“Come on, with me. One, two!”

“One *HUFF* *HUFF* Two *HUFF* HUFF*” ​​

“Three, four!”

“Threee *HUFF* *HUFF* Four *HUFF* *HUFF*”

“Five, Six!”

“Five *HUFF* *HUFF* Si…”

“Seven, Eight!”

“…”

“Nine, Ten!”

“…”

Stopping his movements from his jumping jacks Soma saw Aya on the floor, extremely exhausted and not moving at all anymore. Her body was hurting all over thanks to trying to keep up with the exercise routine Soma had made for her.

Soma scratched his head seeing the state she was at, not really understanding why she was so exhausted so quickly. They had just been working out for the last two hours nonstop, after all, something like that shouldn’t even count as a warm-up in his eyes.

Needless to say, after thousands of years working out his body while in the Throne of Heroes with progressively harder and stronger methods, Soma had completely forgotten what was the limit of a normal human and honestly thought that the normal start of the training for the body would be someone working out at least 5 to 6 hours a day with weights that weighted at least eight times their body weight. Of course, he was doing something a bit more advanced than that considering his mystic code clothes put a lot more pressure than that on his every movement while quickly accelerating his body’s muscle recovery rate to be able to handle this.

His idea of a workout was what most would see as physical and psychological torture due to the pain of the process, but he could only see it as normal and expected if you wanted results properly.

Aya just looked at Soma who was sweating so much without a care and was looking worriedly at her collapsed form who could no longer handle the ‘workout’ he was going through and wondered.

‘… Is Soma-kun really human?’

She could only add this as another thing to the list of reasons to doubt if he truly was human.

“You are tired, wait a bit.” Soma said as he moved to Aya and with great care pulled her up from the ground in a princess carry that made her almost instantly blush, not that the blush was noticeable seeing as her face was already quite red from the workout.

She felt like hiding her face with her hands but she could not do even that seeing as she could not move at all. Her body was far too exhausted since she tried her best to follow the training regime that Soma had made, not wanting to look or feel even more weak.

Moving Aya to the balcony of the house Soma laid her under the shade and got her some juice/potion he had left to the side prepared in case Aya exhausted herself. This potion’s recovery attributes would certainly help Aya’s body to recover faster and she would not feel any pains from her muscles or anything.

After making sure she was alright and would recover Soma decided it was time to push himself further. Thanks to his mystic code his body was working overtime with every move but was recovering from the damage and growing stronger continuously. It was now time to start training his muscles more properly to not only be stronger but also to train the specific muscle memory to his fighting style.

First hand to hand. Putting himself in position Soma began to move his body, he decided that if he was to practice one first he should try the one that he learned from those crazy Christian happy punchy guys. This city had several devils he did not know about and Mittlelt’s information was unreliable at best, Soma had to prepare himself in case these devils were hostile and this specific martial art would be the best one when it comes to the complete eradication of potential threats from said demonic existences.

Moving his arms his fists were filled with determination, even without meaning two his body soon was emitting holy light of the highest of purities. It was a while before Soma noticed this, as he did so he stopped and raised a brow at this fact. He began to sense from where this energy was coming from since it most definitely did not originate from himself and was slightly different from what he was expecting.

It was like he was at the same time borrowing energy from somewhere and using his own rather normal amounts of holy energy when he moved. The combination was quite potent as far as he could tell even if he could not say from where exactly this energy was coming from, but when he felt there was no true risk to him he just shrugged and continued on. He could only push this phenomenon as something related to this world’s logic since he knows his body was still far from able to display holy energy if considering what he knew of the Throne of Heroes.

“I will have to think about what is going on more thoroughly later on. This world seems truly very different.” Soma said as he continued his moves.

The martial arts he was practicing right now was called Jacob’s Limbs, a martial arts of the Abrahamic Religion that was lost to the church as time passed and that borrowed the power of God himself to fight. It was the martial arts that Jacob, Moses, and Martha used and it was said that those who master it are said to be able to beat an “angel of destruction” that leads 12,000 angels. Hell, Martha was the latest person who knew this martial arts and she could subdue a gigantic dragon such as Tarasque using this and just punch said dragon around as if he was a volleyball.

