, this sort of labor isn’t worth it. While the desired statement is understandable, I highly doubt this is the best methodology. There is such a thing as over-training, Buckeroo. You have time to grow and shouldn’t be subjected to this.]

He shook his head. Not an option, no matter what VAL thought. His friends were still going, so how could he be the first among them to give up?

Two minutes later, Boldwick gave an order, they finished their water, and they returned to the running.

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

Thing very quickly became… Hard to track. Time stretched and lost meaning beyond the brief periods of respite that Boldwick allowed them to drink more water; Erec could’ve sworn there were pockets of it in which it stood still, and no time passed at all.

Sometimes, he fell. When he did, Colin and Garin ran by, always offering their own comments, telling him to keep going.

When they fell, he did the same, pushing them forward.

They ran around, the only constants to this was the feeling and smell of sweat—the huffing of all three of them carrying onward with their charges. And the pain. The pain never went away; at times it came with the sparks of Fury.

When he first tapped into it, Boldwick stopped them and offered him a choice. He could use it, could fall into the depths of Fury and find Strength in it, if he needed. But Boldwick would add more weight to compensate for his boosted Strength.

How much weight, Boldwick wouldn’t say, but Erec got the impression it wouldn’t improve his situation.

Fury was not the key to endurance; it didn’t matter one way or the other, and this challenge didn’t burn him up and make it impossible not to use it… So Erec would let the sparks die whenever they appeared from the pain, not needing them to catch.

Not that it mattered. As he ran, as the steel curtain accompanied them with every single mile, he fell into his own kind of peculiar trance. A state of being of pure exhaustion and pain that reminded him very dearly of Fury. Whenever he fell, he broke out of it and was forced to consider each time: why. Was there a point to this suffering? He saw the blinking dot in the corner of his vision, sure, but that was a consolation prize.

He knew that, eventually, his Virtues would grow. They didn’t need this form of torture to keep expanding.

Yet, each time, he saw his friends run by, saw their backs as they got further and further away, and found it in him to crawl back to his feet, tears and blood ignored as he returned to the jog.

Hours passed.

The sun went from rising in the sky to sinking beneath the steel curtain.

With the coming of night, he thought they would be done. His skin felt cool and slick with sweat as his brain buzzed, and his stomach felt empty like it had never felt before—surely now, now that the sun was gone, they could rest and call it a day for training.

No. They didn’t.

The moon rose, clearing the steel curtain beside them, and the four kept running.

Did I die? Is this hell?

That was the thought in his head, watching his friends suffer beside him, feeling the aching pain in both his lungs as he ran. The breaks only included water, yet a full day without food like this… Erec didn’t understand how Garin could keep himself from just biting that fat squirrel on his shoulder. Well, maybe just tossing them onto a stick and making a quick flash fire with one of Colin’s spells.

One time, he vaguely recalled, Colin asked about food.

Boldwick said there was no point, since they’d just vomit it out anyway, then, after that, they had been back to running again.

By the time the moon reached its full height in the sky, Erec forgot all else.

Who he was. Where they were. What the point of even living was.

All that mattered was that his friends were going forward. They didn’t give in, and neither would he.

The air began to thicken with mist; in it, Erec began to see the faces of the people in his life. Enide—Bedwyr—his father… Even his mother. They stood, silent figures of water, watching him go on, and on, and on… Expressions blank as he ran by, kept moving.

What did they think if they really existed?

The mist stretched into an endless maze—Boldwick disappeared ahead; gone—the world began to spin and swirl around him, a blended mixture of reality that unraveled and split. VAL buzzed, but the words didn’t track.

Beneath him, the dirt became mud; slick… His feet sank into it.

Next to him, he saw his friends still going, slowing. Lost, now, all of them.

The mud below became deeper, and deeper, his legs harder to move.

Then, Boldwick appeared, his teacher had a sad smile on his face—he spoke to, his words not reaching Erec nor the rest of them—then he pressed a hand to Erec’s head…

The last thing he knew was blackness.