Chapter 697: Intermission- The Amrap’s Training
Odeta strained herself against the weights she was carrying while she trudged through the snow. Even her limbs had weights attached to them and it was definitely a struggle for her to lift them, much less move through the waist high snow.
Sebastian was right beside her wearing weights that were almost six times as heavy as the ones on Odeta and he was making it look like he was out having a morning stroll.
The weights themselves were just simple bangles worn on her limbs that were enchanted to increase their weight accordingly so at least they were not bulky and unwieldy items that would increase the drag through the snow.
The Amrap gritted her teeth and willed her limbs to move, pushing further through the snow and doing her best to stay on her feet.
She had already walked almost two miles or nearly three kilometres with the weights to reach where she was now, her destination being the forest up ahead.
With the weights and the snow, it took her three hours just to get this far and there were multiple times she had almost stumbled and fell but she managed to stay on her feet the entire time.
Despite how arduous it was, not once did she think about giving up or even taking a break.
One reason was because, naturally, she was doing this as part of her training to protect her Sister Aster. She had to get even stronger for her.
The other reason was the fact that there were also other maids and servants doing the exact same training behind her, all of them with their own set of weights and using Odeta as their motivation to keep going.
Odeta gritted her teeth and lifted her foot to take another step forward, pushing the snow at her feet aside while trying to keep her balance.
A chorus of grunts and groans came from behind her as the rest of them also followed her lead, planting their feet down in the snow to take another step as well.
Sebastian took another step forward at the same time, although he was more casual than the others in taking his step.
Odeta looked up, seeing the edge of the forest just a mere fifty metres away.
She just needed a few dozen more steps and she will reach it, completing their trek.
Odeta let out a breath before sucking it back in and lifting her next foot, grunting with effort as she pushed through the snow that was impeding her.
Right before she put her foot down, a howl echoed through the forest up ahead followed by several more howls.
Odeta froze and the others behind her also tensed up. The only one who still remained the same was Sebastian as though he had expected something like that to happen.
Odeta recognised the howls to belong to Hell Wolves, normally a monster that she would easily take down by herself without even breaking a sweat.
But with the weights weighing her down and coupled with the exhaustion of having trekked this far, she was sure that she would definitely not be able to win this fight unscathed.
That wasn’t a problem by itself since she was used to getting hurt though so she wasn’t even thinking about retreating.
She reached up to try and take the weights off but stopped when Sebastian spun around to give her a look.
“Weights stay on.”
He then directed his gaze to the others behind her to show that the rule applied to everyone behind Odeta as well.
Odeta furrowed her brows at him. She was fine with getting hurt herself since she was used to it while she was training but she could see some of the other trainee maids getting maimed or seriously hurt by this encounter.
Just as she was about to voice her protests, Sebastian snapped his fingers and two maids appeared out of nowhere, placing an entire box full of Intermediate grade healing potions beside him.
That assured the Amrap since it meant Sebastian was not intending for any permanent harm to befall on the others, until she realised Sebastian was not done.
“Every potion I need to use to heal one of the servants behind you is a sign that you were unable to act as the protector of a party.”
Odeta realised that even this was a part of her training that the Wrunch had planned for her while her Sister Aster was away in the Dungeon.
As the self proclaimed protector of Sister Aster, it would shame her if she were to allow any enemy to get past her and endanger the one she was supposed to protect.
She let out a growl and turned back to face the forest with renewed determination asking only one question, “Is magic allowed?”
“No.”
“Understood.”
She tightened her muscles, calling up her reserves of energy to take a few more steps forward just as the wolves appeared at the edge of the forest.
She counted at least twenty of them with an Alpha Hell Wolf leading at the front.
All of them had their eyes set on the prey in front of them, the monsters snarling and baring their teeth at her.
Odeta stood with her feet shoulder width apart and issued a challenging roar at the monsters, attracting all of their attention to her.
The Hell Wolf Alpha accepted her challenge and let out a howl of its own, prompting its subordinates to rush towards her while splitting themselves into three groups.
Six of them were approaching her from the right, six were coming from her left and the last eight were heading straight towards her.
Cheering internally at the fact that she managed to gather all of their attention on herself, Odeta braced herself to receive the attacks from the wolves.
The three groups had reached her at the same time and she raised her arms in her usual fighting stance, grunting from the effort of doing so because of the weights on her arms.
Three wolves jumped towards her with their fangs bared, two of them biting down on her arm while the third tried to reach for her throat.
Odeta grimaced as she felt the jaws of the wolves clamp down on her arms, drawing blood.
She was, however, more focused on the third one and stopped the wolf from reaching her throat by grabbing its jaws with her hands.
She then pulled her arms apart, literally tearing the wolf open by the mouth into two before spinning around, using the weights to boost her momentum and use the wolf’s carcass as an improvised weapon to smack away a few of the wolves.
The ones on her arms refused to let go, however, so she threw her head forward to smash her head against the one biting down on her right arm, cracking its skull open.
As soon as the wolf let go of her arm, she reached over to the other wolf and crushed its head in her hand, popping its head like she was crushing a fruit.
She then noticed that two of the wolves had broken away from the fight to rush towards the others behind her, deeming them to be easier prey.
Odeta let out a roar and grabbed the wolf she had just crushed the head of and tossed it at one of the wolves.
Not wasting time, she picked up the other one that she had headbutted and tossed it at the other one as well.
She managed to hit the first wolf but the weight on her arms made her miss the second one, allowing it to reach the other servants.
She had no chance to rush to their aid as another wolf leapt onto her back in an attempt to pull her down onto the ground.
It nearly succeeded too as the weights on Odeta shifted her off balance.
Sensing the possible weakness, another wolf tried to jump on her as well, only for Odeta to grab it and use it to smash the wolf on her back and sending both of them crashing on the ground.
At that point, four more wolves had peeled away from this fight to rush towards the other servants.
Odeta could not hold them back as the Alpha Hell Wolf had also joined the fight and coordinated another attack with the remaining ten wolves.
The fact that she was unable to keep all of their attention on her was already making her frustrated so she was determined to keep the remaining wolves on her.
Ignoring the screams of her muscles that were already struggling from carrying the weights, she leapt towards the Alpha, surprising the monster as it did not expect her to initiate the attack.
She wrestled it into the snow, using the weight to her advantage as she got on top of the wolf to pin it beneath her.
It let out a helpless yelp as it realised Odeta was much stronger than it thought and tried to claw its way out, only for the Amrap to smash her fist into its head and kill it instantly.
The other wolves seemed to lose their nerve from the death of their leader and broke formation, a few of them running off towards the forest to escape while some stayed to try and avenge their fallen brethren.
Needless to say, it was a victory for them, but Sebastian ended up needing to use six bottles of the potions on the others.
That was something that Odeta found unacceptable and the very next day, she was back doing the same training again.
Her goal was of course, to reach zero potions used.
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