Second Life as a Soldier

Before I could fall, Sergeant Cole supported me.

“Looks like you have overexerted yourself, Sergeant,” said Sergeant Cole, making me sit beside the cart and placing a mana crystal in my hand. “Here, take this mana crystal and start meditating.”

I followed his instructions. I closed my eyes and clenched my fist around the crystal, then started circulating my mana, slowly absorbing mana from the crystal.

After about five minutes of meditation, I opened my eyes. I still had a headache, but the darkness in my vision had gone away. Taking a few more deep breaths, I turned to Sergeant Cole.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” I said.

“No. As I said, you did a great job. The fault lies with me. I misjudged their leader’s strength,” said Sergeant Cole.

“Sergeant Edward, how are you feeling now?” asked Sergeant Cole.

“Better. About the earth displacement,” I said, getting to the question he had asked before I almost fainted, but he raised his hand and stopped me.

“You don’t have to share if it’s something secret or related to your skill. I was just impressed with what you were able to do and asked the question in surprise,” Sergeant Cole said.

“Ummm… it is nothing secret,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “My intelligence private Peter and I devised the strategy. I used my mana to form a link between the earth beneath the barbarian front line and established a mana pattern similar to what the vanguard privates use to displace earth, then sent the earth mana collected by the privates. To hide my mana activity, I covered everyone, including our members and the barbarians, and made a morale-boosting speech, making sure the barbarians focused on the morale-boosting effect instead of the pattern I was weaving.”

“Peter’s analysis was crucial. He provided me with the exact movement needed to create the earth displacement. According to his analysis, before a swing the barbarians push their feet hard into the ground. This gave us the exact moment to displace the earth to increase their loss of balance,” I said, finishing my explanation.

What I left unsaid was that remembering the pattern for earth displacement had only been possible because of my skills [Operational Cognition (A)] and [Perceptive Instinct (UC)]. More importantly, I had been able to connect multiple points—the earth beneath the barbarians’ feet and the earth mana gathered by the vanguard—because of my constant practice linking boots with the Silent Step rune and feeding wind crystal mana into the runes.

Sergeant Cole patted my shoulder.

“Excellent! Excellent! I took no part in your growth, but I feel proud of how much you have grown. I could not even imagine you were the same scrawny little boy who walked into my office wearing a torn shirt.”

I was surprised. It was the first time I had seen him smile, and hearing such praise from Sergeant Cole made it even more unexpected.

But I was also glad. Thinking about it for a moment, I realized I had never received praise for my capability to lead a squad from a superior. Up until now, all I had heard was that I was too young to be a sergeant or that I was lucky to be in such a position.

“Thank you, sir!” I said.

“How did your elemental mana not degrade the quality of the earth mana? I did not know you have earth affinity.” said Roland with a frown on his face. His concerns were valid. When two different elemental mana mix, both of them lose their effectiveness, but in my case I had none of this concern.

I could feel Sergeant Cole getting tense beside me. It looked like he had done background research on me, and I knew why he was afraid of this question. To a lot of people it would feel shameful to have an affinity like mine, but instead I just smiled.

Stolen story; please report.

“Well, Private Roland, I have almost no elemental affinity. I have 0.01 percent wind elemental affinity,” I said, maintaining my smile.

There was a time when I would feel ashamed of my affinity or feel sorry for myself, but I had moved on from that. I had stopped caring about affinity and affinity percentage, especially after learning about Princess Aurora and the advancements she had made.

I had made a promise to myself that I would find a way to make a core one way or another. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to learn more about core formation.

Listening to my reply, Roland started looking awkward, as if searching for his next words. Taking pity on the guy, I changed the topic to a question I needed answered.

“How did the barbarians get here? We are less than two days away from the fort, and yet there were thirty-five barbarians here unnoticed.” This was something that had been bothering me since they attacked.

“I am concerned about it as well,” Sergeant Cole said. “There could be three reasons. First, the fort may have suffered heavy losses and might not have enough people to send regular patrols this far out. Second, a patrol squad could have been killed shortly before we arrived, which would explain why the fort has not responded yet. Third, we may simply have been unlucky. They might have been hunting several miles away in the forest and sensed us coming. Seeing an opportunity, their leader decided it was a good time to earn some merit.”

He paused before continuing. “This forest is large enough to border both Frosthallow and the Kingdom of Avalon.”

I nodded in understanding. My eyes drifted toward the direction the barbarian leader had charged from, replaying the battle in my mind.

“Sergeant, about their strategy,” I said. “Are barbarians always this poor at battlefield tactics? Don’t get me wrong, but judging from the condition you two are in and the pressure our group was under, if their leader had stayed with his warriors and fought as a unit, our chances of surviving would have been very low.”

I paused before adding, “Especially since their leader was an earth-affinity user. If he had stayed within formation and supported his warriors, the situation could have been devastating for us.”

I had seen the barbarian covered in earth armor. He could create spikes to hurt even those at the rear, while Sergeant Cole and Roland were not that effective at long range. If they sent an arc of fire or a wind blade, it would have hurt us as well.

Sergeant Cole sat down on the ground again, this time beside me.

“It was not weak strategy. Like how we misjudged their leader, the leader misjudged you,” he said with a sigh, as if he himself was struggling to come to terms with the reality. “But it is also about their culture.”

“Do you know about barbarian culture?” he asked, looking at me.

I nodded. “I have read about it, and Lieutenant Cicero has also provided information about them. They have a warrior tribe culture, and strength decides position in the tribe.”

“Then do you know about Blood Chiefs?” he asked again.

“I think Blood Chiefs are equivalent to our captains—those who have formed a core,” I replied.

He nodded.

“Their leader we fought today was a Blood Chief candidate.”

I was shocked. Barbarian physiology is different from ours. They are human, criteria for core formation are almost similar—they also need high elemental affinity. The difference is that their bodies can cultivate without mana crystals or meditation methods. Their bodies can absorb natural mana from the atmosphere and through food and natural resources to progress in cultivation and even form a core. Blood Chief candidates are those with high elemental affinity, which is believed to denote them having a special bloodline.

“What you might not know is that Blood Chief candidates have a very special position in their tribes and society. They are trained extensively by their leaders, and from my perspective his plan was perfect.”

“So when we engaged, I realized how big a mistake we had made by assuming him to be a normal leader. A normal barbarian Tier-3 leader can be easily overpowered by a combined team of Roland and me. He lured both of us, knowing full well he could handle us.”

“And from his point of view, his squad was thirty strong facing against just twenty-three—an easy fight. Now you understand how big your contribution was?” Sergeant Cole said.

While I was happy knowing I had made a good contribution, I still had some doubts.

“But would it not make more sense to tire us out? It could have minimized their casualties,” I said.

“If I had to guess, this squad will be part of his future team once he becomes Blood Chief. Those who performed well here would be given more opportunities in the future—”

“And those who die, die,” I said, finishing Sergeant Cole’s sentence as he nodded.

While in the Royal Army of Avalon someone with higher affinity is given special treatment and could even get sergeant or lieutenant level positions, they could not lead to the unnecessary death of low-affinity soldiers. That does not apply to barbarians. They do not care about low-affinity people in their army. It is considered a privilege to die for Blood Chiefs.

I sighed and put my head on the cart, looking at the horizon. I thought, it was far easier to deal with beasts.