I spent the following weeks training with our Squadron. As part of the 56th Squadron, I was assigned the number 1017 as my identification number.
Arthur refused to speak to me even during our cleaning sessions, when I tried to talk it out he simply ignored me. Dim was really the one who acted as my interpreter.
"Can you tell him to pass me a napkin?"
We were currently in the middle of dinner.
"He is asking if you can pass him a napkin."
Arthur stabbed his vegetables with a fork and grabbed the napkins on his left. He handed them over to Dim who took one for him and gave me another one.
"I can't take this anymore!" I finally said, this atmosphere was becoming too unbearable.
"Arthur, can you just ignore what happened at the beginning. We only had to clean toilets for three weeks. Yeah, maybe it was a really unnecessary punishment for talking one time. But is it enough for you to stop talking to me altogether?"
Arthur kept eating his food as if I didn't even talk to him. What was wrong with him? Something was definitely going on.
The whole squadron headed back to sleep.
Our quarters were located right in the middle of the training grounds. Right to the left to where the trainers were sleeping.
It was a small, yet long, barrack, with bunk beds lined from side to side.
Since Arthur and I had made a fuzz on our first day here; when we were picking spots, no one wanted to sleep next to us, except of course Dim, who slept below Arthur. I, however, wasn't quite lucky, or rather I was really lucky because I had both beds to myself.
When it was time to sleep, lights went out and no one was allowed to leave the barrack, we were all expected to be asleep by then. However, this time was different.
I heard some voices some bunk beds away. There was an older cadet who has been living here for a month now, a week before we arrived, and was engaging in some arguments with a new recruit.
"All I'm saying is that that Borrower Unit from the Empire can beat us all up, no matter how much we train here."
"Yeah, maybe if we were as weak as you, Ulysses."
"You don't get it, my father saw them defending one of their villages, they are immune to every type of attack, swords, arrows, not even fire can touch Borrowers."
"That was over a decade ago, we can now fight them on even grounds. I am not supposed to tell you guys this, but my family works for the king's armory, and they have been working on a top-secret prototype weapon that is said to incapacitate most Borrowers."
When I heard him say that, I was shocked. Have Alexi and Father really developed such a specialized tool? Especially in such secrecy? The amount of logistics to keep such project under wraps they must have gone through. I was honestly impressed.
After he said that, the whole room was filled with murmurs, but their conversation pretty much had died down by then. Agh I couldn't listen to the part where that guy described the weapon. Since I couldn't just go talk to him, I just went to sleep for the night.
We were woken up just 4 hours later, by the General, no less.
"General, It's 5 in the morning, are we going to have to run around the field again?" Whoever asked that should seriously shut the hell up before they give any ideas to the General.
"Not, entirely." He said "It has come to my attention, that entire classified documents have been leaked in this very room. Whoever spoke about the ABEs just committed an act of treason against the kingdom, and should now be facing charges."
So the weapon was called an ABE then.
"Everyone line up." A woman was standing right behind him, and she seemed as menacing as the general.
We did as she told us. No one was really moving or anything, but the general kept telling us to stand still. By this point it had been several minutes already, and I was severely freaking out. What were they going to do to us? If what he said was classified information, were we going to be executed?
Eventually, the one who was talking yesterday stepped forward in a serious way. His black hair was kept short and he had a bit of a tan. His eyes were looking directly at the General.
"It was me sir" He looked really confident for some reason.
"I told you to stand STILL." The General shouted at him.
But he looked unflinched.
"I don't think you know who I am." He turned around to look at us. "My name is Magnus of the house of Or. The best blacksmiths in the entire kingdom, I have personally handled projects for Turgenev himself."
When he said his name I became really mad for some reason. Magnus somehow noticed and looked directly at me, but he kept speaking.
"My father is the creator of this weapon, it was going to be eventually shared with the rest of the kingdom, and eventually face the Borrowers themselves."
General Wallenstein listened to his speech, unimpressed, and took out his sword. But he wasn't holding it per se. It looked like he was wearing a metal glove that detached a blade. The glove extended to cover his whole arm and then form some sort of breast-plate around his chest. A red orb grew where he wore the coat of arms. It then began emitting a certain sound, too loud and deafening to describe, as the blade began changing into the same red color.
"I am just taking my family's well deserved prai-"
Magnus' head rolled down the floor, directly into Arthur's feet. Dim, who stood right next to him, looked terrified, but Arthur's face was that of astonishment.
"And your country can't thank you enough."
The slice had somehow made the entire room shake and even broken a few windows. The people who were standing in front of Magnus, had their ears bleeding, and one even fainted.
This was the power of an ABE.