“Few things move the young and unaccomplished like acknowledgement of one’s worth.” - Old folk saying.

“Doing well there, Val.”

Valeria paid no attention to the words said to her as she focused on finishing off the bandit she faced first. The quarter-orc girl used her shield to bash the face of the bandit hard enough to jerk his head back with profuse bleeding from the nose, while at the same time the lower half of her shield kept the man’s axe pinned against his own body. One expertly placed jab of her spear to the man’s throat was all it took to end the fight, as the man crumpled like a sack of potatoes even as he clutched his bleeding throat.

“Thanks for the compliment,” she replied to Tasha who held the position to her right. The bear-therian girl was only a year older than Valeria’s own fourteen years, but was easily twice as large as she towered over most everyone else in their little group other than her twin sister and their cousin. The door-sized slab of metal Tasha and Vera used as shields were pretty much impervious to whatever the bandits managed to throw their way, and the hefty war pick on Tasha’s right hand easily punched through the bodies of two unfortunate bandits at the same time as she swung it.

Further to her right, Tasha’s twin sister Vera - older by an hour - covered her sister’s flank as she cleaved a bandit in twain with her massive battle axe, shield, armor, and man all bisected into halves by the mighty blow. To say that the bandits were not equipped to handle two and a half meter tall therian warriors clad in heavy armor and weapons was an understatement to say the least.

Despite the bandits’ numerical superiority - there were over twice as many of them in the encampment still compared to the thirty-five young mercenaries in Erycea’s group - they found themselves overwhelmed horribly in personal prowess, something made worse by the strongest four shieldbearers in Ery’s group, who could each take on multiple foes without breaking a sweat.

To the opposite flank of where Valeria and the twins were positioned, Vlad and Gustav secured the other flank for the young mercenaries. Both of them carried comically oversized metal tower shields that could easily serve as the doors of a castle gate, at least from a human’s point of view. For the two of them - even if Gustav was only half as tall as the shield he carried - the shield was just the right heft and weight to be comfortable.

“Not much of a challenge, aren’t they?” asked Vlad lightheartedly to Gustav even as he shoved back four bandits at the same time with a push of his shield. He followed the move with a sweeping blow from his warhammer - a weapon he had inherited from his late father - that caught the two bandits who were unfortunate to not have fallen on their backs from his shove. The next instant, both of those bandits were sent flying with their bodies twisted in ways a human body was definitely not designed to be twisted in.

“What can ya expect? They’re just bandits used to bullying villagers, not trained soldiers,” replied Gustav as he held his shield steady with one burly arm even against the efforts of multiple bandits that tried to push against him. A downward smash from the massive metal cudgel in his other hand then turned one of those bandits into a pile of minced meat and crushed bone splattered on the ground, and scared the rest enough that they drew back on the spot. “I guess they thought about easing us into the work with some easy meat first.”

“We’ve trained for this most of our lives, so I’m glad to be here together with you all once again, just like the old days,” said Vlad with some reminiscence. The two of them were very relaxed despite fighting on the battlefield, but then again the crude weapons used by the bandits would likely just bounce off their heavy armors if they landed a clean hit anyway. “And glad to see that nobody’s failing to live up to expectation.”

Despite all the training they had done since a much younger age than most, many of the children remained nervous about killing another person. Some had worried that they might not be able to commit to the deed and would fail that way, but to everyone’s surprise, when they were placed into a combat situation, everyone did what they had to. None of them had wavered as they killed the bandits.

Of course, some of the older kids like Ayrie and Vladislav himself had passed that hurdle years ago as they had joined the Company ahead of the rest, but the rest of the younger kids, the ones around Erycea’s age, only faced it right then and there. Erycea herself was not counted, as she had earned her first kill nearly a decade ago, far ahead of the rest.

“I do agree that these bandits are mostly weaklings, but could you two not chat so much while fighting?” asked Beth from Gustav’s right. The therian descent girl carried a tower shield as well, which while not as large as those wielded by either Vlad or Gustav, still measured a good two meters tall and three quarters as wide. The short sword in the girl’s other hand stabbed a bandit in the kidney, lung, and throat in a smooth, practiced one-two-three motion as she fought. “It’d be a bad example for the younger kids.”

The “younger kids” in their case were the gaggle of young mercenaries who, like Erycea, had just turned fourteen that year. Even those children showed no mercy to the bandits however, as they made use of the skills they had practiced for years to take down one bandit after another. The long periods of practicing together had also made them have a habit of working together, and it was not rare to see a bandit trying to fight one youngster only to find themselves fatally injured by another instead.

Just like how Llewelyn kept a bandit busy with his sword and shield only to suddenly shift his shield to the side, leaving an opening. Before the bandit he fought could react to the opening, Aurora had shot the man right between the eyes with her crossbow, after which Llewelyn moved his shield back into position with a smile and a nod to the girl.