Chapter 6-Enlistment

Light made its way into the military tent. A boy with scarred ears was sitting on a cot looking down at his hands. He was fidgeting with them. The boy seemed nervous. Eventually footsteps were approaching the tent. The boy looked up at the man that was at the entrance of the tent and asked “Yes?”

The boy was Raven, and the man was Folin. Folin looked at Raven with a smile and said, “The commander has called for you.” At this Raven stood up and took a deep breath, he was not excited to see the commander again. It had been two days since he met the commander for the first time, and it was a very intense meeting.

Since then, Raven had made the tent, the commander gave him his home. His tent was located in an encampment that housed all of the military individuals that lived in Akro Village. It was still in the village but had become its own district because of the lack of civilians.

They served food three times a day in the mess hall, which was just a big building in the middle of all the tents and facilities in the encampment. The encampment was based on the outskirts of the village, so it could protect against attacks from this side. There were four different encampments like this in Akro village, they were located in every direction. Raven was in the east military camp.

Raven had not done anything other than eat at the mess hall, sit in his tent, and talk to Folin and Eren. His injuries healed a day later, to his surprise. When the doctor told him his regeneration speed was elevated, he didn’t know it was to the extent of healing a broken arm and multiple ribs in 24 hours.

“Okay, lets go” Raven said with a sigh as he walked with Folin towards the commander’s tent. The commander had an office in the village and a tent in the encampment. They made their way to the outside of the tent and Folin stopped.

Raven looked at him and said, “What are you doing, let’s go inside.”

Folin looked at Raven and replied, “He only asked for you, if I go inside I’ll be prosecuted for insubordination” Folin chuckled “Don’t worry, I think he did all that stuff the other day because he wanted to intimidate you.”

Raven did not believe him, but he couldn’t do anything now. He said goodbye to Folin and opened the entrance to the tent and walked inside. What he saw inside was close to what he suspected. There was a large table in the middle of the tent and on the wall in front of it was what looked like a large map of Akro village, but the first thing Raven saw was five people sitting down at the table.

At the head of the table was the commander, but the other four to his right and left were unfamiliar to Raven. The Five people then looked at Raven as he was finished examining the tent. The commander was the first to say something.

“Ah, Raven. Please come and take a seat.” The commander said with a smile. He was acting a lot kinder than he did in his office 2 days prior. Raven looked at him and then looked at the chair at the opposite side of the table from the commander. ‘Well, here goes nothing’ Raven thought, he then walked towards the seat and sat down. The four other people in the room only watched as the interaction between Raven and the commander occurred.

Out of the four strangers, three of them were men and one was a woman. The three men had similar builds to the commander other than the fact that they looked less battle hardened. Each of them had a few scars, but it could not be compared to the amount the commander had. The Woman though did not have any scars and was very petite. She looked like she would have a normal job far from being military related.

After Raven sat down, the commander spoke again “I am very busy so I will make this quick, Raven, I want you to enlist in Akro Village’s military. If you don’t though, we’ll need to banish you from the village.”

Raven’s mind went blank, he was not expecting this at all. ‘What the hell is he talking about, I thought he said I had a year until I had to leave the village, but he wants to kick me out if I don’t enlist?’ Raven thought, every moment he was slowly growing angrier.

“Why?” Raven yelled said, demanding an answer.

“Watch it, boy!” said one of the men at the table as he was starting to get up from his seat. The man had red hair and had an angry expression on his face. After the man said this, the commander motioned for him to calm down and to be quiet. The man then looked at the commander and said “Sorry sir” while sitting back down.

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“Raven, we have already discussed why you will have to eventually leave the village in private, but we can’t have a random person doing nothing in the military encampment. I also think your talents are wasted on a normal job so the only choice I’m giving you is to join the military.” Said the commander.

Raven would have been surprised if he had been able to laze around the military encampment for an entire year, so this didn’t come as much as a surprise as he thought it would have been. It’s just that he didn’t know what being in the Akro military would mean for him.

He wanted to leave the village as soon as possible because he wanted to take revenge for his family, its just one thing was wrong with that thought. How would he get revenge even when his father, the strongest person he knew, fell to the invaders? He needed to get stronger, he needed to become better than those that have wronged him. Maybe joining would help him with his goal?

