“Okay. To the next one.”

“Yes, commander.” A single enthusiastic voice answered my command. Not twenty, but one.

I sighed inwardly. This was the worst.

It was my second day as a Vinetar. Even worse than the first one.

Nineteen of my men were former peasants with no motivation. They skipped the long runs, they half-assed their sword training, and they spent their evenings fantasizing lewd stories about the sword maiden. In short, they displayed everything wrong with this whole army.

And they were weak. Too weak.

Yesterday I had sparred with them. First one on one, later up to five of them against me. They didn’t hit me even once, hindering each other in their high spirits. Who knew what might have happened had I used my skill. Underwhelming was too nice a description. They were failures as warriors with no motivation to get stronger.

How would they defend their homes? They wouldn’t. Instead they could only cower and pray for help. But that was odd. Even the weakest NPCs in the game showed more strength. A beginner area more deadly than this unknown stretch of land. What a joke.

But their failures would become my failures, hence I decided to use my knowledge to grow their strength. But there wasn’t that much I could do. With Rhoslyn appearing before me, this world appeared even more like the game. The existence of levels and skills seemed to prove that idea further. But I couldn’t be content with just that.

Teaching my men the leprechauns’ behavior might strengthen them in a fight. But would the enemies have the same strength? Act the same? Attacked the same? Have similar weak points? I didn’t know any of that. And a weak soldier getting surprised by false prediction was even weaker than an unprepared one. Therefore it wasn’t appropriate to relay my game knowledge just yet.

So level ups became the most reasonable approach. But I couldn’t tell them about those mystical levels and the rules behind them. Who would believe such things? Kill a hare to become a strong fighter? Any officer talking like that would reap even more distrust. So instead, I disguised it as training. Let’s learn to attack living things.

I had spent yesterday’s evening setting traps throughout the forest. And this morning they had to kill them. Granted, with so many of them it would take 400 hares to level them up once. An impossible number for the brief period before our first mission. But I planned to imprint a new routine on their mind.

And we could cheat the system. With all of them at level one, six different people could attack a hare before it died. Six people sharing five experience points. But with the lowest amount of one experience point we would essentially earn an extra point. As long as I performed the last hit, I would level alongside them wasting no time.

But the reality in front of my eyes had proved me wrong.

Endless whining, complaints, and backtalk. Shouldn’t I be their commanding officer? Shouldn’t they listen to me? Apparently not. I argued they had to learn how to kill a living thing. They just laughed it off and mocked my cautiousness. They weren’t kids anymore. At least according to them.

These guys had no force behind their swings, they missed a cowering hare, and they even stumbled over branches on the ground. They were weak and useless. But worse, even after those displays they still had no motivation to improve. Wouldn’t a soldier who lost against a hare want to change something? Get stronger?

“Okay. Drew, you are next,” I ordered when we found another trapped hare.

He was the twentieth recruit. A mountain of a man, one head bigger than me with a chest like a barrel. His one handed swings equaled my level three ones in force. Though they, I grimaced as a dull thud reached my ears, were nowhere as accurate mine. Not weak, still useless.

But compared with the others he was the diamond in a dung pit. He had motivation, he wanted to improve, and he worked hard. In fact, I only knew his name because he also trained on his own during the first weeks.

“Don’t worry,” I looked at him scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “Just try again.”

“Okay,” he answered, raising his wooden stick again. A weird grin on his face. Like a child who received a compliment for his ugly drawings, believing they had created the next Mona Lisa. Yeah yeah, that green smudge really looked like a bear.

Another swing and the hare cried in agony, drowning Drew’s cheerful laughter.

I sighed.

He was like a child. At least his mental capabilities. He needed double the time to learn half the amount. A horror on an ever-changing battlefield. But he would invest four times the effort to achieve his goals. And after our escort mission we still had enough time to prepare him for future battles.

“That was good.” I smiled at him. “Next one.”

One other stepped up, swung his stick, and hit. With no actual force behind it, but at least he listened.

