Chapter 314 - New Day, Same Things

Reivyn stuffed the pasty in his mouth, savoring the sweet taste and flaky texture. He sat at a long table cordoned off from the rest of the soldiers in the cafeteria, surrounded by his Special Unit and one confused local garrison guardsman. Very rarely did he eat with those not holding a commissioned officer rank, but this was a special occasion.

Reivyn had allowed the mercenaries to rest in one of the waiting rooms until dawn, but he had roused them all and joined them for breakfast as soon as it was served. They were all looking forward to a day of rest after the mission test, but Reivyn had other plans. Even though they had succeeded, they still needed to get used to operating while tired. When they were out on a real mission, they wouldn’t get the luxury of down time after reaching a target.

That being said, he would allow them to retire for the evening earlier than usual and return to a normal sleep schedule at the end of the day. He wasn’t a monster.

Everyone ate and drank to their hearts’ content with the one local soldier sitting with a mostly perplexed expression on his face. He still didn’t quite understand why he was there, but Reivyn had insisted that the one guy who almost spotted one of his infiltrators be involved in the celebratory breakfast.

They were celebrating the fact that everyone had passed the test. Brinaeth and her partner were the first, and the most direct, but everyone ended up arriving at the target undetected. Most of them had utilized the rooftops to make their final advance, and they were bogged down by having to wait for the perfect timing to jump between roofs without being spotted or making noise that a nearby patrol could hear.

One partnership had gone the long way around to approach from the rear. They had been forced to scale the side of the headquarters building and balance themselves on a narrow ledge as they made their way around to the front. They had been correct in their assumption that they wouldn’t have been able to arrive unseen from the cliff face of the mountain, but even the sides and lower rear of the headquarters had very few angles to approach undetected.

“I was surprised the final two guards standing by the stairs out front didn’t spot us,” Reivyn heard Brinaeth say as she recounted their strategy to another Special Unit member.

“Oh, they spotted you,” Reivyn spoke up, drawing their attention to himself. Brinaeth maintained a stoic expression, though Reivyn could see the confusion in her eyes. “The front door of the headquarters was the target, yes, but so was the entire front entryway all the way to the stairs by the parade ground.

“You managed to approach the stairs undetected, but those guards definitely saw you. They were informed that if anyone made it to the stairs, they had won and to let them go. That’s why they didn’t react. They realized you had already won by the time they spotted you.”

“Huh,” Brinaeth said. “That makes a lot more sense. Wait! Are you saying we didn’t have to practically crawl the rest of the way to the front door? We could have just walked there?”

Reivyn grinned and nodded his head.

“Yup.”

Brinaeth lowered her face into her hands for a moment. One of the others by her side clapped her on the shoulder, laughing along with the rest.

“Eh, don’t feel so bad. You still beat all of us,” he consoled.

Brinaeth didn’t let it get to her for long. She quickly got over her slight embarrassment and continued bantering with the others over their breakfast.

“So, Soldier Yerrik, was it?” Reivyn addressed the out of place soldier. The man perked up at being addressed.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied.

“Do you know why I insisted you join us for this breakfast?” Reivyn asked.

“It was a reward for my attentiveness, I was told,” Yerrik replied.

“Yes, and no,” Reivyn said. “The breakfast is just an introduction to our unit. The reward is that you’re going to train a bit with us. You’ll be with me and my Lieutenant, when he gets here, observing the Special Unit as they train their Stealth Skills. Under our tutelage, you’ll hopefully unlock and Level Up some Perception Skills, which you’ll then return to your battalion and teach the other soldiers.”

Yerrik just continued to stare at Reivyn. Reivyn smirked before continuing.

“You’re trying to figure out what part of that is a reward,” Reivyn chuckled. The man didn’t react, but Reivyn could tell he wanted to nod in agreement. “Well, you can’t very well be in a position of leadership without a promotion. With the agreement of the Base Commander, you’re receiving a meritorious promotion.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Yerrik,” Reivyn smiled at the other man.

Yerrik sat frozen for several minutes before a grin split his face.

“Wow. That’s… I don’t know what to say,” Yerrik stammered. “I knew I would probably make corporal one day, but I didn’t really hold out any hope of attaining sergeant before I ended my time in the army. This changes things.”

Reivyn could see the mental cogs churning in the man’s mind. Sure they were at war with an invading force, but Reivyn knew it was unbelievable that all of the soldiers would remain with the army forever. The war would end, eventually, and they would have to consider the rest of their lives afterward.

