Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Reina stood alone in front of the Beast Pen for a few seconds, processing the weight of the authority he had just handed her.

He was letting a mid-tier recruit build the actual raid squad for their first major cavalry mission.

’He said anyone will do...’ Reina thought, her mind rapidly calculating the survival odds of walking into the dangerous Unknown Zone outside their walls. ’He thinks we’re safe just because he and Aeliana are there but I’m not taking any chances. If we’re going out to wrestle Corrupted Wolves in the mud, I am not bringing a bunch of soft archers who don’t know how to take a hit.’

She spun on her heel and broke into a dead sprint toward the Warlord Garrison.

She wasn’t going to pull random names from a hat. She was going straight to the top of the food chain as she was going to recruit the commanders.

Reina charged through the heavy double doors of the barracks, her boots tracking mud onto the polished stone floor.

The main hall of the garrison was loud and chaotic, filled with dozens of off-duty infantry girls cleaning their weapons, eating spiced jerky, or playing cards at the long wooden tables.

She ignored all of them and headed straight for the quarters located in the north wing.

She stopped in front of a heavy wooden door that was cracked slightly open.

Inside the room, sitting on the edge of an oversized reinforced ironwood cot, was Captain Brida.

The brawler wasn’t wearing her usual heavy plate armor.

She was dressed down in a simple, sleeveless gray canvas shirt and loose training pants, her thick muscled arms were completely bare.

Brida wasn’t resting.

She was aggressively rolling her broad shoulders, throwing sharp high-speed shadow punches into the empty air. Her face was flushed a deep bright pink, and a goofy uncharacteristic smile was plastered across her rugged face as she stared blankly at the wall.

”Take that, you giant squid...” Brida muttered to herself, throwing a fierce left hook before giggling softly. ”Yeah, block that with your tentacles... Oh wait, my Lord is watching. I have to look fierce. Roar!”

Reina stopped dead in her tracks with her hand hovering over the doorframe.

’What in the name of the world is she doing?’ Reina thought, her jaw dropping slightly as she watched the six-foot battle-hardened commander giggle and blush like a teenage girl while punching the air.

Reina cleared her throat loudly and knocked her knuckles against the heavy wood of the doorframe.

Brida violently flinched.

The woman snapped out of her lovestruck daydream in a fraction of a second, her combat instincts taking over.

She dropped into a heavy brawler’s stance with her thick fists raised as her eyes locked onto the doorway with pure aggression.

When she saw Reina standing there, the aggression vanished, replaced instantly by a deep defensive embarrassment.

”What?!” Brida barked loudly, her face flushing even redder as she quickly sat back down on the edge of her cot and crossed her arms over her chest. ”I wasn’t doing anything! I was just practicing my footwork! What do you want, recruit?”

Reina decided to pretend she hadn’t seen a single thing.

”Captain Brida,” Reina said respectfully, keeping her posture straight. ”Lord Silas just finished building the new Beast Pavilion in the eastern courtyard. We’re heading out the main gates in fifteen minutes to hunt and trap a pack of Corrupted Umbral Wolves. He put me in charge of assembling the hunting party. I need a heavy frontline brawler who can take a hit and hold a wolf down without killing it.”

Brida’s embarrassment evaporated instantly. Her eyes lit up with fierce excitement at the prospect of a real fight.

”A wolf hunt?” Brida grinned, cracking her thick knuckles with a loud meaty pop. ”Now you’re speaking my language, Tamer. Poking wooden dummies in the mud all morning was putting me to sleep. I’m in...”

She stood up from the cot, grabbing her heavy leather chestplate from the weapon rack.

Before she strapped it on, she stopped, looking down at the sleeveless gray canvas shirt she was wearing.

She looked back up at Reina, her fierce expression softening into unexpected vulnerability.

”Hey, kid,” Brida asked quietly, gesturing awkwardly to her own heavily muscled chest and arms. ”Does this shirt look okay? The Captain is going to be out there, and I don’t want to look like a complete slob next to Aeliana. Does it show off my biceps enough?”

Reina blinked, completely thrown off balance by the question.

The idea that a towering warrior woman cared about her bicep definition purely to impress the Warlord was both terrifying and deeply relatable.

”It looks incredibly strong, Captain,” Reina nodded quickly, offering a reassuring smile. ”Your arms look huge.”

”Perfect,” Brida beamed, slapping her heavy pauldron into place. ”Go gather the rest of your squad. I’ll meet you at the gate.”

Reina turned and jogged back down the corridor with her mind struggling to process the interaction.

’This whole territory is completely gone for him,’ Reina thought, shaking her head. ’Even the heavy brawlers are blushing. It’s ridiculous...’

She liked him but not to that level, was he casting some sort of spell?

Her next stop was the communal washroom located behind the mess hall.

If she needed precision and lockdown tactics to trap a wolf without killing it, she needed the territory’s best Huntress.

She pushed the swinging wooden doors open and stepped into the humid, soapy air of the laundry room.

Tasmin was standing in front of a long row of deep wooden basins with her sleeves rolled up, scrubbing a pile of clothes against a ridged washboard.

The Huntress was serving a heavy punishment.

That punishment for nearly getting herself killed by the orc had finally caught up to Tasmin.

Silas had chewed her out in front of all of the girls and assigned her to manual laundry duty for an entire month to teach her the value of following orders.

Currently, Tasmin was scowling down at a massive sudsy wooden bowl filled entirely with the dirty undergarments of the infantry girls.

The Huntress held up a pair of massive heavy-duty canvas bloomers that clearly belonged to Brida.

