Chapter 8

Wizard Corps Installation 17B, Niigata Prefecture, Japan

Friday, December 2nd, 2050

Reveille came early the next morning with all the subtlety of a hand grenade. I don’t think any of us were really prepared.

It wasn’t our fault, exactly. We hadn’t been acclimated to the military life. While the Academies of Magic kept an early schedule, the first year at the Nagoya Academy resembled a Japanese High School. There would be time for a fairly leisurely breakfast, perhaps a quick visit with one’s friends or even club activities. I’d been part of Rose Cooper’s unofficial running club, for example. Then, most mornings would involve a quick meeting with the homeroom class before getting on with the business of the day. Very efficient and regular.

A literal trumpet going off at full blast in the small dormitory room was a bit of an adjustment. Old instincts kicked in and I rolled out of bed, ready to assume a combat stance.

Unfortunately, I rolled into thin air, my chin colliding with my neighbor’s bed before I collapsed in a fetal position.

“You killed Magpie!” shouted Kowalski, and I didn’t feel up to disagreeing with him.

Carine Lakhdar’s voice cut through my daze. “The hero of the Tower Attack had better be made of tougher stuff than that.”

As much as I wanted to curl up in a ball, I wasn’t going to let myself look too foolish in front of a pretty woman, even one old enough to be my mother. It was a bad habit. Maybe another moment to recover, though?

“Pretty sure Mag… Soren’s dead,” said Kiyo’s voice. It was faint, but definitely there.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I said, springing to my feet. I definitely wasn’t going to look foolish in front of ladies my own age! It seemed they had collected the female recruits first, and by luck, Kiyo was the closest to the open door.

“Oh, never mind.” Her tone was flat, but given my months of expertise in Kiyo-to-English translation, I detected the note of disappointment others might miss.

Mr. Lahlou lowered his trumpet. I couldn’t help but notice he and Carine had earplugs. Rather unfair of them.

“Gear up and move out, recruits,” he said to the waiting men.

“Uh, sir?” said one of the cadets. “They can see us. Oh, and the Sergeant, as well.”

“Points for situational awareness,” said Carine. “Points deducted for squeamishness. But, the first day is a little soon to get comfortable with that.”

Well then. I’d have to do something about my roving eyes as soon as possible.

Installation 17B proved to be situated in a valley between three mountain peaks. The walled based proved to was surprisingly small once we left it, and most of the space around us was dedicated to nature. We didn’t have much time to look, as we were led into the thick pine forests that surrounded us on all sides. The snowdrifts proved difficult to navigate until we got past the tree line. Once we were out of the deepest snow, we were spurred on to a steady jog.

“Are these a gift from the headmaster?” I asked. “Awfully convenient that the canopies perfectly interlace and keep the snow off this path.”

“Well spotted,” said Sergeant Lakdhar without missing a breath. “You’re absolutely correct; this mountain was clear cut generations ago, so they brought him and his green thumb in to give the facility a little privacy a few years back.”

“And these won’t die, like that bramble he grew on top of the Tower,” I said. “When does he find the time?”

“Lord knows,” she said. “I glanced at the calendar app on his phone once, and it was solid text.”

The Sergeant and Mr. Lahlou kept pace with us easily enough, though it seemed the technically minded Mr. Lahlou was running out of steam faster.

“They aren’t leading us on a straight path,” said Yukiko, who had come alongside me without my noticing.

“A test before the test, eh? Making sure we got plenty of cardio back at the school. Almost feels like old times with Rose.”

“Almost,” said Yukiko. “Kiyo’s still having a fit after last night and won’t talk to me.”

“She didn’t really talk to you before,” I replied.

“Before she was a little brat and would make snide comments about our War Game,” she countered. “Now it’s like I’m the invisible one.”

“Nothing to be done about it, I suppose,” I said.

We were on the opposite side of the base from our starting point by the time we reached a large clearing. Our instructors stopped us inside the tree line, and suspiciously uniform bushes blocked most of our view. What I could make out was that what I could see of the ground was completely free of snow. A quick glance with Mimic Sight revealed the presence of fabricata surrounding the open space.

