I followed the old man out of the back door of his room directly into the courtyard where numerous men clad in armor are training and sparring.
"Hey, Stephen. Spar with this boy will you? Oh, and from what I heard you can use your normal sword against him fine. Rigel, take this."
He tosses me a wooden sword shaped like a katana. It's pretty heavy, but it's as I expected.
In the past, I've messed around with wooden and metal swords alike in shops and at friends' houses, so I know how heavy they can be. I admire all of the men here that can swing broadswords around without much effort.
"You two will fight without holding back on my mark." he continues.
"Sure."
"Yessir."
What's with that relaxed tone of his?! That old man is the senior officer here, right? I'm just going to assume that Stephen here has an attitude problem.
Stephen goes and fetches his sword from its sheath off to the side of the courtyard and takes a stance. His sword is a basic broadsword that looks to be too heavy for me to swing around. His stance is rather basic as he's just taking a wide stance and is holding the sword out with 2 hands. I move to a few yards in front of him and take more of a samurai stance, placing my feet one after the other and holding the sword over my back foot.
"Hey, sir. You said go all out, but can I kill this dude or should I hold back?"
Such insolence. I should be the one that's asking that question.
"Well, please refrain from one-sided murder. If it's that close that you can only deal lethal blows, then feel free though. On your marks, go!"
As the commander said go, this fellow bursts forwards without holding back and takes a wide swing at my hips. I reflexively jump back and block the assault, but he continues and uses his momentum to thrust his sword at my stomach. I spin off to the side and dodge by a hairpin. I turn the tables on him by using my momentum of spinning to swing at his head, but he easily ducks the attack. I didn't calculate for the sheer force of my swing and lose my balance, and he strikes me square in the back hard.
I fly into the dirt and turn around to see him raising the sword above his head, preparing to swing down on me. As I start to get up the sword starts to descend down onto me. I conceptualize a great strategy and grab the sword with my left hand. Ignoring Stephen's surprised squeal, I use my right arm to jab him in the face with the wooden sword. He screeches and falls down on his knees, holding his hands over his bloody face. I don't blame him; it was a full-force attack.
"Yes, alright. That's enough everyone. I see you were telling the truth, as that's the most powerful [Shell] I've ever even heard of, and you have no clue how to use a sword."
No clue how to use a sword, huh? That's awfully depressing. He's not wrong, but I would at least like to hear a "He has potential" or something. Oi, I see you chuckling there, Syfeid. Well, it went as best as it could. That guy didn't seem overwhelming with his swordplay, but I really don't have a scale at all.
"So, have I proven my worth to the fort and yourself, commander?"
"Hmm, I suppose. I'll have someone assigned to you as a sword tutor, so look forward to it. For now, I'll have Stephen show you to the sleeping quarters. After that, feel free to explore as much as possible. I'll send your sword instructor to you first thing in the morning. You'll also get to know the ropes of our wonderful military tomorrow, too."
I'll take it. If I can learn magic as fast as one would come to expect from stories, then I'll just do that. Swordsmanship seems complicated and hard, so having unparalleled magic power would be helpful. Haa… now I've gotten excited imagining how much fun crushing armies would be.
Stephen beckons towards me, so I follow him around the moderately sized fort. I've never seen one even in my past world, so I don't have much of a scale, though. We walk through the front door and turn down a hallway. He passes by 3 doors, then stops and opens one.
I peer inside and see a deep room filled with bunk beds every couple of feet. There weren't any mattresses on the beds, only hay. The beds were really something I didn't want to sleep on. As a whole, the room really gave off a 'let's squeeze as many people in 1 room as possible' kind of feel.
"These are your current living quarters. Ask the guy laying down there for where you should sleep."
He said that with a really conceited attitude. Fucker. It sure would be a shame if someone thought he was an enemy during the battle by mistake.
Stephen is the kind of guy that would totally be a recurring nuisance in an anime. I didn't really notice earlier, but he's pretty good looking. Judging by the way he talked to the commander of the garrison, he may just be his son. Which would suck.
"Alright, Stephen, see ya around, I guess. Thanks for the help."
No reason not to be civil, though. I am a firm believer in not making enemies. It makes perfect sense- enemies can only hinder you, whereas friends help you out in times of need. I mean, I'll just call him out on being a dick in my head instead.
He waves me off and disappears into the hallway, never to be seen again. I wish. I shut the door and turn to face the mysterious man laying down on a bed making up part of the right column of bunk beds.
This makes me think. I haven't seen a single woman since I came to this world. What a sausage fest. No, but seriously, what the hell is going on here? Aren't alternate world stories supposed to have at least one kick-ass female that's high ranking and sort of strict yet secretly rather motherly in these scenarios? God this sucks.
As I cautiously approach the lonesome fellow, he turns and looks directly into my eyes.
"Yo, I'm Griendt. I'm basically the volunteer manager of this room, and so I manage the sleeping arrangements, too. Almost all the beds have been taken up, but you can have the lower bed of that set right there."
