CHAPTER 108: ARMY ON THE MARCH

"One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four..."

Ume’s loud, perfectly clear voice filled the air and everyone’s ears.

The same words, same cadence, same length of syllables, all to set the marching rate for everyone in the group.

"One, two, stop fucking slacking, four. One, two, three, four..."

There was no stopping. No taking a break. No moment of rest.

Only marching.

And so, they marched through the narrow forest path.

Second Army, expedition corps, special detachment.

In official terms, it was a force designed to strike where the enemy expected them the least, with force they could never see coming.

In reality, though?

It was just a bunch of freshly minted cadets, all serving in groups. Each of the groups was commanded by an experienced officer brought over from the Third "Guardsman" Army, all for one goal and one purpose — for those who had already seen and tasted the bloodbath of war to give the newbies a crash course in the only thing that mattered on the battlefield — survival.

For that reason, those officers were the only ones who could maintain the pace of the forced march, even if their faces made clear just how they felt about it.

Still, they marched. They didn’t protest.

Not because it was an honor to be training newbies. But because they got to serve with an otherworlder.

The presence of those aliens was the reason why the second prince decided to gut the Third Army out of its officers.

Not for the freshly minted cadets — those, even in times of war, were aplenty.

No.

They were here for one reason only — to turn those pesky aliens into actual, capable, and disciplined soldiers.

It was a task they were originally supposed to have at least two months to complete. Two whole months before they would be sent off to war.

But just like all plans ever conceived, they collapsed as soon as the brutality of the real world came into play.

Plenaria, despite its supposed overwhelming advantage, was losing.

The fall of the Kharan fortress wasn’t a freak event, an instance so unlikely only a divine intervention could be behind it. Yet, by failing to realize the true message behind this loss, the military command of the empire failed to stop the series of defeats that followed.

The massacre on the Howling Plains that devastated the Fourth Army.

The culling of Itto and Ratta, the two fortress towns that had protected the border before the freshly completed Kharan fortress took over that task.

A series of seemingly random fires that erupted in every other city of the empire, even ones located on the very opposite side of the realm.

And those were only the most known losses, defeats too big and bloody for the empire to censor the news and stop them from spreading.

All of that resulted in yet another change of plan and moving up of the deadlines. Which is why, rather than practicing the marching step across the training grounds at the outskirts of the capital, the freshly created troop was marching directly toward the frontline now.

The reassigned officers held back their curses. The cadets tried to hide their fear and anxiety as, with every step they made, the war turned from something they dreamed about to something brutally close and mercilessly real.

The otherworlders?

Out of everyone, they appeared to be affected the least.

For them, Kharan, Itto, Ratta, or even the Howling Plains? All those names meant nothing. They could very well have referred to some local dishes.

And by lacking the needed context, the inherent understanding of what those places meant to every citizen of the empire, they were the only ones who failed to comprehend the true scale of the conflict they were heading into.

’As if that wasn’t enough, after they got used to the very basic stamina training, they are now acting as if they are the heroes from legends or something...’ Ume gritted his teeth for a short instant before opening his mouth again to maintain the flat, marching count.

"One, two, three, four..."

His mouth moved, his voice sounded, but Ume’s mind was somewhere else.

’There are a few capable ones in their ranks, but...’

His mental eyes ran over every alien face he had come to remember.

Most of them were kids in the bodies of young adults. Close to zero discipline, absolutely no motivation, folding in the face of even the slightest hardship.

Not all of them, though.

By separating those with the best systems, Ume managed to single out a total of four outliers, two more than he initially expected.

Peter, the swordsman-system holder who was one of the very few in his summoned group that came with some degree of strength.

Be it through his system, training he did in the past, or just raw determination, he managed to rise to the very top of his entire group, reaching a level of strength even higher than the other guy with an even higher-ranked system.

Kayle, the single S-rank system holder. An elementalist trained in the arts of primordial magic, known to be one of the hardest disciplines to master.

She trained harder than everyone, Peter included, only sparing herself enough time to get a good night’s sleep before throwing herself right back into the study of her own potential.

With her system pushing her down the route of magic, after completing the basic stamina-enhancing course she was freed from most of the physical exercises — marching practice included. But now?

