Advanced Combat Academy

Paradise

Western Alcidea

4th Day of the 2nd Week of the 8th Month of the Year 695 FP.

“*Huff* What I’m asking- *Pant* is why even we have to be subjected to shit like this, damn it!?” Harold Lundgren la Savasho was a young nobleman, maybe fifteen or sixteen years of age. While he was reasonably fit despite his easy lifestyle - mostly out of a desire to keep himself attractive to the opposite sex than anything - he had never done anything even remotely like running obstacle gauntlet that was the combat academy’s running track, which left him panting for breath before he even finished a single lap.

To make things worse, he was not even interested in attending the place in the first place! He was of the life affinity, and had some interest in the healing arts, not in the martial arts. Since the academy had become sort of a fad amongst the nobles all over however, and his father caught news of how some noble scions with similar affinity to Harold had attended, he was shipped away together with his meathead of a cousin who was all too happy to come there.

“I mean… the training you get today might well save your life someday when you need it,” replied Patricia Aldenvar from his side. The girl was of a similar age to him, maybe a year or two younger, and happened to enroll into the academy at the same time he did, so they were in the same class together. Like him, she too was of a healing affinity - Life-Major Nature in her case - that normally should not be subjected to such physical torment. To Harold’s constant exasperation, though, the younger girl was noticeably more fit than he was, and ran the course along with him without even struggling like he had. “You should try to use your healing to forcefully boost yourself. It’s part of why we’re being made to run the gauntlet with the rest, to get ourselves used to it.”

“You seem… much more used to this? Why?” asked Harold. He knew that the young girl was a famous adventurer’s child, and a local to boot, but the easy, practiced way she vaulted over some of the obstacles spoke of a familiarity with the course that went further than that. “And how the hell are you doing all this so easily!? You’re even younger than me, damn it!”

“My cousins often took me to play here during the times when the place was unused when we were younger,” replied Patricia as she climbed up a small hill-like obstacle with light steps and leapt from its top to land just past the moat that awaited on its other side. Most other first-timers took a dunk in the moat of cold water instead, Harold included. She had slowed her pace to allow Harold to keep up while they talked. “This place was our playground, so of course we’d be familiar with it.”

“Your cousins? I thought your mother was an only child?” asked Harold. Even noble youths like him were familiar with Patricia’s mother, as well as the other members of the by now famous adventuring party where the members had more black tags than not. They had become a subject of admiration amongst the youths, idols and role models to strive towards.

“Well, we’re not blood-related. My mom and them are just… close like siblings so we pretty much considered ourselves that way,” said Patricia with a shrug of her shoulders. Right around then, she halted her footsteps, half-turned, and waved at a pair of figures who raced past at breakneck speeds, who somehow managed to return the wave even while they ran rapidly on all fours. “Speaking of which, that was two of them just now.”

“What the hell was that they’re carrying on their backs?” asked Harold, his mind and understanding of how life went somewhat boggled by the positively massive backpacks strapped onto the backs of the running youths. He thought of them as youths, since most attendees of the academy were youths indeed, with most around his age range, give or take a couple years. He had definitely never seen youths his age carry things larger than their own bodies while running at full speed like that though, much less doing so over an obstacle course.

“Ursula and Ludmilla are blood mages. Extra weights are pretty much part of their daily training,” said Patricia nonchalantly as she ran backwards in step with Harold’s forward run, still clearing the obstacles with ease even without looking. Harold could only marvel at how the girl stepped up a hurdle - still moving backward - then somersaulted backwards from it, over another, taller hurdle that he had to struggle to climb over, and nailed a perfect landing on top of another narrow hurdle behind it. “They’re some of those cousins I mentioned, by the way.”

“Huh.”

“Huh what?” asked Patricia at the young noble with some youthful curiosity.

“Just… surprised to see other kids my age push themselves that far…” said Harold after he gathered his thoughts. “You know I’m the eldest son of the Hegemon of Levain? I thought that I had worked hard enough with my studies and all, for the responsibilities that’d be handed down my way as I grow older, but they… just made all of us back home look like spoiled brats.”

