Standing in a ring made in the dirt, the four stood distant from each other.
All wielding various blunted, training weapons. Mainly sword for the most part. Jeffrey had two daggers, similar to last time. Having dual weapons when in small combat areas was most effective, Jeffrey learned this from experience.
"Alright, let's start!" with Bryoni's signal everyone upped their guards. Noone fancying to take the first move.
Except Bryoni, he was enthusiastic about this fight, or maybe he was enthusiastic about any fight?
Charging at Marius, he slashed with his sword, though it was just to size up Marius. It was always best to test your opponent for any weak points and their habits. Marius parried the strike and sent back his own.
The two were locked in a dual and Kelli, seeing this, took it as an initiative to start a fight with Jeffrey. Without a word she threw a knife at Jeffrey, hoping to catch him off guard. Though it was easily dodged as Jeffrey advanced toward her.
Reaching his opponent, Jeffrey did a sweeping kick, only to be met with more knives thrown at him. Guarding against them, he instead moved up and kicked her shin. This achieved the same effect as the sweeping kick and knocked her off balance. Using this chance, he pressed one of his daggers against her throat.
"I lost," with her resignation, Jeffrey turned to look at how the other two were faring. It looked evenly matched, though Bryoni was holding a slight advantage over Marius with his slick movements.
Grabbing some of Kelli's knives littered on the ground. Jeffrey threw them at the two who were locked in combat. Marius was too focused on the fight and was hit by two of the knives, Bryoni was more experienced and managed to angle his body slightly, but it wasn't enough, he was still hit. Ending the match. Usually, in a real combat situation, his maneuver would've saved his life, as it would have angled the knife to hit a non vital, though this was a spar. In this spar, it was a one hit knockout.
"Man, what a buzzkill. Couldn't even let me finish whoopin' his ass,"
This got a glare from Marius.
"Sigh, if only I could use my bow, then none of you would've stood a chance," Kelli, despite her indifference seemed to be a bit upset with her loss.
Anyways, as was the agreement made beforehand Jeffrey was made the leader, as he was the victor of this free for all. Jeffrey didn't know what to do as a leader, or what that entitled, but it was neat. Karl also had this title so maybe it did something else. Who knows really.
Taking this chance, as he was appointed the team leader, Jeffrey asked them a simple inquiry.
"D'you know how to raise a bird?"
Unlike last time, he received positive answers this time.
"Ooh, you got a birdy?" Kelli's eyes lit up. "Show me, show me!"
Showing her the little white chick, Kelli reached out to pat it, but that wasn't going to happen. Defensively covering the little white chick, Jeffrey shields it away from her grubby hands.
"No touch,"
Kelli seemed hurt, but she wasn't going to give up so easily.
"I'll tell you if you let me touch it,"
"Okay,"
"..."
"Do you really know how to raise a bird?" Jeffrey started to believe that she was telling lies.
"Of course I do!" a bit offended she raised her voice, "but, let me touch first,"
Seeing no other option, he took the compromise. Allowing one pat, Jeffrey learned the secrets to raising a bird. Though reluctant, Kelli did indeed sure her information
It was actually not all that different from what he had expected. Though there would be one problem. It is questionable if the little white chick would be able to function as a proper bird, as Jeffrey wasn't a bird himself to teach it the birdy basics. Such as flying, or hunting.
Well, there was nothing that could be done about that, it should be able to work out something so simple by itself. It was a darned bird after all. There's no way it could screw up doing something so simple for a bird as flying.
There would be no problem, none at all. He just had to feed it a variety of different foods to give it a balanced diet and make sure it wasn't too cold. In fact, the little white chick grew quite a bit over the last few days and became rather energetic, flapping its wings about. This should be a sign of maturation.
At least he hoped so.
…
"Karl, you really sure about recommending that man?"
In another part of the barracks, in an office type area, where all the paper pushers are located, Karl was having a chat with a scribe.
He was debating the credibility of this new recruit.
"I told you man, he's definitely a frontier farmer before this, plus I checked and everyone can confirm that despite how he looks, he was a firm part of the local village,"
"But, can you really be sure?" The scribe was not sceptical about Jeffrey's ability as farmers on the frontiers tended to have quite high combat capability, despite their main profession being farming. This was due to frequent beast assaults and infestations, whereby an average farmer would simply be unable to even cope with one of such incidents. Instead, what the scribe was asking was whether Jeffrey had committed any illegal activities, for his need to always wear a hood and mask around.
"I'm tellin' you, he's a good guy, he saved my life out there. And plus, what crimes could he have even committed being out at a place so remote? You shouldn't judge his appearance so harshly,"
At these words the scribe could only give up, he had the moral low ground, Jeffrey was clean and had even saved the scouting team. Arguing further would just be illogical and rude, as the scribe was only bringing this up due to his appearance in the first place.
And a few days pass, with Jeffrey and his team being given a rundown of their roles and a couple of days to familiarise themselves around the barracks.