Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Early morning, the second day.

Ron arrived at the training ground bright and early. The rest of the Blood and Fire Squad arrived at roughly the same time, with only Karel once again beating everyone else.

Upon seeing Ron and the others arrive, he immediately called everyone to work. “Ron, Justin, help me watch these pots. When they’re about to boil over, give them a good stir, or add a ladle of water. I’ll handle the seasoning.”

It looked like Karel had found himself a breakfast-making duty. Ron was somewhat curious about why Karel was doing this. Seeing that few people were around at this hour, he asked directly:

“Karel, are you going to come this early to prepare breakfast every day?”

“Yeah. I have younger brothers and sisters at home. They’re still growing, and I want to make sure they eat well. Aunt Lishan who runs the kitchen here lets me take home the leftover meat from the training ground.”

“So that’s why you were dawdling and lagging behind yesterday.”

“Even though the territory allows it, I still worry about people gossiping, so I try not to do it in front of others.” Karel rubbed his head, somewhat embarrassed.

But he didn’t show the slightest intention of giving up this side job.

Ron had no objections to this. He simply marveled at how hard Karel had it.

Actually, from the way Jason had been able to bring back an accidentally killed Fire Cow leg from a mission, and then go on to ask his captain for even more, Ron could already tell that the Sis Territory was still a society built on personal relationships.

Beneath the rigorous order, warmth was far from absent. Karel’s situation before him only confirmed this once more.

Order was certainly a good thing, but an excessively cold order would only make people want to flee rather than identify with and uphold it.

For now, Ron was still very satisfied with the Sis Territory.

…

To save time and replenish their condition, the Blood and Fire Squad had already started eating while Karel was seasoning the morning food. The training ground provided ample food. As long as you could eat it, apprentices were free to eat as much as they wanted.

The more you ate, the more it indirectly proved your talent was strong.

With the Blood and Fire Squad leading the charge, the others who arrived later didn’t care about taste either, rapidly demolishing the food from the ten large pots.

By the time the sky was fully bright, a new day and new training began once more.

Just like the first day, the second morning was still formation drill, both as individual squads and as the entire body of new apprentices, repeating the same drills over and over.

Even when every movement was perfectly executed, they still needed to repeat endlessly.

If the first day’s formation drill had made Ron nostalgic for his school days’ military training, then the second day’s formation drill reminded him of his overwhelming loathing for that very same military training.

It wasn’t that he disliked military training itself, but rather that he loathed the specific, repetitive behavior at that particular time.

Simply put, the endless repetition of identical training had made him feel weary and irritable. Even with Ron’s inner adult maturity, he found it somewhat hard to endure, and the other apprentices were genuine sixteen-year-old youths.

Coming from carefree homes to this place with virtually no transition period, they were suddenly subjected to mind-numbingly tedious repetitive formation drill.

And so, someone couldn’t take it anymore and burst into loud wailing on the spot:

“I want to go home!”

“I don’t want to train anymore!”

…

Faced with what couldn’t really be called an unexpected situation, the Chief Instructor of the apprentices, Arnold, immediately halted everyone’s training. He stood on the platform and shouted:

“Who else doesn’t want to train? Step forward, all of you!”

Silence was his answer. But those few boys who had gradually stifled their crying suddenly shouted back: “Instructor, we’ve already mastered all these movements! Why do we have to practice them over and over again, without even giving us any rest time?”

Those boys didn’t actually want to go home. They simply couldn’t bear this tedious training. What they were seeking was perhaps just a single break.

But Arnold had no intention of satisfying their demands. He spoke again: “Who else shares their sentiment? Step forward, all of you, and prove it to me!”

Perhaps sensing a hint of compromise in the instructor’s words, a few more boys stepped forward and declared loudly: “Instructor, our formations are proficient! We’re willing to accept your test!”

“Good! Very good!”

A trace of a smile actually appeared on Arnold’s lips. He issued an order to those boys who had stepped forward. “The few of you, form up immediately! I’d like to see just how capable you really are!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the boys who had objected to the training, eight in total, immediately closed ranks and quickly formed a basic formation, then shouted in unison:

“Instructor, please issue your command!”

“Leland!”

Arnold didn’t issue a command right away. Instead, he called out to another instructor. “Bring that box I brought this morning.”

“Captain, are you sure you want to bring out that thing?” The burly man whose name was called hesitated, as if the box was not something pleasant.

Hearing this, Arnold’s expression turned cold. A gaze sharp enough to have physical substance shot toward Leland. “Do I need to repeat myself a second time?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Leland tucked his head between his shoulders and strode quickly toward a row of simple structures on the northwest side of the training ground. He retrieved a wooden box from inside and hurried back to Arnold’s side.

Arnold took the wooden box but didn’t rush to open it. Instead, he looked once more at the eight apprentices and gave them a final choice:

“I’m giving you a chance to reconsider. Go to the military judge right now and receive five lashes as punishment, then return to your respective formations, and I’ll pretend this never happened.

“If you still insist on going through with this, then unless you pass the test, prepare yourselves to be expelled from the territory guard!”

Expelled?

Almost no one had expected things to escalate this seriously. None of the laws or regulations mentioned this kind of situation at all. How had it suddenly progressed to the point of expulsion?

Only Ron understood that the instructor wanted everyone to get into character as quickly as possible: into the roles of real soldiers, real warriors, not playing house like children.

Casting a sympathetic gaze toward those few boys who were still stubbornly holding their ground, Ron developed an intense fascination with the box in Arnold’s hands. What on earth could Arnold consider a trump card for educating apprentices?

After those boys once again shouted “Instructor, please issue your command!”, the answer was revealed:

Inside that box was an apparently ordinary blue-gray cone-shaped object!

At first, Ron didn’t notice anything unusual. But just as he tried to slightly adjust his center of gravity, he was shocked to find that he couldn’t move!

Not only could his body not move, but he couldn’t even blink.

If it weren’t for the fact that he could still think, and could still catch glimpses through his peripheral vision of apprentices suddenly collapsing, he would have thought time itself had stopped.

What was going on?

Could it be because of that cone-shaped object in the box Arnold had opened?

All of this had happened after Arnold opened that box. Aside from this explanation, there was no other possibility. But what exactly was that cone-shaped object?

Just then, Ron heard Arnold’s voice: “I now order you to form a defensive formation!”

These words were directed at those eight boys, but it was clear that they could no longer respond to Arnold’s command. Ron could see clearly that four of the eight had already collapsed to the ground, and the remaining four looked ready to topple at any moment.

As if they, too, would crash to the ground the very next instant.