It’s been a month since I joined. I am now a squad leader. It hadn’t come easy. It took a while to get a small group of supporters, and even longer to get strong enough to challenge one of the incumbent leaders. I had nominally been under his leadership, but that had been a stop-gap measure for me to bide time to grow stronger. I had started small, recruiting my fateful sparring partner, Gunther, at first. I was surprised he had agreed, but I like to think it was my unwavering dedication to improving myself every training that had convinced him.

By sparring with him regularly, I would polish my fighting skills, and during rest times I would teach him things I knew. He didn’t look like it, but he had the heart of a scholar hidden somewhere inside him. Devouring all the information I could provide to him, we formed a fruitful partnership. With that as the base, I began recruiting more and more people from our bunks to side with me. It helped that the leader, Abdul, was not particularly interested in leading a bunch of neophyte guards, instead, it was his natural charisma and strength that got him elected in the first place.

The fight I had with him and squeezed out all my strength and then a bit more, but eventually, I emerged as the leader of bunk 7. A full eleven people, under my command! It was still taking me a while to get used to commanding others and planning more than orchestrating tasks. Nevertheless, I was determined to get used to it. If I could acclimate myself among the rest and even become a bunk leader, there were surely greater heights I could reach. It was getting harder and harder to hold onto my own ambitions, as the scenarios we were being put through were getting harder and harder.

Having gone through basic combat training, we were now learning to fight as a team. Basic team-building exercises were breezed through, but now we would be going into the jungle to hunt wild animals. Today was the day that we would be moving deeper into the jungles, past activities had only been to hunt animals that strayed on the edge, now we were gathered by one of the gates to the training complex, albeit a different one from the one I had entered so many days ago.

Lined up with our chests high, each squad leader stood in front of the men he would lead. If one were to watch us carefully, they would find that we stood taller, more confident and muscular, as we grew from the training we had been put through. But until now, we had yet to face a true threat to our lives, thus the undercurrent of anxiety that still ran throughout all of us. We stood in formation while stewing in our own anxieties and the little sparks of excitement that came from the thought of a truly fierce battle, one that would send blood rushing through our veins. Or at least that's how most of us felt. I just felt the anxiety, never having been a fan of fighting, despite knowing its importance.

I had vowed to change myself, ever since my fall from grace, but its hard breaking out of the sheltered life I once lived. I am happy with the strides I have made thus far, getting all the way to a bunk leader despite the bumps along the way, but if I am to thrive, I am going to have to be harder on myself, or at the very least change my outlook to one that hungers for growth and advancement. Does that mean I should change the way I currently interact with my men? What about the way I do business?

Jerking me out of my thoughts is the call to attention from the man stood before us. He was a Sergeant, Sergeant Ramdas. Ramdas had an incredibly lean yet muscular build and walked with a certain gait that made one think of a predator stalking prey. I heard that he has done this portion of the training for over 5 years now, and before that he used to be part of the elite forest guard, a regiment tasked with thinning out monster hordes in the jungles they spawned. Which, given the dearth of wars that the kingdom has been involved in for quite some time, making him one of the most combat-experienced people in the area. Maybe even the entire kingdom, if you stretch it a little.

Whatever his ranking among the kingdom’s strongest, he had the knowledge I would need to survive and so I perked my ears and listened clearly the moment he cleared his throat to speak. Peripherally, I could see many doing the same, while a few had laidback postures that quite frankly surprised me. Either they were idiots or they had areas of expertise that were previously hidden. It seems that I should spend more effort on unearthing the potential hidden within others, and not seeing their skills on the surface. As I stood still, basking in this random revelation, Ramdas spoke.

“Listen up young men. This test is a matter of life or death. I can see some of you have had prior experience, but all of you must pay full attention to the jungle around you. Men leagues stronger than you have been swallowed by its depths when they let their guard down. Do the same, and you won't even have the chance to blink before you are dead. We will be entering the jungle at sector A-28. The threat level is yellow. We want guards, not gardeners. Break into bunks and discuss tactics. Meet for your final monster tutorial in twenty. Break.”

