"Miss Anna! Keep up with the rest of the group!" General Belmond barked while I and five others ran laps around the citadel pasture pens. I heaved in reply and staggered forward, pushed on by a cocktail of fear, confusion, exhaustion, and anger. By the time I finished, the rest of the recruits were already draining their waterskins. I fumbled the cork off of mine and drank greedily, not bothering to cling to any sort of courtesy or decorum. This was only the first day and I already wanted to quit. Did I even need to focus on training like this when all it took to use the rifle was a simple press of my finger?!

"Yep. Because combat is all about preparing for that final moment, Anna."

I gagged on my water at Levin's intrusion. I felt him laugh and scowled at the ground, clearly projecting my distaste.

"Yes, squeezing the trigger isn't physically demanding, but getting to that point often is. You'll learn that soon when you're carrying that rifle and all of your gear through the wilderness. And don't say the Q or C words. 'Quitting' and 'can't' are now forbidden. If you ever say or think that again, then I won’t let you go out to fight."

He paused.

"Anna, you better move your ass. They are leaving you behind."

I looked up to see the rest of the group jogging to the next training station, which involved hanging off of a tall metal bar for 10 seconds, then pulling one's chin over the bar at least 5 times. At first glance, it was easy, but our clothing was caked in mud and our hands were slick with sweat.

"Get up on these bars, recruits!"

I had to high jump to reach the bar, and when I did, my palms slipped and I barely held on by my fingertips. For once, I was glad for my strong and dexterous finger muscles.

“Get your fat ass up there, Private!” Levin screamed into my ears. With a frightened yelp, I flexed my wrist, forcing my fingers to curl around the metal bar. To my complete and utter surprise, my grip stabilized.

“Good job, Miss Anna,” General Belmond nodded in approval. He must have thought I was about to fall. I shot him a strained smile. The corners of my lips twitched. “You will all hang here for ten seconds between each repetition!”

We all groaned. I grit my teeth as Levin began to count in my head, his tone snide and mocking. My frustration mounted with each digit and then exploded like a volcano. “Just shut up!” I screamed out loud catching everyone’s attention.

“Miss Anna, your rank means nothing on this mound of dirt. Here, I am king. Oh,” Belmond paused. “I forgot what number I was on. That’s all right, we’ll start from the beginning.”

Two of the recruits fell off the bar and into the mud, heaving.

“You need to learn some noise discipline, Private. Don’t worry, General Belmond gonna fix that issue for you,” Levin continued to mock.

“I hate this side of you! Why are you being so mean?!”

“Dunno what you’re talking about, Private. If I were mean, I’d squirt water into your face as you hung there - oh - great minds think alike.”

I snapped my eyes toward the foreboding crunch of grass and mud just in time to watch General Belmond upturn a whole bucket of freezing cold well-water over me and the other recruits that were still able to hang. To my absolute horror, he restarted counting, again. We hadn’t even done one repetition yet! My entire body felt even heavier with the water dripping off my clothes and I had to constantly flex and unflex my hands to maintain my shoddy grip.

“Up!”

Never was I so eager to pull myself up over a bar. My muscles, muscles I didn’t even know I had, screamed in relief as a different set of them were used to pull my chin up.

“Down!”

I lowered and resumed the anguish only to have my horror refreshed with another bucket of water and a slow 10-count that lasted an eternity as General Belmond regaled us with stories of the battlefield. Every time, he would forget what number he was on and restart. What should have lasted less than five minutes dragged on for almost 15.

“Release!”

My hands, fingers, wrists, arms, and even my stomach begged for mercy and I happily acquiesced. I fell into the mud below. I knew full well that the dirt in the pasture pens was full of feces and urine from generations of farm animals, but I was too tired to care. My entire body trembled from exhaustion and the cold. I experienced hard labor before, but this was a completely different beast. The rest of the recruits were stumbling back onto their feet, but they were just as haggard.

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“Get your gear on! Now we start training!” General Belmond bellowed and we scrambled for the barracks. The General harrowed us every step of the way with promises of pain and a stick to inflict it. Levin drilled me on how to equip my armor and weapons, and I was grateful, otherwise, I would have been a lost lamb. Putting on my own gear was very different from assisting someone with theirs. As recruits, we had to work as a team, so we formed a human circle in order to tie the backstraps. Then we picked up our weighted spears and sprinted out of the barracks to line up in the sparring area. I’d seen the soldiers form up here time after time when I toured the grounds with Levin and Lydia, but to experience it myself was horrifying. I almost dropped my spear. My grip was still weak and the dampness of my clothing made my armor seem to weigh more and ground blisters into my sensitive skin.

