Chapter 49: Parrot

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: Parrot

After the long sleep concluded and his body had partially regained its balance, Kirito officially initiated the rigorous training plan he had mapped out in his head over the past few days. He didn’t waste too much time thinking, simply applying the pre-formulated body-torture exercises directly onto the children.

A large wooden board covered densely with thick sheets of paper outlining every single exercise in detail was personally prepared by Kirito. He carried that board out to the courtyard, loudly slamming it straight into the ground right next to the discipline quarters. The children, standing in line waiting early on, instinctively turned their gazes toward the board, curiosity mixed with fear.

"Alright, today we step into the true hell training phase. Surely you kids have mentally prepared beforehand, so no need for unnecessary talk, start immediately!" Kirito shouted coldly.

"Understood!" All 315 children responded in unison, the sound echoing throughout a corner of the underground cave.

"First exercise: Swimming and underwater survival. The requirement is for each person to maintain being underwater for 1 full hour. Sounds impossible, right?"

Kirito crossed his arms, scanning the crowd: "Normal humans can only hold their breath for about 3 minutes; knowing how to properly regulate breathing can extend it up to 10 minutes. But most of you are aged 13 and under, your bodies are in the most intense developmental stage, and environmental stimuli will force your bodies to mutate in order to survive. In other words, you must force yourselves to stay submerged for a very long time, compelling your ribcage and lungs to expand to the maximum to increase air capacity, thereby improving your breath-holding duration."

"Next, remember that we are professional Ninjas operating in the shadows; our core missions are assassination and creating variables. The chance of survival and success stems solely from chaos."

Kirito paused for a beat, asking: "So can anyone tell me, to create perfect chaos, what do we need?"

A kid standing in the front row timidly raised a hand: "My lord... is it fire?"

Kirito flicked his fingers slightly, the corners of his lips curling up: "Very accurate. Use fire to burn and create absolute chaos, thereby carving out a fatal opening to assassinate the target."

"However, a true Ninja and a foolish person do not have an overly distinct boundary if they don’t know how to overcome fear. You need to get used to enduring extreme heat."

"The second exercise is standing naked right at the epicenter of raging fires. Don’t be afraid of getting burned or leaving scars; children’s bodies have extremely fast cellular regeneration capabilities, leaving absolutely no scars at all."

Hearing this, the kids couldn’t help but shiver with fear. Standing rooted in the middle of raging, blazing fires was no different from self-immolation, yet now it had become a mandatory daily exercise.

"Next is intensive physical conditioning." Kirito continued pointing at the board.

"Each person must go find heavy rocks on their own, strap them onto their backs, and run around this underground cave. The minimum standard is 100 laps. The quota will be based on the three weakest kids; only when they finish will everyone else be allowed to stop. Whichever kid shows the most weakness will have their lap count doubled."

"As for close-quarters combat skills, we will apply the format of bare-handed free-for-all brawl. Anyone who feels they can no longer endure attacks must immediately raise a hand to surrender. The lesson learned from brawls is very realistic: enemy attacks can strike from any direction, leaving no room for negligence."

"Finally, weapon sparring drills will be pushed to the latest time slot at the end of the day—the moment when your physical strength and spirit have plummeted to the most exhausted state."

Kirito shrugged, showing a helpless look: "I actually really wanted to add more harsh content, but for now, let’s just apply those first."

Over the next few days, the interior of the underground cave was constantly immersed in screams, groans, and piercing clashing sounds.

"Aaaaa...."

"Aaaaa...."

Kirito, resting in his private room, had to frown uncomfortably at the chaotic noise echoing from the training area, making it impossible for him to catch any sleep. With no other choice, Kirito dragged his body out to personally supervise.

He had tunneled and channeled water from the underground river deep inside, creating two large artificial pools as the spot for the kids to practice swimming. As for periodic water changes to ensure hygiene, Kirito delegated the task entirely to the kids to bucket out the old water themselves, treating it as an extra form of endurance training.

"Truthfully, I really want to go outside for a stroll and continue the plan, but if I don’t stay here to personally supervise, these kids will easily give up and fail to grasp the training progress." Kirito sighed dismally.

Since most of the children were born on dry land and completely unable to swim, with only a few having some experience who had to concurrently tutor others, it created a bittersweet chaotic mess. Even so, Kirito didn’t bother managing too deeply.

