Chapter 9:

Markus was woken up by someone knocking at the door. “Excuse me, are you awake?” he could hear a female voice from the other side of the door.

Sitting up in bed, he answered back “Yes, thank you. I am already awake!”

He heard the door opening, then Abigail entered, carrying a bowl with water inside. When she spotted him, she quickly looked away. “Woah, sorry, I didn’t mean – I mean, I just wanted to – I thought you were already up and dressed.”

She hurried to the table, placed the new bowl on it, then turned around and left without looking at Markus. She didn’t even take the old bowl with her.

Markus was a bit puzzled, maybe because he just got up. He was naked, but all the important parts were covered by the blanket. Looking down, he assured that there were no conspicuous bulges or anything to get embarrassed over.

After washing himself once again and getting dressed, he went downstairs.

There was a plate with a few slices of dark bread and some cheese on it, also a bowl with soup and some water in a large wooden cup. Abigail’s mother was standing behind the counter and washing some mugs. Abigail herself was sitting on one of the stools in front of the counter. When she saw him coming down, she apologized again.

“No need to apologize. Thanks for bringing me fresh water, it was good that I could wash myself before getting dressed.” Markus sat down and hurriedly ate his breakfast. The bread was a little dry and the cheese hard, but it was bearable. Markus was looking forward to train with the soldiers. In his previous life he had never picked up any weapons, so he had only a vague idea of fighting. After his experiences over the last two days, he found that it would probably be fun.

The fights so far had been very one-sided, even when he had only used his bare hands. Markus didn’t expect all enemies in the future to be this easy to defeat though. This was, in fact, a fantasy world and he had only seen a tiny fracture of it. Even then, there were trolls, dragons and magicians who should be harder to defeat than the average bandit.

Hitting things with his bare hands also hurt, even if it didn’t cause actual damage to him. So if just for that, Markus was determined to learn some weapon skills.

Entering through the main gate, Markus found Boyd sitting at the table in the corner. When he spotted Markus, Boyd waved him over.

“Morning. The Lieutenant already briefed me. I’m supposed to give you some training, showing you what it’s like to be a soldier.” He didn’t sound very amazed with the idea, but his look was friendly enough.

“Yea. Sorry for bothering you. I’m basically just curious.” Markus saw a large bundle of weapons sitting on the table, wrapped in animal skin and tied with rope. Apart from that Markus saw two shields and a long spear. There was also a leather chest-piece, a pair of gloves and a helmet.

“Don’t worry about that. Also, thanks for your support yesterday. Wynn is pretty popular around here. I mean, the young Wynn, not the Lieutenant. I doubt anyone will feel bad about showing some appreciation for you helping her.”

They carried the equipment to the training ground together. It was an area behind the main building, where a couple of straw puppets were lined up on one end of the area, with a large open area in front.

Boyd had Markus wear the armour. The professional soldiers usually fought in full metal armour, unlike militia. For the sake of training though Markus would be wearing the heavy leather armour, just to get a feel what it is like to move while being restricted and carrying the extra weight.

For Markus it was actually not much of a difference due to his abnormally high stats, but he didn’t say that to Boyd. Utilizing the straw targets and real weapons, Boyd showed Markus the correct way in which to attack and defend using the different types of weapons.

Markus had been a little afraid that he would be taken on patrol or something similar to show him the daily work of a soldier, but the lieutenant had instructed Boyd to show him the more fun facets of the profession. That way, it had exactly the effect Markus had hoped for.

Over the course of just a few hours, Markus learned an abundance of weapon skills. He also got a feeling for which weapon would be useful in certain types of situations or against special enemies.

He gained skills with [One-Handed Swords], [One-Handed Blunt Weapons] and [Spears]. While practicing with a bastard sword that could be used either one or two-handed, he noticed that while he held it with two hands, his [Two-Handed Swords] skill was activated, while it would use his untrained one-handed skill when only holding it with one arm.

