The door is still drifting shut from Lector's entry when I arrive, I pull it back open and enter myself. Already within the large hall are about a hundred soldiers; of the total number in our corps, I estimate about half to have arrived.
Our group is composed primarily of swordsmen, supplemented by a handful of swordsmen and elemental mages and a few straight magic users specializing in healing. The swordsmen are at least eighty percent of our group in the grand scheme of things, meaning about 160 of them, with twenty-two elementalists, twenty spellswords, and four healers. Something that I find to be of some interest is that there is actually a 'health' element; however, such apparently requires an attainment in elemental manipulation and sensory that even our illustrious Lector has not reached.
I enter to see Lector going straight to Reinhart, our other commander, presumably to do some last minute coordination while the remaining soldiers file in. And file in they do; within short order of my arrival, a steady stream of soldiers begin to arrive.
Just as the clock on the wall, the only clock I have yet seen in this world, I realize, chimes four times, Reinhart calls us to attention. "We will depart in twenty minutes, let's get the basic info about how we are going to travel out of the way."
The next twenty minutes are spent on just the very subject to which they have been dedicated, covering extremely basic info. Essentially, we are to march in step until we have exited the city; at that point we can drop the facade and travel as we will. The group will maintain a steady fifteen miles an hour at all times, which for well trained soldiers should be of minimal concern in this world where strength and speed skills have been leveled by everyone gathered. No individual is to travel more than an hour from the group at any time, with the exception of scouts, who are to ensure safety for at least twenty miles in all directions at all times. For this task, eight scouts are chosen, to rotate in groups of two and cover all hours of the day. I am one of these scouts, and the others are also all spellswords, likely due to spellsword being good all-rounders to be on our own in missions such as these.
We are to sleep four hours a night for the duration of our travel, a travel slated to take us to the northern border of Eroen, east into the monster-held territories around the mountain range providing the shared border of Eroen and the Arenese empire, and back west again, piercing into the eastern border of the Arenese empire.
There, our task is rather simple: occupy and claim as much territory as possible in the name of the kingdom of Eroen. I don't really care to occupy the land of a weakened nation at the behest of the one that allowed my unlawful enslavement, but I will follow Lector without complaint wherever his duties take him.
As Lector had once mentioned after killing an insubordinate soldier in a duel, the kingdom's current aim is to capture as much territory in as little time and with as few losses as possible, thus leading to their strategy of sending elite troops to defeat their strong defenders and their armies, leaving the way clear for us to exert our tyranny on their citizenry.
"How strong are these elite warriors?" one young noble asks.
After a moments' thought, Reinhart replies "At least as strong as our general, though much stronger in some cases."
"So strong?!"
"Yes, they are our country's elite; nay, the elite among our most elite, warriors capable of moving mountains and severing our reality through their mighty use of magic."
"How many of them are there?" he asks, though Reinhart is not nearly so willing to answer this question.
"While I will not say the total number, as such is a classified military secret, I think that it could be inferred by anyone of even moderate intelligence that there are not enough to handle the occupation of the territory that they free from its oppressive government, thus necessitating our involvement."
"Now," he continues after checking the time, "it is time for us to depart. Our marching need not be particularly showy or ordered, so long as through it you convey power and unity. That said, follow me."
And so, my dedicated training time comes to a close. In less than three months, I have been brought from a slave soldier, only moderately capable in swordsmanship and lacking in any complex methods of magic, to where I am now, a warrior closer in power to my commanders than to the average soldier in this nation.
I am confident that if I had possessed such power upon first meeting the slavers, I would have been able to defeat them with absolute ease, not even breaking a sweat as I crushed the whole lot of them.
I had entered this place a slave, with no prospects other than death on a nameless battlefield, and through my own efforts, alongside the aid of two excellent teachers, I now possess the power necessary to, at the bare minimum, survive. By my efforts, through countless hours of grueling training, I have overcome the unfair obstacles that this wretched world set in my way.
This world tried to crush me in my infancy, but now, I will instead crush it. This world will be made to regret the way that it toyed with me, viewing my suffering as mere amusement, taking from me freedom, dignity, and my friend. This world should have killed me when it had the chance; for now, I shall capitalize upon its mistake and kill it instead!
My resolve to carry out my goals again strengthened, I follow Lector out the door. Perhaps death may still await me, but I have done everything I possibly could to best aid my chances through my efforts since coming here, so long as I continue to train I can rest in confidence that I have done everything within my own power to pursue my aims.