“Training was not just meant to teach you how to stab people. Most everyone already had an idea on how to do that, just got to stick the pointy end the right way. No, training as was done by most military institutions, both private or otherwise, were generally meant to build character. It was meant to make sure that by the time they allowed you to step onto the battlefield, you were prepared for it, rather than being one of those that broke down and whimpered incoherently for their mothers.” - Cassius Rogen-Bay, head instructor for the Elmaiyan royal guard, circa 321 VA.

Open Fields by the Free Lances Encampment,

Plains by Zephirous City,

Northern Knallzog, Southwestern Alcidea,

7th day of the 2nd week of the 11th month, year 15 FP

“What in Igunacio’s burning arsehole are we even doing here!?”

The complaint came from Kev, a young human boy – probably sixteen or so, record-keeping tend to be rather spotty in poorer areas – with some dwarven lineage who came from the small village of Bauernhof in the West of Knallzog. When the Company passed by the village earlier in the year, he had taken the chance to apply to join them as a recruit.

Kev had been stuck in a perpetual hell of hard labor and boredom since.

Honestly, the choice of becoming a mercenary was in itself by no means a bad one, especially for a kid from a poor village in the boonies like himself. Even the smaller and poorer mercenary companies offered salaries that were double what a farmer could make in a year in idle pay alone, while wealthier ones like the Free Lances doubled that amount once more, not including extra pay for combat and hazardous missions. It was a lucrative option of employment for those who believed that they had the guts to hack a living as a sellsword, to say the least.

It was the second month of the same year when Kev applied, when the mercenary company passed by his small village on the developing western end of Knallzog where the wastelands were being reclaimed. He had traveled all the way to the center of the Kingdom since, getting to see even the capital city of Knallgant itself, if from afar, and then was taken all the way to the northern border of the Kingdom at Zephirous, where the mercenaries had stayed for the past months.

The moving around was something he expected when he signed up, as was being placed into training. While there existed mercenaries out there who would recruit newcomers and send them off into battle as cannon fodder, letting luck sort them out, the Free Lances were known as elites, and had far more stringent requirements for their recruits, investing money into training them before those recruits ever get to see a battlefield.

It was not even that Kev thought highly of himself or anything.

He knew that he was just a simple farmhand with no fighting experience to consider, not counting that one time he helped shoo away a pack of wolves that came too close to the village. Even then he was not so deluded to think that holding a pitchfork and poking them at some wild animals while making shooing noises counted as “fighting” in any shape or form.

As such, he was not surprised when the mercenaries decided that if he were to be considered for actual entrance to their ranks, he would need to both condition himself physically and train himself in the use of weapons first. Kev knew he was lacking in both fields and accepted those decisions. It was just that he never expected the process of training to be so mind-numbingly boring.

In order to condition their physiques to a more acceptable level, new trainee recruits like him were made to do all sorts of odd jobs around the mercenary camps, ranging from things like fetching water from the rivers – they were given a long pole with two buckets hanging from the ends to carry the water, the size of which were increased every once in a while – or fetching firewood for the campfires – often as whole logs that two or three trainees had to carry together on their shoulders – amongst other menial duties.

They also received more targeted training intended to build up their physical strength and stamina as well, for around a couple of hours every day or so. Each of the trainees were sorted into groups and made to repeat different exercises during those hours, under the watchful eyes of their trainers. It was boring and tiring exercise, to say the least, and was not what Kev had expected when he signed up.

Actual training with weapons only happened once every seventhday for the trainees, and was the part that Kev enjoyed the most. There the trainees were told to choose from a large pile of training weapons – each carefully crafted to be roughly the same size, shape, and weight as a real weapon though without any lethal points or edges – and experiment until they found something that they felt suitable for themselves.

After two months of such experimentations they were told to choose one weapon for themselves and their weapons training became more specialized as they were taught how to use the weapon they chose. Honestly, the weapons training was what Kev had been expecting out of the mercenaries, and he was rather baffled that the trainees received so little of it.

Time went by quickly, and before he knew it, spring had turned to summer, which then gave way to autumn, and in turn winter came upon the land. The winter in Zephirous was cold, especially compared to the hotter region Kev himself called home, where winter only meant cooler temperatures suitable for the children to play outside with and a lot of rain for their crops, but it was a pleasant and novel experience to say the least.

On the other hand, his patience was rapidly eroding over the unchanged training he had been subjected to for more than three quarters of the year by then, which led to his outburst.