Apart from the weapon skills, Markus also gained some defensive skills: [Shield-Block], [Shield-Bash] and [Riposte]. Overall, it was a fairly productive morning. Before lunch, Boyd produced a short bow and arrows and they had a small competition against each other. Being fairly unskilled himself, it was meant purely for enjoyment, but produced results nonetheless. The [Bows] skill came naturally, but Markus also got a [Projectile Prediction] skill, and after Boyd threw some wooden plates meant to practice shooting moving targets, he got [Target Leading] on top.

Because Markus had to concentrate on holding back during the sparring matches, he also got a [Physical Power Control] skill. That was the only skill he raised to maximum level immediately. For the sake of appearing like a beginner, he did not raise the other combat skills yet. His already high agility and evasion skills made appearing like a total beginner hard though, and he got a lot of praise from Boyd for his apparent natural talent.

For lunchtime, they went inside the keep. The building had a fairly large designated canteen. It had enough space to accommodate all currently stationed soldiers and then some. Because soldiers opted to eat elsewhere and some were out on patrol or guard duty, there was a fair amount of empty chairs.

Abigail was seen standing behind a counter, handing out food. The meal was stir-fried vegetables with a small amount of meat and mashed potatoes. Markus had a short conversation with her.

She had already tended to the horses in the morning and would be back in the afternoon, so Markus told her to meet him at the workshop in the yard. He wanted to practice there after lunch and it was right next to the stables.

Over the meal Boyd told Markus some things about Springkeep and the dragons. Apparently, the outpost had been a fairly desirable job. The local villagers were friendly and duty consisted mostly of checking passing travellers and patrolling along the river, the border to the next kingdom.

When the dragon decided to move in, things changed rapidly. The villages near the dragon’s nest were destroyed quickly, in a show of force by the dragon. The surrounding lords then pooled their money and somewhat appeased him with a large offering of gold, but there were still sporadic raids for food. Markus was surprised that there was some sort of ‘negotiation’ with dragons, but Boyd could not elaborate on how this worked. After paying the dragon, it was bearable for a year or so, and the dragon’s presence positively strengthened cooperation among the nobles and even the neighbouring kingdoms.

Things were quiet for some time, and the merchants still used the roads for travel. There were plans to rebuild some of the farms and settlements the dragon had destroyed and resettle the people there that had fled and scattered around the surrounding areas.

Then young dragons started to appear. At first the soldiers tried to fight them off, but it became clear that they could not even beat a small dragon without a large group of specialists, and even then losses were inevitable. It was hard hunting dragons on the move, so it did not make any sense of stationing a group of elite soldiers in Springkeep permanently.

The young dragons rarely caused trouble over anything apart from food, but they saw everything that moved as food. Livestock, horses, carriages, people. Luckily, they went for easy to grab livestock over attacking people in settlements, but that was only more reason for the authorities to not send more soldiers. The area had been basically abandoned with only a minimum force left behind.

Every few months a new dragon would appear. Usually the young dragons would leave the area after feeding, but some stuck around for several weeks. The soldiers at Springkeep would try to keep track of the general direction the dragons were headed and only go on some basic patrols to defer smugglers and other criminals, not that anyone was keen to come here.

One main reason Springkeep was still standing was the fact that they kept a large amount of cows near the village, as a source of food that was easy to access without trouble. They had to restock from time to time, but so far it had worked.

Being stationed here was now seen more as a punishment or bad luck, and a large part of the force was switched out on a regular basis. The annual death toll among soldiers was the highest in the nation, due to regular dragon incidents and criminals who want to exploit the low military presence for smuggling or other misdeeds.

The light at the end of the tunnel was that the dragon had been terrorizing the continent for centuries and its behaviour was more or less predictable. It usually stayed around a place until there was no more food nearby, but when breeding it would not stay longer than a decade. Currently it was the fifth year after the first sighting in this area.

After Boyd finished explaining about the dragon and they had eaten, the two parted ways. Boyd went to bring the equipment back to the armoury and then had to return to regular duty. Markus went to visit the workshop in the yard.