Chapter 6. Day 157 — The Power of Muscles
“Hahahaha!”
A hearty laugh echoed through the Palace of Olympus.
The heavenly castle built high above the clouds was a domain belonging solely to the gods, a place no human could enter as they pleased.
The palace was beautifully constructed from pure white marble and filled with warm sunlight.
Fruit and wine were laid out everywhere, and everything was immaculate, without even a speck of dust.
The master of that heavenly palace.
Zeus, the blond, middle-aged god of the sky and lightning, with a burly physique, was being attended to by maidservants as he watched the scene reflected in a mirror.
“Zeus, what are you doing?”
A figure clad in black armor entered the palace, bringing a gloomy aura with him.
It was Hades, the god of death.
“You came at just the right time, brother. Look at this.”
“A mirror showing Tartarus? You certainly have terrible hobbies.”
“The fate of those foolish enough to rebel against us. Look at them suffering. Isn’t it a magnificent sight?”
Tartarus was hell.
Through the mirror, they could see in real time the sinners who had been defeated by the Olympian gods and imprisoned there, receiving their punishments.
One was burning endlessly in flames.
Another was forced to support an enormous city on his back.
Another had his heart pecked apart by an eagle…
Most of them were Titans.
They were the giant race of gods who belonged to the generation before the Twelve Olympians.
Zeus had led the campaign to defeat the Titans and seize power.
That was also why he had become the master of Olympus instead of his older brothers, Poseidon and Hades.
“Oh, Sisyphus! That human has completely lost his mind. Look at him embracing a boulder and making love to it. Hahaha!”
Zeus was clearly enjoying himself.
Hades, however, remained wary.
“Brother, whatever other human beings may be like, you must not underestimate Sisyphus.”
“The ruler of the Underworld is wary of a mere human?”
“I have seen countless humans. When death approaches, humans become weak and beg for their lives. But someone who defended himself so boldly until the very end… He was the first I had ever seen. Think about what he did. He is by no means an ordinary human.”
“You’ve grown quite weak, brother. There is no need to worry. That human will never reach the ‘summit’ anyway.”
“If you say so, I suppose I can accept that…”
“More importantly, why have you come here?”
Hades found Zeus’s attitude toward leaving Sisyphus in Tartarus unsettling, but he had an important matter to discuss, so he decided to set it aside for the moment.
“It concerns a grave prophecy. The Mother of Earth has left a prophecy that the spark of war will soon be kindled on Olympus.”
“Gaia?”
The relaxed smile that had been on Zeus’s face moments ago instantly turned into one of fury.
“…That senile old hag!”
BOOM!
Without warning, lightning struck from the heavens.
The throne room was instantly thrown into chaos.
Shattered pieces of the mirror flew in every direction.
Zeus had every reason to be angry.
Gaia was the mother of the Titans, so this wasn’t merely a prophecy.
It was practically a declaration of war.
Zeus now had to prepare for another war against the Titans.
The time for amusement was over.
“Brother, light the beacon. Summon the gods!”
Zeus left the throne room together with Hades.
By then, the human named Sisyphus had completely vanished from his thoughts.
“Huff, huff, haaah.”
Sweat poured from my hair in streams.
The altar floor where I had been exercising was soaked through with my sweat.
At this rate, I’m going to slip and fall.
Come to think of it, when did my hair get this long?
Maybe I should cut it soon.
Or would tying it up be more convenient?
“It hurts so much. Am I even doing this properly…?”
[The latissimus dorsi could not withstand the load and has torn.]
[The latissimus dorsi will strengthen by 2 during rest.]
It would be more comfortable to lie down and roll around on the floor, but I couldn’t simply lie there.
As far as I remembered, if you didn’t do cardio after strength training, the effectiveness would be reduced by half.
So I started running to finish off my workout.
It was difficult to go down to the grass, so I ran laps around the altar instead.
My mouth had gone completely dry long ago, and I couldn’t produce even a drop of saliva.
[Stamina has increased by 1.]
“Huff, huff. I really want some water.”
It had been 100 days since I started exercising.
During that time, I had used the materials available at the starting point to create all sorts of exercise equipment.
Even in my previous life, I had never exercised systematically.
The most I’d done was go to a gym for a few months.
I tried to recall as much as possible and built exercise equipment using vines, ropes, and wood.
The durability was frequently an issue, so having to rebuild them was inconvenient.
In one corner of the starting point, the remains of all the broken equipment were scattered around.
Barbells and dumbbells, squat machines, Smith machines, high-pulley machines, chest press machines, leg pull machines…
The starting-point grassland was littered with various kinds of stones, making it easy to adjust the amount of weight.
And most importantly—
🙂
If I positioned Wilson properly on the altar steps, it was easy to adjust the intensity I wanted.
He was an all-purpose friend who even helped me exercise.
“Whew. Wilson, aren’t you thirsty?”
🙂
“You never get thirsty in the first place? I’m seriously jealous.”
I’d give anything for a nice, refreshing bellyful of water.
No, of course, there were plenty of other things I wished for too.
I had to get Wilson to the summit, escape from this place, beat up the Olympian gods, return to my homeland…
Wouldn’t it be nice if simply wishing for something made it happen?
No matter how desperately you wanted something, sometimes it simply couldn’t be done.
Still, since there was nothing else I could do besides dealing with the task right in front of me, I kept going.
When I rested, my thirst would eventually disappear.
It worked on the same principle as my wounds naturally healing.