“Eh, it’s about the norm around here. Many of the ones who came here don’t really have any noble house of rich parents behind them, just their own merits to net themselves a slot,” replied Patricia as she glanced at a trio of therian youths who ran past at top speed, all three recent newcomers from the Western Isles who had clawed their way to their current place. “And besides, one thing you got to learn quick is that background doesn’t matter a whit around here. Take a look at them, for example.”

“Them?” asked Harold as he looked where Patricia pointed, at four youths - two of them closer to their ages, but the other two notably younger by a couple years at the least - who ran the obstacle course. The older two girls seemed to exhort and motivate the younger two - a boy and a girl - who huffed and panted just as badly as Harold had done. He also noticed the large, hefty backpacks carried by the two older girls, who nevertheless kept in step with the younger two with ease.

“You’re looking at the Sixth Prince of the Al-Shan Empire, along with the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Princesses,” said Patricia all too nonchalantly, as if she was not talking about Imperial royalty. “If anything, I think that grandmaster’s being even harder on them than most, since she had high expectations for them and all. You don’t see them complaining about it either.”

Harold could only look on at the Imperial Siblings with some measure of surprise and awe, and he almost stumbled and fell when he reached the next obstacle while still looking their way.

******************************

“Things have developed tremendously since I last visited, I see,” said Naht’anavriel, the Sage of the Emerald Road and the Champion of Space as he sat cross-legged across from Cal on the balcony of a building that overlooked the training course. The sage occasionally visited when he had spare time from the various research that usually occupied his mind, and the last time he paid a visit was fifteen years ago, when the academy was officially opened.

“It helps that some of the others had their interest in teaching tickled as well,” admitted Cal. While the academy had started small - other than the massive running track that doubled as a modifiable obstacle course for training the students - after a while some of the older unliving figures in Paradise had their interest piqued, and some tried their hand at teaching students as well.

When several of those figures found that they enjoyed the experience, the academy expanded to fit in the more specialized courses those figures would teach, and the process repeated itself. Fifteen years after the opening, the academy had enough instructors and specialized courses that Cal only handled the general fitness and blood mages herself, while others took care of the rest.

Needless to say, most of those figures whose interests were piqued were often outright legends of their own, and the knowledge they shared were the sort that most people interested in such fields would die for. With people like Salicia at the helm of the archery course, and Aideen herself occasionally giving lectures for the healers, there were few out there who would not want their progeny to receive such qualified teachings.

The expansion and growth of the academy itself also inadvertently gave Cal more free time, which she loved to spend with her family. The recent addition of the teleportation portal to Gal-Morogh meant that her half-brother Khal-Est could often visit his hometown - or for his wife to visit her family - when he felt homesick, and return on the same day when he so desired.

She herself often paid a visit to Al-Shan over the past decade and a half, often on a monthly basis at the worst, at times visiting near-weekly. Xain had sent all of his children to her academy when they reached twelve years of age, to learn from her, and while most had taken shorter courses that better fit their future plans, Kai-Hua and Tiao-Wu, Ying Xiao’s daughters, had stayed longer since they were blood mages like their mother, and Cal paid extra attention to their training.

The rest of her family mostly stayed as they were, with Unitia having adapted well to living in Paradise, where she especially liked how there were many of them around her age, much like in the forest. Vark remained a department head at the Institute in Levain, while his daughters were more often than not out adventuring these days.

Probably the biggest surprise - if a pleasant one - to the family was when Idania re-married some ten years ago, to Layla’s twin brother Lakshman. The couple was even blessed with two young children - a son and a daughter - over the past decade, that the whole family just loved to dote on, Cal herself included.

Such a pleasant, peaceful life was probably a stark difference to the decades of hard living during the Civil War, which remained fresh in her mind, but to Cal, it was plenty. For the past decade or so, she had lived at peace, with herself and the world at large, and as she looked up at the bright afternoon sun, she couldn’t help but wish that those days would last for a good while longer…

~THE END~