Chapter 310 - Childish Games

Reivyn examined the squad of mercenaries standing in front of him. Teilon was by his side, standing slightly behind him. The others were off doing their own thing for the moment as Reivyn attended to actual business.

In order to efficiently train the special unit he was envisioning, Reivyn endeavored to follow the same path they had with the cavalry. He would systematically train and evaluate every mercenary to see which ones had the necessary talents at the same time figuring out which talents specifically to nurture. Did it make more sense to focus on Stealth Skills? Movement Skills? Esoteric Skills? What would make the special unit the most effective?

To that end, he would throw a wide net.

“How many of you have any Stealth Skills?” Reivyn asked the squad. Most of them remained motionless, but a couple raised their hands. “Which Skills do you have?”

“Silent Step, sir,” the first soldier responded. Reivyn nodded.

“Hiding,” the second answered. 

“Nobody has Sneaking?” Reivyn looked at each of the soldiers in turn. “Camouflage? Sure Step, Stealth, Tracking…?” Reivyn walked a bit back and forth in front of the squad. “What about… Stealing?”

None of the squad members moved overtly, but he caught two of them twitch slightly with his Divine Sense. The two were different from the ones who admitted to their other stealthy Skills.

Reivyn pointed to each of them.

“You two, step forward,” Reivyn commanded. The two stepped forward and shared a nervous look with each other.

“I’m not sure what you think I’m asking these questions for, but I assure you it’s not any kind of investigation into a crime,” Reivyn chuckled. “You don’t have to hide the fact you have these Skills from me. In fact, I have these Skills, and I plan on training all of you in them, as well.

“Now, are you willing to share more details?”

The two mercenaries gulped as they thought about their response. The one on the left tensed for a moment before relaxing, opening his mouth to answer.

“I have several Stealth Skills, sir,” he finally admitted. “I have Silent Step, Hiding, Stealth, Tracking, Stealing, Pickpocket, and Eavesdropping.”

“Excellent,” Reivyn turned to the other man. He was younger than the others, his face smooth, lacking the five o’clock shadow the others had grown throughout the day.

No, it’s something else, Reivyn realized. He had to rein in a smirk forming on his lips.

“What about you?” He asked.

“I have all of those, plus a couple more,” the mercenary replied in a slightly gruff voice. It sounded strained to Reivyn’s ears. “I also have Infiltration, Sneaking, and Ambush.”

And Camouflage, maybe Disguise or something like it, Reivyn thought, but he kept it to himself. This person is definitely on the short list for when it comes to finalizing the unit.

“Fantastic,” Reivyn said. “I’ll need the two of you to help your squad mates in unlocking those Skills, too. We need to focus more on evading detection than anything else, at this point, but I’m sure adding some Pickpocket and Eavesdropping exercises together with it will probably accelerate the acquisition of the Skills.

“Now, to answer your questions as to why we’re going to be focusing on these Skills, you’ve been told we’re going to be working on creating a specialized unit. This unit, though, won’t be focused on combat. Combat will be part of it, of course, but it’s not the focus.

“We’re creating a unit that will be moving about undetected. The missions will be dangerous, potentially behind enemy lines, cut off from communication and assistance from our allies. To that end, we need to be able to not be seen and to disappear if we are.

“Our first priority will be to work on these Skills. Then we’ll focus on other things like wilderness survival and ways to disrupt the enemy other than face-to-face combat. Hopefully, most of our combat situations will be ambushes with hit-and-run tactics.

“Now, you guys are the first group I’m trying this with, so expect things to be rough at first. If you have any ideas you might have for unlocking the Skills or Leveling them up faster, don’t hesitate to voice your opinion, and just because this is the first group doesn’t mean you have any higher or lower chances of being considered for a position in the permanent unit once it’s formed if you’re interested.

“Any questions at this point?”

One of the mercenaries raised his hand.

“Yes, sir. Umm, what are we going to be doing, right now?”

So far Reivyn had just been asking about their Skills and informing them of the overall plans for pulling them from their company. Nobody had said anything about how they were going to go about unlocking any of the Skills or anything.

“Good question,” Reivyn smiled. “We’re going to be playing Hide and Seek.”

—

Brinaeth walked between the three other mercenaries she had propositioned for help. Major Reivyn hadn’t told them they had to find a hiding spot, so she just asked a few others to form a small little group to walk around inside the designated area for the exercise. The three walked in such a manner that she could walk among them with her head slightly down to hide her face from casual observation while not appearing to by trying to avoid attention. It was a delicate balance.

She had been a little doubtful as to why Major Reivyn set up such an exercise but then didn’t participate at all. That was until she had walked a little ways away from where he had been standing, minding his own business, and she peered at him from under her brows. As soon as she looked at him, well over thirty yards away, he had immediately turned his head and looked her dead in the eyes. He had simply smirked before turning back to just randomly watching the mercenaries around him.

