Sweat.

Sweat.

Sweat.

The droplets kept coming without end, the heat excruciatingly dragging out every last bit of salty water it could from their skin. The sun’s excessive dedication to emanating solar radiation seemingly attempted to turn their skin charcoal as fast as possible.

Identical green uniforms worn, all standing side by side in the same stilted formation, hands behind their backs. Boots grounded into the dirt below their feet, and they stood still, upright, tall. So occasionally they winced or shook but never did they move. Not while he was standing in front of them.

His presence was not inspiring, not comforting, not towering. The grousing middle-aged man standing ahead of them pacing around eyed them over and over again; shooting looks on a constant basis.

“Gentlemen!”

Twitch.

“Are you gentlemen or not, really? I don’t see any gentlemen, I see corpses! I see a series of weak boys! I don’t see soldiers! Is that right gentlemen!”

“NO, SIR, NO!” They all shouted. Some continued to shake, some moved a little, but all continued to stay in place.

“Sibei jialat! I can’t even get any of you to deny it is it? You sound like little girls! Is that RIGHT gentlemen!”

“NO, SIR, NO!” It got even louder; more hoarse.

“Ei, what is this ah! I thought I was leading a platoon, not a collection of maggots! Is that right Tan!”

A gasp. His eyes widened and he shouted, “NO, NO SIR NO!” His breath turned dry, and his heart beat faster and faster. The sweat coming down his skin was joined by some colder droplets.

“Is that so, Tan! You seem like a maggot. Very fast on your feet, right? Very easy to do anything you want to do! Father taught you a lot right!”

Gulping again, he remained silent and looked forward, quietly shaking.

“ANSWER ME!”

Wei continued to stare forward into the void, his lips locked and shut.

“Very easy to complain is it? IS IT?”

The officer stared for a dozen seconds, before placing his palm on his face; with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes, his leg flew upwards and whacked Wei in the abdomen. Wei recoiled, breaking formation and falling on his knees before immediately standing back up again, panting and breathing erratically.

“All of you are like that! No wonder they put you on list, we need to know how useless people like you are! Look at me and answer me like a man!”

He winced.

The officer grunted before walking up to him and slapping him square in the face, turning Wei’s face to the right and leaving a bright red mark.

“Cannot think ah? They paid your family too much to think ah? Answer!”

He slowly stuttered. “Y-yes sir…”

“Oh, now can speak is it! Lazy is it! You think military can just do anything you want like your useless parents ah? Cannot even tahan a slap already want to cry, you even a man ah? Even woman stronger than you!”

He stood up and no longer responded in any way, his eyes looking down. The officer observed that and sighed, before walking off.

“Gentlemen, wheels up at 1430 hours! Report at 1350, full combat gear! I don’t want to see anyone late! Is that clear!”

“SIR YES SIR!”

“Dismissed!”

Wei stomped on the ground as the others did and ran off. The pain was still searing, and the weight of the anger in him manifested in his bitten lip; yet, he said nothing and continued to sprint towards the mass of tents, bearing the brunt of the wounds with him.

On his chest, the large black square pinned below his shirt pocket flopped around, the emblazoned ‘Lazy’ neat and yet messily taped on. The square was not unique to him, either; the men around him were all wearing them. Others would not.

Instead of entering any one of the dozens of tents, they ran around them; trudging through the uneven terrain of dirt and rock and avoiding the barracks. The ground they walked on was flattened, though the prints of the bottom of boots seemed to have done it, and as they ran they passed by a sign.

‘Troublemakers’ platoon needs special permission’.

Cold sweat drenched his body, his entire body shaking. Suddenly and quickly he sat up, only to find abject darkness.

Light was nearly completely removed from the room, a thin stream emerging from a rectangular outline above the ground. The wooden logs that made up a menacing, straight wall stacked horizontally up to the ceiling, sneering at those on the rocky floor.

*huff*

Dazed, he slowly and lazily looked around at the damp air that enveloped him. He shivered, hugging himself as a freezing breeze bristled by, coming over a strange round object sticking out of his lower chest.

...sticking out of his lower chest.

*huff*

With his right hand, he gripped it. It glowed a fluorescent blue, an odd hum emerging from it, and his body was absolutely aching. A brown stain went all the way down from below the orb to his abdomen, as an abnormal web of bluish veins emerged from the sphere outwards.

Blink.

His narrowed eyes glared at the bright object with three centimetres of solid protruding outwards.

