It took a moment.

‘You what me?’ how identifying someone is a way to collect information about them, exactly? I can identify him, or the commander, but that is not provide me with knowledge about his full name.

‘Very funny, man’ was his answer ‘So what did you talk about, hm? we’ve been here for a couple of months, an’ no one gave a damn about the rest of us…’

I thought about telling him the trust, as frankly, I do not see the downside even though he will tell everybody about me forgetting standard stuff, such as how to ‘identify’ someone, apparently. Yes, everyone knows about me been out of it, but there is the chance that someone will give me the help I seemed so much in a need of.

‘The Commander wanted to ask me about pushups – the exercise I did before returning to the base, as well as things he perceived as odd behavior…

‘Yea, that thing you did…it never seen something so weird. What “odd behavior” beside pushabs?’

‘Pushups. And for example, when I identify you, I do not get your name’

‘No way, man!’ he blurted. ‘Yo, Pucker’s Identify is broken’ he shouted over his shoulder, just to receive ‘I call bull’ from the toxic human whose name I did not know yet.

‘“What the hell man,”’ I copied his rhythm ’Why did you think its ok to shout that to everyone?’ I figured he is the ‘rumor spreader’ but that was a bit too much.

He smiled at me ‘because it’s fun, so why not? It’s not like someone will believe me. You heard Tropic, right? and you know why he didn’t believe, right?’

‘Nice to meet you Tropic’ I murmured under quietly.

‘it’s never nice to meet Tropic’ I laughed at that. ‘His personality is as bitter as it gets. Anyway, because everyone can identify, no one believed me. Try again, P.’ he half asked half command me to do

‘Try what?’

‘To Identify me’ as if it is the most obvious thing

‘But I know who you are, I can’t re-identify you’ what with this identify thing?

‘Very funny’ he said.

I raised an eyebrow.

He raised an eyebrow.

‘I am not kidding; I can’t identify you’ I said.

’Comon! think Identify when you look at me’ he pushed.

‘Fine, I will entertain you’ I gave up on figuring out what the deal with identify was and just did what his said.

Hu.

I did it again, as him looked at me worryingly. Hu.

It is not identify, its Identify.

Things just got interesting.

‘Man is everything ok?’ he asked me.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

‘Go away, I am thinking’ I answered and zoned out. What the… ‘Identify’ resulted in me suddenly knowing a bunch of things I did not know before, something like ‘’name: Jon How, hp: full, mana: full, stamina: less than half. In your party: low minus trainees-51.” All at once. It was a new and uncomfortable way to perceive thing, but also amazing and after a thought scary. Putting MANA aside, the existence of such a method to perceive reality meant exactly one thing: Physics as I know it is gone. Some things are familiar but Identify, a thing everyone uses without a thought? So far off, so alien. I knew I was not on earth anymore, curtesy of the verlocks very existence, but this? This is game changer, And I do not know the rules.

It took some time to calm, to figure that essentially, nothing changed. I am on a different planet without knowing a thing about its habitants, its economy and finally, its magic. As mana implies magic and Identify was magical.

Ah. I laughed internally, “let hope every time I got to eat something like that ill be distracted by something and will not taste a thing,” I thought.

I know I hoped to revisit my POO in a month, but I just had to add an item. Get to know magic, get used to Identify. Deciding to spam identify when headache would be sufferable seemed like a great idea. Maybe when we return to camp.

‘BREAKTIME’S OVER, LINE UP’ one of the verlocks shouted at the commander order.

Lined up, commander walked from one side of the line to the other. He returned to the middle and picked a stone ‘from now on, this stone is your enemy. When it touches the ground, you are on four. state-two position. Got it?’ A noise of general understanding waved over to him. ‘I SAIS GOT IT?’

‘yes, sir’ we chorded. He dropped the stone.

I dove to the ground, ready to do pushups. I looked left and right, to notice that more then half of the others did the same. Happy that I know what the commander asked us to do, ‘contrary to the give me fifteen’ from before I missed an important fact.

The commander cursed at us. ‘What are you doing? Are your friends going to suffer for you?’ he shouted on the guys who did not get to pushups position ‘No! don’t get down, watch them suffering.’ He stopped them. Time ticked. ‘On your fists!’

Time ticked.

someone grunted ’it hurts.’ It did hurt. The ground was littered with pebbles of stones, and blood filled our clenched fists, inflating them, making the whole thing more painful every seconds. I thought that a more a couple of minutes must have passed as me lower back started to hurt, my knees asking to touch the ground. I looked right and left; any saw others just like me. Some arched their backs,’ others dopped their knees, but almost everyone was shaking. I endured some more and was surprised at the next glance I throw around - among the trainees whose knees sent into the ground was one of the verlocks. I thought that these guys will have it easy. Guess I was wrong.

‘Ho, it hurts?’ the commander laughed. ‘Does any of you want to help him, little boy gonna’ cry to mama?’ he asked the guys how stood aside, watching us. Those who did not drop to state-two. He belittled them, laughing at them, all the will we suffered.

’Go, sit, rest while your friends work.’ he cursed, turned to us, and shouted.’ Knees Up, straight back!’ the knees got straight. ‘who do you think you are?’ he cursed ‘it is raining painful, and you quit? Is that all you worth?’ he walked around us along the line. As he passed one of the humans, the guy dropped to his knees, thinking he is safe, well after inspection. A second later he received a kick to his side. ‘I DO NOT CARE IF YOU BREAK FROM SOME PAIN.’ We could hear only the sound of the leaves for a second, then he squatted in front of the guy and quietly hissed:

’If pain is what’s motivates you, pain you will get’

I shuddered.

‘UP! Line up!’ he ordered us.

We went up. Those that were not abused with this exercise join us as well.

‘Congratulations, you are a on your way long-long-way to been real soldiers! as a result I will not be counting for you anymore. Isn’t that nice?’ he did not smile; I didn’t buy it. He paced in front of us, looking for something.

‘You,’ he picked a guy, ‘count. The rest, shut up! To the fence, and back. Three minutes.’

He paused for a second ‘Clock!’ the “clock” started counting

I did not know where the fence was and ended followed the rest. One thing was sure. Let him be hateful man, let him be the nice guy in a disguise, it did not matter. I started to hate him already. And I have only remembered less then. The others?

They were contemplating murdering him already. Probably.

‘…Three, four…’ the guy counted

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING? RUN ALONG! SHOUT! IF I DONT HEAR THE CLOCK, EVERYONE REPEATS!’

I am spot on about the murder thing.

We reached the fence at one minute.

we returned two and a half.

We repeated.

we repeated again, with a different Clock, and had the Clock count faster.