The aftermath of a battle was still part of the battle… that was why no one said anything about Hei helping the kid who was being whipped. except a few short breaks to have a nice meal, Zelos worked until night,

During the day, he considered the merits and demerits of joining a group… First of all, he would have the chance to train as much as he wanted and also obtain some fighting experience by training with others. There was a limit to how much he could learn by being self-taught and swinging a club at nothing.

The demerits were that he would have to follow the group for a while and follow orders, and the idea of things going exactly the way he wanted in a mercenary group seemed laughable. Since he was a kid, he would have to prove himself for quite a while as well. Some people would also know his current level of strength, and who could tell if everyone in the group would be a true ally?

“I would rather work in the wild and keep everything secret, but… is that the best option? The most efficient and quickest method to become strong enough to do what I want?”

Zelos couldn’t tell… without experiencing both sides of the coin and without anyone to give him some insights, he could only trust on his guts. Still, he decided to take his chances because the time to take risks was when he was young. The latter a person makes mistakes, the more they would affect the said person…

After at night the bodies of the allies had been cremated and the wounds had been mostly looked after, the soldiers returned to their own camps to celebrate their victories. The camp now had around two hundred people. Somehow, half of them were still fine and the other camps looked much worse.

As Zelos approached the tent of the commander Hei, he found some smaller ones that were being used by the former slaves. They were eating while looking around waiting for all that to end and the true colors of the people around being shown… such was the level of their suspicions and trauma.

Hei was drinking in his tent and by the smell of it, it was alcohol. He still looked fine since he wasn’t drinking his bottle like it was water. At times like that, the commander should be celebrating with his underlings, but it seemed that he had a lot of thinking to do.

“You have come. I take it that you decided to accept my offer since you want to make sure that the kids will be looked after well. You can rest easy since we lost a lot of manpower and we need to at least find more manpower for non fighting activities. They will be paid accordingly and they will be treated well.”

“I actually came to accept your offer and work for your group for a while.”

“... I expected that you would. I shared what happened with my friend that you saw earlier. He realized that there was something a bit different with you and also offered you to join them. His group does a lot less fighting and tasks related to that. They serve as bodyguards and even temporary defense forces for those who can pay for their services.”

“What about your group?”

“We do a little of everything. We have a territory of our own where we use the downtime between battles to build our strength, prepare our resources, and rest as well. It is like a proper territory with a large farm and everything.”

“What am I going to do there?”

“You can do as you see fit as long as you don’t cause trouble and answer the call when the time comes for the next battle. Still, money comes easier to the tasks that need priority. Farm work, guard duty, occasional jobs outside are things that you should be expecting.”

“That looks like it will be better for me.”

Another thing that made Zelos decide on that path was the fact that he will have the chance to learn more about the world at his own pace. Getting involved in fights all the time before building his strength properly might not be the best idea… the second option seemed more efficient for what he had in mind as well.

“All right then, welcome aboard. We usually don’t recruit anyone below fifteen, but you might fool people with your calm demeanor. We will depart tomorrow morning, rest properly. There are plenty of free tents outside, choose any of them you want.”

Zelos nodded and then left the commander’s tent, as he did that, he saw the other kids paying attention to him. It was hard to say what had happened to the others, but he couldn’t count more than forty of them.

“... They will have to look out for themselves now… we all will have to since things are supposed to be improving from now on. Regardless… tomorrow things will start earlier once again, so I should get as much rest as possible.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

As he looked for a tent, Zelos confirmed the obvious… the kids were all shaking and having a hard time falling asleep. They saw a bunch of corpses, after all. While they were all orphans, they hadn’t seen the results of war so close to them.

Zelos was the same, but while he saw war closer than them, he still didn’t feel that much bothered… there was something fundamentally different with him, perhaps wrong was a best option instead of different. Either way, his behavior certainly was abnormal…

In any case, Zelos decided to take the first free tent that he found and he also found some rations on it, so for the first time in his life, he went to bed feeling like his belly was about to burst. He had no idea when he would have the chance to eat freely like that, so he decided to stack up the calories for the sake of the future.