Attaining the rank of sergeant, skipping completely over corporal, and several years ahead of what one could usually expect opened a lot of previously closed doors for the man. Being a career soldier only really made sense if one had a track for promotion within the ranks. That was one reason the sergeants and senior officers were almost always much older than the rank and file soldiers.

It wasn’t that they lost their abilities as they got older. It just made more sense to serve their term and seek out other opportunities, allowing for younger soldiers to take their place at a much quicker rate than the higher-ranked soldiers. There were only so many positions available for promotion, after all, and those that got their foot in the door were likely to stay in considerably longer than the regular soldiers.

“Well, I’m glad I could facilitate this promotion for you,” Reivyn said. “It would have been one thing if a ton of people had spotted the intruders over the evening. We would have had to figure out some other form of reward, but luckily for you, that didn’t happen.”

“Getting promoted directly to sergeant seems a bit excessive, though, doesn’t it?” Yerrik asked. “I mean, I only almost spotted one of the Special Unit members. I didn’t even actually stop any of them from infiltrating the fort.”

“Yes, but you also did the exact right thing,” Reivyn clarified. “It’s not just that you almost spotted one of my men. You took responsibility for your own alertness, not letting yourself succumb to your sleepiness despite having been on rotating 24-hour shifts for so long. You issued a challenge without fear of appearing foolish to your superior, and I kind of, sort of interfered with your scanning of the grounds when it all happened, so you might have actually spotted my guy. We don’t know.

“That’s all points in favor of granting you increased responsibility, but make no mistake: your superiors will hold you to a higher standard and have expectations of your performance. If you don’t step up and bungle your new rank and position, you can very well find yourself back to being a Soldier again.

“You take our training seriously, though, and work on some Teaching Skills, and you should be fine.”

“Yes, sir. I won’t waste this opportunity,” Yerrik nodded emphatically.

“Good, because we’re going to start immediately.”

Everyone around the table stopped what they were doing to look toward Reivyn. Several of the mercenaries were frozen in place with their forks half-way to their mouths while others were in the middle of messing around with their friends. None of them made any noise of complaint, but Reivyn could sense muscles tense at the news they weren’t going to get the rest of the day to rest. Everyone, including Sergeant Yerrik, had been awake for longer than 24 hours by this point. Their Stats would help alleviate some of the tiredness, but they had all been on a grueling schedule for some time now. It was catching up with them.

“Don’t worry,” Reivyn finally conceded. “It’ll be a shorter day, and everyone will return to a normal sleeping schedule once more. We won’t have to shove time for training into your day as we’ve arrived at our destination and don’t have to spend the majority of our time Marching. We can have regular training shifts going forward, and I’ll even allow for a day or two of liberty each week, depending. Yerrik will benefit tangentially as he’ll be attached to us for the foreseeable future, too.

“That being said, you all have ten more minutes before you need to be formed up on the parade ground.”

The mercenaries doubled down on finishing off their breakfast now that they’d been told there was a hard time limit. Reivyn excused himself from the table, leaving them behind. He didn’t immediately head to the parade ground himself. He was the officer. He didn’t wait for them. They waited for him.

Instead, he made his way to the room he had been given in the headquarters building by the Commanding General. He stepped inside to find Kefira, Serilla, and Teilon sitting there, waiting for him.

Kefira had slept in the room for the evening while Reivyn had stayed up. At dawn, she had woken up to jump back to the rest of the mercenaries to grab Teilon, and Serilla had tagged along. Now that they had already declared themselves to the local garrison, there was no reason she had to go through the front gate once more. She had simply anchored a spot in the room she could return to with her Spatial Spells.

“How’d it go?” She asked upon Reivyn entering the room.

“Better than expected,” Reivyn said with a smile. “I had expected at least half of them to make it to the target undetected, but they all managed to pull through. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, and there were no secondary objectives in the test, but I’m happy with their performance.

“We’ll have to work on some of the issues and train them to perform other tasks while remaining hidden, but last night was all about getting in without being seen. We have the full support of the Commanding General, as long as we provide him copies of the reports.

“With that in mind, I’ve secured one of their soldiers to train with us so he can impart some of what he learns to the rest of their soldiers. He’ll be joining us this morning.”

That last had been directed more toward Teilon than anyone else. He simply nodded his head.

“I’m guessing you’ll want him with me to learn how to spot them?” Teilon asked. “They’re not exactly going to be training all of their soldiers on infiltration and clandestine operations.”

“That’s exactly it,” Reivyn nodded his head. “They should be ready for us in just a couple of minutes. Let’s go ahead and head out.”

“Sure thing,” Teilon agreed.

