Waking up the next day, the weakness that had been plaguing me before had vanished. I didn’t feel like I was at 100%, but that was mostly on account of the dozens of bruises that dotted my body and the lingering exhaustion from the previous day rather than the strange fatigue that came out of nowhere. I still didn’t know what caused it. I think I had simply hit my bodies limit. Regardless, I was glad its effects had passed, and I was really hoping that I never encountered that particular issue again. If I was going to be a soldier, willing or not, then I didn’t want to be afflicted with sudden bouts of extreme weakness. I doubted medical exemptions existed here, save for all but the most obvious disabilities. Perhaps if I had no legs than I would get a by, but my mystery condition wasn’t going to cut it.

We were actually given breakfast today, much to my stomachs pleasure. It seemed like our food schedules were inconsistent. Portions as well. I don’t know if that was an intentional training tactic or simply indicative of a lack of supplies or organization on a broader scale.

I sat next to Ryan this time. He seemed impressed by yesterday's performance.

“Ahh, there’s the man. You wouldn’t believe how fast he moved yester. Whipped the spear around like a strike of lighting, and it certainly sounded like one. If only we could set em against those fuckers that were keeping us in here. If we all could do that there’s not a way they could order us around”.

Jerald looked mildly impressed at Ryan’s proclamation. He seemed to have recovered somewhat from yesterday's event, but was still far more muted than I had come to expect.

Rogier, on the other hand, looked like he didn’t believe a word of it. He had thoroughly trounced me, after all. My final attack against Ryan was most certainly the exception and not the rule in regard to my performance.

We ate quickly, as Harker had stressed that we didn’t have much time. He also told us that we should be thankful we even got food in the first place when someone asked why we hadn’t had breakfast before. If you hadn’t picked up on it yet, Harker was a dick.

After we had finished eating, we were marched to another area of the training grounds we hadn’t been too yet. It was only my third day here, and we were already making usage of several facilities provided. I wondered how much more we would see before they turned us loose.

It made sense that they used the entire facility, I supposed. If you paid for the features, you might as well use them, and it’s not like we \were limited on space. We barely saw another group in the entire time we had been here.

The new area we had been brought to was a large dirt clearing, even larger than the training or camp area. In its center was a large wooden structure, made up of beams and logs and the like. It looked like an obstacle course.

My palms started sweating. It was huge. It looked like it would take 20 minutes to walk around each of the obstacles.

I don’t think many of my fellow trainees recognized what they were gazing upon. Why would they? I barely recognized it, and I had seen several obstacle courses before, both on the TV and in real life. Although they hardly looked like this, there was a certain form factor that lent them an undeniable resemblance. When had a medieval peasant ever seen an obstacle course? I mean, they were magical medieval peasants, but still.

That thought made my anxiety worse. Was this a magical obstacle course? Was it even harder than it looked?

I took some comfort in the fact that there were other people here who were in worse shape than I was. It was unlikely that I could fail more than them, or struggle harder, so at least I shouldn’t be bearing the brunt of Harkers wrath should I fail.

The instructions we were given were brief. Simply put, we were to “Get our lazy, worthless asses through the course as fast as possible”.

We weren’t separated into any groups, of course. Why would we be? That would go totally against Harkers “total decimation” style of training, as I had started to call it. It was focused on making ever encounter as brutal and painstaking as possible, with the fewest breaks. I didn’t know if that was the norm across all instructors, or if we were simply held in greater hatred.

Even though we weren’t separated into groups, getting everyone to line up was an ordeal in an off itself. The five minutes that were spent getting up to the starting line were mostly a slow shuffle, further hindered by many of the people in the front trying to move especially slow to ensure that they were no longer heading the group. They likely intended for the rest of us to flow around them like the ocean around a rock.

The problem with their plan, however, was that, while they didn’t want to be in the front, nobody else wanted to be in the front either. This resulted in an increasingly slowed group of individuals reluctantly floating towards the start of the obstacle course. It took a little bit of shoving from us in the back and a little bit of screaming and cajoling (i.e. death threats) from Harker, but we did eventually make it.

Now, you might think this would lead to a slow run of the course. That wasn’t the case, Eager to avoid punishment, the first people to reach the start line paused a second to take a hesitant look at the looming structure in front of them, doubtful expressions on their faces, before taking off with an unexpected burst of speed.

I suddenly regretted being in the back. It was bound to make me a larger target for attention. I took off, pulling myself over the first obstacle. It was a series of logs, where the course's runners would have to pull themselves over one by one. It wasn’t particularly difficult, with the logs only coming up above knee-height.

I quickly bounded over them, determined to make up as much time as possible. I passed by one or two people on this one, but that was because they had only started a few feet ahead of me.

The next obstacle I came across was a crawl under barbed wire. I didn’t even know they had barbed wire here. It didn’t quite look like earths variety, though. It looked like the spikes had twisted and grown out of the metal. The wire looked strange and alien, more like a natural thing than any sort of man-made tool. Perhaps that’s what our barbed wire would look like if you saw it for the first time, but I wouldn’t know.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

There was a pool of muddy water under the wire. A few had stopped, perhaps out of fear of getting dirty, but most had forged on. Taking a moment to gather my composure, I dove under the wire, dragging myself slowly through the mud. I tried to put on a burst of speed, but quickly found out that the energy I expended was much greater than my gain. If I exhausted myself I could maybe get through it a few seconds earlier, as opposed to taking my time.

