SG Vol. 1 pt. 40

There are two things pissing me off right now more than everything else that I have to naturally be pissed off about.

One, I need to walk with a fucking cane until my leg is finished healing.

Two, of all the brats who I should be giving special attention to… Shitger might just actually be the one with the most potential. He proved himself in the simulations and then apparently proved himself again when it came to protecting everybody during the attack, and that was without the protection of being in a unit.

Meanwhile, Valkyrie, who I thought was going to be the star of the class, has ended up being a mediocre pilot and a mediocre sundae-maker.

Fuck.

At least repairs on the building are already done, and my classroom here never got damaged. Everything is just as I left it but a bit dustier.

All I’m waiting on now are my cadets.

And, as if to further piss me off, Shitger ends up being the first brat to actually make it here.

“Hey, sir,” he says as soon as he sees me.

At least he salutes me.

“Your arm doing alright?” I ask.

“Hah, worried about me, sir? Don’t worry, it’s—”

“I don’t care. Sit down.”

“Alright, sir,” he says, waving with his arm that was injured. At least it’s doing better now, but now I’m even more pissed off because his arm got all healed up before my leg did.

At least these brats won’t have to know that my leg isn’t healed as long as I don’t stand up. Then again, if I don’t stand up, it might be suspicious. Since the cane is hidden under my desk, I could always just force myself to walk a little bit on my leg even though it’d hurt like a bitch, but I should be fine as long as I make it quick.

It helps that it’s been a week since I last saw any of these brats, so they have no reason to think that I might still be hurt. They shouldn’t suspect anything.

“Also, sir, I saw you walking over with your cane. Are you sure you should be back already?” Shitger asks.

“I hope you’re ready to run until you’re collapsing in your own puke,” I tell him.

Damn it.

“You seriously need to stop pissing me off.”

“Wh-what’d I do this time?”

“You existed.”

“I mean… I don’t want to piss you off, sir, but I don’t think there’s anything that I can do about it if just existing is enough to do it.”

“You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

“Should I shut u—”

“Yes.”

He shuts up just as the others start coming in.

Well, as long as Shitger is the only one who knows about my leg, then—

“Sir? Are you sure you should be back if you’re not healed?” Breeder asks, bringing that motherly spirit out of her and pissing me off even more than Shitger managed to since everybody else is with her.

“Just fucking sit down and stop worrying,” I groan at them.

Now, there’s one thing in particular that I’m noticing with the students aside from the fact that, surprisingly, they’re all still here. I would have thought that some of them might have been scared off after the attack and actually seeing the demons for themselves, but… they’re all here.

But that’s not all.

Even Filly is different – changed. It wasn’t that obvious back when I saw her in the hospital, but she’s changed as much as all of them have. Well, maybe all of them except for Shitger. He’s still sitting there looking as carefree and as annoying as ever.

As for the rest… they seem more serious – more interested in cutting through the shit, sitting down, and listening. It’s like they’ve learned just how serious this is and that I’m not torturing them for nothing.

They went through an attack. They saw the demons up close. They know just how real the danger is now. And, out of all of them, Shitger is the one who stepped up and protected their asses when it mattered the most. I don’t know how the rest reacted when it happened, but I do know that Shitger is the one who displayed the most bravery and the biggest desire to survive.

Even Filly gives me the feeling now that she wants to be more like Shitger.

For as fucking annoying as he is, he’s doing a good damn job motivating the rest of these brats into action.

They’re even all sitting in the front row now instead of spreading out from the front to the back.

Ah, shit. I shouldn’t be so fucking worried over looking weak with my leg when they’re like this. I’ve got to suck it up and make use of their spirits while the motivation is there.

“Alright. I’m sure it’s been a while since you maggots have gotten any good exercise, so let’s go and do some laps,” I tell them, standing up from my chair with the cane.

“Sir,” Muscles speaks up, “we’ve been going on runs together every morning and evening while you were gone.”

“And we have been visiting the range and gym,” Samurai says. “Sir.”

“And you think that excuses you from getting off your asses? All you’ve done is prove you need to be pushed even harder now that you’re used to it,” I explain, causing them to finally stand up. “You all barely survived four laps when we first started, so let’s see how you do with eight.”

“We ran ten total yesterday, sir,” Valkyrie says with an annoying smile.

I’m starting to think these brats seriously need put in their place.

“Then you’ll run until I tell you to stop. Get moving. Now.”

The cadets all shout, “Yes, sir!” in unison before leaving the room in a single file line.

I was worried about this bunch, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. Still, it’s too early to feel comfortable in their progress. Just because they’ve been exercising and practicing their arm doesn’t mean that they’re going to be any better at surviving and killing the demons. If there is one thing that I’m proud of, though, it’s how they’ve come together as a class.