Ume looked over his shoulder, at the series of small groups of local cadets reinforced by a single otherworlder each.

He didn’t need to look long or far — Kayle’s group was very near the front, not falling behind the veteran units assigned to their troop for protection even for a single step. Kayle herself was at the very front of her group, marching forth without a single word or even expression of complaint, a look of determination and excitement mixing in her eyes.

’That’s quite the worrying mix of emotions,’ Ume thought, while his mouth continued to call every step of the army’s pace, only for the officers down the line to match both his tempo and his voice.

Ume had seen a few mages excited by their own craft in the past. And knowing how those often turned out, he couldn’t help but worry.

’Once she tastes the rush of battle and gets over the hurdle of killing people...’

Ume resisted his desire to shake his head.

’She’s a monster in the making. And with how the war is going, no one appears to be worried about whether she won’t turn on us once she grows even just a tiny bit stronger...’

The power of S-ranked systems was truly terrifying. They were existences marked by the will of the world itself to excel. And when combined with the traits that all the mages Ume had ever met displayed...

Still, for how scary Kayle could be in the future, she wasn’t the greatest source of Ume’s headache.

No.

It was the two least interesting guys in the whole summoned group that made Ume lose his sleep.

Chris.

From what Ume found out, the teacher of the whole group and the only one who actively enjoyed pretty much everything that happened.

Brutal training?

He could still remember that middle-aged man grinning like an idiot even when his students were falling down on their faces, struggling to catch a breath. And the way his eyes lit up when he first held a proper sword and donned actual armor?

Ume shook his head, not even realizing when he stopped the marching count.

Thankfully, the officers of this army weren’t stupid enough to let that throw their own count off, picking up the task of maintaining the march right where Ume dropped it.

It wasn’t Peter, the A-rank swordsman system holder. It wasn’t Kayle, the monster in the making, or even Chris, the weird military enthusiast.

No.

The one man Ume was most worried about was Lukas.

He was the only one to have a system classification that didn’t fit the norm.

He refused the preferential treatment he could get thanks to his unique yet extremely valuable healer system, opting to go through the full physical training with the rest of his friends instead. And what was the worst of it all... he didn’t stand out in the least.

There wasn’t a single noticeable thing about him.

Not a word of protest. No quirky hobby to spend what little free time he had. No controversial statements made during conversations with other cadets or his friends.

By all means, he was perfectly normal, almost no different from local cadets if not for where he came from.

That, however, was what first caught Ume’s attention.

Everyone else complained.

’Heck, even I would complain if I was ripped away from a peaceful life and forced into a war I have nothing to do with,’ he thought, fully aware that if he were to ever voice such opinions, he would soon be begging for his death deep down in the capital’s secret dungeons.

And yet?

Not a single word of protest. Not a single request made.

He was... too normal. Too perfect of a cadet.

Too average too, always ending all his stamina-building runs right in the middle of his entire group.

But his eyes?

Those told another story. They were too lively for the man to be normal. They moved too quickly for him not to be keenly observing everything around him. And then, there was this weird feeling he gave off to everyone who interacted with him, not something they could name but a feeling everyone experienced — Ume included.

’Just what the hell is his deal?’ Ume wondered.

It wasn’t the first time he pondered over it. Not the second, third, or tenth either. Yet, as if held down by some unknown spell, he just couldn’t figure it out.

Just like in all the other times, however, by the time Ume really leaned in to try to solve this puzzle, the real world came knocking, forcing the man to focus on the matters at hand rather than some distant, unverifiable suspicion.

And this time, it was a single shout that forced Ume awake, a single, short sentence screamed out by one of the army’s scouts.

"Baskar Tower sighted! We are almost there!"

Ume raised his head and looked at where the scout’s arm was pointing to. Sadly, without a horse and deeper into the formation, he could not yet see the iconic building past the line of the trees surrounding the road.

’Almost there, huh?’ Ume thought before breathing out a long sigh. ’How long has it been since I’ve last...’

Ume shook his heard, discarding the nostalgic thought.

’Once again, this is where the fate of the war will be decided from,’ he thought instead as he took a deep breath and raised his face just enough to start singing the marching cadence again.

’Just what makes this hell of a place so special, I wonder?’