The best part about being a squire to a Hero, beyond the recognition, was that most of the equipment he should have been taking care of, that most squires slaved over, simply never got damaged or even dirty.
Mithril armor was capable of shrugging off blows from an Expert knight without even getting scuffed, and according to his mentor, it could withstand a fully-trained mage raining fireballs and only have a thin layer of ash.
Still, some things needed to be taken care of. Leather, most of all, and while Leonard Weiss didn’t particularly care for the state of his equipment beyond its functionality, Oliver was no freeloader. He might have begged and pleaded with the man to take him on as an apprentice, but he fully intended to earn his keep.
Now that Belinda wasn’t there anymore to nag Leonard into caring for himself, it fell to Oliver to do so. So, after he ensured everything was working as intended, he left the armory and quickly walked to the courtyard of his teacher’s cottage.
I thought we might move to the courthouse now that Alpar’s under control, but he’s right that we won’t be here long enough to be worth it. We’ll begin marching on Thelma tomorrow, and we probably won’t come back unless we win the war or we are in full retreat, and I doubt that will happen soon.
Oliver knew it was a stereotype for a squire to believe their master was the best, but he felt he had a compelling argument. The Hero was the Hero for a reason.
He found Leonard swinging a massive slab of iron, heavy enough that it would require five men to lift it. No discernible effort was required for him to go through the motions of his sword style, though the air whistling and rushing with his every movement told a different story.
He might be the most powerful man on the continent, and yet he trains like a novice without missing a day. Well, beyond the funeral and the following days, but that’s a different matter.
“Sir! It’s time to attend to the troops’ training!” He said, using a spark of mana to ensure his voice could be heard over the loud swooshing.
Leonard stopped soon after, completing the movement he was going through and putting the unconventional weapon down, causing the ground to shudder faintly. “You are right; I was just going through a few basic movements and got lost in my thoughts,” He replied, pushing his hair away from his eyes.
Where one could generally expect a man, even a powerful one, to be sweating and panting after such an effort, Leonard was as fresh as when they had broken their fast. It was one of many little things that told Oliver he was even greater than the stories said.
He shook his head, pushing his idle speculations away, and offered him a warm towel. Again, mana allowed him to keep the cloth at the right temperature.
He knew he might never become a full mage, but these little uses of magic made his life much easier, and even if he didn’t learn anything else, they were enough to make him genuinely grateful.
The basics had been more difficult than Oliver had ever expected, having been little more than a street rat when he was taken under the Hero’s wing, but with his and Belinda’s tutelage, he had soon begun learning like a sponge.
He knew his mentor felt a terrible rage within at the death of his beloved, and Oliver shared that feeling. The depth of it had shaken him, especially since he believed he had scraped the bottom of anger and despair when fleeing the Void. Having to watch his family break, the very land turn dead behind them, had been hard.
This was different. Instead of the hot, fiery emotion of back then, what he felt now was a dark, slow-moving thing.
He had been aimless in his anger until Leonard revealed his speculations, and from then, Oliver had sworn to himself he wouldn’t rest until Haylich was purged of the corrupt system that had allowed such a thing to happen. There might have been one specific culprit who had orchestrated the whole thing, and they’d make him pay, but the bigger problem was the aristocracy as a whole and their system of subterfuge and absolute arrogance.
As they walked toward the 105th’s training grounds, Oliver cycled his mana through his limbs, allowing the rhythmic effort to lull him back into calm. He pushed the anger into that dark place that he held deep within and mixed it with the spark of divine Light his master had placed inside him the moment he became his official apprentice, allowing the two energies to mingle and become one, as instructed.
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One day, he’d wield that power to great effect, but for the moment, he only needed to acclimate to it.
Before they arrived at their destination, the shouts of men exercising and their stink hit them. An area meant for a few hundred had become home to more than a thousand soldiers, which made space a rare commodity. They could have trained outside the walls, but Captain Dortmund had rejected it, saying that the risk of their enemy sending rangers to spy on them and subsequently prepare Thelma’s defenses with a clear idea of the Revolutionary forces was too great.
It felt a bit too paranoid to Oliver, but his teacher approved, and so the order was passed without a peep of protest.
The soldiers, divided into six groups depending on their specific vocation, trained hard. They had access to several dedicated healers, which was considered a luxury usually afforded only to nobles, so they could continue for the whole day and sometimes into the night.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/fy0JwnZc/persimmon0-troops-training-in-new-formations-with-the-heavy-kni-b3a13aba-7aaf-4577-b9c3-139324c2be87.png]
Progress was fast and glaringly obvious. Men who started capable of only wielding a sword in one-on-one duels or had at the most experience fighting monsters now moved like a well-oiled machine as part of a unit. The tanks advanced with their shields in unison, making the ground tremble with the heaviness of their steps. The general soldiers kept their form steady even as they crashed against an equal group. The rangers flitted through the gaps in the opponent’s formation, punishing any mistake and retreating before they could be swarmed. The few knights present led their troops and only exposed themselves when an enemy champion was revealed.