“Translators in,” said Sergeant Lakhdar. “I don’t want to have to repeat myself.” We all complied, slipping in the ivory earpieces. “Welcome to your first exam! A wizard is more than a caster of spells and must be sound of body, as well as sound of mind. Since you all skipped a year’s worth of physical conditioning and combat training, we need to see what we are working with.”

Mariko and Kowalski had brought up the rear the whole jog, and their breathing was still labored. Sergeant Lakhdar gave them both a meaningful look before continuing.

“The Gauntlet is an obstacle course that you will come to know better than your own mothers,” she said. “You will dream about it; it is up to you whether they will be pleasant dreams or nightmares.”

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Her punishment the night before had stuck, since I had the sense to keep my mouth shut. Otherwise, I’d have blurted out that she was laying it on a bit thick.

That thought vanished from my mind when I laid eyes on The Gauntlet. It was long, but narrow; I could not see to the end of it, though the climbing wall a few hundred meters away was responsible for that. What was visible seemed like quite enough! There were pits full of mud with only suspended ropes to traverse them, rows of overturned tires, and other instruments of torture I did not recognize.

More than a few muttered curses left students’ lips. There was no reprimand, which seemed damned unfair. Then again, from her smirk, it seemed it was the reaction she expected.

“Breakfast is waiting at the other side,” she said. “It’s up to you to see if it will still be warm. Begin!”

It seemed the Wizard Corps had chosen good cadets; the assembled men and women tackled The Gauntlet with gusto. I found myself thankful for weeks of clean living at Bryndísar’s farm, and my life at the school in general. If I’d been shoved into that obstacle course straight after months of celebrating the fall of Britain, I would have had a heart attack.

I didn’t go full tilt, though. Bringing up the rear gave me a chance to learn from everyone else’s mistakes as more than a few wizards slipped into the muck.

It also gave Mariko a chance to catch up with me. Her fellow laggard, Kowalski, tackled the course with surprising enthusiasm. The farm life had done him some good, as the giant made his way through the tires with surprising speed, though he predictably ended up in the muddy pit.

“I’m not going to make it,” she declared, eyeing the path ahead as we approached at a slow jog. She still hadn’t caught her breath from before. Her lips were out of sync as she switched to her more comfortable Japanese.

“This course does seem a bit stacked against the, well, stacked,” I said, flashing her a sly grin.

“Exactly!” she said, ignoring my attempt at levity. “Oh, I wish I could be slender like Kiyo right about now.”

“Nothing for it but to try your best,” I said. “They’re bound to feed you out of pity if you take too long.”

“That is not the sort of encouragement I hoped for,” she said as we neared the rows of tires. They were laid out in parallel tracks so that multiple cadets could pass them at their own rate. After letting out a sigh, Mariko grabbed her endowments to steady them. “Soren, please don’t look.”

“What, I should be miserable, too?”

Her offended glare told me I’d need a third flower bouquet at this point. The tires required a high step to traverse, and taking it at a run seemed to work better than going slow. I obeyed her request, so I was never quite sure how she managed. I knew she was breathing even harder when she reached the other side.

“I will need more sports bras,” she declared. “Especially if I am going to see this place in my dreams. But please, go on ahead.”

I cocked my head at her. “Are you sure?”

“Unless you can magic up some more support, I am only holding you back,” she said, blushing fiercely. “Besides, it’s embarrassing. Just another reason I’m not cut out for this life.”

“I’ll get back to you on that magic option,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Stay strong, my dear!”

Once I was unencumbered, I took the course at full speed. I didn’t want to have Hiro embarrass me too badly. If I’d correctly identified him from behind, he’d just cleared the climbing wall.

The only way across were parallel ropes that were, by this time, completely slick with mud. The idea was to hang from beneath like a climbing monkey. I could see the trailing cadets having a harder and harder time as every part of their bodies became coated in a thick cake of filth.

Now that I did have a magical solution for. “Spot Clean!” The mud on my chosen line all gathered into one spot and I tossed it aside, nearly hitting a cadet who was crawling out of the mud.

