Arpious of the Planes

[Day 48]

"*sigh*... I hope Luna is doing well," Kumo mutters.

"They'll be alright. We taught them how to use some of their skills so they should be fine. If their identities get exposed, then we could give them the decision of staying or coming back home where we can hire a tutor," Aika says.

"I guess," Kumo replies.

We were currently having breakfast and the mood was slightly down. We were all saddened by our children leaving since they were just born a couple of days ago. I as well felt slightly sad but knew sending our kids to the academy will be well worth it.

"Oh yeah, I got a new pet. Do you want to see her?" I ask my wives.

"Is it a real pet or is she humanoid?" Homura asks.

"Humanoid… she betrayed the kingdom and killing her would be a waste so I forced her to be my pet,"

"Can't you get a normal pet?" Homura asks.

"I could… but I already have my summons,"

"I see,"

I know that Homura is uncomfortable with me making humanoid monsters pets, but I don't mind it. The only difference between them and a slave is their incredible reliance on me. Their loyalty goes past a master and pet relationship but more like a worshipper and god.

This is the type of loyalty that will never get betrayed so keeping this relationship is extremely beneficial.

"Yin, I know you're here. Go get Ava," I say, turning my head to the corner of the room.

I see a little shadow tendril nod, showing that Yin heard my order. About 5 minutes later, Yin rose out of the shadow beside me, holding a terrified Ava. She was sweating and shaking profusely.

It seems that torture did bits on her. She can't even stand up without Yin's help because she is so scared of me.

"Ava, don't worry. You won't get punished unless you did something bad. The only time you should be feeling fear is when I'm about to give out a punishment… did you do something bad?"

"N-no! Of course not!" Ava shouts.

"Okay… then why are you scared?"

"I-I don't want another punishment…" Ava says.

"Did you not just hear me? You won't get a punishment if you didn't do anything worthy of a punishment… Anyway, introduce yourself to my wives," I say.

Ava steps forward timidly and opens her mouth.

"I-I'm pretty sure you know me, I-I'm Ava the jeweler. I betrayed the kingdom by trying to use bandits to kill Master. I-I hope you can forgive me," Ava stutters.

I didn't ask for this much, but I guess my wives now know the truth. Let's see, Aika is probably going to reject Ava, Homura will not care, and Kumo might console her.

Just like I predicted, Aika ignored Ava and continued to eat her breakfast, Homura also ignored her but felt kind of bad for her, while Kumo got out of her seat and stared Ava down. Ava took a few steps back in fear, while Kumo still stared at her with cold eyes.

Tears welled up in the corner of Ava's eyes but before she could start crying, Kumo stepped forward and started to stroke her hair. Tears came bursting out of Ava as she nuzzled her head into Kumos collar.

"Okay, that's enough. Maids, please bring the training regimes that I wrote out," I order.

"As you wish," 2 of the present 6 maids say in unison.

As the maids went to acquire the training regimes that I created, Ava stopped crying and looked like she was going to fall asleep. I tore her out of Kumo's arms and stood her up straight.

She was frightened by the sudden jerk of her body, waking her up instantly. She stood straight up, next to the more relaxed Yin as 2 of my maids brought 3 sheets of thin white leather. It was an imitation of paper since writing on rough, brown, or different colored leather was getting annoying.

I first handed the harder land training regime to Yin, which she happily accepted. The land one was not much different from what they are doing now, it just includes harder training that they need to use their brain for.

They also need to up their movement speed within shadows. Eventually, I want them to mimic teleportation with their shadow travel. If they can reach that level, I can safely say that I have the strongest assassin corps on land.

"Now this is for you," I say, handing another sheet to Ava.

The air one consists of training in the air. There is some land training but most of it will take place in the air. It doesn't matter if they're a harpy or siren, they're going to fly until they can't breathe anymore.

Plus they're going to strap rocks to their legs, greatly hindering their flying capabilities. If they can't fly, they're going to come crashing down and potentially die.

"I'm going to train the water corps personally since I have [Grand Water Magic]. You can go now, if you do good you'll get a reward," I say, dismissing my pets.

"Yes, master,"

"Y-yes master!"

…

I was currently back at the venom bowl with 10 fresh recruits below me. I split 4 of the 24 recruits into the land corps. Then I split 10 into the air corps and 10 into the water corps.

Luckily there were 7 fire harpies and 3 sirens so I split them into the air corps. The water corps in front of me consisted of mainly Amazonians and children of the forest, while the remaining ones were all elves.

I already explained the objective of this corps so all I needed to do now, was train them into the perfect tools.

"First, we need to see your swimming capabilities," I say while activating [Grand Water Magic].

There was only one hole within the venom jar and that was the exit. But I had enough control over the water, to where I could hold it inside the jar without it spilling through the archway.

The recruits tried to stay as calm as possible as I filled up the jar with normal freshwater. I sort of taught them the proper technique, now they only had to execute it.

"HUFF HUFF HUFF,"

Some recruits started to panic and rapidly paddled with their arms and legs. The rest of the recruits executed the technique perfectly. They weren't panicking and they weren't using excess energy.

Since I filled up the jar all the way, they couldn't just sink and bounce up from the bottom. It was like they were in a vast ocean and if they sunk, that was the end of them.

"Seems like the clothes are getting in the way," I mutter to myself.

They are currently wearing the black tight suits that all of my corps are going to wear. The problem is, the suit is soaking up a lot of water, creating weights throughout their entire body. I did expect them to struggle with the suits on, but not to this extent.

Most of the recruits started to hyperventilate as they struggled to keep their head above water.

"About 5 more minutes…"

I wanted to push them to their limits for now. If they can overcome this then they should be able to do the rest of the training.

…

I let them struggle for 10 minutes instead of 5. Surprisingly none of them had sunk yet and their eyes were filled with terror.

"Alright, that's enough," I say, snapping my fingers.

The water slowly drained into nothing and once it was completely gone, all of the recruits were panting for air. Some even coughed up water that they accidentally swallowed.

We continued this process for the rest of the day. The recruits continued to struggle and struggle, eventually causing some recruits to pass out or start to sink. Of course, I saved them, but once they woke up, I threw them back into the water, forcing them to tread water once again.

[Day 49]

I woke up with my wives and took a quick bath. We got some maids to massage us as we discussed what we've been doing since our kids went to school.

Aika went back to the arena she usually trains at and watched over some matches. She even got to participate in one of the matches but it quickly ended within 5 swings of Aika's longsword.

Kumo and Homura went shopping yesterday and interacted with many citizens, helping them out, hearing suggestions, or just raising the overall morale of my kingdom.

I couldn't help but feel useless as my wives explained everything they did for my kingdom.

"Once I get my arm and leg back, I'm definitely going to involve myself more… I'll also check out Yggdrasil tomorrow. Hopefully, there is at least a leaf that I can eat," I mutter to myself.

…

Today I increased the density of the water by about 1.5x the original density. The recruits struggled greatly but this is what I wanted. For the next week or so they will tread water in this density… then I'll increase it next week to possibly 2x.

Yesterday was just a warm-up while this is the real training.