Book 2: Chapter 17

Florens and Cyil arrived at the mercenary association without incident.

The mercenary association was one of the largest buildings in the city and could hold more than a thousand people at once. There were four floors in total, but to access the higher floors a higher mercenary/warrior ranking would be needed; thus, the first floor was lively, entirely noisey and packed with hundreds of people. There were all sorts of characters here- some were large, some were small, some were friendly, while others were aloof. There were even some dwarves mixed in with the bunch.

Florens pushed through the crowd as Cyil stuck close behind. They made their way to an open booth counter, where a disgruntled middle-aged woman was stationed. The lady had a hardened face and if she maintained her looks she would be pretty, but as she was now, even Cyil was somewhat frightened by her.

“Hello Emilia, you’re looking much prettier than usual today! Is it your hair?” Florens traced his chin in thought, trying to appear charming.

The middle-aged woman called Emilia didn’t react, already used to Florens’ antics, and responded: “What do you want Florens? If you want to fight then I get off in 3 hours.”

Florens raised his arms up in defense, dreading the thought of fighting Emilia. “Fight against you? Goodness no.” Then, clearing his throat Florens moved to the side to reveal the scrawny Cyil standing behind him. “I am here to help brother Cyil join the Rovaria army. Can you help us with that, pretty Emilia?”

Again, Emilia ignored Florens sweet talk, grabbed a piece of paper and feather quill and passed the items to Florens. “Fill out the form then we’ll perform the physical assessment afterwards. Don’t forget the 50 silver coins fee.”

Florens gladly accepted the form and quill and passed them to Cyil. “Brother Cyil, I see that you are gifted with the ability to read, so I hope you can write, too, because I cannot write to save my life. When would I ever need to write, after all? I’m not going to write a book about my life or anything. If I do write, I’ll write with my blade.”

Cyil, more focused on the form, only nodded at Florens’ words. The form was straightforward, asking for the applicant’s name, age, birth kingdom, warrior ranking, reason for joining the army, and mercenary group.

Cyil filled out most of the form, paused, raised his head, and saw the smiling Florens. Cyil instantly knew why Florens would be so happy. Cyil could only sigh, “Florens, why must someone be in a mercenary group? Can I leave this section blank?"

Florens shrugged his shoulders adamantly. “Brother Cyil, this is a new policy as the recruiting process has become more selective. They won’t just accept anyone, and although your age and warrior ranking are important, it is even more important to know about your background. Those who are from well-known mercenary groups will have a more favorable chance of being accepted. Aside from that, the mercenary group can also vouch for the applicant’s moral character, provide a record of the applicant’s achievements and much more. So, it is essential to join a mercenary group if you want to join the army.”

Cyil frowned and asked, “It’s that complicated?” He was too young to remember how the recruiting process was when the Dark Ones were rampant on the western border, but nearly every man in Fayburn had been drafted. Cyil was sure that none of the men were in mercenary groups or were that high of a warrior ranking.

Florens nodded and said apologetically. “Brother Cyil, I am also angered by this complication. If there was only a way I could help…” Florens let his sentence linger in the air.

Cyil could clearly sense Florens insinuation and said, “can you help me form my own mercenary group?”

Florens was flabbergasted, his smile twitching. “Brother Cyil, why must you be so hard on yourself? Creating a mercenary group is easy, but maintaining one is difficult. You first need to have 500 gold coins then need at least 5 people and there are other complications, too. It is much easier to join an existing mercenary group. Of course, it’s important to find the right mercenary group, because some groups are notorious for their ruthless actions and others are too controlling of their members. I am glad to say that Soaring Wolf is a group that treats all our members as brothers and act accordingly, as humans should: only attacking when we are attacked and not pillaging helpless victims.”

Florens didn’t give up pitching to Cyil and Cyil noticed this, thinking that Florens talked too much. Cyil was about to answer when Emilia, who had been listening to the conversation the entire time, interjected:

“Boy, you can leave the mercenary section blank. It won’t affect the selection process much because even if you join Soaring Wolf, their small mercenary group won’t help your application very much.”

