*'Doki'*

I walk towards the main barracks; the building I was 'asked' to arrive at in ten minutes.

It stood out from a distance, being an orderly block of concrete with the occasional window plastered on its walls. About three stories from the sheer number of said windows, it smothered its neighbors with its height.

Getting closer to the building, the dots that previously represented people formed their respective shapes. Even I was shocked at the pure numbers of people queuing there; at least a hundred figures in my view currently with more definitely inside.

With stress and anxiety growing from the nauseating conversations simultaneously happening, I fought back what tried to sliver out of my mouth and joined the intense line, I spaced out for most of the waiting part, so remained in auto-pilot for every step I moved until the moment I was at the front. From there I was personally called out and my instincts kicked in to do what my almost unconscious body couldn't.

After handing over my letter of conscription, I got permission to enter the building and from there the number of people only grew. From a mere hundred to what I'd assume to be five, the temperature rising only added to my lengthy list of problems facing me.

The reward for my patience and internal struggling? An hour or two long preach spent solely on filling everyone in the room with patriarchy. Muffled audio punching through the crowd as it echoed off the walls, continuous mentions of the words 'freedom' and 'honor' and having sat right in the front row; right next to the obnoxious git speaking didn't help with my displeasure. Hell, at a certain point into his illogical one-man play, I'd swear my allegiance just to leave with my a sense of hearing... It was just that unbearable.

I'll omit most of my mental rant, nit-picking every individual sentence the man spewed. Though, for the sake of referencing, it would've been just as long as his original speech. By constantly thinking up this rant, the ordeal was over in a blink of an eye... well a relative blink of an eye.

Anyway, after said preaching the speaker announced the situation. That said, the precise nature of his description still took up another hour for a rather simple premise. This being: splitting the bulk of the force up so they can do shifts and have those deemed as 'elites' divided with them, I somehow was included in the latter. Most of the happenings for us so called 'elites' would happen in the city, mainly as a means of keeping our strength together.

Most of it sounded rather smart given the situation, but this optimism was defused when we were sorted into our groups. They smartly kept the Samurai_Girls and Back_Hands as parties of their own, but then they haphazardly put everyone else into random groupings. For example, my party contained eighteen assassins, nine level tanks, two mages and myself as the sole healer. And, although you could claim that was due to lack of healers, another party had fifteen tanks, seven pirates, two assassins and six actual healer which made no sense to me!

With that in mind, the people in my group was hands down, the most stressful part. Our full group was escorted to a bunker labeled '15' by three people, a pirate, a mage and a tank. They seemed to be annoyed at the sight of us, but the real reason was probably something to do with the babble of conversation that started when we grouped.

-

After five minutes of walking, we entered the building through the only entrance, a very large and heavy door.

Inside, it was large and spacious with minimal lighting, our group, from a lined entry, soon dispersed and filled all the space. Whereas I didn't move far from the entrance, most of the party loosely grouped up near some walls, a group of seven assassins filled the center of the room, five facing two as bickering filled the room. A mage joined the two assassins, seeing as he leisurely walked there.

Both fronts snarled at one another until one of them broke the ice.

"So, even you lot are here. How cute, well I now know why they bothered giving us a healer," a female voice growled, the person who said this was in the line of five. And even though it wasn't expressed loud, the words echoed across the room regardless.

The mage spat out a response, clearly letting the insult get to him, "Ha! Aren't you getting that backwards? For a group that managed to die in Leroy's Lair, you sure are cocky!"

All of the people from the larger group clicked their tongues. In the temporary cool down, I mumbled 'Who's that', repeated it for everyone and glanced through the tables. The five assassin's levels ranged between 42 and 47, the two assassins being level 45 and level 48 with their mage being level 54. Looking at the others, this mage had the second highest in the party.

After a moment's pause, a male assassin on the end took a jab, "So, how did the dire wolves treat your B party again?" Another pause before the same person continued, "They died twice and gave up with a massive loss of money? Sorry to hear that."

Before the smaller group could give a comeback, however, a male tank, who was previously standing near me, walked towards the center and yelled, "You guys... Shut the hell up!"

The people involved turned from one another, scowling at the person who dared to interrupt them. In the tense atmosphere, three of them on the larger side reached towards their swords, anger plastered on their faces as they did so.

"And who are you to demand that, you meat shield wannabe!?" someone in the angry crowd said.

Understanding that he made the situation way worse, he too reached towards his sword. Lots of people near me were making similar movements, though, the people designated as our trainers seemed intrigued with this fight, looming near the entrance with thoughtful expressions.

The middle assassin from the five made the first move. Brandishing her weapons: a handful of throwing knives and a basic sword, she showed the gap between their speed by practically danced towards the outspoken tank, hitting his face with the knives before reaching him and slicing his arm with her sword.