It was unpleasant, almost like being hospitalized and having to receive hydration through an IV because I wasn’t allowed to drink water.
Instead, I plucked some grass and chewed on it.
If I chewed it long enough, a little juice would gradually seep out.
“I wish I could jump into the sea and swim around. Wilson, have you ever seen the ocean?”
🙂 ?
“There was a reason Corinth developed such a strong lodging industry. It’s located on a narrow stretch of land surrounded by the sea on both sides. Adventurers traveling by ship to reach the Mediterranean had to stop there, and so did pilgrims, adventurers, and heroes traveling by land. In summer, the place gets packed with festivals.”
I never thought I’d end up missing the rivers and seas I’d seen so often.
“The Spartans mostly came from the south to trade. They were loud, warmongering bastards. Their physiques were incredible, though. Maybe I should’ve learned their training methods.”
😮
“That’s right. No doubt they would’ve just thrown children into the mountains and told them they’d become stronger by running away from wolves.”
I had modern knowledge at my disposal, so I intended to make full use of it.
They say that if a person repeats the same action for three months, it becomes firmly established as a habit.
For all this time, I had consistently repeated the exercise methods I knew in order to build up my body.
I built my stamina through cardio exercises such as running and jumping rope, then loaded my muscles before the heat left my body.
I alternated between two days of upper-body training and two days of lower-body training, making sure to work every muscle without leaving any neglected.
Whenever I felt that a certain area wasn’t getting enough stimulation, I used my spare time to create a new piece of exercise equipment.
It might not have been perfectly systematic, but by now, my body had undoubtedly learned to recognize that it was supposed to “use its muscles.”
“Ow, ow. I can’t really tell if I’ve gotten stronger, though.”
Since I was in a place where injuries would heal naturally as time passed, I ignored minor dislocations and injuries and continued exercising.
As a result, my entire body felt like it was being torn apart.
“Still, after all this, I must have gotten stronger. It’s about time I gave it another try.”
At long last, I decided to challenge the dreaded S-shaped section together with Wilson.
—Rrrr…
“…Somehow, this feels good.”
Something had definitely changed.
The first floor, which had given me so much trouble and taken several days to conquer at first, was now completed in just three hours.
Is this… the power of muscles?
Even after finishing the first floor, I still had plenty of strength left.
It was completely different from three months ago, when I had to stop and rest several times before continuing.
I climbed to the second floor.
“Here it is. The dreaded section.”
This was the place where I had to curve through an S-shaped path because of the obstacles.
“Hnnngh.”
I carefully controlled Wilson as I pushed him.
Making sure he didn’t slip, while also watching out for the protruding parts of the ground.
Just as Wilson was about to shoot off—
“Hrrrgh…!”
Squeeze.
I stretched out my left arm with all my strength and endured through sheer determination.
[You have realized the skill ‘Grip.’]
After wrestling with Wilson for a moment—
Whoosh!
I put strength into it!
It was a sensation I had never experienced before.
It felt as though my brachialis and biceps had responded to my command, powerfully contracting their muscle fibers.
🙂 !
Wilson, responding to my physical strength, made a satisfying rumbling sound as he defied gravity.
“Yes! I did it!”
And just like that, Wilson and I finally crossed the dreaded section.
It was the moment when three months of training finally paid off.
“Let’s go.”
I’d never climbed the remaining section before, but it wasn’t particularly difficult.
[You have cleared the 2nd Floor, ‘Obstacle Zone.’]
On Day 157, I finally completed the second floor together with Wilson.
“Whew.”
There was another pole here where I could lean Wilson.
I stretched my back and took a well-deserved rest for the first time in a while, and my entire body tingled pleasantly.
“Now it’s the third floor, Wilson.”
🙂 b
Slap.
I gave Wilson a high-five.
“It’s suddenly gotten really cold.”
The newly entered third floor.
The scenery had changed drastically.
“It’s snowing?”
Was this another effect of magic?
The third floor was a snowy mountain.
The angle of the slope remained the same, but snow reaching up to my ankles covered the ground, making it difficult to see obstacles.
On top of that, certain sections of the ground were frozen, creating traps where Wilson could slip.
And there was the cold, which constantly drained my stamina.
It was clearly going to be quite a challenge.
“Wait a minute… Snow?”
I scooped up a handful of snow and held it in my palm.
It melted softly.
I hurriedly put it into my mouth.
Gulp.
It turned into cool, refreshing water and slid pleasantly down my throat.
“Oh my god. Wilson, it’s water! Water!”
How long had it been since I’d tasted water?
I forgot all about the cold and buried my face in the snow like a dog, eating handful after handful for a long time.
I continued until my lips became swollen and numb.
“This isn’t going to work. I need to melt it and store it.”
I sprinted all the way down to the starting point.
I couldn’t stop grinning.
I made several baskets out of vines and climbed back up.
I repeatedly shoveled snow into them, carried it back down, and let it melt in the sunlight.
“Ooh.”
Drip.
Pure drinking water, perfectly made.
Happiness wasn’t something far away.
People became happy when they regained something they’d lost.
“I should collect more and give Wilson a bath too.”
He’d been rolling around for so long that he was filthy.
“Wilson!”
I happily returned to him.
[Hydration accelerates muscle regeneration.]
[Strength has increased by 1.]
[Name: Sisyphus]
[Race: Human]
[Strength: 55 (+40)]
[▶ Check Training Status]
[Stamina: 47 (+39)]
[Mana Power: 0]
[Mana: 0]
[Goal: Raise the boulder to the summit of the mountain]
