Chapter 2:

Titus turned around to see a stern-faced, uptight-looking city guard heading his way.

The city guard was in charge of—as you might be able to guess—guarding the whole of Baris city. Other duties included policing the citizens, and protecting the City Lord and his extravagant mansion.

The City Lord held absolute authority over the entire city guard. Orders given were passed down directly from the City Lord himself. Above the City Lord was the King. The king held rule over the entirety of the Kingdom. Which Baris city was, of course, a part of.

Above the King was the Emperor. Although the Emperor was rather young, his word was absolute. Orders given by the young Emperor had to be followed without question. He had complete and total control over the whole empire.

The stern-looking guard came to a halt directly in front of Titus, staring down at him.

After a slight pause he said, “Congratulations, you have been given the honor of being drafted into the Great Imperial Army.”

Titus stood there in shock. After a couple of seconds, he spoke in a nervous voice,

“I think you’re mistaken city guard sir. I am but a mere child, much too young to be suitable for our Empire's glorious army.” as he said this, he did his best to put on his most innocent looking face before continuing,

“Well then, now that we’ve cleared this misunderstanding, I’ll have to excuse myself. My mother will be furious if I’m not home in time for dinner.” Titus said as he turned around to leave, not waiting for the guard to reply.

Before he could even take two steps, he felt an arm reach around his neck and pulling him backward.

“Sorry kid, the City Lord ordered that any boy over the age of 12 or any man still of fighting age is required to enlist. You’ll have to come with me.” the city guard said in a somewhat regretful tone, pulling Titus along with him.

“Like hell I am!”

Titus struggled in an attempt to escape the guard’s headlock. He had almost succeeded when the guard spoke again. What was said made him freeze.

“Don’t run kid, a terrible fate awaits those who do...” the guard said in a flat tone.

“...”

Titus knew the guard meant what he said, and was not foolish enough to continue to try and escape.

“At Least he didn’t take my bread away from me…” Titus thought, somewhat apprehensively. Trying his best to make light of the situation.

Although being well read, Titus was still young and didn’t know about many things of the world.

Most of the books he read had nothing to do with the army or warfare at all. It wasn’t that he disliked these kinds of books, he just wasn’t fortunate enough to find a book on the topic that he could afford. Because of this, Titus was completely ignorant as to what the army would entail. Making quite fearful of what fate awaited him.

His eyes lit up, remembering something important.

“City guard sir, does the army provide free food?” Titus shamelessly asked, staring up at the guard completely straight-faced.

The guard almost couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the extremely serious expression that Titus had.

“Ahem!” The guard cleared his throat before responding, “Yes, of course. The Army provides free rations to all of its enlisted men.”

Titus gave a satisfied nod and simply said, “Alright then.”

Knowing there was free food involved, Titus quickly accepted the situation.

While it may seem silly, food was of extreme importance to Titus. After all, he has lived his whole life in extreme poverty. At the opportunity to free himself from constant hunger, Titus would do almost anything.

And like this, Titus contentedly walked along side the guard, every now and then happily gobbling a piece of bread as he went.

The city guard was dumbfounded seeing Titus now so readily accept the situation.

…..

After walking alongside the guard for a couple minutes, Titus saw a large group of men and boys of various ages gathered against a stone wall. Around a dozen city guards encircled the group, armed with spears. Unsurprisingly, it seemed the new “enlistees” were not trusted not to run off.

Titus took his place among the group and stood seemingly unfazed by all of this. All of his attention was entirely focused on devouring his freshly baked, delicious bread.

Some time had passed. Suddenly a hefty, arrogant looking, bearded man came walking over and lazily asked,

“Are we finished here then?”

One of the city guards ran over and stood tall, frozen in a salute as he reported,

“Yes, Captain! But it seems—Captain, that word of our recruitment has been spreading.”

The man frowned.

“Hmph, ungrateful peasants. The city Lord has graciously given them the opportunity to serve our great empire and instead they hide.”

“Says the man who barely fits in his guard’s uniform.” Titus thought to himself, snickering.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The man’s eyes swept over the crowd.

“Hm? What’s that kid got there?”

Seeing that the Captain had noticed his bread, Titus stepped back into a defensive posture.

The guard who had escorted Titus stepped forward and saluted.

“It’s just bread sir.” the guard said, stone-faced.

The Captain gave the guard a slightly displeased look before saying, “Whatever then, let the beggar keep his precious bread.”

Titus glared, he detested being falsely labeled as a beggar.

Despite having no money or possessions, Titus had never resorted to such a degrading act.

While Titus was still fuming over being insulted, the bearded man screamed in a commanding voice,

“Bring the chains!”

Several city guards came bustling over, dragging along with them sets of long steel chains. These chains were typically used for transporting prisoners. One set of chains was for their arms, the other set was for their legs.

One by one all of the men and boys were sorted by age, then chained together in long lines.

This took quite some time to accomplish.

After the guards had finally finished chaining all of the “enlistees” together, the Captain once again noisily issued a command,

“Bring them to the prison!”

