Line looked at Corn without any expressions and with his arms crossed.

“No. That is stupidity.

When I was a Purpose Slave, I had to risk my life every single day by slaying monsters. All for what? Those shits never harmed me. But I had no choice then. Now that I do have a choice, I have no intention of ever going back and losing my lives.

I’d be careful if I were you. Only two kinds of people, with no proper Stats, join the Reserves: day dreamers and the insanely desperate,” said Line.

After finalising his new scheme to learn Magic, Corn was elated. So, the first person he went to was Line. He discussed his idea and even invited his friend to join. But he never expected Line to reject him outright.

He tried arguing, “This is the only way I’ll ever get close enough to a mage. I have no other method of learning Magic. Maybe… maybe if I see them in action, I’ll figure out how Magic works.”

“Maybe,” conceded Line, “but is it worth true death?”

“Yes, yes it is. I would chose true death over slavery.”

Line held his hands up in defeat, “Then I can’t stop you.”

So Corn left. He was angry. ‘Friends are great when the times are good, but when you want more… the only person I can rely on is me. Why do I always keep forgetting that?’

He stopped as he realised his anger, he was being way too dramatic. Line had actually been very friendly

‘I’m no longer a slave and I’m going to keep it that way,’ he told himself and as usual he rubbed his neck, feeling the tender skin on his neck.

The headquarters of the Border Reserves had been an impressive building, similar to the ministries and the Stat Temple. Corn like the other recruits was assigned a huge backpack, basic leather armor and a few mana made weapons. The bus, the recruits entered, sputtered and choked its way to the border of the city, past farmlands and to a small building. They all alighted.

An armored panda kin held up a thick arm and motioned to them. “This,” she said pointing to the sky, “is the border that protects Iridicrodium. From the inside you can’t touch it and you can’t feel it. But from the outside,” she paused and walked backwards, away from the recruits. All of a sudden, she squatted and threw a punch. It stopped as though it struck a glass barrier.

She threw a few more punches and then tried walking back to them. The barrier stopped her. She motioned them to join her and let them experiment and see that the barrier was impenetrable.

“The reason I play this pantomime is for you to understand that the only way back inside is through the outposts. Never, forget that. Always plan for missions based on the nearest outposts.”

She then led them through the outpost and back into the city. It was an empty building with only a huge entryway. Then she walked outside the building and crossed the barrier again, walking along the empty plains.

“The outposts only allow entry for citizens of Iridicrodium who are members of the Border Reserve. That is lesson no. 1.

Lesson no. 2 is basic hierarchy. Mage Ware is obviously head of the company, following which is me, your captain, and then the individual squad leaders. Follow the rules of your superiors or leave the company. Is that crystal clear?”

They all nodded tersely.

She stopped and turned to face them, “Who among you have five lives? Raise your hands please.”

No one did. She repeated the question with four, three, two and one Life counter(s), with recruits raising their hands accordingly.

“Good, so most of you have about four lives. Since we are in the business of collecting Life counters, most of you’ll and most of us are negligent with our lives. This I approve.

After all, given enough time we can always earn lost lives back. But there is something more important than your lives. Your limbs, your eyes, your ears and any hanging appendages. The moment any part of your body is separated from the main body, it’s gone.

You are never getting it back. No amount of resurrections or potions can ever bring it back. The only exceptions are a few vital spots. Unless anybody here has millions of credits to spend on healers?”

No one replied, so she continued, “Sometimes the monsters or the situations we face will threaten more than our lives, they will threaten our livelihoods.

One arm or one leg is all it takes. After that, you won’t be able to work here. That’s why we have a safety feature. Inside each of your rucksacks is a plastic box, please take it out.”

Corn removed the cloth bag on his shoulder and rummaged through dry rations and various other kits to find a smooth, grey plastic box. It was the size of a mini screen but at least four or five fingers thick. On the centre of one face was a big red button.

“Good, now can everyone press the big red button?”

They all looked at her hesitantly: everyone knew the danger of pressing big red buttons. Except Corn. He pressed it and was looking up at the panda kin.

“Thank you, human. Rotate it clockwise until the button pops out. There you go. See the metal surface beneath the button. Touch it and you die.”

They all instantly recoiled from the box, some of them even dropped it.

“This is lesson no. 3, whenever the situation looks horribly unescapable or one of the leaders shout ‘FAIL SWITCH’ you touch the metal part and wake up safe and sound in a resurrection altar. Does everyone understand?

Awesome, please screw the red button back onto the box and stuff it in the backpack. Anyone with the lower three Stats of Strength, Speed and Endurance come with me. Everyone else follow Sky.”

With those words, the majority of the recruits left with the panda kin leaving only Corn and three others. The elf had the usual pale skin, pointy ears and was of average build, whereas the cat person looked human except for her tail (her ears were hidden underneath the helmet). Their leader, a tree nymph who looked exactly like a human except with emerald green skin, wore the same leather armour as them. She gave them a warm smile and waved her hands as a greeting.

