"Hmm, alright, so what do you have to say for yourself?" the guard addressed Jeffrey, it was the same guard from before, he had his nephew behind him.
Right when the guard showed up, the red haired man and his goons, tried to frame Jeffrey, calling him the aggressor who was about to commit a heinous crime.
Jeffrey was unsure of how to reply in such a situation, he had never been framed before, so he merely recounted the event from his view.
"I stood here and these guys tried something, so I kicked them," very simple and abbreviated.
"He's got the order of those events wrong!" the red harried man objected and began to twist the story again to make Jeffrey seem like the instigator.
Seeing the story going nowhere, the guard decided to drop it.
"Who cares, no one is hurt, so let's start the test." With that, he walked up to the stage in front of the candidates. There were other guards around, however, this guard bore an insignia of a moon with two little stars in it. Same as the token, Jeffrey was given. Each star was representative of a person's rank within their profession in the Moonshine Kingdom. The more stars the better. The guards who stood around only had one star in their little moon, however, they seemed like veterans.
"Alright, so everyone is here for the city guard examination, I'm Senior Guard Lieutenant Wills, and I'll be conducting the exam today. Everyone, please write your name and your referee down, before we start the examination."
At this, a neatly dressed man in grey waved his hand, signalling for everyone to come over. He was stood next to a stand, and it was obvious that he would be the one to write down everyone's details.
An orderly line was soon made and he scribed down the details. It was common for many people to be able to read but not write, as such, the usage of a scribe was rather necessary.
When it was Jeffrey's turn to say his details, as the scribe looked up to face him, he nearly jumped out of his seat. However, quickly calmed down when he looked around and judged that Jeffrey was most likely a candidate.
"Name and referee?" he said rather meekly, still mildly afraid of Jeffrey.
"Jeffrey and Karl," Jeffrey had picked up Karl's name from the conversations they had before, it seemed that Karl had forgotten to explicitly mention his name to Jeffrey.
"Wait, Karl Koreen referred you?" Karl had referred many people before and they were all rather good in character and ability, so it was a surprise to see someone as suspicious as Jeffrey being referred here by Karl, in fact, he felt a bit suspicious himself.
However, shooting a glance toward Guard Lieutenant Wills, the latter nodded his head. Still feeling a bit sceptical he wrote down Jeffrey's name and details.
Jeffrey was stunned that Karl actually had a surname, he had never met anyone with a surname.
…
"You all are going to be running laps around this training area. Anyone who doesn't keep up to the speed I want will be disqualified." Wills stood on top of the stand as he spoke gesturing around him. The training field was around four hundred by one hundred and fifty feet.
If they were to jog around this field then the test was no challenge, however as the examinees started their jog around the field, Guard Lieutenant Wills shouted at them,
"Tanz City guard teams don't need little wusses who only know how to jog, now start running!"
At that everyone started to speed up around the field.
"Faster!" Wills yelled.
At this everyone was sprinting now.
Some people started to lag behind immediately, clearly these people were not fit enough to be part of the guard teams. They were pulled out by other guards on standby.
After sprinting around the field for ten laps, Wills called them to stop. After that, they were instructed to complete a couple more fitness tests such as dead hanging and long jump.
At the end of it, there were sixteen people left of the thirty or so people who started.
"Alright, onto the last test, you will be showing me how you fight, in other words, you will spar each other. If I don't think you're good enough then you're out."
"Wait, there's more?" someone actually complained, he seemed to not know what he was getting into.
Some may wonder why the examination for a simple guard position was so demanding, however, the fact is that this is a Fort City on the frontiers. Beast attacks were frequent and resources to arm and train guards were more lacking here than in other cities, due to the lack of peddlers willing to come through such a dangerous area. Thus, having fit, strong, combat capable recruits was a must.
However, as a result of this, guards in Tanz Fortress City were well respected and had a higher social position as compared to the guards of other cities.
Anyone taking the test knew about the harsh requirements and would be prepared, however, this guy seemed to think that it only consisted of fitness testing.
The guards around then drew up fighting rings in the dirt ground. Each ring was about fourteen feet wide. It was obvious that the sparring would take place in these rings, however, for some reason Wills felt a need to clarify.
"Alright, everyone here will get into pairs and pick a training weapon from the rack on the sides, then you will enter a ring and fight each other, there will be a supervisor to evaluate you.
"Oh, yeah, I will be choosing your pairs.
"So, you over there, you're paired with this young lad and you… "
Guard Lieutenant Wills went on to pair up the sixteen individuals.
"Finally, Mr. Black, you can be with that young lass."
Wills seemed to be indicating Jeffrey, as well as a petite looking girl. It looked like a very unfair fight, as the girl had a slim frame and fair skin. It caused a couple of the other examinees to berate the Lieutenant,
"Hey, that isn't a fair fight!"
"Yeah! Let me take her place!"
They believed that the young girl was going to get thrashed by Jeffrey, the black cloaked character.
"Enough! I make the rules here, I don't need guards that can't take simple orders!"
This was enough to shut everyone up, although they wanted to help out the girl, they inevitably still here to pass the city guard examinations.
"Besides, if she made it this far, she has to be somewhat capable. Complaining right now is an insult to her!"
This startled some of the guys, as they quickly tried to explain themselves to her. It seemed they were attracted to her figure. The red haired man was among those guys.