That was certainly unexpected. Still, Zelos decided to follow those orders… not training a day just when he made that decision of increasing the difficulty of it was a bit annoying, but it couldn’t be helped.

After returning to his quarters, Zelos had to wait for a while until the kids began to wake up. As expected, they frowned when they saw him still there and couldn’t help but flinch when they heard that they had to wait instead of start working already. For slaves, food was already pretty scarce. Without work, food would be even more scarce.

Everyone had to wait for one hour until some guards finally approached the quarters. They were all armed and wearing armor. They looked ready for war, so it was no surprise that the kids couldn’t help but shake and sweat when the guards opened the door…

“What a sorry bunch…”

“None of them have any decent traits, so there is no reason to treat them any better than this.”

“At least they will be of some use… today is your lucky day, slaves. You will have the chance to work on the front lines. Survive and work hard enough and you might become a servant of someone who will treat you better. Don’t follow your orders and try to run away and you will regret that for the rest of your short lives. Leave this place and follow our orders immediately.”

Although they were scared to death, the kids followed their orders and left the quarters in a line. They knew that causing trouble would be only worse for them, after all.

There were fifty kids there and five guards who were about to escort them… it seemed weird that they would call kids from ages to eight to ten, but it seemed that they needed any help necessary to give them some advantage.

In the end, Zelos and the others followed the path back to the villa where the owner of the farm lived. Along the way, they passed a bunch of houses where some people that worked for the owner lived. Unlike the kids, they weren’t slaves and received payment for their work.

‘I heard that when some families produce good warriors with decent traits, even families made of slaves can become free like them. Usually, the slavers would just force them to create the best soldiers possible, but I guess it is because of that…’

Aside from genetic inheritance, people could inherit traits from those who had their blood when they were about to die. Forcing people to do what was necessary for the sake of their families was a lot easier if they knew that things would improve after that, so slavers normally wouldn’t try to go back on their word. That was also a quick way to lose the faith of their soldiers as well and ignite a rebellion.

In any case, the group soon found two wagons waiting for them in front of the entrance of the farm, and they were ordered to enter.

“... I will have the chance to get a real weapon at some point, so I don’t need my club. However, am I ready to fight for my life by killing others?”

That was a tough call, but Zelos had to use his mind and think of tricks that could help him… while he was doing that, he couldn’t help but think about something that he tried to forget for a while… that he should take lives if he wanted to become free, at least the lives who wanted to keep him in chains.

There was barely enough room for all the kids in the wagons, so they were all cramped… the kids had a hard time trying to hide their sniffs and signs of their absolute fear. They also knew that showing any troublesome emotions now would be an invitation for the guards to punish them, so they had to endure as much as possible.

In any case, some horses began to pull the wagons and soon they all realized that their lives would change forever… perhaps not for long, since it was hard to tell for how long they would live.

Much to Zelos’s surprise, the trip didn’t last even a full day… when the sky was turning orange, the wagons stopped and then the guards told them to leave the wagons.

‘... The front lines are close to the farm? That would explain why we were called… we would die soon if our side keeps losing territory, after all.’

When all the kids left the wagons, they soon found themselves in a war camp… there was a sea of tents around with countless people working. Zelos could see some soldiers’ training, some of them repairing their gear and a bunch of them groaning in pain while their wounds were being treated by some healers.

Zelos couldn’t help but open his eyes wide when he saw a healer healing someone without touching their wounds… his fingers were close to the wound that seemed like a large sword cut and then some droplets of blood were leaving it in the air.

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‘Is that a trait? Isn’t it more like magic?’

It seemed that the amount of traits and what they could do was a lot more diversified than Zelos had predicted… Some healers were doing the same thing as that guy, but others were just cleaning the wounds with water and some cloth.

“Split in groups according to the work you did before… explain to me what you did on the farm.”

All of them only did farm work and things similar to it, but they were still split into groups according to their experience. The first group would work on cooking, the second group would work on helping the healers, the third group would work as servants and the fourth group would as squires for the commanders. The last five kids had no particular talent or skills that could name them useful anywhere else, and Zelos was among them… on the most dangerous job of them all.

