Chapter 10- Suffering

After about an hour of sleep, Friz's voice sounded in Hob's ear, telling him to wake up. But as Hob opened his eyes, he saw that Friz was still lying in bed, looking at him. She seemed to be fighting against sleep, trying to stay awake. When Hob tried to get up, he felt it—every single muscle in his body was sore.

"This soreness must be from training so hard in that room. It must be healing, but we need to go to our survival training lessons," Hob thought to himself.

He got up slowly from his bed, letting out soft sounds due to the pain in his muscles. After stretching for a bit, he helped Friz get up from the bed, as she was basically unable to move.

Hob helped Friz stretch a bit, and when she was able to move herself, he stepped away from her.

"Thanks for helping me get up. If you hadn't woken up for another 30 seconds, I would've fallen asleep again. And this is some serious pain in my muscles... Ahhhhhh," Friz said, crying out in pain.

"Yeah, it really is a lot of pain. Let's hope it is gone by the time we go for the hunt, and let's go get our survival lessons," Hob said, yawning.

After fixing their appearances, they both walked out of the room, limping due to the sore muscles and looking tired. As they made their way out of the room and reached the reception area, they saw almost all the others in Group Three and their lambs standing in front of the reception. At the same time, the group saw Hob and Friz too.

For a moment, all eyes were on Hob and Friz. Then someone from the crowd spoke, and what they said made everyone gasp. "Can't you have just kept it inside your pants for a while longer? And even if you couldn't, at least be decent enough to do it within limits. You look like she sucked the soul outta you, man," a fairly young-looking boy from the crowd said.

Hob got a little angry but glanced at Friz instead. Seeing her calm expression, he decided not to take action in front of such a big crowd and said, "You should write those fantasies of yours down in a book and sell it instead. It'll sell for a lot. But wait, no one values fantasizers like you anymore, do they? So mind your business and pray that you survive the hunt."

Everyone started laughing at the young man at this remark, to which the young man just snorted and chose to stay silent.

"Now, if I may ask, what are so many of our Group Three doing here together? Is there something special you guys found out?" Hob asked them.

The young man was about to rebuke Hob, but another girl stopped him and said, "No, we haven't found out anything special so far. We were just planning to make teams for the hunt. We'll have to hunt more for sure, but we'll also have a greater chance of survival. Are you perhaps interested in forming a group?"

"I'll answer that before the hunt. Will that be alright? Also, since we're all going on the hunt, I'd like to tell you guys something I found out about. There's a training facility next door, and we can actually access parts of it before the hunt. We're actually going there right now, so you guys can check it out as well," Hob said, glancing back at Friz while suppressing a laugh.

"A training facility? Oh, I see. I'm sorry for what I said just now. I understand why you're so tired now," the young boy said, feeling embarrassed.

"We thank you for the information. We'd appreciate it if you took us to the training facility with you," the young girl said.

"Alright, follow us then," Hob said as he pulled Friz to walk with him in front of everyone.

Soon, everyone was in the training facility, and the elder man, instead of explaining patiently like he did with Hob and Friz, told everyone to just go into the left side rooms for strength training and the right side rooms for agility training. Soon, everyone was gone to train, leaving Hob and Friz alone with the elder.

"May I ask what this is all about?" the elder asked calmly.

"I am sorry for doing this, teacher, but how do I say it, well, they kind of pissed me off, so I am gifting them a few days of muscle pain and a better chance of survival in the hunt, I guess," Hob recounted everything that happened to the elder.

And the elder laughed heartily at what Hob told him. "That's a unique way to take revenge, I'll say that. They're gonna feel it for days to come," the old man said, laughing.

And just as he was laughing, the first of the people started coming out of their respective training rooms, looking exhausted and gasping for breath. Some even sat back down as soon as they came out.

Hob and Friz burst out laughing at the look of suffering they had, for they knew best what it felt like after training in those rooms.

"Well, now you all know why we looked so exhausted to you guys, don't you?" Hob said with a smug look on his face.

To which everyone just lay down and nodded their heads tiredly, and soon everyone was sitting in front of the elder to ask what to do after this training.

"All those who just came out of training, go back, eat a meal, and have a good sleep to heal. My shift for today will end in about an hour, so I'll teach you all about survival training tomorrow."

Hearing that, everyone nodded and limped back outside the building, and only Hob and Friz were left with the elder alone...