After thinking about it over and over in his head, Raven then said, “Okay, I will enlist.” After hearing this the commander was overjoyed and said “Good, then we will need to get you trained. You will mostly be doing the rudimentary training with the other soldiers, but you will also have private training sessions with me.

It was like a bomb dropped after he said this. “What? Sir, are you sure, if people heard about this, they would surely think you have given up on Oliver.” Said a brown headed man. It seemed the red-haired man and the woman all shared his concern. The Black-haired man who had stayed silent all this time though didn’t seem to care for the conversation. He just looked on like it didn’t concern him.

“That is why they will be private and unknowable to the public. I don’t want any one of you to tell anybody, I will inform my disciple, Oliver, when the time comes. He will understand and if he does not then I will make him.” The last words he said sent shivers down the backs of the five other people in the room.

Then the commander smiled, changing topics. “Now, Raven, let me introduce you to the 4 captains of the East encampment.” He said while motioning to the four people sitting down at the table. Raven looked at them and then thought ‘Oh, that’s why they are here.’

The commander then pointed to the red headed man and said, “This is Aldo, he is the captain of the east camps sentinels, it consists of the higher trained soldiers in the east camps military.”

Raven heard this and said, “Nice to meet you.”

Aldo looked at him and replied, “Keep yourself in check next time.”

‘What a dick’ Raven thought. He knew that this guy was going to be annoying once he flared up earlier based on how Raven talked to the commander. ‘Hopefully he won’t be a problem.’

The commander than coughed, drawing the attention back on him, and pointed to the woman “This woman is Ellia, she is the captain of the east camp mages and is a second circle mage herself!”

‘Wait! Mages? And what is a second circle?’

Ellia seemed to notice this confused gaze that Raven had and said “Sir, please don’t tell me that this boy doesn’t know what a mage is.” The commander facepalmed after hearing this.

“Yes, I have not informed him. He said he grew up very sheltered. After this meeting why don’t you explain it to him.” Ellia nodded at the commanders’ words.

‘Finally, I actually getting some questions answered’ Raven thought.

The commander then pointed to the brown-haired man and said “This is Erek, he is the captain of the rest of the force that have not been put into any other squad. Basically, the normal soldiers.” The commander said this with a chuckle, which made Erek look annoyed like it wasn’t the first time someone has said this.

“I may command the “normal” soldiers” Erek said in a mocking tone “but we have the numbers to back us up, around 6 thousand in the east camp alone.”

This surprised Raven, there were a lot of people in the military. ‘Why the fuck do they call this a village, this might as well be a capital!’ Raven thought in awe.

“Yeah, yeah.” The commander said, shooing off what Erek said. He then got back on topic and said “Last but not least” pointing to the black-haired man who hasn’t said anything the whole meeting “that is Larock, the captain of the silent blades.”

‘Cool name’ said Raven, he wanted to ask what they did but he doubted the commander nor Larock would give him a straight answer or an answer at all. ‘Probably just say “ill tell you later” or something like that.

“That’s everyone. Raven, you probably won’t be reporting to these guys right away but based on how your training goes you will be placed into one of these squads. You can also be moved to a different squad based on how you act and how well your missions go but first you will be going through a test to see which one you’ll fit into first. Sound good?”

This was basically how Raven thought it would go, he didn’t want to be in the elven army, but he might as well join if it meant he could stay in the camp in get free food just for a couple of missions.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Raven said to the commander. “Good, now I have to go meet the Elder. Ellia, tell him about mages and stuff like that. If anyone wants to talk to him about their squad they can.” Raven felt weird to be talked about while he was still in the room, but he had to deal with it.

The commander started to walk out of the tent with some papers in his hand before stopping at the entrance.

He turned back to the table and looked at Raven specifically.

“I won’t see you for a while Raven but try to embrace this new life. You have a lot of potential; I would hate to see that go to waste” after he said this he turned back around and headed out of the opening in the tent.

What he said felt ominous to Raven, but Raven could feel a great amount of sincerity within the words spoken to him.

‘Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought it would be.’