All in all, it was a far cry compared to the battle of Alpar. There, the 105th had been the only force to keep its shape, and even then, it had slowly lost its cohesion as the enemy retreated.
In less than a week of constant grueling training, the minister of War had imposed order on his new troops.
I can kind of see now why Leonard wanted to get him on our side. Sir Gerard is a strong knight, but his greatest talent is how he molds soldiers. Now that he’s been given free rein and doesn’t have to keep to the kingdom’s outdated fight manuals, he’s become an entirely different beast.
Even before his training, Oliver would have been able to pick up on the differences, but after it, he could tell that compared to the force he saw bumbling about the first day, it was like a miracle had been worked.
A glance at his mentor’s satisfied expression told him that his suspicions about the origin of such a miracle were probably correct.
Oh, it wasn’t like the Hero had personally gone and Blessed every man here, but something didn’t fit. There was simply too much progress, even accounting for Sir Gerard and the healers.
“Grand Marshal!” A man shouted after the exercise was over, finally noticing them. The entire training ground screeched to a halt then, as the soldiers hastened to salute their leader.
They drew up into a line without the need for the sergeants to shout at them, and in short order, they were standing at parade rest.
The majority - the members of the 105th and the new arrivals from the 104th - had professional uniforms on, made of alchemically treated leather and steel armor, while the auxiliary units were more of a patchwork. Rangers, in general, were provided with less equipment than the average soldier, as they were much more resourceful. They wore simpler leather clothes, which allowed them a full range of motion rather than any significant protection. The tanks and knights both wore heavier armor.
They are not the professional army I know Leonard wants, but they are getting there. By the time we have taken Thelma and marched on Lamprey Port, we might actually have a capable force that doesn’t rely entirely on buffs.
“Atten-tion!” A sergeant screamed, and the men complied at once.
Leonard answered their salute with one of his own, followed by Oliver. They then proceeded to walk around the lines of men, inspecting their readiness.
It wasn’t effective for gleaning information; watching them fight worked much better. But it wasn’t meant to be. Leonard had explained to him that the men needed to know that the higher-ups recognized their hard work.
While he wouldn’t always be available for a full inspection, the Hero still did his best to get the troops to a good starting point.
When that was over, and the men were dismissed to return to their training, Oliver accompanied his mentor to the command position, where Sir Gerard and Sir Gareth were discussing something.
“I still say it’s better to focus on building up the few gems in the rough. I understand your focus is having a united, capable force and that you need leaders among your men to be able to handle the influx that will come, but developing a few elite units now will allow us to match the forces the kingdom’s army will throw at us once it starts moving in earnest.” The First Sword said.
Oliver still had trouble reconciling the image of the spirited, energetic man before him now with the sad drunk that haunted the slums just a few weeks before.
He knew that people could take a lot more punishment and bounce back at higher tiers. Hells, he had seen his mentor wrestle against an owlbear with just a loincloth without using magic and come out victorious. But the change was stunning. Men who fell into vice and despair usually only had a few months to live if they were lucky enough. Sir Gareth looked like he had never stopped taking care of himself. His dark hair was gracefully braided, and his clear eyes made him look like a knight out of a storybook.
“We can pick out those best suited for specific squads once they have more experience. Taking the few Expert fighters out now will dramatically weaken the force as a whole. They have gotten better, but not enough to allow such a gutting,” The Minister replied sternly.
Seeing that they were at an impasse, they both turned to the one man who could make a decision. Leonard hemmed and hawed a bit, reading through the reports the two men had prepared before pronouncing his sentence, “In the long term, we won’t be able to make do with a generalist army. I won’t be able to be everywhere to boost them at need, and overall, it’s not a sustainable approach, but I agree with Gerard that we cannot break up the force now. We have too few troops. Once they have some experience and are sturdier, we can start forming specialized Corps.”
And with that, the argument was over. The two knights were powerhouses in their own right, both capable commanders. And yet, they didn’t say anything, letting the younger man among the three decide.
Oliver doubted it was just respect for authority. They were too bright to allow mistakes to go unaddressed, which meant they believed Leonard to have some insight they lacked.
That belief wasn’t rare either. He had met innumerable people who went along with anything he said just because he was the Hero’s apprentice.
That kind of power might be scarier than any magic.