“What do we have here? A human, a cat person and an elf? Times really must be tough, huh? Regardless we’re all scavengers today, so let’s be friends. You can call me Wilt”

She chatted with them amiably, laughing and joking. The four of them followed the main group.

“Why don’t we just ride on the bus, instead of walking all this distance?” complained the cat person, panting.

“Anything not mana made won’t last here. In the relative comfort of the city they’ll work fine, but introduce monsters to the mix and a bus is more of a hindrance.”

“Where’s Mage Ware?” asked Corn brusquely.

“Why, thank you, for finally speaking up. Honestly, she comes and goes when she pleases. You never know with her.”

“Is she a Player?” asked the elf.

“No-”

But at this point, the group ahead had found a mob of goblins. The four of them ran to catch up with the group. The recruits met the goblins head on. The squad leaders were on the flank and led those on the sides to surround the goblins. After which, the recruits started thrusting and stabbing at the goblins. The captain stayed out of the encirclement, slaughtering any of the goblins who escaped with a long glaive.

“Leave some for us,” shouted their squad leader.

One of the leaders whacked his short sword into the temple of a charging goblin and whistled loudly. Wilt joined the encirclement and dragged the fainted goblin to them.

“Let’s dank him,” announced the tree nymph. “People, grab its arms and legs.”

Corn and the elf kneeled down and grabbed the goblin’s limbs and their leader picked a cleaver from her kit and handed it to the cat person. “Start with the left arm,” said the tree nymph.

The cat person held the knife but begin to tremble and hesitated. Their leader sighed and pulled the knife from her and pointed at Corn. Corn let go of the goblin’s legs and grabbed the knife, while their leader moved in to Corn’s position.

Corn held the knife at an angle and drove it into the left shoulder joint. Immediately, he pulled the knife out and drove it in again, hacking the arm off. Warm, greyish green blood spurted out and the goblin woke up, squealing in pain.

The elf let go of its right arm and the goblin tried clawing Corn. Instead it hit his cuirass.

“You idiot, get back here and grab his arm, you’ll get us killed,’ cried the nymph. But the elf had pulled back and was puking his guts out. Corn grabbed the waving arm and chopped it off. With the assistance of the tree nymph he did the same with both legs. Only a writhing torso was left.

“Why the elaborate ritual?” asked Corn.

Both the elf and the cat person, nodded grimly in support.

“This is the most humane method of killing monsters. The moment you attack a core spot..,” said the nymph, simultaneously plunging her blade into the creature’s stomach. The wound bleed copiously and the goblin shattered into ash leaving behind a small glowing red shard. “…the main body dies. This is true for anything with a Life counter. The only way of farming monsters is to avoid the lethal spots and as it is goblins are barely farmable.”

After this encounter the nymph got the three of them to collect any Life counter shards lying on the ground. Next she instructed Corn (the other two watched but refused to touch the body) on how to harvest the goblin remains. She cooed in appreciation as he instantly picked up on how to skin the goblin, cut the meat from the bone and remove tendons and ligaments.

As he made short work of the remaining limbs, she explained the purpose of their harvests. "Everyone knows what the Life shards do, but what we do is also important, darling. Monsters also use Stats. Take this bone, because goblins use Strength the bone is Mauled. If I could use Core, I could use this is a make shift weapon,” she said twirling the bone in the air. “Along with that, monster remains can be used as alchemical ingredients, gastronomical ingredients and other stuff.”

“How big is the Border Reserves?” asked the elf.

The nymph ignored him. But when Corn repeated the question she smiled and said, “It’s huge, definitely in the millions, sweetie.”

After a short break, the group continued. The next set of monsters they encountered were some sort of flightless birds. The elf had recovered enough to handle basic harvesting but the nymph still looked at the other two coldly.

The group of recruits and their trainers spent their entire day moving across the plains repeating the same formula. The warriors would attack the monsters, the harvesters would pick up the remains and occasionally practice on harvesting the monsters. Then they would take a break and begin the hike all over again.

The day ended (or at least Corn thought so, he couldn’t tell shit looking at the sky) and they begin to set camp next to a forest. As they eat warm stew made of the day’s catch along with rations, the recruits were jovial. The warriors, however, kept their distance from the harvesters.

Corn, meanwhile, stared wistfully at his bowl of stew, wishing there was something live and squirming inside it. He felt warm breath on his neck and a soft hand snaking into his armour. He heard the tree nymph whisper into his ear, “Come to my tent.”

He looked around, there were no mages around so why should he refuse.

He woke up in a start. Wait a minute. Why did he wake up? He checked her watch, it wasn’t time yet. He heard a loud thump and billowing air and pushed his way out of the tent.

Mage Ware had arrived.

Time Remaining: 1 month 10 days

Stats: 3/20