Titus frowned.

“Prison? I thought this was the army.”

Some in the group finally snapped and began furiously cursing.

A man yelled out, “This is bullsh*t! First, you force us to enlist, and now we’re being treated like prisoners? f*ck your mother!”

“What did I do to deserve this! I’ve paid my taxes to the City Lord, and this is what I get?!” another yelled, in a mix of anger and despair.

“All of you be quiet!” the fat, bearded Captain yelled.

“All of you will temporarily stay in the prisons until we collect the rest of the new enlistees in the city.” he ungracefully explained.

“Now start moving!”

The still furious group began—at spear point—advancing toward the prison.

Titus, despite his chained hands, still held onto his precious bread.

…..

Baris city prison.

Once the group had arrived, they were separated into different blocks of the prison depending on their overall ages. The group Titus was in consisted of kids between the ages of 12 to 15.

Understandably, some of the kids in Titus’ group were crying, they were after all just mere children. Even Titus, who was typically carefree and relaxed about things, was starting to feel a little frightened.

The whole of Baris prison was located entirely underground. In truth, it was probably more appropriate to call this a dungeon rather than a prison.

Everything from the walls to the ceiling was completely stone. The only source of light came from torches mounted on the walls. Little good did they do, due to the width of the hall and the spacing of the torches, Titus could just barely see in this dimly lit hall.

To make matters worse, the only sound came from the clattering of their heavy steel chains, and the soft cries of those who were at their wits end. Other than this, all that remained was eerie silence.

For many of these kids, this was truly a nightmarish experience.

At this moment the group had finally arrived at their own cell.

Once the chains were taken off all of the kids were forced into the cell. The guard coldly slamming the iron door shut.

Instead of feeling sorry for any of these young juveniles, the guards seemed to treat these young kids as if they were actual prisoners. Whether it was because they were unaware of the situation, or the twisted, sadistic pleasure they felt from holding power over others, the guards treated them very poorly.

During the group's long walk, guards would beat anyone who fell over with a thick wooden baton. Inevitably, since they were all chained together, tripping was a common occurrence. More often than not, it was multiple kids at once that fell over.

…..

Having arrived at the cell, Titus chose a spot in the corner to sit down in and continued eating, while reflecting on the current situation.

Throughout the cell, the poor and terrified looking kids sat in silence. It was only after a couple minutes had passed that one child broke the silence.

“What are you eating over there brat?” an arrogant youth said with apparent disdain in his voice, as he began walking over to the corner Titus was seated in.

Titus instantly became annoyed, displeased at having his thoughts interrupted.

Having realized already what the boy was after from past experience, Titus calmly stood up and distanced himself from the corner.

Along with the approaching arrogant youth, two others followed behind.

Titus began walking forward while considering the options he had.

He could peacefully hand over his bread, of course, that was never going to happen. Or, he could strike first. That’s what he chose to do.

This was not the first time he’s had to fight to keep something of his.

Now being only a few feet away, the boy spoke again.

“Hm? You’re planning to take on all three of us?” he said with a sarcastic laugh, “You should already know what we want. Don’t you think it’s unfair, how could you not share your food with the rest of us? I’ve been down here for two days, I clearly deserve it more, now hand it over bra-”

*BAM!*

The youth hit the floor with a loud thud, followed by a horrifying—ear-piercing scream.

The surrounding cellmates were frozen in complete shock. They had anticipated for Titus to get beat up by the three bullies. Little did they expect that Titus would actually strike first, and in such a brutal way!

Titus seeing the boy approaching had quickly leaped forward, closing the gap between them. Then, without the slightest trace of hesitation—ruthlessly headbutted his opponent.

Even the guards who had watched with great excitement had not expected such an outcome.

Still screaming, the youth held his now crushed nose as a steady crimson river of blood ran down his face and soaked into his clothing.

Caught completely by surprise, he had never thought that this skinny, weak looking kid would dare attack him first.

Titus let out a long breath and calmly walked back into the corner.

The two lackeys that had followed glared with anger. However, they had no intention of trying to fight Titus after what just took place.

The three of them had been friends and were brought into this cell together. In the middle district, they were used to getting whatever they wanted from people just through intimidation alone. The skinny and frail looking Titus had seemed like an easy target. Oh, how wrong they had been.

Titus having been through a countless number of brawls was vastly more experienced than those three who relied on intimidation.

Although he had never learned an official form of martial arts, Titus over the years had developed his own rough, animalistic style of fighting.

Back in the corner, Titus was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed.

Titus at the moment was completely in his own world, completely blocking out his surroundings and just thinking to himself.

“Surely it’s ridiculous to get your nose broken over a half-eaten loaf of bread. Titus sighed, Poor guy, he was way in over his head. Hm? Wait, or was it more ridiculous to break someone’s nose over bread…? Hmm… Surely not.”

At some point the guards had taken out the bloody youth, presumably taking him to a doctor.

The cell now returned to its previous peaceful silence.

Like this, Titus slipped into a deep sleep.