Chapter 1631 - 228 - On The Frontline (7)
Leon’s POV
I decided that it would probably be better to give them a proper heads-up about the kind of training they were going to receive from me before we actually got started, especially since I had never really taught anyone before and had no idea whether I would even be a decent instructor in the first place.
There was a pretty good chance that I wouldn’t be able to help them as much as they were hoping I could, and I didn’t want them walking into this expecting some amazing master to suddenly turn them into incredible warriors overnight.
I wasn’t exactly some legendary martial arts instructor who had spent decades teaching people how to fight, after all.
I had learned plenty of things myself, but knowing how to do something and knowing how to properly explain it to another person were two completely different things.
Still, they were the ones who had come to me asking for this training, so I figured I should at least give it a proper try instead of immediately telling them that I wasn’t qualified enough to teach them.
"It’s my first time teaching anyone, so I’m going to give you all a heads-up right now that you might end up disappointed if my teaching doesn’t meet your expectations," I said while looking at the five of them. "I don’t think I’ll be able to teach you some amazing techniques or anything like that, but I should still be able to give you a few pointers based on what I know, and hopefully you’ll be able to get something useful out of them."
I looked over the group for a moment before adding another question.
"Also, is it just the five of you who are actually interested in training right now, or are there others who might want to join later?"
Morifuji immediately responded when I asked.
"Well, it seems like some of them haven’t really been able to make much progress with their respective instructors, while others have outright refused to train at all," she explained. "Some of them have even gone as far as deciding that they don’t want to do anything and would rather spend their time having fun instead."
I had a pretty good idea who she was talking about.
I was willing to bet that most of those people were the boys.
Considering how much Lilia had spoiled them since they arrived in this world, their attitude wasn’t exactly surprising to me. She had practically babied them to the point where she was even willing to offer them the bodies of the maids working in this castle, so it wasn’t difficult to imagine how that kind of treatment could eventually get to their heads.
If someone kept being treated like they could do whatever they wanted without consequences, then eventually they were probably going to start believing that they really could do whatever they wanted.
Those guys definitely needed some discipline.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly a problem I could solve immediately, especially when there were much bigger problems happening around us right now.
"Some of them are also afraid of participating," Sakai added after Morifuji finished speaking. "However, we know for certain that simply remaining here without doing anything isn’t a very good idea either, especially if the Kingdom ends up losing the war."
Her expression became more serious as she continued explaining her thoughts.
"If that happens, things are going to become much harder for us. We’d be stranded in this world without any idea what we’re supposed to do afterward, and we wouldn’t even know whether we’d have another opportunity to return home."
She paused for a moment, seemingly choosing her next words carefully.
"There’s also the possibility that we could be killed while we’re trapped here, so I don’t think it would be reasonable for us to pretend that something like that couldn’t happen."
Sakai sounded surprisingly realistic about the whole situation.
She wasn’t trying to make the situation sound better than it really was, and she wasn’t pretending that everything would somehow work out just because we wanted it to.
Honestly, I thought that was probably the most reasonable way to look at things.
They had been dragged into another world without asking for any of this, and now they were surrounded by conflicts that were far bigger than anything they had experienced back on Earth.
There was an actual war happening around them, and people could die from it.
Thinking that they could simply sit around and wait until everything was over would have been incredibly naive.
"That’s why we want to help with the war," Sakai continued. "We might not be able to accomplish much, and honestly, we probably won’t be able to change the entire situation by ourselves, but we at least want to try doing something."
She tightened her hands slightly.
"Otherwise, there’s a chance that we might never make it back home."
I looked at her for a moment without immediately saying anything.
Well, I liked her determination.
Sakai had always been someone who was determined, even back on Earth. From what I remembered about her, she wasn’t exactly the type of person who would simply give up whenever something became difficult.
I had already seen quite a few sides of that determination before, and after coming to this world, that part of her personality seemed to have become even more pronounced.
It was almost as though being thrown into a completely unfamiliar world had given her even more reason to hold onto that side of herself.
I wanted to believe that this was simply her personality.
It wasn’t stubbornness, and it wasn’t some desperate attempt to prove herself.
She genuinely wanted to do something rather than sit around and wait for somebody else to solve the problem for her.
Considering our current situation, I could respect that.
"Well, okay then," I finally said after thinking about it for a moment. "I’ll teach all of you, but before we actually start training, I need to figure out what each of you is capable of first."
I glanced around the courtyard.
"I’d prefer to take you somewhere with proper training equipment, since that would make things considerably easier for me, but for the moment, this courtyard should still be good enough."
We were still standing in the courtyard of the palace.
It wasn’t exactly the ideal place for serious training, especially compared to some of the facilities I had access to through the company, but it wasn’t completely useless either.
Ideally, I would have preferred to bring them to the training facilities inside the company, where we had considerably more space and equipment that could make the process much easier.
The problem was that moving everyone there right now would simply be more trouble than it was worth.
I wasn’t planning on doing anything particularly complicated yet.
For the moment, I just needed to see what they could actually do.
I wanted to know their strengths, their weaknesses, their reactions, and how much experience they already had before deciding what kind of training would suit them best.
There was no point in teaching someone advanced techniques when they still struggled with the basics.
That would be like giving someone a race car when they hadn’t even learned how to ride a bicycle properly yet.
It might look impressive for about five seconds, but eventually somebody was probably going to crash into a wall.
"Who wants to go first?" I asked them while looking across the group.