The other four got out their weapons, looked back to the three they argued with and moved. The latter doing the same, and so a fight between them started. More tanks and the rest of the assassins, all of which seeing how silly this was, soon interjected. But instead of forcing the battle to end, all of them ended up just joining the chaos instead.

Moments after it started, the tank and two of the assassin's health was in the red, with the majority of the rest of the crowd being somewhere in the orange. The assassins from the beginning found themselves darting around additional tanks, being chased by more assassins, all of whom matched their speed and damage and being engulfed in frost, fire, and water from the mage who was almost unscathed at this point.

Only me, the three instructors and the other mage were out of the conflict. All of us saw how long this would take, so fighting occasional explosions, crackling of fire, clashing of metal and shrieks of pain, we started a conversation.

The latter started the conversation, picking her words wisely as she asked me, "So, um... why is a healer in this group?"

To which I bluntly replied, "No idea..."

Having nothing to add to that, I faced one of the instructors and asked, "What was the point in this? If it's about discipline, then they've failed already. If this has another reason, wouldn't be a good idea to tell us rather than letting most of the people die and therefore not hear it?"

The mage was the first to answer, "Oh, don't worry about that. This is a training room, so if someone dies they'll instantly respawn outside. The entire purpose of this is to test everyone's abilities, so technically the only two not fulfilling the purpose is you two. And yes, I'm including you too, succubus."

Our parties mage seemed confused before his mouth fell open and a question poured out, "You're a succubus, why pretend to be a healer then?"

I internally forced myself to ignore the tangent, instead, spending my next words questioning the instructor's method, "Well that figures. But even if you say that, are you sure such a sporadic free-for-all is the best way to showcase this?"

The pirate butted in before the mage could answer, "Are you saying that this war isn't going to be this sporadic?"

"There are at least defined sides in a war, this is just a pointless cluster-fuck based on random hostility," I stated.

Met by laughter, the mage tried to debate this, "You clearly are new to this world, are you a visitor or something?"

I nodded, making the mage continue his explanation with widened eyes, "Really? A visitor like you is nearly level fifty!? You're representing a country you've only been in for a month at most!"

To show my confusion at his awe, I countered his question with another, "Is that really surprising? I didn't really try to raise my level to this degree, it just happened..."

Sighing, the assassin-classed instructor, who was previously lurking just outside, finally butted in, "You... It's taken us years to get to this level. How suicidal were you and your party?"

I tilted my head to the side, "'Suicidal'? I've only done one dungeon and a raid dungeon... Oh, and that one event in Skimmington."

The assassin mimicked my action, singling their point of confusion, "'Event'?"

"Well, there was a sort of fight between those two clans, the Samurai_Girls and the... Ha... I've forgotten their name,"

The mage-classed instructor prompted me, "Do you mean the Back_Hands?"

Clapping my hands, I nodded. But before I could continue, the first scream from the crowd dominated the room. Most of the fighting stopped to check who released such a noise, swiftly isolating the source as the tank who first tried breaking up the fight.

The conversation came back in sync with the mass clashing of swords, the non-instructing mage's mouth agape for some reason with me in his sight. Was he staring at me that entire time or something?

Slightly stuttering, he soon voiced his reason, "Um... y-you wouldn't happen to be the guy who decimated the Back_Hand's leader with the bind trap, would you?"

Yet again I tried arguing against this undeserved praise, "Is it that special? I mean, it took my entire group of four to kill him that quickly, I just trapped him there..."

I failed, as the sparks in his eyes dictated. One of the instructors, I think it was the pirate, patted me on the back for some reason...

It was explained after a moment of thought, "Well, anyway. The heat of the fight seems to have simmered, do you mind actually showing us your all now?"

Amidst our discussion, I noticed the rate of spells launched by the fighting mage had slowed, so I assumed the fight had calmed down a bit. But I was still surprised at the reality behind it. From the looks of it, the people previously scared at his damage swooped in and swiftly defeated him in close combat. He died seconds after our conversation ended.

Overlooking the slug-fest as a whole, I saw that everyone, par one cowardly assassin hiding in the corner, were at orange health. Everyone now focusing on individual duels rather than fighting everyone simultaneously, though, chaotic attacks out of said duels were still common. The total deaths numbering four, with five or so people nearly joining them, so the previously fast-paced brawl now looked more controlled and manageable for everyone.

With the fact that my opponents were mostly wounded, I took the chance to join the fight. I used some honor in taking on the mage who joined with me first. After making eye contact with him, we both counted down simultaneously. Pacing towards the heart of the fight with every count, we eventually both reached zero and faced one another. Without any delay, we both attacked.