“The Obsidian Dessert is the name of a truly massive desert full of unique blackish-gray sand that dominates the western side of the continent. It’s named after the circular ring of mountain ranges that completely surround it, which are composed mostly of obsidian.
The mountains are a truly awe inspiring sight, their glossy black surfaces towering into the sky and shining brilliantly in the sun- which is contrasted brilliantly by the massive jagged cracks and wickedly sharp edges that have formed as the obsidian rock breaks apart over time.
Another ring of much smaller mountains can be found towards the center of the desert, surrounding a massive pillar of rock that towers so high into the sky, I’m not even sure if the term “mountain” is proper to describe it.
The strangely perfect circular shape of the desert, and the odd rings of mountains, have led me to agree with some of the more outlandish claims made by researchers over the years.
The Obsidian Dessert is artificial, and was created by an explosion of truly apocalyptic scale. The rings of mountains are akin to the splash that happens when you drop something in water, only magnified with such heat and intensity that it used the molten surface of our planet's crust in lieu of water. Massive waves of magma were ejected up into the sky, and then flash frozen in place.
This, at least, would explain the extreme amount of igneous rock found in the mountains, despite there being no volcanic activity in the region.
Whether the explosion’s origin was magical or scientific in nature, I doubt we’ll ever know, but I theorize that whatever it was, it likely was what finally ended the war of ruin. Granted, I’m saying that with little evidence, but if that was not what finally managed to end the Highborn almost five thousand years ago…
Perhaps, some things are better left a mystery.”
-Thaumaturge Ruem, “Vestige: a broken history of a broken world.”
-Broken Melody, Iron Will-
-Remnants of Steel and Spells: Ch 3-
The officer academy was a school for the best of the kingdom’s noble families to send their children to right as they turn 18 so that they may graduate as refined adults, with many paths now open before them.
It was not merely a place to teach war, it was a place to guide the hand of the next generation of rulers. It was a place of prestige, wealth, nobility, and… refinement.
And as such it was necessary to have classes that taught the soul the duty of honor, such as having the students learn the art of the blade.
Many of the… “rank and fodder” troops of the Royal Army might have objections about their officers spending more time training with swords than with guns or tactics, but such is the feeble mind of a commoner.
“You see, sword training, ensconced within the hallowed halls of our academy, embodies the epitome of refinement and grace. The art of the blade is not merely a martial pursuit, you see, it is an expression of one's innate elegance and dignity! To suggest replacing such esteemed practices with the crude and barbaric weaponry of the non magical make is not only lamentable but downright preposterous. Guns, with their brutish simplicity and lack of finesse, are hardly fit for a gentleman's hand.”
Or at least that was what was carved into the base of the marble statue of the academy’s founder- which had one quote for each class the academy offered.
A consistent metallic rigging echoed through the front courtyard, the clang of steel, the rattle of blades as they struck each other.
Students were put into pairs and squared off against one another, to show what they had learned in an honorable duel. Numerous blades crossed one another, but there was one pair that especially caught attention.
Onlookers watched on in amusement at what was becoming a common sight, as Rein and Nirinia got into yet another cat fight. It was a duel that Rein had to admit she was, unfortunately, losing. Slowly but consistently she was being pushed back, with shallow (but still painful) cuts on her shoulders and arms.
Nirinia smirked as she stepped forward, with a parry and a swish, and suddenly she was inside Rein’s guard. But instead of poking the tip of her blade against Rein’s chest or her neck in a way that would force her to coincide the match, she flicked her sword up and slashed it across Rein’s cheek.
Forward, swipe, backstep. No one other than Rein even realized she was intentionally dragging this out just so she could try to get in some more hits.
Of course, Rein wasn’t exactly complaining, it meant she could get in some more hits of her own. Which she proved as she caught the next strike with the flat of her blade, slid her sword up along Nerinia’s weapon with a loud scratch and a shower of sparks, then rammed her handle into the prissy bitch’s face.
“Gah!” Nirinia cried out as she stumbled backwards, blood spurting from her nose. Rein eagerly capitalized on the opening and swung again, which the bitch just barely managed to bat away in time.
