“I almost don’t know what to begin with,” said squad leader Minell while pacing in front of Asay’s group of eight. She was practically snarling in her fury and looked ready to bite anyone who’d dare talk back. “Except that you were so exceptional in your stupidity, Naochem, that I just have to chew your ass first.”
Naochem, head wrapped in slightly bloody bandages, winced and stood a bit straighter. The unlucky boy had managed to hit his head on a branch while running and broke his nose as a result. Such a clutz, really.
They were all standing in line near the valley’s western-most gate, the White Gate, a couple of hours after the disaster. The five members of the group who didn’t follow the trend of running away whenever they felt like it – a bunch of party poopers, that’s what they were – had found Asay’s trio after slaying the first wolf. They then reported what happened and were ordered to treat their injuries before the higher-up got on their case, which was happening now, apparently.
“Now, Naochem, my sweet little boy. You met a scary wolf in the forest and it frightened you?” continued the squad leader, talking in a high pitched tone and faking concern. “But goddammit, Naochem, what were you expecting to encounter?! You were in the Wilds, you moron! Beyond the walls, beyond the Belt! There is nothing to meet but crimson wolves out there! And plated wolves! And alpha wolves! And pale horrors, and flesh golems, and draelins, and makaïds, and venomous makaïds, and titans! Are you gonna run away every time you encounter one of these creatures? Are you gonna yell in surprise when you discover it’s not your momma out there in the bushes?!”
“No ma'am, I…”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, I’M NOT FINISHED!” screamed the officer at the boy’s face, her saliva flying out. Holy shit, he actually did talk back! thought Asay, actually impressed by Naochem’s guts. Such a shame he doesn’t have them when it matters. Naochem, now one shade whiter, endured the rest of the speech in silence.
“What’s in your brain, Naochem? What’s it made of? How many times did I fucking tell you to only speak when talked to? How long is it supposed to take for you to remember that?!” continued the squad leader, looking darkly at Naochem. Her anger was understandable. As their officer in charge, she was the one responsible for their accident. Even if it had resolved itself in the end, it would still reflect quite badly on her. “Anyway, where was I… Hmm, no matter. Let’s move on to your second stroke of genius, the ‘running away in the opposite direction to the Belt’ one. I loved that part when I read the report, really”. He hadn’t fled in the opposite direction per se, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood for subtlety and surprisingly Naochem decided not to correct her.
“Naochem, do you know how fucking dangerous what you did was? Do you know why you should have run toward the Belt? Yes you idiot, that’s a permission to speak.”
“Well…” began the boy.
“Actually no, I don’t want to hear your voice, so please shut up. The Belt is that one-kilometer wide zone that circles around the whole valley and siphons the aether out of it. You ever heard of it? Does it ring any bells? Oh, it does? Then why didn’t you fucking run toward it, Naochem?! The Belt is the only thing keeping us alive, you idiot! The Valley’s walls are tall and fancy, but they’d crumble within two days without the Belt driving the bulk of them out. It’s a death zone for the monsters out there. An aether-deprived zone is unlivable for them. It’s almost unbreathable to them. They usually hardly feed themselves once every three days, it’s the aether that keeps them alive and moving. Even the meanest of these fuckers would be hard-pressed to survive more than half an hour in there and even then, they’d get weaker by the minute. Within the Belt, we’re safe. You get into trouble, you run to the Belt. Your party gets wiped out, you run to the Belt. You panic because you almost kissed a crimson wolf’s ass. You. Run. To. The. Belt. Did I get myself clear?”
“Yes ma’am!” yelled the boy.
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“I sure hope so. Tch, you brat. Now, let’s see who’s next. Oh right, Asay. Dear little Asay. To tell you the truth, I’m actually disappointed in you. If Naochem being a coward doesn’t surprise me,” she said without caring about the hurt look on the bandaged boy’s face “you being a fucking idiot does. I thought you had a good head on your shoulders. I thought you had what it takes to be out there. Yet, you ran away from a fight, just like your friend, without even having the excuse of being panicked! What were you thinking? You saw your friend running toward death and you decided to follow right after him? Is this what this is, Asay? Are you depressed? Tired of life? You want to get it over with? No? That’s not what it was? Then that was just you being incredibly fucking stupid, is that it?”
