"Done with that already!? The day is about to end.""Koda, sir. This little rascal keeps slowing me down." "Liar! He was the one goofing off and leaving the job all for me!" Josiah shouted.Both him and Reeve were designated to cleaning duty. They had been mopping the room for the last couple of hours while the others went for physical activities. They were inside the men's room during the time they went there to get dressed for the bloodless training."You two still can't get along? I guess you're going to have to be the duo on the cleaning until you learn how to.""…""Finish that already and come to the bloodless training."Josiah felt a chill down his spine.The bloodless training was a modality where the holder didn't use the bloodbound power of his weapon at all. Aiming both for perfecting common-weapon wielding and beginning on blood control."Sir…" Josiah asked in a low voice as he went near Sergeant Koda."Say it.""I don't know how not to use my bloodbound powers."Reeve ove
The soldiers inside the room had gotten up and were preparing themselves rushedly. Josiah didn't understand what the rush was about."Mission...?" Josiah asked, still sleepdrunk.One of the soldiers who were near his bed heard and explained:"The missions are held in town. It's a very long way of marching until there.""Wait! We 'walk' to there!?"Josiah understood he had to stay ready as soon as possible instead of keeping mumbling on his bed while rubbing his eyes. But that was hard to do. For starters, his body hadn't completely recovered from the day before. Not only that but he didn't get much sleep either.'Screw this. I need to force myself to go. It's no different than when I was under training with Thomas, tired like a pack donkey but had to wake up early for the lesson anyway since he had to go to work later.'Josiah jumped off his bed and started getting ready as well.Two of the mates were commenting while they were shaving their beard:"Today is the sixth? I forgot all abo
The next months went by very fast. Wake up, train, clean, train, build-up, train, sleep. The routine was hard and monotone, it made the days pass too quickly. Yet the routine was rewarding. Josiah grew even stronger during the days he spent perfecting his sword-wielding style and controlling his blood to tone it down.He also learned to use the rapier's power for trivial matters, in the way Watt had taught him. Well… At least to a certain extent.Josiah's relationship with the colleagues got a little better. With time they started respecting him as a member of the team, despite his age.Even Josiah's relationship with Reeve also got better. No, they're not friends. But every time Reeve would set Josiah up, he'd answer right after, but on a more brand, less offensive way. That's the way he found of dealing with the nephew of the lieutenant. With time, causing trouble for the little kid lost its 'fun', and Reeve and Josiah just stopped talking to each other outside the matters of the arm
"They all left. It's just us now." Wall said blankly."The other guy who's supposed to monitor us is also very well hidden..." Josiah added.Most of the soldiers under test didn't begin moving at the spot; they had to take time to digest the situation first. It wasn't clear how they were supposed to descend."See that water all the way over there, filling the entire bottom area? It's sparkling. Looks cool right?""I bet it's highly toxic.""You bet…""…""Well…" Watt looked around. "Staying here won't amount to anything. I think I'm going to go and find some way out, good luck, Josiah." He left Josiah alone behind, following one of the downward spiral trails of the mount they were in.'I should probably do the same,' he thought.'It shouldn't be hard to climb down those mountains to approach the bottom. The problem is that the further down, the more I'm exposed to whatever mineral Watt said that was. I should probably strive to find the end which is closer to another end of the closest
Reeve was hanging on the cliff, being held only by Josiah's hand."Don't let go!! Please, pull me up!!" Reeve repeatedly shouted those words in a desperate manner."You sound way less cocky when you're on the verge of your life, huh?""Argh! My arm is getting numb!""Don't you dare let go you son of a…"It was somewhat fun seeing Reeve's eyes widen that much for some reason.'Stupid aristocrat. What do you think would happen to me if they knew some nine-year-old kid killed the nephew of the lieutenant during the final exam? Technically I'm allowed to, but in practice…' Josiah thought.Still… The weight was really too much for Josiah to deal with.It's true, he had lifted huge boulders for Lenny's cave in the forest. He had lifted stone tiles for an entire morning to help with the wall… But he always distributed the wight over all the muscles of his body. He never had to lift something from such an awkward angle using only one of his arms like that before.'I know! I'm going to use the
"At this rate, we're going to reach there in a blink of an eye," Watt commented when the sun rose again, after their first night."Yeah…" Josiah was still a bit sleepy."Hanging around in a pair is also good because we can just take turns on sleeping as we did. Let's go! We don't know exactly when they're coming back. If we can almost reach it today, we won't need to worry to be two of the thirty first ones after they arrive."Josiah was beaten. He used a lot of his rapier power when Reeve was hanging by the cliff, and after that, he had to use it several times, one for each attempt of placing the sword correctly above the floor from a distance.'My poor sword… It's all worn out. I should find a smith after this all ends…' Josiah thought, looking complacently to the blade of his mother's last gift.It took about half of the day using more and more his bloodbound power to build rope bridges until Josiah was all worn out and needed a rest. It was almost noon."Exhausting, huh?" Watt comm
With Watt's preparations, it was fairly easy not to miss the arrival of the examiners. Watt had brought a lot of useful equipment for the trip, unlike Josiah who had nothing but his equipment, and even on that he was missing, since he lost the dagger after throwing it at the talpig earlier.Watt had brought something whose function reminded Josiah of the 'binoculars' he had in his own world, but they were a fairly small apparatus, more like just a small lens on a cylinder. They waited, observing from the distance until they spot the men arriving and followed right after. They were the fifth and sixth people to arrive at the destination."I thought for sure we were gonna be the first ones…" Josiah said."I told you everybody would have the same idea."They waited a bit longer, close to an hour, and more participants arrived at the spot during the period. But no close to thirty. After this period of waiting the examiner finally pronounced himself:"That's it. These are the people who're
'Screw the test and the evaluation. Albo is in danger and his rescuer is nowhere in sight.' Josiah thought to himself. He couldn't stand watching his friend be pestered in that manner.'Ok. Think. If I try to draw its attention it's going to turn against me. But can I win…? No. My best chance is to climb on the block and help Albo kick it down. I'm going to silently climb on the other side.'Josiah rushed to the other side of the block and started.'Hang in there, Albo.'As an equipped human who trained in the army for eight months, the task was way easier for him, so he got up pretty quickly."Albo!""Dude! Help!" Luckily the scene was still the same. Albo was kicking the things' front while his hands were tied up, and the creature hadn't managed climbing up yet."Leave it to me!""Don't you dare! He's MY hostage!"Josiah heard.Right next to the block where they were standing, there was an even taller block. Josiah saw the owner of the voice above it, he was sitting down, watching t