*huff*

Gripping it again, he pushed it inwards, but no reaction. His widened, freaked-out eyes gave no indication to stop and he thus twisted it in an anti-clockwise direction.

“Ow!”

*psssssssssss*

A smoke billowed out of the leftward end of the orb and a painful bubbling came up from the veins.

“...”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A deep voice with clarity yet obvious disinterest came from the wooden wall. Thud. The boots of a short-haired figure slammed on the floor before the figure slowly grew larger from his perspective; and before him a blue light appeared.

The aquamarine blue-skinned woman before him pinched the collar of her pale brown trenchcoat, her cyan eyes narrowed under a head of silver-white hair locked with several metal pins creating thick strands on both sides of her face.

“...what is this?” He said, soft and hesitant.

“That, is a verdansk sokov, an object brought from the Mann Korun of the South. They say it grants humans the ability of magic… or at least, if the humans are healthy enough to resist it.”

Walking over to the wall, she floated a bright, spherical light into a small metal plate held from the rock and dropped it in. It burned up into a fiery flame, a crack every few seconds emerging out of the plate.

Thud. Another two men, both in metal plates strapped together over long sleeves came to him.

“Of course, welcome, killer. I am Miru, commander of this fortress.”

“K-killer?”

“Why, yes, you killed three elven. I would regard that as killing.” The translator noted before nodding to the men.

The two men grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him forward, with which he wearily complied. He took his first heavy steps forward as they continually pushed and shoved him towards the wooden wall, his worn boots scraping against the floor. One of them pulled his hands behind his back and tied them together, a tight, painful feeling itching from his wrists.

Shoved forward once again, he slowly turned around as the men stepped next to him, as did Miru. She flicked her fingers up, and the ground rumbled; suddenly and quickly the stone underneath their feet floated up to the large hole on the wooden wall.

Wei shook, bending slightly down to see the floor below before being jabbed in the chest out of the dark room and into a brighter, still intensely wet and dingy hallway, hitting the floor headfirst.

“Ahh…”

He muttered under his breath.

Elbowed by the soldiers, one of them gave him an angered look with a scowl. Getting on his knees, then his feet, they gripped both his arms and held him down.

“Bring him to the range.” She commanded; the other two nodded, nudging Wei forward once more.

Stumbling, Wei quietly walked on as he glanced around him. The wooden walls all featured the same square holes with curtains from which he had been kicked into the open, the ceiling barely half his height away from his head. Still, small metallic lanterns hung from the grey rectangle that expanded all the way down to a door on the far end of the hallway.

Dragged to the exit, the next hallway dimmed, with only a pale marine light emitted from lanterns on the side of the wall. The jagged edges of the walls blended into the spikes and cast shadows that faded into the dark spots between light sources, small streams of water rolling down the walls around them.

He wobbled and wobbled, hunching over as he found himself still held by his arms. Thrust forward from time to time, a searing pain began to form in his upper arm, a tired expression with his mouth slightly agape on his face.

Passing by a stronger, much more defined red light, his dreary expression turned to an alert, horrified one, his eyes enlarged as he took a gulp.

Under the harsh, blinding light, there were two figures; one in the same garb of the men constantly shoving him forward and another in ragged, tattered scraps entrapped within a uniform network of metal chains.

The guard held a large fork with a smoking, bright red rock stuck on its pikes, quickly and effortlessly shoving the burning thing into the other’s mouth. The muffled scream that emerged reached Wei’s ears and he looked away just as fast, trying to block out the sound, the voice fading away as he continued to be pulled.

But turning the corner his face turned green as before his eyes a similar sight emerged; dozens of people all facing various tortures.

A sickly woman to his right displayed a pale blue skin, chained to the wall with several men and women alike. A man threw up a vermont-green mixture onto the ground and was promptly lashed by the armoured elf in front of him right on his back, a grim red line being left behind. Entire containers of the same piked forks lay before his eyes, and the burning orange colour of one or two of them was denoted with droplets of blood on their exposed handles.

The stink of rotting meat swirled throughout the room, several persons somewhat devoid of life propped up against the wall; one or two particularly emotionless women stood jerkily in front of a guard who while having the same long ears as the man ahead of them, were near-white and their skin caving in on their skulls.

His eyes lay wide.

Walking upright before him was that very same woman who calmly strolled to the entrance of a room, slid open the door and pointed inside with her thumb. Once more he was tossed upon the ground, and he groaned as he stood up.