The thick fabric was soaked with dirty soapy water and Tasmin’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she dropped them back into the bowl.

”Disgusting,” Tasmin muttered under her breath, wiping a strand of wet dark hair out of her eyes with her forearm. ”I kill beasts and I cut throats in the dark. I shouldn’t be washing the sweat out of Brida’s underwear.”

”Commander Tasmin?” Reina called out softly, stepping into the room.

Tasmin stiffened, quickly dropping her hands back into the soapy water and schooling her face into a blank professional mask.

She looked over her shoulder at the recruit.

”Reina,” Tasmin acknowledged smoothly, her dark eyes sharp despite her humiliating current assignment. ”What do you need? Did you tear your tunic during the spear drills again?”

”No, Commander,” Reina shook her head, walking closer to the basins. ”Lord Silas is taking me outside the walls to hunt Umbral Wolves for the new Beast Pavilion. He gave me the authority to pick the squad. You taught me how to operate in the wild during my first week here. I need someone who can set high-tensile snares in the dark without alerting the pack so in short, I need you on the squad.”

Tasmin paused, her hands still submerged in the soapy water.

For a second, a flash of genuine interest sparked in the Huntress’s eyes.

The chance to drop the miserable laundry assignment, grab her chained Short swords, and step back out into the Unknown Zone alongside her Lord was an incredibly tempting offer.

But then, Tasmin looked down at the massive bowl of dirty canvas bloomers. She sighed with her shoulders slumping slightly.

”I have to decline the offer, Reina,” Tasmin said quietly, pulling her hands out of the water and drying them on a towel.

Reina frowned in confusion. ”Why? You hate laundry duty. Lord Silas wouldn’t mind if you took a break for an official military operation.”

”That’s exactly why I can’t go,” Tasmin corrected her, her voice turning strict and deeply respectful. ”You are my student, Reina. I taught you how to move quietly in the brush. I want to see you succeed out there but the Lord gave me a direct order to finish this assignment. If I abandon this post just because a fun hunting trip came up, I prove that I haven’t learned my lesson about discipline.”

She picked up her scrubbing brush, turning back to the miserable pile of wet clothes with renewed stubborn determination.

”Go out there and catch your wolves, Tamer,” Tasmin told her over her shoulder. ”Show the Lord that my tracking lessons didn’t go to waste. I’ll stay here and finish my punishment... I owe him that much.”

Reina stood there for a second, surprised.

’She’s passing up a chance to go on a mission with him?’ Reina thought, her assumptions taking another heavy hit. ’She actually respects his authority enough to scrub dirty underwear instead of taking the easy way out. He really commands her loyalty...’

”Thank you, Commander,” Reina said softly, giving the assassin a deep, respectful bow before turning and leaving the washroom.

She checked the time.

She only had ten minutes left before she had to be at the gates so she needed more bodies.

Reina jogged out into the main training yard, looking for the head scout.

Fenna was sitting on a wooden bench near the archery targets, carefully re-stringing her longbow with a fresh piece of treated spider-silk.

The tall sharp-eyed scout looked up as Reina approached, offering a friendly nod.

”Hey, Reina,” Fenna greeted her. ”Heard you got pulled up to the big office. Did the Boss actually read your pitch?”

”He did,” Reina confirmed, catching her breath. ”We built the Beast Pen. We’re heading out to trap the wolves right now. I’m building the squad, and I need a long-range spotter to sit in the trees and track the pack’s movements. I want you to come with us.”

Fenna smiled, pulling the tension tight on her bowstring.

It was a great offer. Any girl in the barracks would jump at the chance to leave the mud behind and go on an elite raid with the Lord but Fenna shook her head.

”I appreciate the invite, Reina,” Fenna said genuinely, resting her bow across her knees. ”But I’m going to pass.”

Reina blinked, completely caught off guard for the second time in ten minutes. ”You don’t want to go? It’s a direct operation with Lord Silas.”

”Of course I want to go,” Fenna laughed, pointing a thumb toward the distant Keep. ”The man is gorgeous, he’s amazing... too amazing really and he fights like a demon but I’ve been on the many raids with him. I’ve had my time in the spotlight so you should take Elara instead.”

Fenna gestured across the yard toward the junior scout, who was currently practicing her draw speed against a straw target.

”Elara is young, but her eyesight is sharper than mine in the dark,” Fenna explained with her voice lacking jealousy or ego. ”She needs the field experience, and she deserves a chance to show the Boss what she can do. Give the junior girls a shot, Reina. The Lord likes it when we lift each other up.”

Reina just stood there, staring at the older scout in total silence.

Her internal perspective of the women at the top was entirely shattering.

When she first arrived at the Blessed Land, she assumed the elite girls were a toxic competitive crew who fought tooth and nail for every second of the Lord’s attention.

She assumed they hoarded the glory and looked down on the regular recruits but that wasn’t true at all.

Tasmin was scrubbing laundry out of pure respect for his orders.

Fenna was actively stepping aside to let a junior scout get some face time with the commander.

They were a real, functioning military brotherhood that actually cared about developing the lower ranks.

’They really believe in what he’s building here?’ Reina realized with a warm unexpected feeling of genuine camaraderie blooming in her chest. ’And they want me to succeed.’

”You’re right, Fenna,” Reina smiled warmly, nodding her head. ”I’ll go grab Elara. Thank you.”

With her perspective completely shifted, Reina didn’t bother trying to recruit the rest of the elite.

She realized Silas hadn’t told her to pick ’anyone’ because he didn’t care... he told her to pick anyone because he wanted her to rely on her own peers.