After leaving the city and walking for an hour, the trees start getting thicker and thicker there may be a threat of wild animal and bandit at the thick forest.
The soldier starts seeing weird things like bush moving. It's finally decided some people will scout ahead, of course, Arden, raised his hand, thinking he can impress others.
He and 4 other people scouted ahead staying vigilante, with shield at left arm and sword at the rights, suddenly there is a shout "Charge!!!!!".
And bandit start coming from left and right, Arden and the other four's is ready to fight, they fought the bandit.
However, the bandit won on number of people, one by one was killed. When there is only Arden and one other people, Arden told the other one to go back to the army and told about what happened.
Hesitant at the moment but agreed to do it, the leader of the pack showed himself "If you could kill one of us, we would let you live another day".
All of the bandits is laughing at Arden. One of them offers to do a duel with him, the bandit is playing aggressively, but Arden parried his attack and counterattack.
This went on for a while until "Crack!" Arden's sword goes through the rib of his opponent. "Well done, well done".
Said the bandit leader and starting to leave, after they have left Arden dropped to the ground in exhaustion and waited for the others to come.
They finally come, Arden was carried to a carriage where he is given medicine for his wound, he was half asleep when the duke entered the carriage and said something like "You were very brave today, rest well".
When he wakes up, he is still at the carriage, Arden go out to see what is happening right now. Apparently, he is asleep for 8 hours and it's already night; the army is resting at some open lands.
Arden was called to the duke tents, he rushed to the duke tents and was chosen to guard the tent.
It felt like an eternity standing outside and doing nothing, everybody is almost asleep right now, only a few other guards is still awake.
The crunching sound of leaf and twig is becoming more clear and clear at the outskirt of the encampment area. Arden decided to go check the area personally.
When he found out the guard there has fallen asleep, and wake the guard up and signal the guard to be silent, the guard nod understandably.
Arden keep walking until he saw a person trying to steal the horse, that person noticed and start rushing toward Arden to charge.
When suddenly another person came and charge, the first one to help Arden is the guard that had fallen asleep.
Arden successfully stabbed the person in the stomach while defending with his shield and counterattacking. He decided to help the other guard and they killed all the intruder.
In the morning, Arden told the duke about what happened at night and decided to keep an eye on Arden, realising killed 2 man in the same day maybe is a whole new experience for a man who never killed anyone before.
After a couple of hours walking under the hot sun, they finally left the province of Midstev, the province where the capital city stood.
And entered the province of aswen, they continued to march without any problem and reached the castle of Lania when the sun is already setting.
Arden unpacked his thing and began going to the barracks where most of the soldier is sleep.
The next morning, all soldiers is gathered at the training yard and ordered to practice sword play, Arden was matched with someone called gilbert.
They both get ready and spar, unlike the other people Arden had fought, gilbert is a veteran soldier. Starting with a thrust and continued by a quick slash.
Arden stand no chance against him. In the evening, the soldier is dismissed from the training yard, most of the soldiers go to the pub to enjoy a tasty beer after training, so are Arden.
Arden is not a very talkative person, he goes to the pub thinking about making a new friend, cause Arden doesn't have many friends and always wanting to improve. He sat down at a table separate from the other soldier.
When someone came and sat down, at the table, Arden is confused about who is this. Turned out, he is the other survivor of the scout at the woods.
He thanked Arden for what he has done, and reach out his arm waiting for Arden to shake it. That is the beginning of the friendship between Arden and Ady.
They started to spar when training, talk about theirself and became best friend not longer than 4 days. One day when the soldiers are training below the hot sun, a messenger came rushing to the castle.
Not long after that, the army commander gathered all the soldier and start speaking.
They are going to fight the bisvirb army, everyone left the training yard at evening except Arden. He was preparing for the war, there is also Ady doing the same thing when the commander came and said "The duke called for you both".
They rushed to the duke's office where he is sitting at the chair and said, "I've considered it for a while but... Ady of Hamsville and Arden.
You both will be my squire", both of them accept, Arden is surprised when knowing that Ady is a noble, but it won't change their friendship.
They both given 25 aurens, to buy armor weapon, and horse. The next evening, Arden and Ady split up and are searching through the market place for a good set of armor and weapon.
When Arden found a good enough shop, with strangely no other customer, Arden looked around and see a good set of chainmail armor. Next to it is a good two-handed sword he bought it for exactly 20 aurens.
He met with Ady at the center of market place, Ady bought a set of chainmail armour, a shield and a short sword with only 13 aurens.
That's when Arden realised, he overpaid and could haggle the price down, what had passed already passed. So they go to the stable and look for a good horse.
All Arden could buy is a horse that looks underfeed and had been abused by all the other horse and the stable keeper. But its better than nothing.
The next morning, the army gathered the supplies and ready to march to war!!!!