Chapter 466: Exhausted
"I can’t do this anymore," muttered a cadet as he collapsed onto the ground. Since he had been in the middle of jogging, just like all the others who were carrying the massive log abovehead, his sudden fall disrupted all the others.
The cadets behind him tried to move out of the way, so as to not step on him, but they were tired and exhausted as well. That, combined with their disorganised attempt to save the cadet, caused them all to either stumble or fall. The massive log dropped, though miraculously it did not injure any of them.
Nero looked at the scene with exhausted eyes, and just kept moving. Three days. For three continuous days, they all had been marching and jogging, carrying the logs overhead. They had attended no classes, or participated in any other drills. All they had done was march, with weights, while carrying logs.
This was not the first group to collapse, and it wouldn’t be the last either. Nero, too, was exhausted despite his superior physical condition. That is because the added weights on his body put him under much greater strain than everyone else.
By now, they had all reached a level of physical and mental fatigue where they had no room for any unnecessary thoughts or actions. Even Nero could not do more than just focus on the weight of the log abovehead, and forcing his exhausted body to keep moving.
He tried to still focus on some important things, such as the condition of those carrying the logs with him. Every day their partners had changed, which made it really hard to build any kind of coordination - especially when everyone was so exhausted.
He tried to focus on the time of day, and judge how many hours it had been, but his brain seemed to not be cooperating. All he knew, all he could focus on was keeping his hands above his head, despite the burning pain in his limbs, and putting one step in front of another.
No matter how strong or resilient he was, he could not just ignore the constraints and limitations of his body. He was reaching the end of his rope, sheer will the only thing that actually kept him going.
At some point, the weight above his hands disappeared, but he did not notice. He kept marching for a few minutes before he realised something was wrong. He looked around, and saw that his teammates had fallen, and the log had rolled out of his hands.