'Say, aren't there fewer people than yesterday?' (Dennis)
'The big mouthed noble kid isn't here.' (Michael)
'Where'd the chairs go anyway?' (Joshua)
I guess we can sit on the tables for the time being... Oh, he's here... with a black eye...???
'Settle down. Before we start today's theoretical training, I have a couple of announcements to make. First, for today's lesson, all of you will not be assigned chairs. As part of your physical training regimen, you are to stand with your knees bent under the table as if you were sitting on a chair. I hope you managed to get a good night's sleep, because you will need it. If you collapse halfway through the lesson, you will be assigned additional physical training later. Begin.' (Gwyn)
Oi, what kind of insane training is this? Is the person who came up with the syllabus a sadist?
'Next, I regret to inform you that groups 3 and 6 have had members eliminated last night. The good news is that the number of people eliminated from this class is less than the number eliminated from the other three classes. They will now be undergoing basic weapons training before being sent home. Yes?' (Gwyn)
'Instructor Gwyn, wasn't the selection supposed to take place nine days from now?' went a bookish-looking man that looks the age of seventeen.
'Ah, that. That was a lie that all the instructors told each of our classes to lull you into a false sense of security. If you failed to see through it, you'll fall for the tricks demihumans use on you and die. The selection and assessment started the moment you walked through the gates on the first day.' (Gwyn)
'May we know how they got eliminated?'
'It is our policy to learn from the mistakes of others, since some mistakes get you killed and you won't ever get to learn from your own, so yes. First, we have the pair from group 3. Some of you may remember the man as Morgan. He failed in his duty to watch over his comrade during her bath citing that watching an unmarried maiden was beneath his station, and thus both of them were eliminated.' (Gwyn)
'Wow, is what happened to your eye from touching a naked woman when she was bathing?' Ah, the troublemaker again.
'The student in question was eliminated because she failed to notice an incoming aggressor together with the one who was supposed to watch over her. If she was capable of giving me a wound like this, she wouldn't have been eliminated to begin with. Someone else gave me the wound last night, and in the interests of showing you that even I am capable of potentially fatal mistakes in judgment, would you care to elaborate what happened last night, Michael?' (Gwyn)
Huh?
'It occurred to me that if I was to simply keep watch, an aggressor might take the opportunity to stab my comrades in the back during their watch. I climbed a tree above our campsite and ambushed Instructor Gwyn from above when he was approaching Dennis' tent. (Michael)
You told us nothing about this in the morning!
'To be precise, he charged for my throat from above with the knife you were issued yesterday for fieldwork, and I judged that most normal aggressors would have at the very least had their throats cut, if not outright beheaded with the force of that strike. My mistake was assuming that students who barely started their training wouldn't try to pull reverse ambushes like this on me, let alone attack from above on a moonless night.' (Gwyn)
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What is this bloodthirsty shit?
'I managed to disarm him, but took this wound in exchange, and this will serve both as a warning to me and others never to drop one's guard. The other pair who was eliminated last night from group 6 was eliminated when the person on watch failed to account for a blind spot in the planning of the campsite. Both the person on watch and the one who was touched will no longer be allowed to become Adventurers, and henceforth, the remaining two people in groups 3 and 6 will merge into the new group 3.' (Gwyn)
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Nobles. Aristocrats. Those with two names.
While it is in the teachings of the Holy Gods that populating this land is one of the duties of humanity, few take it as seriously as the nobility. In Westerland, while commoners may own any manner of goods, only nobility has the right to own land, while the commoners who farm that land do so by the grace of their liege. Succession law is generally set such that the titles and associated land owned by a noble family will be passed down to their male children in order of birth, though in special cases nobles have been known to be granted permission to exclude certain sons from succession should they show insufficient ability to capably govern their lands. This also means that the number of sons with inheritance rights is limited by the number of titles owned by the parents, so a family with three sons and two titles will end up with one son that possesses no titles. As succession laws do not allow for female heirs except in the cases where a noble House would be terminated for want of sons, noblewomen are generally betrothed out to Houses of superior standing early in order to cement political alliances with the daughter effectively serving as a hostage as assurance of loyalty.
As the privilege of nobility is granted by the Holy Gods through their mortal proxies in the Royal Family, the mistakes of people with noble blood are generally recognised to be the mistakes of the individual, while their achievements are recognised to be the achievements of their House. It is customary thus to refer to nobles with the name of their House when they have made achievements of note, and to refer to them by their given name when they fail to avoid besmirching the name of the House, the Royal Family which granted them their rights, or the Holy Gods themselves who they represent.
Noblemen with inheritance rights as well as noblewomen with betrothals are generally educated in the ways of administration in Telos, which means that those who are here in Ashbury are generally men who have been disinherited either by position of birth or lack of ability, or women whose families were unable to find suitable betrothals by the time they came of age. With Morgan eliminated, the only remaining known noble in this class is Alicia of the Reinhart House. The duty of such 'extras' for their Houses is to either join the military or Adventurers if they are capable of doing so, as commanders with achievements in wars of conquest may receive new land under their Houses, and Adventurers with great accomplishments may be either recruited as nobility by Westerland to retain them within the nation's borders, or by a foreign land in an attempt to use their combat potential to defend their own lands against monsters. Those capable of neither will end up serving the Holy Gods as acolytes for the rest of their lives.
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'Before you begin your practical weapons training later today, I will cover briefly with you the types of weapons commonly available, the types of people suitable to wield them, the advantages they present, and their detriments. You will judge for yourselves what weapon you are likely to be suited to, and choose your first weapon to train with. You can switch it to another type should you encounter difficulties you did not expect when actually using them, but there is a limit to how much technique is transferable between weapons, so it would be best for you to switch earlier rather than later to avoid wasting valuable practice time.' (Gwyn)
Thud. The boy who wanted to bespell women to fall in love with him ran out of strength in his legs.
'One down, nineteen to go,' said Gwyn, with a somewhat disturbing smile on his face.