In the Throne, it took him many dozens of times longer than any of said saints for Soma to master this art, but he managed in the end. Shame his current body was far from being able to match the full standards needed to properly execute this technique and there was only so much of God’s might he could borrow due to his own current limitations. But, if he kept training his body said limitations would eventually vanish and he would be able to fight at a much higher level.

Soma was also slightly worried about God’s reaction towards someone borrowing his power without his authorization to do so but, from what Mittlelt told Soma, God hasn’t made an appearance anywhere since the Great War that happened a long, long time ago. God deciding to show up simply because a human can borrow a small sliver of his power is ridiculous even as a concept in Soma’s eyes. If it was so simple to make such a divine hikikomori to come out of his room/palace then he would have come out at least during the WW2 or something.

As such, Soma continued to move his body, the holy energy emitting from him being nearly invisible for anybody else even as it’s density increased the more Soma proceeded to experience this with his body. Not that Soma overly minded the increase of holy energy, he just continued to practice this martial art that would normally be impossible for anyone who wasn’t a saint to use, immersing himself deeply into training.

Aya, on the side, could swear she saw him shining from time to time, but she ignored it and told herself to stop seeing things and to be realistic. That she shouldn’t start daydreaming about Soma shining or something. Well, to be fair he did have times he was emitting more holy energy and it became visible, but Aya did not know that so she could only think she was imagining things and blushing at this fact.

///—///

After finishing his physical training Soma felt quite satisfied, his body was quite tired but his mind was fresh after exercising in a way that would be seen as slow torture for most other non-training crazy people. Well, not that Soma really realized how abnormal his training was since he was used to such rigorous workouts after his last two thousand years in the Throne being trainings of this degree to higher.

Meanwhile, Aya had gone back to her room to rest properly and watch some TV. She was a bit embarrassed when Soma told her it was her room, but he already said it was hers from now on for as long as she wanted so she lowered her head and accepted Soma’s kindness. As for the boy himself, he went to the kitchen, ate a lot of chicken chest and sweat potatoes, drank a lot of water, and then went down to his workshop. As he was going there he noted how the sun was starting to lower and sighed.

“The day is never long enough, huh.” Soma said as he entered his workshop. Looking at the materials he had at hand the one that most drew his attention was a relatively small amount of that blessed metal, it was not enough for making any decent weapon using it alone, but with it and what he had obtained in the Ringa house, he could do something special.

It was using the Katana that Genyo gave him as a bonus as well as the metals that arrived while Soma was training with Aya (the Yakuza of this town worked fast and they sent all the not overly rare and precious materials quickly to Soma).

The katana in question he would use as a basis was rather blunt and honestly wouldn’t be nearly enough for him to use as is, but there were still ways it could be used.

Namely, Soma activated the forge he made and prepared himself for remaking the Katana to something superior when compared to before. Even without the special metal Soma was confident he could reforge the Katana into something impressive considering the sheer amount of time he spent learning different possible processes of creation of weapons from that bastard EMIYA and proper blacksmithing itself from Muramasa. In this world, he should probably be the best blacksmith already as he is, and any blade he makes would show.

Even with ordinary steel, he could do it, but he wanted to make something more than that.

For materials, he would be using the Katana, that blessed metal, some gold and silver, some small gems, all together with some blood and feathers he obtained from Mittlelt from when she was in treatment (he was a magus of sorts, she not having lost any bones or organs during said treatment or becoming a head in a jar while he dissected her body already him holding back considerably).

He would also be using all his knowledge of runesmanship and diverse blessings he learned from EMIYA that were used in the forging of some swords, mainly the one he would be trying to match with would be the sword of Paracelsus since it would enhance the power of his magecraft while using it. He would also use the enhancement methods of Shakespeare to make the sword be raised even further to the point some people might even consider absurd if he can manage it.

He would make the very damn best sword he could to help deal with any demonic-based creature that could find him.

Getting fired up Soma sat down to start making his very first true weapon in this world.

“This is going to be fun.” Soma said to himself as he began to forge.