Stopping in front of Asay, squad leader Minell glared at him for a moment before sighing. “Alright, you brats. It appeared you all slept during training so I’ll give you a small lecture on what to do when one of you teammate decides to go pick flowers somewhere else in the middle of a fight. Listen carefully, ‘cuz I won’t say it twice. When it happens, you do nothing. You let him go. The group’s survival is what matters and you can’t jeopardize it for the sake of just one person. I’m deadly serious Opora, wipe out that grin from your face right now or I’ll do it myself. Good.” She did look serious. So serious it made Asay’s heart clench. She can’t be speaking from experience, can she…?
“What I’m telling you applies to most situations, actually. If one day a member of the group gets seriously injured and wails on the ground, yet the situation forces the rest to retreat, you retreat. You’ll cry for the one left behind later. Your survival comes first. If one day a friend has to stay back to bring up the rear or has to become a living bait to distract monsters, you don’t talk back, you don’t refuse. You swallow your feelings and you run. Does it makes sense to you idiots?”
“Yes ma’am!” replied the eight young enlistees as one.
“Does it makes sense to you, Yva ?”
“Yes ma’am!” answered the [Psyker], understanding that her turn had come.
“You sure?”
“Yes ma’am!”
“And that’s what you did earlier today, right?”
“… No ma’am.”
“ Oh? Oh, I’m so surprised, Yva! And yet here you were, yelling you knew how to react in such situations. Were you lying to me, Yva?”
“No ma’am!”
“Then please, enlighten me. What were you thinking when you decided to be the third, the fucking third, moron in the group to desert a fight and put the rest of your party in danger? Do you guys realize it means that more than a third of your little group ran out in front of the first monster you encountered? Anyway, Yva, go ahead, what was the reasoning, please tell me.”
“…”
“Yeah, I guessed as much. Weren’t thinking much, were you? You are the leader of this merry band of idiots, Yva. Naochem can make mistakes. Asay can fuck around. You can’t. Not you. Their survival depends on you. On you keeping your cool in even the worst situations.”
The stern officer, who had slowly walked until she was right in Yva’s face, started pacing in front of them again. She was calmer now, having already vented a good deal of her frustration on them. It also appeared that the part about abandoning comrades when the need arose had calmed her greatly.
“Alright, I’m tired of yelling at you idiots. There’s only one last thing I’ve got to say. Well, two, actually, then I’ll be on my way. The first one is, well, that I’m so disappointed in you guys. It was your first encounter with monsters in the Wilds and the only way it could have gotten worse was if one of you had died back there. It was a disaster and all you learned during my training was clearly immediately thrown out of the window… because you encountered two fucking crimson wolves.
“Crimson wolves are pretty much the individually weakest monsters you could have encountered and yet it ended up like this. Their threat comes from their numbers, they roam usually by the half dozen, sometimes much more. You encountering these two beasts was like the Wilds gently patting on your head and calling you naughty. I mean, did you realized that these two were barely even a week old! They couldn’t yet use their natural skills and they weren’t even fully grown, godammit!” A few members of the group paled, including Asay. They hadn’t realized at all. “You will never encounter anything easier than this, you understand?”
“Anyway. You guys are not up to par, clearly not. Your next encounter will end up in a bloodbath and that brings me to the last thing I have to tell you. To remedy this situation and to make sure you remember the lesson, you’ll spend the next two weeks training back in the barracks, under my supervision. Your pay will be cut for the duration of your punishment and these two weeks will be subtracted from the total duration of your service.” She ignored the groans that escaped from the group and finished her speech. “Alright, that will be all. I’ll be expecting you tomorrow morning on the training field. Sleep well, my dearlings, you’ll need it.”