“We’re going to tour the fort and observe the soldiers and see what we can see,” Kefira said. “See you at lunch?”

“Sure.”

Reivyn and Kefira shared a quick hug and kiss before they all filed out of the room. Upon exiting the headquarters building, Kefira and Serilla headed off on their own as Reivyn and Teilon made their way to where they could see the Special Unit already standing in formation. Sergeant Yerrik stood off to the side.

Reivym motioned for Yerrik to join him as Teilon stood in front of the squad to receive their report. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together enthusiastically.

“Alright!” Teilon said with eagerness. “Just like any training day, we’re going to start of with good old fashioned calisthenics.

“Squad! Right Face! Double-Time. March!”

Double-Time was just the order for the unit to run. High Stats meant their basic running speed was much higher than a simple doubling of a regular Marching speed, and being part of the Special Unit, they were expected to run even faster. They took off at a good clip under Teilon’s supervision. They didn’t know the fort too well, yet, so Teilon just led them along the main road that looped around the base.

Reivyn turned to Sergeant Yerrik.

“You don’t have to participate in the calisthenics, but you’re welcome to,” Reivyn said. Upon the look of confusion on the man’s face, Reivyn continued. “I’m guessing you guys do your training while in peak condition?” Yerrik nodded. “Well, this will be your first lesson.

“Everyone knows that one’s effectiveness decreases as their Stamina is depleted; however, what a lot of people don’t know is the rate of the decline can be influenced. Let’s say you start to waiver physically as your Stamina reaches 20%. You slowly get more and more sluggish, and your strikes grow weaker and weaker as your Stamina continues to drop.

“If you train while already in a state of depleted Stamina, though, you can affect this. My men don’t start to waiver until their Stamina reaches closer to 15%, and the drop in effectiveness is less pronounced.”

Reivyn could see that he had Yerrik’s full attention. He could see that the other man was intrigued by the information. Most organizations, military or otherwise, didn’t bother to do physical training for the sake of physical training as it had no bearing on Stats. The lack of continuing to train physically after one started getting Stats through the System blocked most people from discovering this truth.

“The ones who have been participating in this kind of training the longest are even better. I don’t start to flag until I’m around 8% Stamina, for instance. We push the Special Unit soldiers harder than the others, and they’re reaping the rewards.

“Not only does it increase one's effectiveness in regards to Stamina, but there’s a tangible benefit toward Skill gains while training already exhausted. Having to use your Skills while your body is fighting you to perform the actions is recognized by the System. It’s not as good as real fights, or life and death situations, but it’s still better than rote training while in peak condition.”

“That makes sense,” Yerrik nodded his head. “Just like having some form of handicap can increase one’s Skill gains if done correctly.”

“Exactly,” Reivyn nodded. “Exhaustion is definitely a handicap. It sucks, I’m not going to lie, but it’s worth it in the long run.”

“And you discovered this trick?” Yerrik asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “No offense, but you seem a bit… young.”

Reivyn just laughed.

“I am young,” Reivyn confirmed, “and it wasn’t I that discovered this trick. My father taught it to me. I don’t know if he figured it out on his own or what, but that’s where I learned it from. You can pick his brain when he gets here with the rest of the mercenaries.”

“Your father is coming along with you? To a war zone? Is he, like, the commander of your mercenary company or something? Is that why you’re a major?”

“Oh, no, I’m the commander,” Reivyn said. “My father has his own thing going on, but he spends a lot of his time with me and goes with me on deployments.”

“Sounds like a pretty good arrangement, to me,” Yerrik said, nodding along.

“Hah! My mother doesn’t agree,” Reivyn chuckled. “Anyway, you could argue that nepotism played a bit of a role in my appointment. The sponsor of our Mercenary Corps is my fiancee, and she happens to be a princess of the empire we’re from; however, I had already proven my competency as a commissioned officer in combat against the invaders. As far as I’m aware, I fought in the first invasion that we know of as a Lieutenant and Company Commander.”

“Really?” Yerrik asked.

“Yeah, this will be my third separate engagement with the invaders. The first two wars I fought in were against completely different types of enemies. I’ll tell you about it some time, and we’ll see if this invasion has a third type of strategy.”

Reivyn continued to give Yerrik tips and tricks on training more effectively while also outlining his plans going forward. The Special Unit continued to run around the base over and over again, Teilon leading them to drain their Stamina pools before engaging in the actual training. Yerrik didn’t seem too enthusiastic about intentionally exhausting himself before training every day, but Reivyn was sure he would come around after seeing the results.