He points his finger lazily at what I think is the 15th set of beds from the door on the right side, looking into the room.
Well, the words "what I think" are key here, as I have no clue where he pointed at, really. Ah, but I don't want to be awkward about it. What a predicament. Ahh, oh well. Let's get this over with.
I slowly pivot over to where I guessed he pointed at and stand by it. I know I'm being pretty awkward here, but now what?
"Hey, is this where you pointed?"
The guy opens one eye, eyes my current location then sighs and sits up. He stands and walks over towards me, and then approaches a bed 2 beds behind where I guessed.
I mean, not too bad for how awfully he pointed over here.
"No, this one is."
He proceeds to exhaustively drag himself back into his bed and promptly tries to go back to sleep.
"Hey, sorry, but one more question. Are there any girls in the barracks? I mean, it's just a bit of a sausage fest, ya know?"
He doesn't even budge. I'm not sure if he's asleep or if I just asked a really stupid question. Screw it, I'm thinking too much. I don't care if it's barely evening, I don't think I've slept for a few years now so I'm going to take a nice, long rest.
I lie down in the questionable bed, trying to find salvation to no avail. Despite being mentally fatigued, I'm just not tired.
A damn shame, too. I guess I'll think up a battle plan while enjoying this solitude. Come to think of it, this is the first time I can really be alone with my thoughts since I first arrived.
I push myself up into a sitting position against the wall behind me and get comfortable.
So, let's take a look at what has happened as a whole. I killed myself? in my old world, then was escorted here by a 'god'. From there, I met Syfeid and learned about magic. Then, arrived at camp and met the commander and Stephen, proved my worth, now I'm here.
The main thing I'm confused about is why I killed myself. 'God' erased too much of my memory so I'm not sure why I fell from the bridge, but at the same time, I can't remember ever being suicidal whatsoever. But, I did die, which allowed 'God' to bring me here.
That leaves me with a few questions. Perhaps this 'God' wanted me specifically here for some reason and had no way to do so unless I died. So, he influenced me to die and brought me here. Now, for the why. I suppose it would be to kick-start the magic in this world, because from what Syfeid said the magic here is boring. Also, he said that I need to found a kingdom. Almost forgot. Well, that could still align with my original theory. Possessing a country would allow me to develop magic with almost no restraint alongside the ability to recruit, train and manage elite magicians.
I wonder why there are only 5 different types of magic, and how it came about as a whole. Syfeid said magic wasn't well developed, but is that because the existence itself is juvenile, or is it because it's taboo? Hmm. Curious, but he did say that there were some universities that belong to each school. I guess it's the former, then. But how did magic just suddenly come about? Oh. 'God', of course. Was he just bored? He seems sentient, so perhaps he was just bored watching humans poke each other with sticks.
Oh well, I could totally be off. So, I guess I'll take it upon myself to innovate magic in this world, create a world-fucking-superpower, and to top it off have motherfucking blue balls for the rest of goddamn eternity. That actually pisses me off, though. Why the fuck can't I fuck a girl?! I experienced sex one fucking time, and it wasn't even that great. Now I'm just gonna be salty about it for the sempiternal times ahead.
Food I guess I can do without, and it seems I'm not going to ever get tired, dehydrated or hungry. He did have a point though, I guess not giving in to my own lust and gluttony really is for the best if I have a set goal. Negate all possible distractions before they can occur, I suppose. I mean, I guess I'd do something similar if I was in his position.
The main point I've been thinking about is how magic actually works in this world. Magic exists everywhere apparently, from what I've concluded only recently. That would mean that magic has no physical presence, as I would've felt a difference in constitution upon awakening here. Yet this world feels identical to Earth in every way. Taking a deep breath results in no noticeable changes. Gravity, plant life and air pressure are all identical to earth as well, as far as my body can tell. I'll eventually rig up a torr scale and calculate atmospheric pressure, assuming mercury's density is still the same as it was on Earth. The more physics and chemistry tests I perform the more reliably I can assume this world is a clone of Earth. As long as all the laws on Earth apply here, I'll probably be safe in assuming that. For now, though, I'm not going to assume that because that could be annoyingly dangerous thinking.
Another problem I could run across down the line is basic human ethics, morality, customs, and culture here. Bringing too much attention to myself before the time is right would be annoying, especially if said attention isn't overtly telling my tales of woe.
Woah, I just had a great idea. I could totally use my basic understanding of chemistry to create dangerous weapons. One idea could be mixing hydrogen fluoride with water magic to result in a hydrofluoric acid that I could distribute to my soldiers. Potent. Simply getting splashed would be game for anyone. Mustard gas is a possibility too. Create hundreds of gallons of it and use powerful wind magic to assure it goes the right way. Not a bad idea. Counter-magicians would be a pain, so the plan would only work against an army with an inferior air magic squad. What else? Uh, oh well I can't think of anything else right now.
I lay back down into a proper sleeping position and gently lay my eyes to rest. I'm still not tired, but I can feel the accumulated mental fatigue taking its toll on my mind already.