"Nestor, Kalra you two take out your manuals as well and start practicing, I will check on your progress to give you pointers in about two hours.
Cole's out. Oh, I almost forgot, Nestor, will have to train with weights for the entirety of the next session. And I'm getting you off lightly since you're quite promising."
The captain was still somewhat holding it for Nestor's act of insubordination. Fortunately, that was only during training, and it was not like Nestor had no reason to be angry in the first place.
Yet it didn't matter, in the army, you had to respect your commanding officer, or else you'd be receiving punishment. Which depended on the gravity of the action and the will of the officer himself, but seldom reached the death penalty. Cutting your platoon forces meant also reducing your chances of victory. Even if it seemed like a pretty obvious concept, the Army of the Council wasn't united as a whole, and was the norm for platoons and squads to act independently.
To sum it up, the responsibility of failing a mission fell entirely on the commanding officer himself. The punishment for that could be even worse than death, depending on the importance of the assignment.
"Please Captain wait for a second! I wanted to ask you something important. Perhaps do you know why Nessa and Isaac didn't attend today's training?"
That's who's been missing! Nestor somewhat felt it before, but the Captain continued the training as if expecting their absence. Thus he cast aside the thought, as he had more important matters at hand.
A small sigh and an irritated expression told Marco that the Captain's response wouldn't be pretty.
"Their case it's complicated. The girl doesn't want her brother to fight, but I told her numerous times that he signed the contract, and so must abide by it.
Else the bird of sin would come to claim his soul. But damn if she was stubborn, let's say she got acquainted with someone I'd rather not get in touch with.
From today onward they'd be changing their assigned squad. That's all, now get back to work!"
'As I thought, that child's future must have really troubled her. But still, if she remained a little more I'm sure she would have remained.
He might as well be an asshole, but deep down, Captain Cole is a good person.'
Nestor wasn't particularly attached to the duo of brother and sister, he barely felt a sense of comradery towards them, but nothing else.
On the other hand, however, Marco felt much closer to Nessa as he saw her more like a real friend. One of the few he met during his brief journey at the cursed citadel.
their departure did sadden him, but still, it wasn't like they wouldn't be able to see each other anymore, they could meet outside of the academy, or perhaps after their year of mandatory conscription. Or so he thought.
Sword's dance seemed rather complicated at first sight. It was a thick illustrated volume with very few written descriptions and many, simplistic, images of martial moves. Lastly, the manual was divided into three different sections, basic, advanced, and expert.
On the other hand, Ancient self-defense for beginners what structured in a completely different way. It was almost all text, with very few illustrations, and wasn't organized in subsections.
From what he could understand, the manual for hand-to-hand combat was what he needed more at the moment. As it started with the fundamentals of body strengthening and other exercises to increase your core strength.
Then it went up explaining combat stances and battle awareness. Lastly, it presented a full course of hand-to-hand battle techniques and holds. It even went as far as teaching to immobilize your opponent or take them under a suppressive grip.
The other manual, was much more appealing, even if it wasn't what Nestor truly needed. It taught exquisite footwork and many fancy moves to perform with the sword. It would have been very cool to learn them.
Still, just thinking about it more seriously, made Nestor realize that first things first, he needed to make up for his general inexperience in the scope of the battle. Even if he did somehow trample his two previous matches, it could have gone much worse.
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Red had been crippled even before the fight, as he couldn't use one of his arms. He also had greatly underestimated Nestor, not taking into account his soul powers.
Karla was simply weak, like him she wasn't a fighter and had, apparently, not become either a spirit caller or a soul master.
What if his opponent instead, had been someone like Alais or Won, his chances of winning would have significantly dropped. He had to do better, to train harder.
Thus Nestor started following the steps for physical training, starting with the basics. Without rest, he began doing the horse stance, the plank position, and balancing exercises on one leg.
Then he switched on doing the sort of push-ups, squats, and the boat stance.
All the while, Marco come up to him and gave thumbs up, coupled with more suggestions to help correct his forms.