When morning came, Zelos realized that while he couldn’t train until he reaches their next destination, he still could make good use of his trait and make it level up along the way. He never thought that he would have the chance to do that effectively since he always would have to work, or so he assumed before… regardless, he could hurt himself and then recover during the day.

“The previous owner of the tent left some clothes and knives here… they will be useful with that in mind.”

Zelos didn’t hesitate in cutting his right hand with one of the knives… a lot of blood began to fall from it, but soon the wound closed. Thanks to that, he lost around ten percent of his health. He covered the wound with a piece of clean cloth and then prepared to dismount the tent.

“Showing this to others will make them think that there is something wrong with me, but keeping my fist clenched should keep the wound from hurting and preventing it from healing completely. This definitely will make people avoid interacting with me… I really should be cautious about this.”

When morning came, the entire camp had been raised, but the other camps of the other groups were still there and would remain for a while longer.

The stuff of the camp like the tents, some weapons, tools and rations were being transported on several wagons, but Zelos decided to keep some of the stuff to add to his weight in order to do some exercise.

The wounded were also being transported in some wagons, but their numbers had halved overnight thanks to the work of the healers. Zelos was starting to think that his trait was pretty good since he could recover from any kind of wound in half a day, as long as he had enough nutrients in his body.

Regardless, considering their movement speed, it didn’t look like their destination was that far away… perhaps three to five days away from the front lines. Zelos never had the chance to travel, so he got curious about what he was going to see… he found nothing aside from hills, grass and the occasional tree.

“I wonder what I was expecting… anyway, I have a lot of time to think without having to worry about anything, so I guess I should make the most out of this while planning for the future.”

Zelos had no idea for how long he will work for Hei and his mercenary group, but he probably will be fine if he plans with the short future in mind like a period of six months. Depending on the result of his training and life from now on, he might make some big adjustments, so it is better to focus on the simple things.

“I guess this will do… and this will do it as well. After that, I just need to chop a tree and make another wooden club.”

Zelos found some nice rocks along the way. They were pretty round and heavy, so they would help him with this strength and precision training. For now, he decided to store them in his backpack, and wait until night to use them properly. Still, even when night came, they kept marching.

It seemed that they were pretty close… After walking for two hours after sunset, they began to see some lights in the horizon and they also began to pass through some fields… the other farm probably wasn’t that big since they reached the next one while heading north east for a little more than half a day.

The pace of the whole group increased a bit and after one hour, they soon reached the closest village of the area and they took a break there. A lot of people welcomed the group with large smiles in their faces, but soon many of them broke into tears after learning that the people that they were waiting for died. Still, they soon recovered from the bad news and welcomed the ones who survived.

“We will camp here tonight, rest properly.”

The first village should be part of his territory… which would mean that his group was pretty influential. Still, they lost three hundred members, so things might become harder for them in the future.

While Zelos was looking for the right place to do some throwing training with the large stones, he decided to stop when he saw Hei leading some of the kids to a group of people in the village. He wanted to know what was going to happen, so he decided to approach sneakily to hear about it.

“They are kids who belonged to the farm in the south, but they gained their freedom in the previous battle. If you guys need some extra manpower, they can do farm work. You just have to give them food and rooms for them, I will handle their payment.”

“We don’t really need extra manpower. Even with the losses, we should be able to maintain the fields. Expanding them shouldn’t be necessary either since we won’t have enough guards to guard them at night.”

“Don’t worry about that, and I will begin recruiting soon. We also should have some time before the next large conflict since the enemies suffered some heavy losses in this battle. We will have at least six months of peace.”

The villagers nodded, and they looked nice enough since they were relatively elderly and had that aura of grandpas and grandmas who tend to spoil their grandchildren… Thanks to that, one-third of the kids were left there.