Strange Grief Wants to Retire ~ The Weakest Hunter Dreams of a Hero ~ - Volume 5 - Chapter SS1

Bonus Short Story

Let This Grieving Soul Train!

“Oooh! Hot spring training!” Luke roared as he stood before the completed main bath. All I could do was let out a sigh. As usual, he had a strange way of seeing things.

Daily workouts were indispensable for treasure hunters, not even the prodigious Grieving Souls could get away with slacking. In fact, it was often said that a hunter’s level was directly proportionate to the amount of training they had done. And my childhood friends all had a manic obsession with training.

Their renown wasn’t for nothing; the only member not training regularly was me. You could even say it was part of their lifestyle. I learned this when I saw how Liz, Sitri, and Tino all wanted to train even during our vacation.

Energetic as ever, Luke’s eyes sparkled as he swung the wooden sword Lucia had recently made for him. Nothing about him suggested that he thought of it as a chore. I had considered stopping him but dismissed the idea when I saw how much he was enjoying himself. Instead, I just let out a yawn.

“What training did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Well, if I’m gonna train then there’s gotta be a waterfall,” he answered.

This man really liked his waterfalls. He was always making them part of his training, but I had my doubts if it worked. I had never stood beneath a waterfall so I couldn’t say for certain, but I had trouble imagining what use it could be for a man who could cross blades with mirages.

Noticing my look of confusion, Luke smiled boldly. “By standing beneath a waterfall and becoming one with nature, you can cut the world!” he said.

“Y-You can? That’s nice,” I said, not sure what else to say.

In spite of it all, he was one of the foremost Swordsmen in the imperial capital. There’s nothing passion can’t triumph over.

“Today, hmm, I think I’ll go for one hundred degrees Celsius,” Luke declared.

“Huh?!”

“And the water’s gotta be faster than your average waterfall. Put it as high as you can! I’m training endurance, so make it something that could leave a crater in the ground!”

Is it still a waterfall at that point? And wouldn’t that be boiling water?

“Maintaining that for a long stretch will be my own form of training,” Lucia said, clutching her head.

“G-Good work out there,” I said.

“Leader, while you were idling away in the bath, washing Ansem’s back, and dozing, I did nothing but control the water!”

“Yeah, uh-huh. Good job, Grand Magus! Lucia number one!”

“Oh, for crying out loud!”

Magi were often the most versatile members in a party and Lucia wasn’t called an Archmagus for nothing.

“Hey, Krai Baby,” Liz said, nudging me. “T and I, we’re gonna train by running across the water!”

“Huh, me too? O-Okay then,” Tino said.

“The water’s gonna be scalding, so you better bring your A-game.”

“Wha?!”

Much to Tino’s horror, Liz clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer.

It’s not a competition, you guys...

Would there really be a day when that sort of training proved useful? And how do you even run across boiling water in the first place? I had a lot of questions, but I mostly wanted to know why Liz seemed so giddy at the idea.

With a grin, Sitri casually shuffled up to me. “I’m going to work on my hot spring golems,” she said.

“What for?” I asked.

“After that, hmm. I can’t think of any training I can do that’s particular to a hot spring. I suppose I’ll try holding my breath.”

Why? You don’t need to. You don’t need to push yourself so much. Just relax and have fun. I’ve never heard someone say “I suppose I’ll try holding my breath.”

“Oh, sounds good. I’ll hold my breath too!” Luke said.

“Good idea, Siddy. C’mon, T, we’re gonna hold our breath!” Liz added.

Tino let out a shriek.

“You too, Killiam,” Sitri called.

“Kill, kill,” said the loyal monster.

It looked like the breath-holding idea really resonated. I just felt bad for Tino.

“What sort of training are you going to do?” I asked Ansem.

He had been silent up until now. Unlike his sisters, Ansem was a quiet man. But something about him prevented those silences from becoming uncomfortable ones. He was worthy of the title Immutable, but as his longtime friend, I knew that he didn’t disdain having conversations.

He grunted in response to my question. It wasn’t on his face, but I could tell that something was bothering him. Good thing Sitri always knew what to say in these situations.

“In a place like this, there’s not much my brother can really do in the way of training,” she explained.

“If we tried to injure Anssy, we’d just break the hot spring,” Liz added.

“And Ansem’s already fine without breathing much,” Luke pointed out.

“Mmm.”

I had trouble wrapping my head around the fact that our most reliable member was also our most freakish member. And “already fine without breathing much.” That’s another string of words I had never heard before.

Still, Ansem seemed a bit lonely. Did he really want to train that badly?

“Why don’t we intensify our training? That way Ansem can heal someone if they collapse,” Lucia suggested with a shrug of her shoulders.

“That’s it!” everyone said at once.

These people are too much for me. And if anyone here is going to collapse, it’s going to be Tino, isn’t it?

“Mmm!” Ansem said with a nod.

I heard Tino let out a small shriek as she hid behind my back.