There was a faint glow of blue ethereal runes around Nirinia’s handle, and a bolt of electricity shot along the blades as they crossed, zapping Rein’s hand with enough oomph to burn her glove and causing her to drop the weapon with a yelp.
A moment later the cold tip of a sword pressed against her throat.
“A poor showing, as usual.” Nirinia scoffed with a remarkably smug expression for someone with a broken nose. “But I win again, to no one’s surprise.”
With a sneer Rein batted the sword away with her hand, making sure to hit its blunt side, and rammed her shoulder into Nirinia, tackling her to the ground.
This was the High Officer Academy.
“Ow! You bitch!”
Honorable.
“Let go of my hair!”
Prestigious.
“Fuck! I’ll kill you for that!”
Refined.
“Not if I kill you first, whore!”
The place where the future of the kingdom was molded.
“ENOUGH!”
An invisible wave of force knocked the girls off of one another, and sent them rolling across the grass.
“This is an embarrassment, you should both be ashamed. To your feet, both of you! What do you have to say for yourselves?”
The headmaster of the academy stood over them with his arms crossed, and a scowl on his face. The clothes he was wearing could potentially be mistaken for a military style suit, if it weren’t for all the gold lining and gaudy decorations sewn into it.
“She used lightning magic in the duel, she cheated!” Rein held up her burnt glove that was still lightly smoking. “See?”
“Nirinia…” The old man sighed and looked at her with complete disappointment evident on his face, but was seemingly unwilling to do anything.
But why?
Rein glanced between Nirinia’s lavender eyes, and the Headmaster’s light purple one.
…That fucking bitch, no wonder she was getting away with all this shit.
“She was the one who started it, Headmaster.” Nirinia said between a wave of fake tears, and so much insincere emotion that Rein was surprised she didn’t choke on it. “I was just trying to have an honorable duel b-but she kept saying terrible things to me about our family!”
“Both of you will be receiving a failing grade for today’s assignment.” The headmaster shook his head. “Rein, you will have points deducted from your overall class grade for intentionally hurting a fellow student, and Nirinia… Nirinia come with me to my office, and we’ll discuss this further.”
“Yes, headmaster.” Nirina said with a bow, and without any evidence of the fake sob show she’d been putting on just seconds before.
“Yes headmaster.” Rein said through gritted teeth.
“Good. I expect the two of you to be on your best behavior from now on. Nirinia, follow me.”
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The purple haired bitch stuck out her tongue at Rein as she turned away and followed after the headmaster.
Rein watched her go with a glare.
Despite the headmaster’s wishes, the two’s bickering didn’t stop after that, if anything it only continued to get worse.
-Iron Will-
A symphony of music echoed through the night, along with polite laughter and the clinking of champaign glasses, as the gala went on below. The academy held one at the end of every month, where the students were free to dance, gossip, and socialize without restriction.
After all, the real purpose of the officer academy had nothing to do with the military. An establishment built by and for the nobility would always be for social networking.
A book floated over the main courtyard, above the band and the dancing and the painfully fake smiles that were exchanged. No one really noticed, or cared about it, or did anything other than make sure the library was locked tight. It was just a pest, something that stole tomes, notes, and scrolls.
So no one paid any attention when it lazily flew over towards the female dorms, disassembled itself into individual pages, and slipped page by page through the crack under the window. Once inside it reassembled itself into a humanoid shape, and used its new hands to pop the lock on the door to the room.
“Finally, it took you long enough!” Rein huffed as she barged into Nirinia’s dorm room. “I felt suspicious as crap just sitting there tapping my foot outside her door. If anyone came by while I was sitting there, we would have had to call this all off! It would be obvious who to blame when her stuff went missing!”
“Relaaax, there’s no one to see you. Everyone’s at the ball, I counted them all myself.” B9 waved off her concerns. “Besides, shouldn’t you be at the party? I would think you being the only student to not show up would be suspicious in its own right.”
