CHAPTER 27 – TAKING OVER THE ACADEMY

The day after the ceremony my friends and I had already started our takeover of the academy. That kind of makes me sound like a villain, so maybe just call it our plan to occupy the academy.

Along with Claude’s decree, my friends and I headed for the academy. Claude had allowed us to occupy the empty barracks that were built to future proof the living quarters.

Once we arrived, we checked the conditions of the empty barracks. Unsurprisingly, there were spiderwebs and dust everywhere. As these were the spear barracks and have not been used since they were built, we would have to clean up the place before we started to use the place.

There were ten spare barracks, each could comfortably house fifty to seventy personnel. As there were only my friends and I that were in the Order of the Eternal Garden, shortened to the Eternal Garden. That just made eight people including myself. If we include my group of recruits that would only go up to fifty-eight.

Thus, we finally decided to claim two of the barracks, as we did not need so many barracks. One of the barracks was for the knights and officers, while the other was for the recruits. I should call them initiates now that they are official soldiers, under my command.

When we arrived, I had Erika split off to call the initiates over here to help with the clean-up. As we had no logistical staff or any other personnel, they would have to be the ones to do most of the cleaning for now.

My friends and I could help as well, but, as we had been raised to be highly sheltered, we probably would just get in the way. So, while the initiates were cleaning the rest of the rooms, my friends and I were slowly cleaning our rooms.

As we had plenty of space each initiate shared their room with only one or two other initiates. This was usually a luxury that was only given to junior officers, but as we had the space, we might as well keep them happy.

My friends and I were able to have our rooms to ourselves as we were the ones deciding the room placements. It was in no way an abuse of our power and authority, senior officers always had a room to themselves.

When we had finally finished cleaning up our rooms it was past lunchtime. Still, we headed to the canteen for lunch. While waiting for our orders to arrive, we started to brainstorm what our next course of action is.

We only had fifty soldiers and Claude had informed us that those were the only ones we would receive before our headquarter is built. We also had to source our logistical staff and everything by ourselves.

What I had originally believed to be an easy way into the military had completely flipped over. We were completely in hard mode. On the bright side, we did get a military budget that was more than enough for even a brigade. With this budget, we believed that it would be for the best that, we used it to procure better equipment for the soldiers.

For now, we needed to focus on the most important thing. Getting military staff to perform logistical tasks. It was still currently manageable, as we were still at the academy and leeching off their supplies. However, once we split off and enter our base, we would have to get our supplies. To do that we had to have logistical staff ready.

Having gotten our priorities straight, we started to hunt around the academy searching for academy students that were in the military logistics class. It was the obvious choice as they were the most suitable ones. They had already been trained and were not in any military role yet. To make the position more attractive for these students we also gave them the opportunity to enter our independent battalion as a lieutenant and oversee a logistical team.

My first target was the student council and particularly the president Amelia. She’s the ex-president now, but she was still both an excellent leader and a student that was familiar with logistical tasks. The members of the student council were also all familiar with logistical tasks. After all, they were the ones that handled all the events that the academy held. This included the large-scale warfare club that often involved around a thousand students. If I could recruit these members to my battalion, it would prove invaluable.

I poked my head through the student council room door, which was for some reason never closed. Looking inside, I found that Amelia was talking to the new student council president. Not wanting to interrupt them, I silently entered the room and looked for someone, I knew that did not seem very busy.

It seemed that I was in luck, and I spotted a member I knew by the name of Luke. Luke was someone that had graduated at the same time as me and was also in the knight course. Hopefully, I could convince him to join the Eternal Garden or the battalion. If he joined up, we would have be killing two birds with one stone. Even if he did not join up, he would know a few people that would be willing to join up.

Walking up to Luke, I called out to him, “Hey Luke how’s it going.”

“It’s been fine. I have just been helping out with the student council while I decide on what to do with my life.” Having long noticed my appearance he replied to me without being shocked to see me. “What about you? The last I heard was that you graduated from the academy two weeks ago and went back to the palace immediately.”