How did he do that? She thought. It was like he knew exactly where I was and waited for me to look at him before revealing the truth. It makes more sense that I got the feeling he saw right through me earlier.

Brinaeth was disguised as a young man. She knew that women were allowed into the Mercenary Corps just like men, and there were several in her platoon. When she had been called to step forward, she had felt as if Major Reivyn had instantly seen through her disguise. His gaze felt like nothing could be hidden from his sight.

That wasn’t the reason she was pretending to be a boy, though. Her decision to hide her gender was more in line with hiding who she was altogether. For safety reasons.

There was a reason she had more Stealth Skills than the others. She was hiding from certain people unassociated with the Mercenary Corps, and it just made more sense to continue the small deception at all times than to break it, even if she was confident they wouldn’t be able to find her now.

Wispan was a nice, peaceful empire for the most part. The nobles treated the commoners with respect, and the imperial family didn’t lord their position over the people; however, where there was a congregation of people, there was a criminal underbelly. Just because it was mostly peaceful didn’t mean there weren’t bad people who would do bad things.

She had been forced through circumstance to join such an organization, and as her Skills improved, the things they wanted her to do and the consequences for even her innocuous actions were things she couldn’t live with. Once the Mercenary Corps had opened their doors to recruitment, she had stolen some inactive Adventurer’s paperwork and Forged it to her needs.

She didn’t feel bad about stealing the person’s identity as they were most likely dead in some Dungeon somewhere, but even if they weren’t and showed back up some day, it wouldn’t affect them at all unless they also chose to join the Mercenary Corps and got in. As far as she could tell, from Major Reivyn’s and Princess Kefira’s attitudes, it probably wouldn’t affect anything even then, as she could just explain the circumstances to them.

She was a pretty good judge of character, and she judged that they were good people.

Brinaeth continued walking in circles with her three helpers, round and round through the designated hiding area. Lieutenant Teilon was walking around looking for the squad members. In order to keep up with her hiding “spot,” she didn’t shy away from walking near the man with her compatriots.

So far Teilon hadn’t spared them a second glance. To be fair, though, he wasn’t looking very hard, yet. The purpose of the exercise was to unlock the Hiding Skill to work as a foundation toward getting the other Stealth Skills. If Teilon immediately found everyone that was hiding, a feat she thought he could probably pull off considering his Tier and Skillset, the System wouldn’t reward their effort.

The System was weird, sometimes. If Teilon actually spotted the hiding people but ignored them, the System wouldn’t acknowledge it as successfully hiding, but if he deliberately didn’t focus and “missed” the hiding people, the System would. It was a known loophole that many shady people took advantage of. The real question was why nobody else in her squad had the Hiding Skill at all.

Did they not have any friends to play Hide and Seek with as children? What about their parents? Most of the mercenaries had lived ordinary lives as Adventurers, which meant their childhood was normal. Even she had unlocked the Hiding Skill by playing Hide and Seek with other orphans before she was roped into the shadows. Maybe she was overthinking things.

Lieutenant Teilon spent several “rounds” walking around and through the designated area. Each time he passed by his starting location, Brinaeth could feel his focus sharpen. He paid more attention to smaller details and incrementally increased the difficulty of evading his detection.

“Interesting that out of all the people sitting outside their tents around a campfire, you’re the only ones sitting on top of a trunk,” Brinaeth heard Teilon speak to a couple mercenaries as she passed by. “Where did you even get a trunk like this? It can’t be for your gear. You guys have your storage pouches on your hips.”

The four mercenaries sitting around a campfire, two of them on top of what appeared to be a bench with a blanket over top of it at first glance, shared a look with each other. Teilon smirked.

“Contraband check!” He suddenly announced. “Hop off that trunk and open it up, Mercenary.”

The two sitting on the trunk chuckled as they obeyed the order. They removed the blanket and flipped the lid to the trunk. One of her squad mates sat up from where he had been doubled over, hiding inside the empty trunk space.

“Gah, I’m almost happy you found me, sir,” the man said, stretching. “I was starting to really cramp up in there.”

Teilon laughed as he lent a hand to the man to help him climb out of the trunk.

“Not too bad,” Teilon commented. “At casual glance, there’s nothing really too suspicious about it, but when you stop to think about it, the trunk kind of stands out.

“And don’t think I haven’t seen you trying to hide in plain sight over there.” Brinaeth’s breath caught in anticipation of her cover being blown. Teilon took a couple of steps to the side, away from her and her three companions, though, flipping the helmet off another squad mate sitting at the same fire.