Nestor was dead tired, a little more than an hour of the manual's training and he felt to heìave fallen into hell. His movements were generally quite awkward, as he had never really trained before, nor had he ever heard of such practices. Yet in the manual, they were described with precision and weren't that hard to understand, but a few gimmicks which Marco helped him with.
Then was time for him to try about a few battle stances, even if he felt like wasn't very talented in doing so. They were many poses than had the goal of protecting his vitals while at the same time permitting him to be ready to strike at any moment.
In his practice, Nestor seemed to be very stiff and insecure. Thought, today seemed to have lady luck by his side.
"Don't worry, everyone has passed that stage, but you won't ever improve if you don't try it seriously and with consistency. Let me take a look at your manual, I'll help you."
Won's help was much appreciated, all minor doubts disappeared as soon as he started explaining and performing the stances for him to see. He was indeed a refined warrior, his precise, firm movements and confidence assured Nestor of it. However he couldn't help but ponder, why did someone like him enroll in the army via standard means.
With his skills yet lack of war achievements, it was clear to Nestor that he must've belonged to an important faction and had been carefully nurtured.
Time quickly passed by, and towards the end of the two hours limit, Nestor wanted to spice things up and try a few fancy moves from 'sword's dance.
"Mortician, Sir, the infirmary team has already prepared the corpses, they are ready and yours for the taking."
Cole still couldn't understand why morticians needed the bodies condition to be restored.
'Couldn't they just shove them down to Greta? If it was for me I'd throw them down the abyss for the revenant to feast on.'
The mortician was a tall man, about 1,9 meters (6'2), he had white pale skin and was wearing a long, black leather dress coupled with a pair of elegant, black linen trousers. Covering his face was a thin dark veil.
Hanging from his belt were two, long needle-like swords, similar to an estoc, yet so thin one couldn't but question their durability in battle.
"Well done, may they find peace in eternal slumber. The dark end does not discriminate based on how you were before.
Death will come for you, to make you company on your way to the hereafter."
Cole had always seen morticians as a crazy lot, they all fanatically idolized death and often spoke about its promised realm. The hereafter, the eternal kingdom, guiding you through the darkness, Death was supposed to escort you there personally.
He didn't believe in their crap, it was just another false hope, masquerading as an irresistible sweet with the sole purpose of roping you into their circles.
As they got closer to the center of the grounds, Cole notice Nestor's bizarre pirouettes and dance moves. The trainee was way too rigid, he simply didn't possess enough flexibility to perform such movements. At least he had a decent follow-up with his sword. But before any of that could be of any actual help in battle, the man needed much more training. Hopefully, this wasn't all he achieved in the two full hours' worth of time.
"We greet the esteemed messenger of death. May its dark grasp bring you to the eternal kingdom."
'Dman it, not them as well! What a bunch of weirdos!'
Seeing the three brothers, Won, Chong, and Hun kneeling in front of the mortician and spewing random stuff made Cole's heart plummet.
In Ceres lunatics, cultists, and even something worse, were somewhere lurking in the darkness, everyone old enough, knew that much and had probably already encountered them at least once.
Those that deified the aspect of death were the most known to the general knowledge, as encountering their shepherds, the morticians, wasn't that hard. If someone died, they or their underlings would come and pick up their cadavers.
' He's saying that weird stuff again and seems to be somewhat close with the mortician. I'm so curious, I'd have so many questions to ask. If we ever get to hold a private conversation I'll ask Won about it.'
Nestor, that had yet to forget Won's bizarre words at the last training session, was dying to know what this 'Death' thing was all about. But that had to be a topic for another time.
"Sorry everyone, my search for the mortician had taken me far too long and I'll have to end today's lesson here. But don't worry! I'll make sure to compensate you and train you harder the next time!
Oh, oh! All this excitement, please stop crying, I know you're all ecstatic at the idea, but contain yourself."
Seeing the long faces, Cole couldn't help but throw a little joke, laughing out loud on the inside.
"Now, all the cadets that had been enrolled in the biology class by their teacher, get over the fountain in an orderly manner. Teresa is waiting for you there, she'll take you to the professor."