“That’s perfect then. Just yesterday Claude declared for the formation of a new knight order, the order of the Eternal Garden, and conferred the title of knight commander onto me. If you really do not know what to do with your life, why don’t you join up with the Eternal Garden.”

“You will have to give me a moment to think about it. I won’t take long just a few minutes to sort out my thoughts.” Came Luke’s reply.

I nodded my head indicating that I did not mind. As Luke was thinking I looked over at Amelia to see if she was free now. It seemed like she was still busy, so I did not go over to disturb her, and I didn’t know anyone else, so I just stood there waiting for Luke’s reply.

While waiting my mind differed around and random ideas for the battalion started to pop up in my head. I could have them all learn to read and write so they could easily communicate even if they were far away. It would also boost their effectiveness to another level.

Another thing I was thinking about was the crossbow. I had seen in many movies the usage of crossbows and found that they were incredibly simple to use and aim. If the light infantry or scouts were also equipped with a crossbow, they would be able to conduct a more variety of operations and tasks.

The problem was there weren’t any crossbows in use on Arcadia. However, we could make one, using the current technology available. While I did not know how to make a crossbow or even a normal bow for that matter, I understood the concept of a crossbow. Crossbows were basically just a horizontal bow attached to a board with a hook and trigger mechanism.

Before I got too deep into my thoughts, Luke looked as if he was ready to talk.

“So, have you made up your mind in whether you want to join or not?” I asked.

Nodding his head he replied, “I have indeed decided. I will not be joining you in the Eternal Garden. While it sounds like it has great potential, I would still like to join a knight order that has already been established.”

Hearing Luke’s reply I instantly deflated. I know, I prepared for rejection, but it still made me feel depressed when it involved someone I knew. Hoping that he knew someone that would be interested in joining I asked him just that, “Do you know anyone that would be interested in joining the Eternal Garden?”

This time around, it seemed like my wish came true. Luke did know someone that would like to join, and it happened to be the ex-student council president Amelia. Knowing that such a qualified and overall nice person joining our order was greatly encouraging.

Now that I knew that there was a high possibility that Amelia would join the order, I decided to walk up to her and interrupt her after all. “Hey, Amelia. Sorry to interrupt, but I have something important that I want to talk to you about.”

Stopping what she was doing, Amelia indicated for me to speak my mind. I explained to her about my recent appointment as the Knight Commander of the Eternal Garden. I also told her about how we were missing capable logistical personnel and was hoping that she would join us.

Once I was done explaining everything to her, I stared at her expectantly waiting for a reply.

Looking right back at me Amelia’s reply did not disappoint me. She agreed to join the order and was willing to oversee many of the logistical issues we were facing. She even knew a few people that were interested in working in the logistical department and offered to contact them. As Amelia had already graduated, she also offered to start as soon as tomorrow morning.

With Amelia down with joining us, I could assume that we had the recruitment aspect of the logistical department all set. Now we just needed to find people that can repair and make our gear, as well as bowyers that can supply quality bows. Additionally, I would need some bowyers that are interested in developing the crossbow for me. That also had to be willing to work exclusively for us, as I did not want the technology to spread.

While I knew there were some students interested in smithing and bow making here at the academy, they were mainly just hobbyists and were not very skilled. Hitting another roadblock, I was once again left stumped on what to do.

Feeling as if I had nothing to lose, I asked Amelia whether she knew anyone that would fit these criteria or knew someone that did. Unexpectedly, Amelia once again knew some people that would be interested. She promised to contact them tomorrow and visit them with me.

With another item off the checklist, the things that I needed to do went down again. Now that we had the logistical personnel mostly set, I now needed an adviser. My previous attempt at asking Sir Frederick to join had failed. Luckily, he had proposed to his nephew but, after I had sent a letter to him, he still had not replied to me.

Feeling troubled by this problem I returned to the Barracks to meet up with my friends and see how they went. Hopefully, they were also able to recruit some members and complete their objectives. If not, there would be more trouble ahead of us.