And the laps they run around the airfield proves that.

If one stumbles, the others catch them. If somebody slows them down, they slow down to match their pace until they can speed back up. If anybody struggles, they give support whether it’s physical or moral.

Without me being able to run with them to shout at them as they go, it’s not like I can order them to shut up or not slow down.

And that’s a good thing. It’s letting me see just how close they’ve gotten. They may have started off underneath me with familiar relations already, but their cohesiveness has improved a huge amount in this short time.

Not even that crazy woman was able to get us my group this united so quickly back then. So, I don’t think it’s me causing this. I’ve got to guess that it’s a combination of them just being good matches for each other, being the only ones left out of everybody who quit, and realizing how serious humanity’s situation is after that attack.

Maybe subjecting cadets to the horrors of the demons during training is how to create the best pilots.

I’ll just have to wait and see how they’ve improved in the simulations. I’m sure that they’ve been able to grab some simulation time for themselves given how shaken the higher-ups must feel after that attack.

For now…

“Come on! That’s only the ninth lap! I thought you told me you did ten yesterday?!” I shout at them as they pass me.

“She meant five in the morning and five in the evening, sir!” Shitger shouts. Even he looks like he’s struggling at this point.

Their clothes are drenched in their sweat at this point.

“One more!” I order.

Knowing that they’ll be done with only a single lap more, they pick up their speed and pass around the bottles from whoever still has water left.

I didn’t see any bottles on them when I told them to run.

These bastards have learned to hide their bottles from me.

I guess that their survival skills have increased a bit if they know to hide their water bottles from me. That’s the only reason I haven’t made them drop the bottles whenever they’d pass me up.

Now, finishing their final lap, the cadets stop and either lean over with their hands on their knees or try their best to stay standing straight.

Muscles is the only one looking like he’s not about to die.

Damn, it’s nice to see Shitger struggling again.

“Good job. Your legs got a nice workout from that. Now, let’s not leave the rest of your bodies out of the fun. Drop and give me a hundred. If you all manage to do that without anybody passing out, that’ll be all the exercise for today and you’ll only have to do half tomorrow,” I say.

They drop and do exactly as I said. They do end up struggling and taking longer than it normally would, but each and every one of them manages to get through a hundred push-ups. Shitger does, however, do an annoyingly dramatic flop onto the ground while spreading his limbs out like a starfish once he’s done.

It makes me want to punish him, but I won’t. They did exactly as I ordered them to without fail. So, just this once, I’ll take it easy on them.

“Good job. I guess you weren’t lying about working out in my absence. Because of that, you brats have proven that you’re not completely worthless. One might even say that you’ve proven you’re self-motivated, strong but still annoying, flies. That’s right. You’ve officially been upgraded from maggots to flies. Now, which one of you wants to tell me why flies are named what they are?”

“Because they fly, sir!” Valkyrie answers.

“Well, Shitger? Is she right?” I ask, placing my foot one inch away from his head.

“Probably?” Shitger answers. “Sir?”

“Congratulations. You’ve been demoted back to being a maggot since you can’t even give me a proper answer.”

“Alright, sir,” he says between heavy breaths.

I sigh and look back over at Valkyrie. “Yes. Flies are flies because they fly. Common sense, yet some maggots can’t even figure that out.”

I’d place my foot on Shitger’s head but I’m confident that it wouldn’t bother him in the slightest right now.

“Now, since you’re flies, and flies are supposed to fly, how are you going to accomplish that?”

Shitger answers, “With—”

“I’m speaking to the flies, not the maggot.”

“Alright, sir.”

“Sir,” Worm says, speaking up for once, “in VSUs.”

“Correct. So, since everybody else got upgraded from a maggot to a fly, that means you’ll be upgraded from Worm to Fly,” I tell her.

“Shouldn’t a worm be upgraded into a butterfly, sir?” Breeder asks.

“You think I don’t know that, Breeder? Butterfly is too many syllables. I’m just shortening it to the last part.”

“Sir, aren’t Samurai and Valkyrie just as long?” Muscles asks.

“What was that, maggot?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Apparently, the only two boys among you are maggots. You maggots are lucky that we’re short on men or you’d never have a chance. I feel bad for your ancestors for having such pathetic boys responsible for continuing your bloodlines.”

Muscles lowers his head and the rest of the cadets look either at or away from him.

Interesting reaction. Seems like I’ve hit a soft spot that they know about but I don’t. I’ll have to look into his file later and—

“I’m sorry for being pathetic, sir. I’ll prove myself worthy,” Muscles says, taking the insult way too damn seriously.

Part of me wants to tell him to relax and that I was just shit-talking him for being a smartass. The other part of me knows that he’s turning what I said into a motivation to better himself, even if it comes at the cost of respecting me less.