“Wait, we can use magic?” He was so filthy that I couldn’t be sure if I recognized him or not.

“Nobody said we couldn’t,” I said, offering him a hand out of the pit, and I cast another Spot Clean for good measure, revealing a slim Asian man with reddish hair.

“Guess I should have studied the utility spells more,” he said. “I’ll get it this time!”

I couldn’t help but notice that he had stolen my freshly cleaned rope, and that there hadn’t been anything like a ‘thank you’. It wasn’t hard to clean another, but still.

Next came a series of pipes that forced us to crawl along on our bellies. I didn’t have much trouble, though I passed a panting Kowalski. Frankly, I was amazed he’d cleared the rope training.

“No shame in taking a breather,” I said.

“Can I have three?” he wheezed.

The climbing wall had stymied more of the students. The sharp incline went up a good forty feet, and more than a few of the handholds bore mud slicks. I wouldn’t be able to cast a Spot Clean on those with my hands busy.

I did notice Kiyo trying, though. There aren’t many spells that lend themselves to one-handed casting, and the position of the hand gripping one of the holds ruined the whole spell.

I’ve been told that magic is a bit like computer programming, and there’s a phrase that often applies: garbage in, garbage out.

When it comes to spellcasting, ‘garbage out’ tends to come in the form of blinding sparks. Kiyo called out in surprise and went tumbling down the wall.

“Slow Barrier!” I’d cast the familiar spell on instinct. It was designed to stop arrows and bullets, but with enough magical energy put behind it, the thickened air could catch a body just as well.

We ended up face to face. Kiyo tried to shake her head to clear it, but she was good and stuck. The irritation in her eyes was evident, but I could only hope not too much of it was directed my way. She tried to speak, but the shimmering air stopped her lips from moving.

A snap of my fingers dispelled the magic; no sense saving Kiyo if I suffocated her in the process. I positioned myself to catch her, though, and she ended up in a bridal carry.

“I… shit, that was close,” she managed.

“Are you alright, my… Kiyo?” I asked.

“Y-yeah. I really need to stop doing that.”

I wasn’t quite sure, since she was trembling like Mariko’s hand. I put her down before she could demand it, though. She brushed herself off, eyeing the climbing wall with suspicion.

“You got any magic to make scaling this thing easier?” she asked.

At least she was speaking to me again, even if I didn’t have an easy answer. All we had to work with was the cleared dirt around the base of the climbing wall, which bore dozens of standard-issue boot prints.

I mentally ran through my repertoire of human spells. “Seems like cheating to use a Svalinn’s Wrath to scale the hill… not that I want to see how the Sergeant would respond to me gouging up their training equipment.”

“Probably wouldn’t be a fan,” she said in a monotone.

I paced back and forth. “Spot Clean won’t work at this distance, at least not without a continuous wet surface to conduct the spell… Water Orb might wash away the mud, but it’d be an ice slick soon enough… A Fireball could dry out the mud, but it’d ignite the ropes first…” I shrugged. “I’m sorry, m… Ms. Jones, but I think the only spell that will do the trick is exertion.”

“Hm. Figures.” Without another word, she tackled the wall with renewed vigor. I took a parallel track, beating her to the top thanks to my superior strength and reach.

Once I’d cleared the climbing wall, there was a slight respite. The opposite side of the hill went at a gentler angle, so we could simply jog to our next destination. It qualified as a break, as the next challenge looked like a child’s jungle gym, forcing us to hang suspended by our arms as we crossed a sandy pit.

The rest of the course was physically challenging, but I didn’t have to bail anybody out again. My prediction bore out: there weren’t any shortcuts to be had with the spells I’d learned. The challenges repeated themselves, with another high-step tire section, a suspension rope above another muddy pit, and then another climbing wall. All shorter than the first set, but there were a few cadets catching their breath on the sidelines. It looked like going at the course at full tilt was a mistake, unless you were a mutant like Hiro.

Sufficed to say, by the time I got to the end of The Gauntlet, my limbs burned, but my bacon and oatmeal were ice cold. At least there was a nice firepit waiting for us.

Those of us who arrived at all, at least…