Another hit. And the hare’s death cries, interrupting my instructions for the next recruit.

Wait! It was only hit three times. So why did it die already? Was it a weak one? Unlikely. It had no external wounds. And during my endless hunts I had never seen a hare who took more or less than six hits. They weren’t like humans with different strengths and weaknesses but more like a game’s mob with a fixed amount of health.

Taking one hit less might be an effect of Drew's brute strength but two? That should be impossible for someone untrained. Was it luck? Or rather..

“Drew!” I called over the massive man. “What did you do before enlisting?”

“A lot.” He answered with a confused look. Wait, that was it?

“Okay. But what exactly?”

“I worked with my uncle.” He counted on his fingers. “And with my father. And then with...”

“No.” I interrupted him. “What did you do? Did you work on the fields? Or cut trees?”

“Oh!” He smiled, now understanding. “We killed pigs. And chicken. And one time we killed a big cow. But some ran away. And then I carried stones. And I dropped one. And then I pulled carts, but they got angry at me. And then my mother told me to go and fight.”

He had killed pigs? So a butcher? If so, that might explain his strength. Given the count, he had already reached level two before joining the maiden’s army. In terms of levels he should be the second strongest after me. But with no fights in their normal lives nobody realized his rising strength. Jackpot.

“You did well.” I praised Drew, collected the dead hare, and led the troop towards the next trap.

Our hunt continued for another two hours, full of complaints and awkward swings. Afterwards we used our return path as morning jog, ate breakfast, and continued the normal training routine with sword training. They slacked off as usual, so I tried to mix it up with mock battles. To no avail.

Those pit against me had no motivation at all as they would lose, anyway. And their pairings looked more like children playing with sticks. No, children would run around and move their bodies. So they were more like retirees waving their walking sticks in anger. No force, no leg movement, but a lot of trash talk.

Hence I trained with Drew while the rest bumbled through their changing training pairs.

Wasted time.

They finished their training on time and left, leaving only me and Drew behind. I switched between the sword and my ax and used them to train both Drew and me. In the game I had wielded an ax in each hand. Only one talent to level for double the damage output. But now I learned how to use two unique weapons, an ax in my left hand and a sword in my right, to embed distinct attacks into my fighting style.

I planned to use a shield to protect myself in battle, but this might become an alternative. It was still clunky and predictable, but a promising venture.

“Let’s end it here,” I said to Drew after another hour. It was still afternoon, but I wanted to rest some time before setting the traps anew.

“Okay.” Drew nodded and continued on his own. His special training after our special training. Endless training to catch up.

I smiled.

“Aki! Over here!” The instructor interrupted my thoughts.

“Your recruits came to me,” he continued after I arrived in front of him. “They complained about your training methods. Something about meaningless hunts in the forest?”

“I thought it would be beneficial to have them experience killing before the battle,” I answered. “Is there a problem?”

“Not really a problem... but they spoke out against it,” the instructor answered with a wry smile. He should know best how that waste detested training. “And that training is unusual, so...”

“I’m sorry, but I was under the impression that I could train my troop in any way I saw fit? And I’m not endangering their lives.”

“So you will continue?” He looked me in the eyes. “They are only volunteers and we can’t afford to lose them for nothing. What if they run away? Even if there was merit to your thinking, given how unusual it is... I would have to listen to their wish and transfer them to another troop. One person running away would lead to two more. We can’t risk losing morale over something like this.”

“I don’t care.” I reinforced my view. “If they want to leave, let them be.”

I finally had the time to hunt for more experience points. And Drew’s case strongly implied that any resident of this world could level up in the same way. There was no way I would miss that chance to keep a few useless men.

And so my troop shrank to a measly nine men. Less than half. But I didn’t care. I exchanged twelve complaining mouths for the chance to grow stronger. Five more men dropped out of the hunting the next day, but stayed in my troop. They reassured me they would run instead. But who would believe that?

And so only four men - Drew, two weak farmers, and I - became the foundation for my future growth.