On the morning of the second day after class placements, the Elite Training Camp finally really began.
There was none of the classroom-style teaching he'd imagined.
"Before you learn how to kill, you're going to learn how to stay alive on a chaotic battlefield!"
"I'm Shuzo, former adjutant to Chief Instructor Zephyr. From now on, I'm your physical training instructor!" A burly man stood in front of the formation, his voice booming with power.
"Today, you have only one mission—squeeze every last drop of strength out of your bodies!"
The first drill was a 30-kilogram weighted cross-country run around the island.
Shuzo himself ran at the head of the column, while the other physical instructors roamed the flanks like vicious sheepdogs, constantly hunting for stragglers.
They would suddenly sprint up to a recruit, clamp a rough hand around his wrist like an iron vice, and press two fingers to his pulse.
After a few seconds, a thunderous roar would follow:
"Your heart rate is dropping! You out here on a stroll?! Move your ass and run!"
The roars were accompanied by the whip—literal leather whips that could raise bloody welts with one stroke. The sharp crack of leather and the pained grunts of recruits became the soundtrack to the island run.
For Rain, it was one giant test of his acting skills.
With his [Advanced] physique, this level of weighted running felt about the same as a brisk walk. It was hard to even get his heart rate above a hundred.
He had no choice but to consciously control his blood flow and heart rate while running, forcing his body into a "high-load" state to fake exhaustion.
That way he slotted himself perfectly into the lower-middle pack of the Elite Class—face twisted in "pain," not too outstanding, not too weak.
The second drill was deep-sea pressure training.
The recruits were led to a jagged shoreline beside Marineford.
Cold seawater crashed against moss-slick rocks; even staying upright was a challenge.
Their task was to use a special rope thicker than their arms to haul massive stones up from hundreds of meters below the surface.
It wasn't just strength training. It was pure muscle torture.
"One, two—pull! One, two—pull!"
Shuzo's hoarse shouting pounded along the shore like war drums.
Every recruit's face was twisted with effort, veins bulging, every muscle corded to its limit. Each pull was accompanied by strangled grunts.
Rain, as usual, blended into the crowd.
The weight and resistance weren't even enough to count as a warm-up for him. Most of his effort was spent imitating the strained expressions and ragged breathing of the people around him.
Just then, a short, sharp cry rang out.
Rosinante, whose coordination wasn't great to begin with, slipped on the slick moss underfoot. The rope in his hands jerked and nearly ripped free. Losing his balance, he was yanked forward toward the dark trench below, screaming as he slid toward the sea!
Two recruits nearby exchanged a nasty look instead of helping. They were clearly ready to sit back and enjoy the show as the clumsy rookie got dragged under.
Not far away, Rain saw everything.
The name he'd heard at roll call that morning echoed again in his mind, thick with familiarity.
His gaze locked on that messy, sun-bright golden hair.
Right… Corazon. That clumsy idiot… who was also softer than anyone.
Images flashed through Rain's mind—of that man standing in the snow, riddled with bullets and still smiling as he saved a child.
Back when I first read the manga, I already thought this big golden retriever didn't deserve the fate he got.
The situation in front of him wasn't fatal, but getting smashed against those rocks could easily mean a few broken bones.
In that split second, Rain "lost his footing" too, pitching sideways as if he'd been dragged off balance.
He stumbled dramatically in Rosinante's direction as though the heavy rope had yanked him off-center.
At the very moment he "stumbled," the heel of Rain's boot "accidentally" stomped down hard on Rosinante's rope—pulled taut like a bowstring by the weight underwater—pinning it firmly against the slick rock edge.
Screeee—
The rope scraped against stone with a sharp, grating sound. The enormous friction stopped its slide toward the sea for a crucial fraction of a second.
That tiny pause was enough for Rosinante.
He felt the tension on his hands slacken just a bit. Survival instinct kicked in—he quickly righted his stance, grabbed what was left of the rope with both hands, and clung on for dear life, stabilizing himself with everything he had.
At the same time, Rain let out a theatrical "ah!" as though he'd lost his own balance because he'd stepped on someone else's rope. He rolled once across the rocks and "clumsily" caught his own rope again.
The whole thing was chaotic—but perfectly believable, like a simple accident caused by fatigue.
Shuzo's roar came right after. "Useless! Can't even hold a rope steady! Get up and keep pulling!"
During the short break, the recruits collapsed onto the rocks like dead dogs, gasping for air.
Rosinante, looking like a giant golden retriever rolled in mud, limped over, his face full of relief and uncertain gratitude.
"Um… Rain?" he asked hesitantly. "Just now… was that… you…"
Rain lay slumped against a rock, wearing the expression of a man on the verge of death. He cracked one eye open wearily and blinked at him in confusion. "Huh? What?"
"It's just… my rope just now seemed like…"
"Oh, that." Rain's face lit with "sudden realization" and lingering fear. He sighed and said between labored breaths, "Don't remind me… I slipped too. Almost got pulled in. I must've stepped on something by accident… Lucky you didn't trip over me."
Looking at Rain's "sincere and shaken" expression, Rosinante's doubts melted away, replaced by even stronger gratitude.
He decided Rain had deliberately fallen to save him, risking being chewed out by the instructors.
"N-no! You really saved my life!" Rosinante waved his hands quickly, looking at him with utter sincerity. "Thank you, Rain. Really—thank you!"
…
After a full day of training, Rain practically jogged to the mess hall.
This was the first meal after official class placement, and he held onto one last sliver of hope.
"Yesterday's big-pot slop was probably temporary. Now that the classes are split and the hierarchy's set, the Elite Class food should at least look a little elite, right?"
But when he reached the Elite Class window and saw the lunch lady ladling out the same indescribable gray goo, his last hope died on the spot.
Refusing to believe it, he grabbed his tray and looked past the crowd toward the separated Monster Class dining section.
Their food was different—every plate there had an extra piece of meat.
Smoker was there, stabbing at a nearly charcoal-black hunk of "steak" with a fork, face twisted in disgust like he was poking a brick.
Rain withdrew his gaze and calmly shoveled another tray of "protein feed" into his mouth.
Still, the mess hall's crimes against cuisine didn't change the facts—Rain could feel that this scientific training regime, combined with the cafeteria's "protein feed," was pushing his physique up, however slightly.
"At this rate… if I multiplied the training volume by ten, and kept it up nonstop for ten years… maybe I could grind my physique up to the [Top-Tier] threshold on my own."
"A 26-year-old with vice admiral-level physique purely from training… that'd qualify as a real genius pretty much anywhere."
But that thought barely formed before Rain shot it down without mercy.
"Ten years?"
"Ten years of this livestock lifestyle, eating this pig slop every day? Get out of here."
"I don't have that kind of patience."
He swallowed the last mouthful of "feed," feeling the warmth and fullness spreading from his stomach.
"The path of a genius is way too exhausting. I'll stick to finding shortcuts."