What do you think is the best way to drive a person insane?
That's right. It's torture.
Of course, there are the crude methods—pulling out fingernails and toenails, or ripping off limbs—but there are many other ways.
Simply tickling someone until they can't breathe is enough to cause agonizing suffering.
Off the top of my head, there's force-feeding, waterboarding, tickle torture, and various others.
Why are all these things considered torture? Pain? Certainly, pain plays a part. But that's not what I'm talking about.
The reason torture is considered torture lies in 'repetition.'
Take force-feeding as an example. A meal that fills your stomach just enough to leave you satisfied isn't torture; it's hospitality. Is that torture? No.
But what if that satisfying meal is repeated? Over and over and over again, food is forced into you?
What if the food in your stomach is being shoved down, fighting for space even before the previous bite can pass into the duodenum?
When food is stuffed up to your esophagus and you can't swallow or spit it out? That's no longer hospitality. That's force-feeding torture.
Even a simple act becomes torture when repeated. Pulling out a fingernail is the same. Pulling one and stopping isn't quite torture. But if you rip out every single fingernail and toenail, then it becomes torture.
Pardon the rambling. Ultimately, what I want to say is that torture is the pain that stems from repetition.
Based on that logic, I believe that training and discipline can also be considered a form of torture.
Why else would swinging a goddamn tree branch be so agonizing?
"Haah... Haah... Shit..."
It's been about... since I started my 10,000-a-day swings with a branch I'm not particularly grateful for.
...I don't really know. The surroundings are nothing but desert, and whether it's day or night, everything is hazy. My sense of time is completely shattered, so I don't know exactly how long has passed.
Regardless, a significant amount of time must have gone by.
If you were to ask if I've achieved anything in that time, I can confidently say that I have.
First off, the time it takes to swing the branch once is now six seconds.
I grip the end of the branch tightly with both hands as if holding a sword, lift it above my head, and then strike straight down. Six seconds for that whole process.
For the record, it originally took one second.
You might think I've actually regressed, but you'd be wrong.
Originally, I didn't care about the grip, the swing path, or the distribution of power. I just swung it wildly like a child playing with a toy.
Swinging a sword that ignorantly, it took less than an hour to do a thousand reps.
For example, it's like putting a whole uncracked egg on top of raw rice and insisting it's egg-over-rice.
Who couldn't do it that way? Any random person could. Even just flicking your wrist would fill a thousand reps in no time.
"Sigh..."
Anyway, now that a single 'slash' takes six seconds, it takes about two hours to complete a thousand swings.
The reason I say 'about two hours' instead of exactly an hour and forty minutes is that I'm only human; if it gets too hard during training, I set the branch down and take a break.
What? What are you looking at? I'm human. I'm not some manga character. How the hell am I supposed to swing a branch for eighteen hours straight?
In the first place, if I had that kind of mental fortitude, I would have crushed that Hollow's skull on the spot the moment I first saw it.
Anyway... right. Well, I'm much better than when I first started training.
At first, even though I'd set out to finish 2,000 reps before resting, I'd toss the branch aside after 1,800, complaining that I couldn't take it anymore.
Compared to then, being able to swing 3,000 times in one sitting is a massive improvement.
Of course, my habit of whining every time I do it hasn't changed. No, it's actually gotten worse.
"I can't do this anymore..."
Just because the body grows doesn't mean the mind or the attitude toward life grows with it.
I really can't do this, goddammit...
Exactly what kind of shit is lodged in the brains of people who enjoy this kind of torture?
Is it because they're manga characters? Because they're programmed that way? I wish I could tinker with my own character settings. If I could, I would've set myself as someone with incredible perseverance who overcomes all adversity.
You know, the classic shonen manga protagonist concept.
But the current me? My perseverance isn't incredible; my 'quittance' is. I quit because it's hard, I quit because it's boring... pretty soon, I'll probably quit my own life.
"...Haaah."
I must be bored, considering I'm spouting all this nonsense.
Staring up at the hazy sky and blinking, I slowly stood up.
"Better get back to swinging the stick..."
I don't want to. It's hard. It's painful. It's insanity. It's torture.
I complain like that, yet I pick up the branch again.
Why do I bother going through this struggle when I could just give up? Why have I kept swinging this branch despite all the complaining?
Because there is nothing else to do here. Truly. There is absolutely nothing. Because this world is, in a sense, absolute perfection.
Think I'm joking? I'm not.
Since there is no life and no death, the concepts of victory and defeat cannot even exist.
Therefore, no one loses. But because of that, everyone is 'powerless.'
No one regresses, so there is no fear. Therefore, there is only 'stagnation.'
Everyone is perfect, so there is no need to build relationships with others. Therefore, there is only 'severance.'
The only beings with enough intelligence to hold a conversation are those Hollow bastards who, consumed by their own void, couldn't stand the emptiness and resorted to devouring people. Am I supposed to strike up a friendly chat with them? "Hey, it's a long road ahead, care for a talk?"
Give me a break. Dialogue? With creatures that lead with their maws rather than their words? It's a miracle just not to get eaten.
That's why I swing this branch. Even though it's incredibly dull, miserably exhausting, offers zero sense of accomplishment, and makes me feel like a pathetic idiot.
Because with every single swing, my posture improves just a tiny bit.
Because even as my palms tear, my progress grows just a little.
Because as my calluses harden, I feel myself becoming a bit tougher too.
Because it is only through that process that I feel truly alive.
"I really fucking hate this..."
To keep from going insane, to remain alive, I repeat this torturous action today as well.
It has been approximately one year by my internal clock since I began swinging this branch.
I have cast aside the past version of myself that would give up before finishing the count, and finally succeeded in swinging the branch 10,000 times in a single day.
And the moment I completed that ten-thousandth swing—within this world that was like a lake without a single stir.
Drip—
For the first time, a ripple formed.