“It would draw more attention to me if I did go.” Rein said as she pulled a leather bag out from under the bed and started rummaging through it. “I haven’t gone since the first one at the very beginning of the year. I’m from one of the lowest ranking noble families, I don’t have anything to offer to those narcissists, and my resources are so limited that they can’t even use me as support in any kind of power game they’re playing. I’m useless to them, they don’t want anything to do with me. The only one who seems to pay any attention to the fact I even exist is Nirinia, and that’s because she’s just a total bitch.”
“I think she pays attention to the fact that you exist, because you beat her to a pulp and broke several bones.”
“Yeah, well she deserved it. Aha!” Resin grinned victoriously as she pulled out a stack of paper from the bag. “Here it is! This is the essay due in History class tomorrow. If she doesn’t turn this in, she’s completely fucked! She made me lose 5 points off my total grade for dueling class. I'd like to see her recover from losing 20% of an entire class’ grade.”
Rein quickly put everything back in the position it was where she found it, and cleaned up any evidence that she might have been there.
“Lock the door from the inside, and don’t get caught when you leave.” She said as she hurried out of the room. She didn’t even bother to tell it to follow, because she knew it would do that even if she demanded otherwise.
She rushed out of the dorms, and slipped her gloves off as she made her way outside in the opposite direction of the party.
Half visible runes danced on her fingers, an unreadable dead language of an ancient race of long dead things. With a snap of her fingers the corner of the paper was set alight, and Rein watched the flames slowly spread with a cruel, but satisfied, smile.
It didn’t matter if she was related to the headmaster somehow, the only way Nirinia was getting out of this is if she somehow canceled class tomorrow to give herself time to rewrite the paper.
-Iron Will-
She somehow canceled class to give herself time to rewrite the paper.
It had to be her, it had to be! There was no way this was a coincidence! She couldn’t have gotten out of it by pure chance!
Instead of watching smugly as Nirinia fumbled through her bag, looking for a paper that wasn’t there anymore, Rein was sitting atop a platform with the rest of the 200 odd students attending the academy.
The platform was atop a small tower, and stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of the dull gray concrete and rusted metal that made up the sprawling military base that surrounded it. It was like a small slice of the officer academy had been cut out and transported into the real world, covered in bright banners, and furnished with exorbitantly expensive blue furniture that were very soft, but did nothing to distract from the heat of the blazing desert sun.
The school had decided abruptly to move the only field trip of the entire year up a week, ahead of the second quarter finals. Supposedly it was to give the students a chance to get a good look at the troops of the royal army, and see the troops they would theoretically be in charge of in person.
Two rows down from Rein, and with a much better view, Nirinia was busy looking far too smug to not have been responsible somehow.
Rein was so pissed that she had to force herself to look away from the purple haired whore, the longer she stared the more angry she got, and she didn’t want to lose her temper with everyone around.
Instead she turned her attention to the parade down below.
Long columns of infantry marched in a slow but perfect synchronization that had been physically beaten into them. Each was wearing the dull gray uniform of the army, with a rifle clutched tightly to their side, and a heavy metal helmet that covered their ears. Men and women marched side by side, ranging in age from late teens all the way to early fifties- conscription never discriminated, it only cared who could hold a gun.
On the wings of the parade, armored vehicles billowed smoke as they rumbled down the parade route. Some were little more than open topped cars, with tracks instead of wheels, and a anti infantry turret mounted on the top. Others were unpainted tanks that had been polished until they shined, but that creaked and groaned with every movement, betraying their real age. The kingdom still used the exact same designs that the great Phoenix king employed when he united the desert, over 200 years ago, so these tanks could have been first built anytime in the last two centuries.
The thought was that if these vehicles were capable of conquering the desert before, they could surely do it again.
But the real stars of the show stood out from the dull gray of the soldiers and vehicles, like a shining beacon. Marching confidently at the front and center of the parade, clad in full body armor that gleamed with magical enchantments, were the imperial knights!
