Royal Princess Kara Glt Zorun.
She is smart, persuasive, and decisive.
Now aware of the dormant danger, she makes apt preparations. For this, she decides on implementing a police system. It is something she casually reads from the book 'Random Ideas' by his majesty.
"What should I prioritize? Effectiveness or efficiency?" Mulling over the strategies available to her, Kara comes to a wild decision as to how to establish the first police department in their kingdom. She calls to Dahlia, her assistant next to Yirlung with a naughty smile. "Fetch me the elves around my age from the Academy of Hunts. We are going to make soldiers out of them."
"Yes, your highness…" Dahlia runs off to the Academy of Hunts to fulfill her duties.
Because of her heroic deeds and the impression she leaves, the Princes take a liking to her. Inviting her to become the Princess's guard is one of the best things that ever happen to her. She holds onto the vines and slides off to ground zero and runs off to the Academy of Hunts.
As the only education facility, it is an academy that focuses on quality more than quantity.
Upon her arrival, Dahlia witnesses the training of the elves. The categorization of the classes in the academy is by age. Currently, Dahlia is witnessing elves about her highness's age competing in a race track.
"Run! Damn it! He will hit us if he catches up!"
"That is a demon, I tell you! Not an elf!"
"A~agh! Mommy!"
Dahlia freezes in her toes as she sees a bald and burly elf carrying a stick and chasing the younger elves like crazy. If this is the Academy of Hunts' teaching method, no wonder the little elves are so competitive.
No. It is not even a competition. It is not even a race track. More like a slaughter ground.
A certain young elf with black hair indicating his half-elf lineage is seriously making a run for it. He mercilessly kicks another elf toward the scary bald instructor saving himself with a few seconds.
"Did you see that? Fuck you! I am freaking Monun, the fastest runner in the world!" Monun, the half elf boy flips the bird to another young elf who is about his age. The hooligan behavior reminds Dahlia of a certain someone.
"You so readily abandon your classmates, you runt!" The instructor increases his pace and chases Monun, and with an overhead swing, he angrily swings downwards.
Dahlia tenses her legs realizing that the instructor is about to do something fatal. However, before she can even make a move, someone passes by her. It is a familiar red hair. In a single step, the red hair appears before the instructor, and with a brutal tackle, he forces the instructor to the ground.
"You bald fuck! What are you doing, abusing the children!?"
"Shut up, tomato head! I won't go easy on you because you are new."
"As a senior Einherjar, aren't you ashamed of beating up the little kids?"
"Bah~ and you are not even a junior Einherjar, you fucking recruit!"
"Hah! Fuck you!"
"No, fuck you!"
With a worried gaze, and hurrying steps, Dahlia approaches Momun ignoring the bickering baldhead and redhead. "Are you alright?" However, instead of receiving a proper response, Momun rudely ignores Dahlia.
Momun runs off to red hair and kicks the back of his calf. "Fuck you!"
"Ouch," Red hair goes down in surprise. "Hey, you little brat, why don't you be more grateful to this big brother of yours? Huh?"
"We are fighting! You are not respecting our honorable battle!"
"Battle? He is slaughtering you!"
There is a theory among elves that their hair will affect their personality. Dahlia looks at the red hair with a foul mouth. Aware that it is the same elf who so rudely disrespects the princess, she realizes red means bad, rude, and asshole. Looking at the bald head, she assumes that he must once also have red hair. Now, considering the rude brat, Dahlia reaches the conclusion that one of the half-elf boy's parents must be red hair.
"How dare you disrupt my class!?" The bald head grabs red hair by his neck choking the living daylights out of him. Similarly, he grabs Momun's leg lifting him in the air.
The elf kids around are climbing on trees and watching the affair from a distance. For some reason, they are clearly enjoying what they are watching and are even saying funny stuff.
"Hey, that bald teacher finally lost it!"
"Of course, he will. Did you not see how Momun and the tomato head are pissing him off."
"Baldy baldy baldy baldy!" The young elves hanging on the trees, and grabbing on the small crevices of the wooden barks chant at once. "Baldy baldy baldy!"
No wonder their instructor likes to beat them up! "You brats!"
When Dahlia starts thinking that Baldy is about to do something he should not, baldy suddenly changes his tune, and with a defeated sigh, he lets go of Momun who scrambles on the ground and runs off to a tree of his own. "Fine, let's wrap it up. Now, you lot know how to run from an overwhelming enemy. This is what it means to survive, however, Momun, what you did is dishonorable. Because you are a half-elf doesn't make you any lesser than them. You just need to communicate and connect with them." The bald head's overbearing gaze stays at Momun for a second, and when he has enough, he looks around at the other elf kids and addresses them. "You lot! The assignment for today is to make a friend. Tomorrow will be recitation. Prepare a poem for your friend. Class dismisses! Your next teacher should arrive any sooner now!"
At the announcement of class dismissal, the elves run off to the three-story cabin that serves as the Academy of the Hunts' place of teaching.
"And who are you?" The bald head rudely remarks to Dahlia.
Dahlia is speechless as she doesn't know how to address a man who is casually strangling another elf.
"M-man… I gi-ve up… Ku-ughh~" The red hair taps the bald head's arm that is strangling him. He looks like he is on the verge of dying. The bald head finally lets go of the redhead after the latter loses consciousness.
"I am Dahlia, aide to the Guardian Tree, Yirlun… I am here for a mission." She succinctly expresses her intentions. Looking at the fainted red hair, Dahlia expresses her doubts about the bald head's teaching methods. "Is it necessary to be that brutal?"
The bald head kicks the stick idly lying by his foot and catches it midair. "Of course. The Dark Forest is a cruel place. It is safe now because the Einherjars are doing their jobs quite well. But it is only now. The elves must learn to defend themselves to the bare minimum. For us Einherjars who personally experience the General's training methods, this beating the shit out of the runts is much lighter."
"I am Beler by the way. As you can see, I am an instructor at the Academy of Hunts. Well, what are you here for?" Beler lifts the fainted red hair to his shoulder.
Dahlia scratches her chin thinking how to phrase it aware of the Einherjars' core ideologies being not involving children in war. "Her… Her Highness wishes to make a soldier out of the children. She instructs me to gather every one of them to the palace. She wants to interview them."
"Are we going to war?" Beler tensely asks.
"No, I don't think so."
"…"
In the Hanging Palace, the elves around 120 centimeters to 160 centimeters gather. The elves tend to forget their age while young, so they need other elves to remember it for them. It doesn't mean that the juvenile elves are mentally challenged, just ignorant of the concept of time. That is why younger elves, they judge their age by height.
The young elves from the Academy of Hunts suddenly find themselves in the Hanging Palace. They seat each on their own, with parchment in front of them, and ink beside them. All of them are literate. The younger an elf is, the faster they learn. So within a few short years, it is only expected that they will now be able to write.
Kara seats on her throne, and reading a parchment, she begins the exam. "The exam will be dictation. I will read out the questions, and you will write your answer on the parchment. I will give you an hour to complete each essay question. Now, first question…"
The first examination to ever exist in the rising elven nation begins here in the Hanging Palace.
For an incorruptible, transparent, and honest police, Kara decides to make use of children around their age. Even Kara who is not so innocent still has that shred of purity in her. Though it is starting to grey on the sides, it is an immutable fact that children are true, honest, and trustworthy.
They are the best cops that Kara can ask for.