///—///

Walking to school one could find Soma with heavy bags under his eyes and a tired expression. Aya, by his side, was looking worried at such Soma she hasn’t seen before wondering just why he was like that.

“Soma-kun, did you not sleep well last night?”

“Yes and no, I didn’t sleep well last night at all since I didn’t really sleep last night at all.” Soma said and Aya looked slightly surprised he didn’t sleep last night. He looked like such a healthy type, him not sleeping didn’t seem like something she would expect him to do.

As for Soma, he was slightly dejected that his sword ended up strange. He aimed at the weapon being strong in a purification sense but the end result was weird with some aspects becoming stronger than he wanted and the sword seemed to have some issues with him using it too since he could barely handle it, as if the sword was rejecting him slightly.

‘Is this that thing Mittlelt mentioned about a person needing a certain amount of natural talent for holy swords to wield stronger ones? I guess I should search for data regarding the Holy Sword Project to see how it works exactly, it could help I suppose.’ Soma thought with a grumble, already knowing that finding out about this project would be troublesome.

At least the head scientist of the project is working for the Grigory so perhaps Soma could exchange the Sacred Gear he obtained from the church for the intel about the project. Mittlelt should be able to return to the Grigory soon enough and she could work as a messenger regarding the possibility of the trade. If Azazel is as much a fanatic as Mittlelt says he is then it should be a possible trade that could be done.

Of course, several measures would have to be made to ensure his safety but that was beside the point. His more researcher side couldn’t help but feel glee at what sort of things he could learn and extrapolate based on the information he could get.

Speaking of his guests, Soma had made that damn stray is put to good use already. He equipped him with some decent equipment he had prepared and send him out to scout the town in search for Stray Devils as well as ‘disposable garbage’ that no one would notice if they were to suddenly disappear, which included rapists, murderers, drug dealers, thieves, loan sharks, and other such people that were cancer to society… with the exception with the politician-type cancer. Soma needed materials for various things and to test many things in this world, and for that, he would need the necessary lab rats for his experiments. Besides, he could always sell the organs that he didn’t dissect via the Ringa family to obtain some extra cash to buy useful items.

Getting to the school Soma could see Aya feeling depressed quite quickly, but he did not say anything about it. He has already informed her, he would help her with what he could see, if she was in mortal peril, and if she ever wants to be free of all her problems she just needs to ask and he would do it, now it would be up to her if she would take the first step and ask for his help or not.

Going to his locker Soma opened it to exchange his shoes. Inside was a single note on top of his shoes.

‘Do not interfere if you know what is good for you.’

Soma just raised a brow and looked around, searching for who sent him this message. He found those girls that had taken Aya away the last time.

“Ouch.” Soma turned his head and saw Aya’s finger bleeding slightly. Moving to see what was going on Aya quickly closed her locket and shook her head. “I-It was nothing, Soma-kun. Please don’t mind it.”

Soma looked at her state and sighed.

“Fine, if you don’t want me to then I will pretend I didn’t see anything. Just remember, you just need to ask.” Soma said and moved along, leaving behind Aya who looked down sadly. Shame washing over her, the shame of the situation she was in, and shame of her desire to ask for even more help from Soma.

Meanwhile, the three girls watching from a distance looked slightly gleeful with Sarina smirking as well even if she was a bit displeased as well. That Aya was gathering the attention of the new boy of class was quite annoying for her, especially since he was somewhat her type with how he introduced herself and all.

‘I may need to try a little harder to make sure that idiot doesn’t blabber her mouth to the new hottie. Well, if she does and he tries anything I can just ask older brother for help anyway.’ Sarina thought as she too moved to class.

All these interactions and all that happened were all seen clearly by the spy sent by Jeanne to this school, Trois. She was investigating the two known Sacred Gear users that were in her class while waiting for Deux to investigate the other classes and High School so the Hero Faction could make a large harvest of users this time around. Trois also needed to see who exactly was this older male who had taken such an interest in little miss target, they couldn’t risk Aya having an actual emotional and physical pilar of support after all if they wanted absolute loyalty so they had to figure out who this person is and, if needed, eliminate him.

Not that Trois would mind even being the one to do it, if it was for Jeanne-onee-sama then she didn’t care how many people she kills.