“Alright you lot you will be given food, a place to live and equipment for the upcoming war… I only need one thing in return. You will be asked to train, train like you've never trained before. You will all learn many things by living here… It goes without saying that if you tell anyone my secrets harm will come to you. If you hurt any of my troops, any of my family, harm will come to you. Other than that… I need each of you to fill out a list of your classes and any secret skills you might have. Today there will be no training. Get comfortable living here. You can use the hot springs whenever you're not training and the mess hall is always open to my army. Anyone who is sick or injured can head to the medical bay for free treatment. These guards will show you to your rooms.”
I can feel the unrest in the people… Even someone who lives in the slums thinks they're better than a race that isn't human. I hope they don't do anything they will regret… Like attack one of my men… Their safety can't be guaranteed if they do. The bigotry of the humans, even ones who have come in contact with other races is obvious to everyone. Some of my men stare at the new group of humans. The fear of being thrown out by these, these who have most likely mistreated the other races up until this point… The day passes quietly. Nothing happens and the tension still remains. Each group seems to be judging the other.
That tension seems to break in the morning. The humans were hungry… If they didn't eat and speak with the food servers they would quickly starve. That morning the group dynamic changed as some of the humans show signs of finally dropping their guard around my troops. We get outside, some of them look well rested while others look as if they didn't get any sleep… They're probably going to regret that. I look over them again… Splitting off the few more sickly or small members to learn jobs later, the rest hand in their paperwork of which classes they have… None have any special skill, the class most have is archer… I was hoping for casters but almost none of them have those classes… That changes what I will teach them.
“Alright. For today you will spend the entire day marching. We will need to increase your fatigue for long distance traveling. Being able to travel long distances and have enough fatigue left to still fight if you are ambushed could save your lives. All of this training is to make it less likely that you will die in combat. Remember that as this training can be intense. You might hate me, I am fine with that. You can hate me while you are still alive.”
Altogether there are about 85 humans that are able to fight. About 50 of the humans that came from the slums weren't able to. Either by being to young or too old. Several of the mothers also opted out to continue to raise their children. About 25 of the 85 humans are archers, that is a surprisingly high amount. Because of this, I've decided to make these troops an archer unit.
It is barely an hour into marching before I realize how poor the humans fatigue is. I keep them at it, 4 hours of training and I allow them to take an hour off. Some rush to get food while others head to the hot springs to relax before continuing to train. About 10 have tried to leave, they attempted to go back to the city… I did not allow this, if these few leave it will set an example for the future. The remaining humans come back to training and see the 10 deserters running laps. The intensity of it is making some of them puke. 1 attempted to attack me when I stopped them… He is currently resting in the med bay after I knocked him unconscious… That night a few more try to escape… They are given the same treatment.
These men could be killed in the future… I don't care if I'm strict on them right now. They will either grow to respect me or grow to hate me. I'm fine with either. They can hate me while they remain alive to go home to their families after the war. These new troops could potentially save my men or the men of the other armies. They need to be better than what they are right now because of that.
The next morning I have their starter equipment set-up for them. I have 100 quickly made bows and sets of armor displayed. Most of this gear is of better quality than that of any of the clothing they came here in. It is slightly weighted to help transition to their real sets once they are made. Leather weighs more than what they are used to. Carrying a bow and backpack while wearing the new gear should be what they will be doing right now… But I haven't taught them yet.
“Today is going to be a bit slower than usual. We're going to break up the stress training with days of learning and rest so you don't burn yourselves out with training. Those of you who know archery already are free for an hour. You have to come back in an hour for archery practice though, so don't go too far.”
Since I had made such a spectacle of punishing those trying to leave, I doubt any will try for awhile. I teach the 60 remaining humans archery… I can feel the strain on myself from teaching them. I don't think they realized I could teach them so quickly. Some looked confused at the bow's I had given them until they finally learned the archer class… Even though I made the bow's have a very low draw weight, many of them are still having trouble pulling it back fully. It is like these humans have never done anything in their lives but sit in the city waiting for someone to train them.
Stolen novel; please report.
I have to restring all their bows before they can continue training… They are all terrible, which is fine for now. These people would have stood no chance against any army with any skill if they attempted to join the fight as they were. The king could have sent the weaker to their deaths in this war. Most kings would save their own men for defense while relying on mercenaries and untrained villagers to assault or hold more dangerous positions.
After an hour of training they start hitting the targets. Some of the previous archers are already trained enough to use the bows without restringing and can actually hit the targets… I have plans for the ones who were already archers. It feels like by me teaching them, they have started to respect me. I don't think any of them will try to head back to the village anymore… I think they realize just how much this training is actually going to help them now.
A day passes, I wish I could have taught them more but it takes too much fatigue to do so. I also want to teach several different classes, enough to make them far more varied than a normal group. Most groups don't contain a single class, this group will be different. With the same class to tie them together and hand picked classes to vary their tactics. They'll be far better than the average group of archers with random classes mixed in.
The next day it is more marching. Almost none of them are protesting now, everyone seems to be in much better spirits. Even after a few days of marching I can already tell they are all much better at it already. Perhaps learning the archer class also increased their fatigue slightly. The training continues like this for a few more days.
Each already had a different class already. So I could only teach 1 more class. I separate and teach 10-15 of them different classes. Scout, yellow mage, black mage, white mage, blue mage, beast tamer and ranger is taught over the next several days. Slowly, each subgroups equipment grows to match how they've changed so far. What was scrawny figures before now have muscles forming, marching has changed to jogging. Unarmed combat and mock battles are also part of their training now. None of this training would matter if they were to panic during their first battle. The only ones it seems fair for them to fight against is the healers but even they have to hold back.
I start teaching them various tactics of fighting different types of troops. From hit and run tactics against melee casters to using giant shields called pavise to block spells fired from caster troops. They are even trained to counter other archer troops. Another week of training and I realize I can't babysit these soldiers forever. They aren't a part of my army… I had only taken them in as an experiment. Perhaps to help the future of the army. In my mind, even a single group of trained soldiers is worth 10 times as many untrained soldiers… Which is what we have right now. An army of mostly untrained men to fight another army of untrained men.
If I had to guess on the amount of trained soldiers on our side… I'd estimate maybe 20,000… That's being generous. I would guess about 100,000 untrained workers and farmers make up the bulk of our army… Depending on how much money the king has saved up, I'd guess about 10,000-20,000 more mercenaries. I have no way to speculate how large the north's army is either. I would guess that some of the kings scouts would have a rough number as well… If I get the chance, I'd like to know what we're up against.
I go to pawn these soldiers off on one of my generals. They'll finish their archery training with Fayeth. Seeing an experienced archer might be good for them and she will teach them how to successfully surprise attack an enemy using terrain to their advantage. The next day, I decide to train them one finial day before passing them off. We do my old route around Shienta to break up the normal training. It will be jogging around the city until it starts to get dark. It feels nostalgic running this path again. We kill the slimes as they appear and try to attack us. Even though the archers are specialized in ranged, most also have a knife or dagger for up close fighting.
We're about the finish up for the night before I spot something off about a slime… Most of the slimes in this area are blue… This one is a different color though, like an almost unnoticeable change in blue shade… I don't think anyone else would have noticed the difference. I see some of the archer's near the front get ready to kill them before I call out to them to leave it alone. No, this one is special. Slimes sort of remind me of how I used to be. I go to pick it up, thinking maybe it wouldn't attack me… I was wrong though. The damage it could inflict to me isn't even noticeable. I hold onto it as we walk back to the fortress. I'll need to figure out a way to control this slime.