In front of us were thick training dummies packed with straw. Old, rusted, and dented plate armor adorned them. General Belmond ordered each of us to stand in front of one then another soldier demonstrated basic spearing techniques. We spent several more hours drilling these attacks, movements, and blocks until it was time to spar.

Beneath my helmet, my eyes widened in fear when Belmond pitted me against the largest of the recruits.

“Begin!”

I managed to parry my partner’s first thrust, but then he used his momentum to slam his foot into my chest and sent me flying back.

“Get up, Anna! Get up right fucking now!”

I scrambled to my feet and raised my spear just in time to block a follow-up strike to my skull. Then my world spun when my opponent swung low and swept my feet. Pain blinded me for a moment. I coughed spittle and gasped for breath. My helmet was choking me! I wanted to take it off!

“Open your eyes!”

My eyes snapped open and I rolled away out of sheer desperation and pushed myself up to my knees and thrust forward with my spear out of reflex. It caught my opponent off-guard and sent him stumbling backward long enough for me to haul myself off the ground. I wasn’t harmed thanks to my Health, but the pain was crippling and my vision was murky.

I lunged forward this time, channeling all of my anger and frustration into my strikes, but my opponent endured like a mountain and grabbed my spear then kicked me backward.

My eyes grew hot. Nothing changed. I was still weak. I was still pathetic.

“Anna! Don’t you dare give up now!”

I clutched at the ground, then an idea came to me with sudden clarity. My opponent loomed over me but I scooped up a handful of shit-caked mud and threw it into his helmet. Choking coughs followed by Belmond’s boisterous laughter echoed, but I paid them no heed and threw my full body weight at my partner’s legs, forcing him to the ground. He grunted but before I could do anything else, General Belmond tore us apart.

“Time’s up, good show!” Belmond was still laughing. “Today’s training is over! Report to the dining hall for your dinner!”

I fell backward into the mud but was pulled up by several pairs of hands. The recruits that I trained with. They helped me take off my helmet so I could breathe.

“Good fight.” They said in various tones. Their voices blended together and I could only manage a drained smile. As a group, we dragged ourselves into the hall and were served a bowl of mutton and ration bread so densely packed with nutrients that it was black and hard.

I devoured my meal with gusto, eliciting laughter from Levin, Lydia, and even Idyia. I was so tired I failed to shield my mind, so I metaphorically pushed them out.

“You know, we were worried you were going to pull your rank on us, Miss Anna,” one of the recruits said, a girl named Mary. She, like many others, was inspired by Levin’s adventures across Renalis and came to enlist in the military in hopes of joining the next Abyssal Crusade. “You’re dressed very strangely; we all thought it was because you were somehow above all of us.”

I looked down at my copy of Levin’s military uniform and sighed. If he didn’t insist I wear them, then I wouldn’t have bothered. “I apologize. Lord Levin ordered me to wear them. I do not know why,” I admitted.

“It’s all right,” chimed in Theodore, the hulking young man I just sparred with. “You’re just as dirty as the rest of us. Doesn’t matter what you wear, I reckon.” Despite what I did, and what we did to each other, there was a sense of friendship and camaraderie I could not deny. Was this what Levin was trying to explain?

It was only now I realized I was the eldest among these men and women. I smiled. “Perhaps I should cook our meals from now on? I do find this mutton to be quite unsatisfying.”

“The Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting is going to cook for us?!” Came another voice.

“Next time, I’ll prepare something pleasant,” I promised. Though the training was hard, I felt fulfilled in a way I never experienced. Perhaps a few weeks of this wouldn’t be as terrible as I first thought.

===

“Quit worrying, Lydia,” I said and flicked Lydia’s forehead when she tried to pierce through Anna’s mental barriers to see into her mind. “Anna will be fine. She just needed a little push on her first day. We all did.”

“That brute kicked her into the mud! Twice! I’ll flay him alive!” Her eyes began to glow with literal dragonfire.

“No, bad dragon-queen,” I pulled on Lydia’s ear until she smacked my hand away. “Getting the literal shit kicked out of you is a time-honored tradition in the military. And it’s practically a guarantee in combat arms. She wants to become a warrior, she’s going to have to learn how to take a hit. I want to run you through a training course too, honestly. It might mellow you out.”

Lydia hissed in such a draconic fashion, I had to laugh.

“I agree,” Idyia nodded, her arms folded. “Miss Anna wishes to become a warrior. She will have to deal with much worse.” Idyia shot me a glare and I recalled how I pinned her to a wall with arrows, then shot one straight through her foot. Then there were all the times I beat her into a pulp during our sparring matches.

“W-we’re good, right?”

“Guard low the next time we spar, Master.”

“S-seriously?!”