“Once a child grows old enough to make their own decisions, I am of the opinion that the parent should stop holding their hands. Supporting them through various means to help them achieve their goal, sure, but the child must also put in their own effort for it, otherwise you would just spoil the child which might have detrimental effects when they grow older knowing nothing more than a life where their parents always held their hand and helped them along the way.” - Saying attributed to Reinhardt Edelstein, Third generation Captain of the Free Lances Mercenary Company.

“I must admit that I’m curious to hear this sort of request from you, Captain Edelstein,” said councilwoman Estelle to Reinhardt when he made a common but unexpected request.

Half a year had already passed since the battle of Aldenstadt, and the Free Lances continued their task over that fortunately uneventful period of time, training the local militia of Levain to a more combat-capable force. The passing of time also meant that some of the rookies that the company had been training eventually graduated from their training period and would be inducted into the company proper over time.

In order to streamline the process, the company did that by batches on a yearly basis, though this time there were a particularly high number of trainees that would join the company, nearly doubling their total numbers. In the past they usually just split the trainees amongst the various platoons to shore up the numbers, but with the massive influx this year, the company had to resort to creating new platoons.

For that purpose, some veteran members from existing platoons were chosen to head the new platoons, along with a handful of their fellows from their old platoon to serve as their field officers. Amongst these were people like Zyd and Arne, who had been working as part of Grünhildr’s platoon in the past couple of decades. They had been chosen to lead a new strike force platoon composed of some of the most promising of the rookies.

In rare cases, some promising rookies were directly given command over a platoon themselves. One of those lucky rookies was Branka, a young orcish woman from the northern plains who was a cousin of Anatoli’s, who was given command over the second platoon of archers that was mostly composed of new recruits like her. The orcish woman was a very skilled archer who wielded a very powerful bow and had easily made herself as the leader figure amongst the rookie archers during their training.

Another exception were cases where Reinhardt wished for a certain newcomer to get command experience, as was the case with Erycea. That case naturally repeated itself as Alycea happened to come of age that autumn and chose to join the company together with her friends that year. Reinhardt had for the most part approved of their joining, but decided that his younger adopted daughter still needed one final test before he would welcome her to the company proper.

Which was the reason he went to the official in charge of the captives they took from the battle of Aldenstadt that day. Estelle happened to be there on other business when Reinhardt arrived and made his request, which led to her questioning him out of curiosity.

It was common practice for prisoners of war like the captives taken in Aldenstadt to be put to hard labor unless they were ransomed by their side. Due to Earl Lecroix’s unfortunate death, however, his former domain fell apart from a succession crisis, and as a result the prisoners had nobody who wanted to ransom them. Typically such prisoners were then left to the mercies of their captors, typically made to do hard labor until the war ended.

That said, sometimes certain captives might be unfortunate enough to have private vendettas with someone from the captor’s side who was wealthy enough to ransom them, in which case said prisoner’s fate would be left to the mercies of whoever ransomed them. That was exactly what Reinhardt had visited the official for.

He wanted to ransom two of the former knights amongst the captives, whichever two were the best fighters amongst them.

“Oh, it’s nothing personal against those knights, councilor,” replied Reinhardt to Estelle’s question. “It’s just that my younger daughter has come of age and is about to join the company as well, so I needed an opponent to give her a final test with. These knights just happen to be the most convenient ones, and in case you wonder, I’m ransoming them with my personal funds.”

“I see. You intend to use them as sparring partners for her then?” asked Estelle with more curiosity.

“Sparring partners, she already has plenty of, councilor,” replied Reinhardt with a shake of his head. “The girl has the skills. She’s been training since she was young for this, but she had never fought for real yet. At least, not against an opponent who would not have any qualms of hurting her, nor had she ever killed another person yet. She would need to be able to do that to join the company, hence me ransoming these folks.”

“Wait… so you’re intending to ransom a couple of knights for your daughter to kill?” asked the councilwoman in surprise.

“Not without a fight,” replied Reinhardt. “Our profession isn’t one for those who are half-hearted about it, so I will be giving those knights their weapons and armor back. Aly will either show that she has what it takes to make it in our world, or she would learn that it’s not for her,” he added with a shake of his head. “I honestly think that the girl should be able to do it, but you can never be certain until they have been put to the test. We didn’t need to worry about it with Ery since she had crossed that line long before the time she joined the company.”

“I do not know if I should be horrified or impressed, Captain,” admitted the councilor honestly.

“If you’re interested, you’re welcome to watch,” replied Reinhardt nonchalantly.