Chapter 49: Hell Week
Training grounds
Monday Morning
06:00
Shannon addresses the troops:
"Before we begin the next stage, general Kaijuu will address you. Please listen carefully."
I start reading from the speech I wrote out beforehand, Wilfred and Shannon helped:
"Out of every 100 soldiers 10 shouldn't even be there, they are usually the ones that die first. 80 are soldiers they make up numbers, 9 are the real fighters. Then there's the one, ah the one, those are known as real warriors. This is training to weed out the weak amongst you. You're gonna wanna quit. Our mission for the next week is to make you quit. So prepare yourself. If you do decide to quit, and you will. Ring this bell behind me. If you do you'll never be able to do this training again. Ladies and gentlemen WELCOME TO HELL WEEK!, I wish you the best of luck, you're gonna need it."
300 soldiers are lined up 10 rows of 30.
"Let's start off with a run, follow me."
We run until mid afternoon. I take 100, Shannon and Wilfred each take 100, I already gave them their Schedules. There is no sleep for the trainees for 3 straight days.
They need to run 10 Km to and from breakfast, lunch and dinner. They were told to eat as much as possible.
No potions of any kind allowed. It should be restored naturally.
Wednesday night the troops got their first 4 hours of sleep.
Thursday arrives. Felmina comes by. She joins us they are busy with pushups.
There's about 100 helmets stacked neatly behind the bell, 10 by 10. Like a graveyard.
The bell tolls one after the other.
Wilfred, Felmina and I are walking in-between them yelling, 'You wanna quit, huh, go ahead, comfort is just a bell toll away'.
Those 2 caught on quick.
Felmina is observing this whole ordeal.
The bell continues being rung as the weak are being phased out.
It's nighttime. I have some mages on loan from the magic division cast freeze and wind magic onto the troops. They are shivering.
I come by with a open back carriage and offer them warm soup and a ride back to base if they quit. Some do.
Felmina's riding back with me.
"Have you decided?"
"I have..."
"And?"
She looks back at the wiped men and women, hollow eyes black circles under the eyes.
Then she looks back at me.
"I'll do it".
"In that case prepare yourself, you won't get any special treatment. You'll start in a little over 2 weeks."
"I understand."
She looks at them again.
I drop them off, then head back out again.
75 remain.
During hell week they where divided up by height, 6 per team, carrying heavy logs. pulling the slabs they made for themselves before, running, endless pushups, pull ups, sit ups, flutter kicks, 8 second bodybuilders, until they could barely stand. Then we had them do some more.
Their SP bars where basically empty most of the time, even if it drains you can still go on.
This training is designed to show them what their bodies are capable of.
By the end of the week 29 remained.
We called it. Hell week was over for them.
We gave them all their black shirts with the new logo for my elite in red on it.
Kaijuu Bears.
It's an skew infinity symbol with the left being the face of a bear with fangs, and the other side is a paw with claws worked into the design.
"Congratulations, Hell week is over, your movement, combat, tactics, stealth and hand signal training will finalize your training over the next 2 weeks, you have 2 days off. Enjoy."
They all completed the training and got 2 days off. I went home again.
When I saw Felmina's new haircut I dragged her to the bedroom immediately. She has never looked hotter, She kinda had this whole wild girl vibe going. The next morning I reminded her to wrap her chest like Roka did.
Two weeks later
Monday morning arrived and I decided to make the rounds and see the progress. I ordered some additional boards for the war.
It's a bit behind schedule, but we're making good progress.
I've had an idea. I went to the forestry section, where they grow trees for wood.
I order a hell of a lot of planks and 50 trees 60 meters each, I have them debark the trees and cut the trees square then in half, lengthwise. I then have them sent to be engraved and enchanted. After this I go to the support division and tell them to bring the rafters and planks along, along with 80 meter ropes 100 of them.
I'm happy they didn't ask for an explanation.
I reminded them we need hammers and a ton of nails too.
The support division complied without much hassle.
Felmina completed the training, she seemed satisfied.
Commander Gary accepted her and assigned her to a half division.
I gave her the gravity suit, her custom armor and her 2 swords.
With the previous classes training the following ones. I had a grand total of 324 Kaijuu Bears.
We are now 5 months away from the battle.
After the second class of the troops passed the trainers decided to get magic tattoos of the logos, for themselves and the new bears.
It turned out great.
The whole army set off.
We arrived 3 months early.
Time to prepare the ground and start digging.