When Florens heard what Emilia had said he was at a lost of words and could only sigh. Florens had already felt bad that he was pushing such an unwilling boy to join his mercenary group and decided it really was time to give up. It wasn’t his style to be so desperate, but the mercenary group winning the regional annual mercenary tournament would receive 50,000 gold coins and 10 weapons equivalent to rank 2 offensive magical equipments.

The annual mercenary tournament was divided into division by age range: 16 and under, 17- 25, 25-50, and 50 and up. There were also different levels of the annual mercenary tournament that the winners from the previous level would advance to: the regionals, the kingdoms, and the empire. Florens and the majority of his mates were over 50 and had no chance of winning, so they could only pin their hopes on their members competing in the younger division. If they could just win at this regional annual mercenary tournament then it would be enough to propel the prestige and strength of Soaring Wolf into the skies. Florens didn’t dare dream they could even compete at the kingdom level and was already in over his head thinking about winning at the regional tournament.

Snapping out of his mood, Florens could feel Cyil’s questioning eyes on him and Florens said truthfully, “Brother Cyil, Emilia is correct. Soaring Wolf is a low-rung mercenary group and we have only 20 members, even after existing for 20 years. You would fare better to join another mercenary group as our name on your application would probably have a negative effect rather than a positive one.”

Cyil calculated the situation and thinking about how Florens had helped him and could help in the future, Cyil felt it would be okay to join Soaring Wolf. He didn’t plan to stay with them for long and that would ensure that his ‘curse’ wouldn’t kill them. This entire time, Cyil was most worried about bringing harm to Florens and the rest of the Soaring Wolf group so he had been adamant in not joining. Now, however, Cyil felt that things would be alright. This would just be a fleeting phase and he would be careful not to get too close with Soaring Wolf’s members, then he would be off for the army, start his physical body training, and later join the mage association using his military background.

“Brother Florens,” Cyil scratched his head. “I would like to join Soaring Wolf. Seeing as to how sincere you are, I think Soaring Wolf can’t be a bad place. But I can’t promise to stay with Soaring Wolf in the future, so there’s that to consider.”

Florens was speechless for a moment; he didn’t know what the boy was thinking, one moment he was cold and the next he wanted to join. Heck, the boy even called him brother. In any case, Florens tried to bear hug Cyil, but missed, as the prepared Cyil dodged to the side. This shocked Florens as he was a rank 3 warrior, and although he wasn’t moving as fast as he could, Cyil should not have been able to dodge the hug.

“Brother Cyil, it’s just a hug! We are truly brothers now!” Florens said through his smile.

“I’m fine. I don’t like hugs from men.” Cyil responded cooly, quickly writing down Soaring Wolf on the mercenary group section and handed the completed form to Emilia who shook her head, unable to decipher Cyil’s decision.

Florens recovered and pushed 50 silver coins over the counter to Emilia. “I’ll take care of the fee, Brother Cyil.”

“Thank you.” Cyil didn’t have 50 silvers, as he had only gotten 20 silver coins from Gokurk’s house and had already paid half of that for the clothes and food at the farm house.

“Of course, don’t mention it!” Florens was happy to pay for Cyil’s fee and he asked for a form to complete Cyil’s inauguration into Soaring Wolf. Cyil also filled out this new form and handed it back to Emilia. When the pair was done, Emilia brought them outside and to the back of the mercenary association where a large open field with various tools was available for testing a person’s bodily strength.

The first thing that caught Cyil’s eyes was a young man dodging moving logs tied with individual ropes. Aside from dodging, the man had to manage his footing on the elevated wooden pegs and he was struggling to hang on, soon losing his footing before being struck in the back by a log. This caused a chain reaction as that moment of being stun allowed him to be hit by three more logs. The man fell to the dirt and coughed up some blood.

Cyil watched the proceeding and thought it was interesting, hoping he could try it out. Then, looking to another area Cyil saw a group of men sparring with each other. In another area people were just running with sacks on their backs. All around were people trying their best to train their physical bodies. Cyil thought that if there was all there was to training the body then he could have trained on his own.

“Here is the first test.” Emilia’s voice roused Cyil out of his thoughts. “You wrote that you don’t know your physical level so we’ll determine it with this. Punch the stone with all your strength.”