“You were the only one still wearing his helmet, and you refused to look up at me whenever I was nearby,” Teilon said with a chuckle. “You’re playing a dangerous game with that hiding spot, my man.”

“Hey, it lasted longer than trunk-boy over here,” the man said with a grin.

“The trunk was your idea!” The other found mercenary said, tossing a scrap of cloth at his friend.

“And you took it!” The second mercenary shrugged, catching the cloth as it bounced harmlessly off his face.

Brinaeth let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding as her cover was still intact. The four of them continued walking on, undiscovered by Teilon.

Lieutenant Teilon continued making the rounds, inspecting more and more closely each time he completed a circuit. After about an hour, all of the other squad members had assembled next to Reivyn once more, Brinaeth the only one not caught.

“Need some help, buddy?” Major Reivyn called out to Teilon as he continued searching for the last mercenary.

“Nah, I think I got this,” Teilon replied.

As soon as he finished speaking, he seemed to step out of nowhere in front of Brinaeth and the other three.

“Where exactly are the four of you trying to go?” Teilon asked with a smirk, glancing at Brinaeth. “Found you. Your little disguise was pretty clever, not choosing a single spot to hide, but eventually it didn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, but only because we were confined to a designated area,” Brinaeth replied in her slightly gruff voice. “If there were different clear conditions other than just waiting until you found all of us, I would have won.”

“Haha, you don’t have to try and convince me,” Teilon said. “I would say you did win. You’re the last to be found, and I had to expend a couple additional rounds after finding the last hidden mercenary before I found you. Good job, Brin.” Teilon used the moniker she used as her alias.

“Thank you, sir,” Brinaeth nodded. She turned to the other three mercenaries that had gone out of their way to help her. “Thanks to you three, as well.”

“No problem,” the lead mercenary of the three clapped her on the shoulder before they turned and walked off.

Brinaeth joined the rest of her squad in front of Major Reivyn. Lieutenant Teilon took back his spot standing just off to the side and behind the major. Reivyn glanced at each of them in turn.

“Did anyone not unlock the Hiding Skill?” He asked. Nobody raised their hand.

Wait, really? Brinaeth was surprised. It took days of playing off and on to unlock the Skill when I was a child. Just one game was enough for everyone else? Her surprise continued to rise as she finally noticed a blinking Notification in the corner of her eye and brought it up.

[Skills Leveled Up!]

[Camouflage (40 ->41)]
[Disguise (32 ->35)]
[Eavesdropping (51 ->52)]
[Hiding (54 ->55)]
[Hide in Plain Sight (24 ->25)]
[Infiltration (29 ->30)]

It was the most Skill Levels she had gained in one go at a time. She had even gained three Levels in Disguise!

“Excellent!” Reivyn clapped his hands together with a smile. “It seems my Teaching Skills play a role as long as I participate in a supervisory role. That’s great news.”

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense, Brinaeth was enlightened. Couple his Teaching Skills assisting us with Teilon’s Tier and Skills and it’s natural that we gained quite a boost to our Skill Experience.

“The first experiment was a big success,” Major Reivyn continued. “I’ll let you guys go for the rest of the day. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

One of the mercenaries in her squad raised his hand.

“Is our next objective going to be hiding from you, sir?” He asked.

Teilon snorted.

“If you can Hide from Major Reivyn, I’ll give you all the gold to my name.”

The mercenaries looked at Teilon with surprise.

“Is his Perception so high?” The first mercenary asked again.

“Let’s just say, you can’t do it,” Teilon laughed.

Brinaeth glanced at the Major, recalling the feeling of having been seen through by his gaze and how he had looked right at her in her hiding “spot.” She nodded her head. Yeah, I can believe it.

—

Reivyn sat down on a cushion, adjusting his position to get as comfortable as he could, as Teilon flopped down next to him.

“So what do you think?” Reivyn asked.

“Except for Brin, they were all pretty average,” Teilon answered. “Some of them had some creative ideas for their hiding spots, but it was all pretty mundane. Nobody was really able to lean into the true idea of hiding other than Brin.

“Brin’s hiding spot wasn’t just clever, but his Skills actively made me try and shift my focus away from him. The other mercenary with Stealth Skills had the Skills, but not the intent. Does that make sense?”

Reivyn nodded his head.

“Yeah, I get what you’re trying to say,” he confirmed. “So you agree Brin should be on the short list, but the other guy not necessarily?”

“For now,” Teilon nodded his head. “This is only the first day for the first group. I’m sure we’ll find others with a knack for the clandestine, but if we don’t, we can put the other guy on the short list, too.”

“That’s fair. Now we just need a plan to build on their foundation.”

“I have some ideas,” Teilon smiled.