The guards began to move the kids to their designated spots, and soon enough, they began to work as night fell. At least they were served enough food for them one hour later…

As for Zelos and the other unfortunate kids, they were told to wait behind a certain large tent while the commanders were having a meeting. Since they were being treated like kids and there was no point in trying to hide anything from them, Zelos was finally able to hear some interesting things…

“The next few days will be crucial for us… the enemies will go all out and try to take us down in one sweep in order to take over that farm. It is the best place for us in this area to get food from, after all.”

“Recovering it will take a lot of time and effort if we lose and the enemy will be able to calmly fight after this victory. We can’t afford to let that happen. I suggest that we use their eagerness in our favor and launch a pincer attack to crush their forces once and for all.”

“That tactic is way too obvious… they won’t fall for something of that caliber. Their current commander is well versatile when it comes to strategic thinking and they have enough soldiers with diverse enough skills to pull many kinds of tactics.”

Little by little, Zelos was able to picture a scene of the war… while he was on his own side, it seemed that the people of the territory he was in were losing. If that were good or bad, he would assume it was bad, since taking slaves that were slaves of someone else could be a risk. As such, the other side might find it better to dispose of him and the other kids… moreover, nothing says that the enemies would treat them better. The inverse was actually very likely…

After a couple of minutes, the meeting ended, and then the commanders left the tent to see their newly appointed squires. The word squire was just a better word for meat shields in case something bad happened to the commanders, and they had to buy a few seconds to escape.

Regardless, they were a bit different from what Zelos had envisioned… three of them were wearing chain armor that looked pretty similar, but they had different colors and some extra details in some parts of their armor. One armor was blue and had something like claws on its right shoulder pad… another was orange, and the wearer had a helmet in the shape of a dragon with an open mouth.

The other two were wearing something that looked like tribal clothes. They passed the image that they were supposed to be more wild and ruthless; one of them was a woman who had two crossbows at her waist as well, and her eyes made Zelos feel shivers. Not everything was what it looked like…

“How are any of these kids able to carry anything on the battlefield? This has to be a joke.”

Although the woman looked like she wanted to start another argument, the others looked too fed up with that and just moved. Neither of those kids looked like they would be of any use, so they chose whatever to be their servants until the next day, when, most likely, they all would die. In the end, Zelos was chosen by the guy in the orange armor and dragon helmet. He was already starting to miss his other job… he at least knew what he had to do to survive and what he had to do to actually thrive. Things were different now.

When he arrived at his tent, the man pointed to Zelos to move to the corner while he studied some weapons in some boxes. Before long, he couldn’t help but sigh… he wanted to carry them all for different situations, but he couldn’t without getting slower, and while Zelos looked a bit strong for a slave of his age, he wouldn’t be able to help with that. Letting him fall behind when the battle starts would be even worse.

“Get me some water.”

The man said that, and Zelos went to follow his orders while he took out his helmet. The man was already sitting on a chair when Zelos served a wooden cup of water on the table. He had some scars on his face, and one of his eyes was closed, thanks to a scar as well. He also had some grey hair, so his peak had passed probably ten years ago. He wasn’t in the best place to be, even if he had one or two decent traits.

“... Did you hit your head at some point, kid? Unlike the others, you aren’t shaking like a leaf. You don’t understand that you will probably die tomorrow? At least now you know it, while the others will be fooled with sweet words.”

“No, and no.”

“You probably were born with a screw loose then, kid. Chances are, you will die tomorrow, a very painful death. It must be quite something to be able to die without having the chance to drink alcohol or wear clothes that smell worse than my horse did. I at least was paid beforehand, so I can die knowing that my family will be well-off for a while. Can’t say the same about you.”

Even though that guy wasn’t drinking alcohol, he sure was being talkative with a ten-year-old boy. It only made sense in a scenario where he couldn’t see his way out of that mess. Zelos kept ignoring that and maintained his straight face. While he didn’t have any experience when it came to fighting, he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t allow himself to die like that. His basic skills were in their early stages, but he could make them more useful by using his head.