Cyil looked at the tall slick black stone that was 10 feet tall. Following Emilia’s direction he walked up to the stone and took a horse stance before rotating his hips like the snapping of a whip and slammed his right fist into the black stone. When he made contact with the stone he expected his knuckles to crack and bleed against the hard surface, but instead it felt like he was hitting cotton.

Retracting his fist, Cyil saw that the previous black stone was now glowing with some numerical letters.

“2.7, not bad,” Emilia couldn’t help but praise Cyil, because this result would qualify Cyil to be ranked as a rank 1 or even rank 2 warrior, which was astounding.

“Brother Cyil! You’re almost as strong as me!” Florens jested with a bit of seriousness, obviously happy because Cyil had exceeded his expectations.

“2.7? What does that mean?” Cyil asked Emilia and Florens.

Emilia didn’t answer, looked to Florens, jotted down the result and walked on over to the next test.

Florens quickly beckoned Cyil to follow as he explained, “the number represents how many times stronger you are than an average man. Right now you are over twice as strong as an average man. However, this doesn’t mean you are automatically a rank 1 or rank 2 warrior, because rankings can only be determined with actual combat and includes various other factors like battle experience, agility, and tactics. Right now my strength is 4.5 times that of an average man, but I am still just a rank 3 warrior, so strength does not correlate with rankings. “

As Florens explained, Cyil intently listened and began to understand how vague the warrior ranking system can be compared to the mage system. Thinking about something, Cyil asked, “So the warrior ranking system is not reliable? How do I know if I’ve improved or ranked up?”

Florens scratched his head, “I agree with you brother Cyil. The mercenary association is working with the mage association to develop better ways of measuring a warrior’s strength but there are so many factors involved that the best we can do now is to have actual combat decide the ranking of an individual. This way a standard can be set and followed. I have seen instances of so-called ranked 1 warriors defeating rank 3 or 4 warriors, despite the difference in brute strength. In any case, your next test is speed so prepare for it.”

Emilia stopped in front of an open stretch of ground and took out a small hourglass from the pouch she carried. “When I tell you to do so, run to that pole and retrieve the flag.”

In the distance, a red flag could be seen hovering in the air. To reach the flag and back would be about 400 yards of running in total. Cyil thought the task was simple enough and nodded, indicating that he was ready.

Emilia did not waste any more words and flipped the hourglass, “go.”

Cyil took off like an arrow. He no longer ran at a steady pace like he was accustomed to, but exerted all his force, breaking into a sprint. Each stride he took covered 3-4 yards and he charged through the open grounds like a wild lion. Cyil reached the pole, jumped up the 10 feet to grab the flag, and used the pole as support to fling himself back in the opposite direction.

Florens and Emilia nodded at how Cyil had used the pole, even though this was his first time taking the test. When Cyil ran past Emilia and Florens, the hourglass was tilted to its side and Emilia looked at the grain of sands.

“Good,” Emilia said and moved on to the next testing site.

Cyil didn’t know what ‘good’ meant and turned to look at Florens who was grinning from ear to ear. “Brother Cyil, your speed isn’t bad at all! It’s much higher than even most rank 2 warriors I’ve seen. You ran so fast I thought you were being chased by a magical beast!” Florens laughed and felt that the chances of Soaring Wolf taking the 16 and under prize at the regional annual mercenary tournament had increased greatly.

Cyil was still a bit confused about how warrior rankings worked, but he thought that being comparable in speed to a rank 2 warrior should be good. Before Cyil could ask Florens any more questions, Emilia said, “Since this is only a basic evaluation, we will not be doing coordination, tactics, agility, weapons proficiency, stealth, vision, or those other tests, but we will be doing the most important test of all- actual combat.”

Standing in a small circular ring, Emilia spoke to Cyil then beckoned for him to come into the ring. Cyil walked slowly into the ring and Florens knowingly stepped a few feet away from the ring saying, “good luck brother Cyil.”

Cyil looked to Florens’ pitying face and to Emilia’s stern face and asked, “I’m supposed to fight you?”

Emilia nodded. “Try your best to last as long as you can and don’t step out of the ring. Of course, if you can defeat me or make me step out of the ring then it will be your win, too.”

“Defeat you?” Cyil frowned at the joke and at that moment Emilia attacked.