That’s a fair cost.

“Me and your ancestors are going to hold you to it, so don’t disappoint us. Understand?” I ask.

“Yes, sir,” Muscles answers.

“Then let’s put you into some simulators. Shitger, are you to going to join us, or are you going to continue hoping that you somehow evolve from a maggot into a starfish?”

Shitger stands up and brushes the dirt off of his face. “Sorry, sir. I realized that the dirt is comfier than our beds,” he answers, getting a chuckle out of the rest of the cadets.

“The beds were even shittier back in my day. Be happy with what you’ve got and get over to the simulators.”

The group says, “Sir, yes sir!”

It looks like Samurai nudges Muscles and talks to him about something while we walk, and then Breeder does the same, but I’m too far back to hear what either of them say.

Damn, walking with a cane is annoying.

My leg needs to get over itself and heal already. If we were attacked right now, we’d be fucked since I wouldn’t be able to get to a unit in time. I’m like a damn snail.

It’s not even that I feel annoyed over not being able to keep up or looking weak. I’m just itching to get back to training myself. The cadets aren’t the only ones who need to improve their skills. In the end, the only one I can really rely on is myself. My chances to survive and make the world better for Naomi are only as good as I am.

I was defeated. I can’t let that happen again.

Both the cadets and myself need improving. Tempering.

I would join them in the simulators if I could trust them to pull their own weight and manage to do anything before I finish whatever objectives I set, but holding myself back won’t do anything for me and is only going to slow down their own progress.

Or maybe… maybe they’ll get inspired to try and catch up with me. If they’re motivated from the attack, what if they see how easy I make the missions? That might spur their development. As it stands, outside of combat footage, they’ve never seen real pilots in action before. Fighting with them in a challenging enough simulation might give them something to learn from.

But then they might either spend too much attention on me and get fucked for it, or they’ll be too distracted to learn from me.

Yeah. I think I’ll do that. I’ll do some challenging simulation that’ll keep me on my toes, take the lead and command them, and hope they pay enough attention to not get fucked while learning from me.

I wish there were manuals or something on how to teach a bunch of brats. All I remember from my days as a cadet was being forced to read a ton and being put through Hell via physical training and punishment.

Wait. There was that one thing. That crazy woman had to fight to get permission to do it and it was supposedly almost called off a dozen times while it was going on, but I have thought back to it and been thankful for it several times.

It’s just overkill for learning how to survive in a harsh environment that is surrounded by potential legal issues if any of the cadets were to complain to the right people about it.

I’ll have to run it by Zane and see how many favors I’ll owe him to get permission to do it.

For now, with the cadets getting into the simulator pods that I reserved for them, I’ve got to decide on a simulation to put us all through together.

“Hey,” I say, grabbing the attention of one of the overseers.

“Yes, sir?” she answers.

“I’m going to need another pod for myself and you to start the simulation for us.”

“We don’t have another pod schedule for use for—”

“Does it look like anybody else is in here using the simulators right now? Go see Colonel Hutton if you’ve got a problem with it.”

“Y-yes, sir. Which simulation would you like to run?”

“Forty-seven.”

“Are you sure? That’s usually saved for proven pilots, not cadets.”

“I’m a proven pilot, aren’t I?”

“Y-yes, sir, but your cadets—”

“There’s a reason why I’m going in with them. I’ve completed the simulation solo before, so I doubt that I won’t be able to with backup even if they’re inexperienced.”

“Yes, sir. Just let me know when you want the simulation to start after you get in a pod. Are there any special circumstances you would like me to set?”

“Fifty percent ammo, sixty percent fuel, double Cutter-class.”

“Wh-what? Are – I’m sorry for being blunt, sir, but those are insane conditions for cadets on a simulation that is already beyond their experience level.”

“It’ll teach them to conserve their resources while learning how to dodge. Is that a bad thing, or do we want our future pilots wasting twice as much of our limited resources than they need to without knowing how to keep their units in one piece? If I could do it by myself at full resources with half the Cutter-class, we can do it with twice the difficulty and eight units.”

The military fucking coddling cadets is why they die so quickly into their first battles. I’m not going to coddle them.

“It’ll be fine,” another overseer says, leaning over a monitor. “He’s got the top score on that simulation. Nobody comes close. He could probably finish it solo again with those circumstances set.”

At least somebody around here has some faith in me.

“Is that good enough for you, or are you going to let me train my cadets so that they’re not useless sacks of shit who waste our resources and units?” I ask the first girl.

She gulps and nods. “Yes, sir.”

“And set my ammo to twenty percent. I’ve been spoiled by my A-10C VSU, so being forced to conserve for once should be good for me.”