The whole time the formation had been listening with bated breath. Despite already knowing most of what he had said, to hear a man of such power and experience say it made us internalise it that much better. I was surprised though, that they had selected our training area to be sector A-28. Despite being a fringe area, it was somewhat deeper than most fringe areas, which was why it was classified yellow. That meant wild animals would be rather uncommon with lower levelled monsters as the norm. The fact that it was rated more dangerous than green meant that there was an ever so slight chance of a B ranked monster coming along, the equivalent of an adept fighter. Naturally, with most of us being powerless warriors, our only chance of survival is to run before it notices us or to fight it as a group.

Well, no point stressing about it more than necessary. I turned my attention back to the task at hand, namely coming up with a plan for the jungle, now that we know the danger level we were going to have to work with. We had already made some basic plans, with Abdul, Gunther and I taking charge of three points. We had split the remainder of the 9 trainees into 3 groups, so we formed three points of 4 men each, and would move with Gunther’s tip of the triangle forward. In the case of combat, either Abdul’s team or mine would assist, pincering the enemy. This plan was predicated on the danger level being green, meaning largely just wild animals or C ranked monsters.

The increase in danger level meant that we were going to have to switch our equipment load-outs. For a while we discussed ideas.

“Merge the third group into the first two”. Okay, that’s a possibility. A stronger pincer at the expense of awareness.

“Assassins!” What?

“Half in full plate, the other half archers” A consolidated force, huh? Might be the solution to class b monsters.

“All full plates” Heavy defence, might be costly in terms of our stamina and mobility.

“I want a full plate of stew” A volunteer for heavy arm- wait a minute. Stew?

“Quiet Stavros. We’re all hungry” This is derailing. Hopefully, we go back to tactics.

“All Assassins!” I look around but I don’t catch the person who’s been shouting about assassins. As hard to find as an assassin, I think to myself with a chuckle.

“I support the idea of a mix of archers and full plate, but I think we need some lightly armoured melee fighters to maintain our frontline mobility.” Abdul throws his weight behind a well thought out plan.

“Half assassins? Please?” That’s it. I whirl around, catching the offending culprit in the act of slinking behind Gunther’s back. Revon catches my eye and nervously smiles.

Revon constantly pitching the idea of a light armour ambush plan. Perhaps it might have worked had we all been talented assassins, but our physiques tended in different directions. His persistence caught my eye, however, and I reconsidered simply chastising him for not contributing. Of course, that would come in private later on. But for now, I turned to a group and proposed my idea.

“I think that we can incorporate the idea of a two-group force, as well as the mix of equipment. With a mix of archers, medium and heavy plate, we will have a good mix of mobility, defence and offence. Importantly, we will all be able to attack at any given time, which I think is of the utmost importance when fighting B ranked monsters. We have no attuned in our group, and thus we have no choice but to respond with all our strength. We will move as two groups, one reinforcing the other to conserve stamina. And I think we would also do well to have two scouts, to ensure we don't walk into any beast dens or other disastrous situations. What do you say, guys?”

“Sounds good” most of the group murmured.

“I’ll be a scout!” piped up Revon. Most of us had caught onto his antics by now, and we promptly ignored him.

“I vote Abdul as leader of the second squad.” rumbled Gunther. Good point, I thought. I had not considered who should lead the group, but with Gunther’s support and Abdul’s competency, I had nothing to doubt. In all honesty, I felt that I’d improved greatly as a leader, able to leverage and respect the views of others but still get people to follow my lead. Perhaps, in some twisted way, not having an attunement was a way for me to discover these aspects of life that would have been hidden away had I had an attunement. I would most likely have just been a normal warrior whiling away my team with mercantile pursuits.

On the topic of leaders though, I wonder how Darius is doing. I know I treated him a bit harshly, giving him curt replies and snapping when I should have taken every moment to thank for staying with me even after the clan had decided I had no value. And my sister too. From what I hear from my fellow recruits, our first guard posting will last two years, and even if I managed to become a royal guard there was little to no choice to be sent to guard my former branch or to serve under my brother.

I’d like to be able to meet my brother with my head held high, however, not as the brother that failed to make it but as an equal to the talented warrior that he is. 2 years huh? Seems like I will have to do an excellent job in the coming training, to get more resources and a higher ranking.

Turning my attention back, I begin to rejoin the discussion on equipment specifics, all the while relishing the experience yet also focusing to make sure we are on task. With the current state of the team, even if we aren’t the best, we are bound to still be one of the better ones. I wonder if I can convince them to train more. Maybe if I tell them it will be a good challenge?