These were the fist of the Kingdom’s military, they were the spearhead of every military campaign, and were worshiped as heroes across the Kingdom. The quality of a knight’s equipment and training varied depending on the noble house that sponsored them, with the personal royal guard of the King being without peer, but all knights were, without question, the most valuable force that the Kingdom had at its disposal.
The knight at the head of the parade (one who had the patronage of a particularly wealthy noble, going from the quality of his armor and the intricate designs that covered its surface, such as the bronze eagle heads that sprouted from his shoulder pauldrons), waved at the tower from the back of his griffon mount.
Many of the students oohed and ahhed, but Rein just rolled her eyes.
Three times the house of Schusswaffe had sponsored an aspiring knight to act as the family’s guard, and three times had that knight used the training and armor given to them to get an offer from another, more influential, noble house.
With how politically influenced the entire structure was, the only knight that she respected was her grandfather, who had used his own noble title to sponsor himself as an imperial knight, and he had died years ago.
Without the knights to act as a “wow factor” to her, the entire parade felt kind of… lacking.
Rein would have been much more impressed if she didn’t know it was entirely choreographed. The officers on duty had gone out of their way to shine everything up and make it all as clean for the visiting nobles, but since this had been bumped up a week early, they clearly hadn’t finished.
Rein watched impassively as one of the tanks slowly veered off course, and managed to half hide behind a building before the engine gave out. Several engineers swarmed the machine, trying to get it started again, and several orcs in chains were brought over to push it fully out of sight.
She wondered if they even would manage to get it started again. The knights were the front of the Kingdom's military, and they were privately funded by the nobility, the regular army was surviving off scraps of the national budget. Combine that with how old most of the equipment was, and you wound up with some truly abysmal equipment failure rates.
The situation was dire. Maintenance had become a constant struggle, with mechanics working around the clock just to keep the bare minimum operational. Spare parts were in short supply, and improvisation had become the norm rather than the exception. This wasn’t just a logistical issue but a severe strategic vulnerability.
No one seemed to care, of course, because the people with the important opinions were the nobility, and they had the knights eating out of the palm of their hand.
According to her textbook, the official number of main battle tanks that the kingdom had was somewhere around five thousand. But no one of any importance actually took that claim seriously. In all reality, there likely wasn’t a single person in the entire Kingdom who actually truly knew the real number.
The issue wasn’t a lack of record keeping- if anything the Kingdom kept far too many records, there were massive labyrinths of multi floored warehouses that contained nothing but cramped isles of dusty filing cabinets that stretched from floor to ceiling, and hadn’t been opened in years. Almost like hiding a leaf in a forest of trees, once a record was deposited into the Royal archives, it might as well be lost to time.
No, the biggest problem was that all it took was a signature from a noble to “prove” that equipment was accounted for and the law forced that to be treated as fact.
“No missiles this year?” Rein asked idly to a girl next to her
“No, of course not.” The girl laughed. “Didn’t you hear? Last year they had a grand military parade where of the 20 massive missiles that were triumphantly rolled through the square, but only 8 actually existed! Once the trucks carrying them finished the route, they drove behind a factory where some guys painted a new number on the missile, and then they drove off to do another lap. Erin’s uncle was the guy in charge of it, and he was arrested because it turns out he broke the missiles down and sold them for scrap metal!”
“I don’t suppose he was found guilty?”
“No no, he paid a big fine, but was let go after that.”
How many tanks did the kingdom have? The paperwork said 5,000 but the paperwork didn’t say how many had been sold for scrap, how many had their copper wiring stolen, how many were in disrepair from a lack of maintenance, or even how many still had appropriate fuel and ammo.
The problem was that there were nobles who were far too willing to use their power to further their personal interests instead of the kingdom’s interests.
Rein glared daggers into the back of Nirinia’s head.
“Excuse me, sir.” Nirinnia motioned for the officer who was accompanying their class. “That commoner down there, third in the left column, is sneering at us.”
The officer looked down where Nirinia was pointing, frowned, and said something to the soldier next to him who paled and rushed off.
Not even a minute later, the man was pulled out of line, and dragged off to the barracks.
Rein didn’t see him again for the entire rest of the time they were there.
-Chapter End-