A long stone barrier separated him from a wide expanse with targets similar to the place where he had first been captured and impaled in the stomach. Staring over to the various wooden boards shaped in the vague silhouette of a person, his already weary and half-closed eyes narrowed further.

“Use your powers.” Miru demanded, in the same obsolescent tone of disinterest.

Wei remained silent, staring at her whilst quivering.

Her eyes narrowed. “Is it that difficult to be of use to your masters?” She asked, a cold chill creeping down his neck.

“-uh, I-I don’t know what-”

“Magic. Even the most hideous creature can use it in some way - even the Akari. Are you insinuating that you are beneath a subhuman?”

“W-what is-”

“Useless.”

Pointing at the targets, she stretched out her hand towards them. As she clenched her fist a dozen stones lifted up into the air, and as she opened her palm once more the stones whisked off towards the targets, hitting them.

She let him loose and gestured to the two guards, after which they went up and untied his hands, allowing him to step forward.

“Use your powers to throw them at the target.” Miru said, placing several long, sharp stone darts on the top of the barrier.

He stared at her, before staring at the darts. His weary eyes were accompanied by the lines forming between them, while he raised his hand.

This is how they did it, right? He thought, before holding out his hand as if holding an imaginary dart, then slowly moving it up.

It didn’t move.

He tried again, this time with his fist completely closed.

It didn’t move.

His already jittery hands began to shake even stronger as he tried, and tried, and tried, each failure followed by his eyes growing wider, him biting his lip as the delicate process degenerated into him flicking his hand.

“Tch- c’mon!”

Throwing an imaginary ball?

No result.

Flinging an imaginary frisbee?

Failure.

Tossing an imaginary piece of wastepaper?

Nope.

Panting, he stared. Miru’s already disinterested expression turned to total and complete abandonment and a scowl appeared. One of the guards went up to her, rubbing his chin, pointing at Wei and speaking in the same language he had no way of understanding.

Sweat tapered down his cheeks before Miru stepped forward and slapped down on both his shoulders.

“I take it that it is impossible?”

“No, no, no- just gimme a sec-”

“That is fine. A suggestion has been presented and I believe that it is fitting.” Her voice remained cold and monotone as she pushed him away and to a doorway on the left. He shakily scampered over on his own as Miru gestured to the guards to stay at the entrance, personally tying his hands back together with a rope as he shivered, not resisting at all.

The room she dragged him into was lined with shelves, into which grooves and hangers were installed. Swords, bows, clubs, and rounded shields kept in a clean, orderly manner - in fact the entire room had a much more sterile atmosphere than the rest of the complex.

And on a table lay a gun. That same pale lime green, the same length, the magazines-

It was his gun.

He glanced at it, his mouth agape, then turned to Miru.

“Don’t think of taking your weapon back…” She said, walking over and picking up the gun by its barrel, holding it in a regal manner.

“...but it is a marvelous weapon, is it not? Dispatching three men in a moment. Perhaps dozens in instants, nations in a day.”

“I- I- I, uh, I don’t under-“

“Make this weapon. Once more. Teach these men how to use this weapon and make it possible for this organisation to make it. Then, we shall set you free.”

Miru looked at him with the same stoic expression, only now there lay a certain determination behind her eyes.

Wei remained silent, simply staring at her, quietly, slowly, tensing up. His body shivered, before Miru inched one tiny bit closer. His eyes widened and he recoiled, blurting out, ‘-I refuse.”

Instantaneously he covered his mouth, shaking his head and stepping back ever so slowly. His breaths became erratic and he could practically hear his heart drumming away.

“No - I meant that I, I accept- really ah! I didn’t mean to-”

She barely frowned, instead closing her fist; his hands moving on their own, clamping together. She grabbed him by the shoulder and began pushing him out of the room, his feet screeching against the floor. The guards immediately stepped out of the way, themselves quivering ever so slightly.

“Hey! HEY! HEY! I take it back! I TAKE IT BACK, PLEASE DON’T DO ANYTHING TO ME!” Wei screamed. Miru did not respond.

Hurled against the wall, he watched as she gestured to another few guards who then tied his limbs to clamps on the wall. He shivered and shivered until she came back, with a red-hot iron in hand.

“Hey, no no no no no, come on, come on!”

Not looking, Miru lowered the iron, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

“...there…” she muttered, raising a blazing red iron bar attached to the end of the iron.

“Fuck. Fuck, oh FUCK!”