"Perhaps I will only maintain staying here to tutor for about another month. After that, once everything has settled into a stable orbit, I will continue executing the next steps in the grand plan."

He propped his hands and leaned backward, slouching idly on a high rock ledge overlooking the panorama of the cave.

"I wonder if anyone else in this world is a reincarnator like me? Probably yes, with this appearance rate, the high chance is that among the kids down below there are also a few possessing memories of a past life. Anyway, with me holding down the fort here, they wouldn’t dare act recklessly."

Kirito wasn’t worried about rebels at all, because the worm-like parasite he implanted in the kids’ bellies was silently controlling their lives. This type of worm was extremely sensitive to air; if any kid had the guts to slice open their belly to find a way to dig the worm out, the moment it contacted outside air, the worm would automatically crawl away to hide elsewhere, leaving a painful death for the traitor. Therefore, no one dared risk it.

Strolling around to inspect the kitchen area, Kirito caught sight of about ten children busily kneading dough and cooking rations for the entire camp.

"Oh, your craftsmanship and food prep have been improving fast lately." Kirito briefly evaluated.

The children immediately stopped working, bowing respectfully: "Thank you for the praise, my lord!"

After reviewing all areas from the armory to the holding area without spotting any abnormal signs, Kirito muttered blankly: "Looks like discipline has been tightly established, perhaps I should limit my appearance here to increase my dignity and mysteriousness."

Thinking and doing, Kirito immediately left the underground cave via the secret passageway hidden behind the rock wall.

He moved silently toward the opposite mountain—where the familiar Hian Castle stood, leaving behind numerous hidden supply and weapon caches scattered around that area.

The destination was a large boulder taller than a man’s head, surrounded by overgrown, waist-high weeds that completely blocked vision from the outside, extremely secluded and safe. Kirito used force to gently push the boulder aside, revealing a pitch-black tunnel path leading deep into the earth.

He stepped steadily into the tunnel. When dim light from ahead filtered back, Kirito habituallly greeted: "Hello, good morning."

Immediately, from the darkness, a mimicking sound echoed strangely: "Hello, good morning."

Kirito stepped fully into the lit area. Surrounding him were large wooden chests filled with grain used to feed birds. Right on a dead tree branch set in the corner of the room, a colorful multi-hued parrot was flapping its wings and hopping back and forth.

"Stupid Kirito."

"Stupid Kirito."

The parrot loudly cried out repeatedly without stopping.

Hearing this, Kirito felt his head ache, his sharp gaze side-glancing the annoying animal.

Some time ago, while conducting training exercises deep in the forest, he accidentally picked up this strangely smart parrot and brought it home to raise for fun. He still vividly remembered the reaction of the old master seeing it for the first time.

The old man used to squint and laugh loudly: "Oh, the brat managed to drag such a clever parrot back from where?"

Kirito back then nonchalantly nodded in reply: "Yeah, picked it up at the edge of the forest so I brought it back to try raising it. Didn’t expect its intelligence to be higher than normal."

Suddenly, the parrot on the branch flapped its wings and shouted loudly:

"I’m smarter than you, stupid Kirito!"

His master back then heard it and laughed heartily: "Ha ha, looks like this bird is quite interesting, perhaps I should find one to raise too."

Returning to reality, Kirito looked at the parrot, a thought occasionally flashing in his mind whether roasted parrot meat tasted good for this crime of talking uselessly.

"Alright, shut your beak and listen to my command." Kirito signaled.

The parrot immediately closed its mouth, stopped crying, and obediently flapped its wings, hopping back and forth on the dead branches.

"Your task is very simple: Imitate and mimic my voice accurately."

The parrot tilted its head, mimicking identically: "That’s easy peasy, stupid Kirito."

Kirito nodded in satisfaction, stretching his shoulders to signal: "Alright, fly onto my shoulder."

The parrot flapped its wings and darted over, perching firmly on Kirito’s shoulder.

He muttered in calculation: "Right now I’m playing the exact role of the old master from before, throwing the kids into the purgatory furnace to force them to mature into Shinobi assassin machines. But the tricky thing is I still have a lot of important tasks outside that need resolving, and if I’m absent for long, I’m afraid the kids below will harbor rebellious intent. Therefore, maintaining my simulated presence inside the cave is a mandatory condition."