Slowing down proved to be the right choice. The next obstacle was a net climb. It was easy enough, although being slick with mud made gripping onto it a bit harder. Luckily, the rope was rough and fibrous, which alleviated most of it. If I was going to try and grip onto something smooth, however, I was going to have a problem.

Summiting onto a wooden tower, I was immediately presented with a balance beam crossing over open air. Although there was some sort of cushiony material below us (I didn’t recognize it, and we were high enough that it was hard to pick out specific details), I still didn’t want to take the 15-foot fall onto the ground.

There were two men on the platform in front of me. One was the first guy I sparred against the other day. I didn’t recognize the other. He was thin and wiry, with a boyish face.

Taking a quick step forwards, he started to accelerate onto the beam. He eventually broke out into a full run. He made it nearly halfway across before his strategy cost him.

Misplacing his foot, his center of weight shifted off the beam, right over the foot that currently had nothing to plant on. He tried to correct the other way, but it was too late, and with a brief scream of surprise, he plummeted straight down.

He flailed in the air for longer than I thought possible before he hit the ground. There was a nasty crunch and another cry of pain as he landed on his ankle.

The other man on the platform paled, before stepping back and making a have at it gesture at me with his hands.

It seems the ante was on me now. I don’t think I was going to try and replicated the feat that I had just seen. Perhaps if you were focused or athletic enough it would work. I didn’t think I could count on that, however.

I took it slow. If I could walk in a straight line in a beam just above the ground, I could do it in the air. I just had to remember that. It was my mantra the entire time. There were a few heart-stopping moments where I started wobbling or felt a breeze pick up.

I did make it all the way across without incident, however, upon which point I let out the breath that I had been holding. I thought that I had gotten over my fear of heights, but seeing someone fall really brought it back up to the surface.

Speaking of which, the man had vanished whilst I was crossing. Perhaps Harker had come to get him.

On the other end of the platform, a collection of people were gathering. The man who was there before me was arguing with a new guy, although I couldn’t hear what they were saying. There were also two others, simply standing there, and one guy tentatively placing his foot onto the beam.

I went through several more obstacles, each designed to make me hate myself or fear for my life (many of them did both). There were included but not limited to: Monkey bars, a fire pole I had to scale (I was so slippery it took me 3 attempts), and a wall I had to leap up to and pull myself up and over with just my hands.

I paused to catch my breath, hands on my knees, before a heard someone clearing their throats. Looking up, I saw a young man standing by a railing. His hands were on his hips, and his posture radiated disapproval.

It looked like he was wearing a uniform of some sort.

“Are you going to hurry up, or not?”

It took my a moment to realize what he was talking about. Behind him was a gap in the railing, with a rope attached to a post. The rope extended all the way from the tower all the way down to another post on the ground. I started at the rope, and then back at the attendant.

“Am I supposed to climb down that?”

He didn’t say anything, but his frown deepened. Letting out a muffled curse, I climbed onto the rope. Wrapping my arms around it, before tucking my legs around it and inching down. I tried not to look at the ground.

Slowly inching my way down, eyes on the sky, I contemplated on how I ended up here. What was that portal? Was I supposed to be here? Was it an accident? I just didn’t know. It didn’t seem like I was some sort of chosen one. No mysterious floating messages or special powers.

If I was a chosen one, I was a pretty shitty one. Maybe I secretly had a huge latent potential just waiting for me to unlock it, but so far I seemed to be pretty bad at most things. There were a few things I was average at, and certainly nothing that I excelled at.

I had to cut my thoughts short because I was almost at the ground. My arms burned, not used to so much activity. I took a moment to shake them out, trying to ease some of the lactic acid out.

I felt a wave of despair wash over me as I caught sight of the next obstacle. It was a set of stairs, constructed to go up and down and up and down, almost like a hill. Peaking one set would let you run right back down.

With a groan, I pushed onwards, determined to get this done as quickly as possible.

---------------------------------

I was soaked with sweat when I finally left the course. I was close to the front of the pack, far ahead of where I started.

Most of the people who stumbled off the course were in as bad of shape as me, if not worse. Nobody was throwing up, at least, or if they were, they had done it out of my sight.

To be honest, I was surprised that some of the others had made it through the course. Hell, I was surprised that I had made it through. I don’t think that I could have done this back on Earth, but I don’t know how I got stronger in the first place.

I hadn’t trained at all, if you didn’t count the last few days. And I didn’t think those could explain what was happening. Did the stress of the disaster at Rivesh trigger some sort of response in me? I’d never heard of something like that happening before, but who knew. Maybe it was a feature of this magical world.

We weren’t congratulated on completing the course, obviously. No, it was just more yelling about how slow and disappointed we were. Even though, logically, it wasn’t surprising, it still caught me off guard. Every time it seemed to happen, it was as if I had subconsciously forgotten the last time, and it was happening again anew.

The guy who had fallen down earlier had broken his ankle. I’m honestly surprised that they didn’t put him down like a horse. Instead, he was recuperating in the medical tent. He was expected to be out of commission for nearly the entire rest of our training period. I wondered what would happen to him.

We were filed back to the main part of the camp a few minutes after everyone had fainted. We ran through a few more spear drills later in the day, but for the most part we were allowed the rest of it off to recuperate.