„Keeho, Soul, come over here. If you aren't too dead for it.", Hanse says as he waves them over.
Both boys shortly look up, lift their head as they're currently lying down, then both let their head fall back again, ignoring the short pain.
Soul, „Give me a second longer. I'm all beat."
Hanse, „That was the point of today. But you're already good with your stamina, your speed could use a bit of improvement though. And of course your strength and fighting. You're weak as fuck."
Soul, „I kicked you away from Keeho though."
Hanse, „And you have my respect for that one. It was a good kick, I still feel that one. You targeted it, didn't you?"
Soul, chuckling, „Damn right i did."
Hanse, „I feel that. Good job. Now come over here or I'll start with myself."
Keeho, „Start with what?"
Slowly both of the boys sit up now, still feeling like they're drained of every last bit of energy, their bodies hurting in various places. There's probably bruises everywhere, but at least nothing is broken.
After they sit up they realize what Hanse meant, he has gotten his bag again now and took out some first aid stuff, some bandages and salves it seems.
„I'll bandage you guys up, so show me your bodies. I'll patch back up what I caused. Don't worry, this was the worst day and I'll give you about two to three days to heal. Today was the big test day for everyone's strengths and weaknesses."
While talking Hanse puts some salve on the side of his stomach, then wraps it up with a bandage.
Keeho, „Did we hit that hard?"
Hanse, „You chose a good spot. If I was less skilled I might have had some internal bleeding maybe or something like that."
Soul, „Sorry bout that."
Hanse, „Nah, we're all good. This is the prove that you two aren't completely helplessness which is honestly kind of a relief. I'm just curious to see how the rest will look like tomorrow. Or how many of you don't even have the strength to come anymore. Now, who wants to be patched up first? Keeho? You don't seem to take it as well as Soul."
Soul, „Probably because he's still lagging behind with everything."
Keeho, „I am. But I'm also still overrun having basically just fought for my survival just now."
Hanse, „You do know that I would never have killed you, right? I'm not a monster. At least not anymore."
Soul, „You did make us think so though."
Hanse, „That was the point. I wanted to see how well you can react in such a situation, in the really dangerous ones. Things like people trying to take you hostage might happen, so we want to train you for such things as well as possible. Just enough so that you won't be in the worst danger possible."
Soul, „What about getting up to your levels?"
Hanse, „If you have the will to do that. It'll take you years to get there and it won't be easy, not even for one day."
Keeho, „I think I'll pass for now."
Soul, „I'll think about it."
Hanse, „Don't decide it yet. You can always do that later on as well. There's always the option to start or stop, those advanced levels will be of your own free will. We just need to do this basic stuff for now, so that we can all sleep a little easier. Else we might constantly be on guard and worried for you guys."
__________________________
In memory of our shining star Moon Bin.