Second Life as a Soldier

Walking out of the command building, the first thing I did was go meet Peter. Velkar Town was his home, and if I was about to spend the next two months there, I would like to know what type of place it was and whether time off there would be relaxing or not. Because I did want to take some time off.

Since gaining my memories, I had never had a real chance to relax and experience this world. In Oxspell, I had lived under my father’s shadow, barely leaving town or exploring its food and drinks. Stonegate had been no different. During training, I had no money and was too focused on survival, stats, and skills to enjoy anything. By the time I gained some position and power, I was shipped to Fort Darrow.

So yes, I wanted time off. Real time off.

Another reason I wanted a holiday was that my mana segregation device was almost complete. I had taken advantage of the time we spent at Fort Dunvale to experiment with the device. All that was left to do was conduct my final experiment with a new mana crystal and confirm whether my theory about mana crystals was true or not. Irrespective of the experiment’s success or failure, I would need some time to decide my next steps.

If I could prove even non-elemental mana in crystals had impurities, and after removing those impurities a non-elemental core could be formed, I would need to understand the human body. There was no guarantee that mana would work similarly inside and outside the body, and I was not about to take a risk with my life without at least 70% reassurance that my method worked. I loved my life, no matter how rough it was, and I was not about to risk it.

If my experiment failed, I would need to investigate the reason behind it or try to find some other way of forming a core. So I would go to Velkar Town only if I could explore and experiment freely without getting dragged into some sort of political drama involving Peter’s family or some other noble family. If not, I would rather stay at Fort Darrow and kill some beasts.

I found Peter sitting on a bench outside my squad’s longhall. Since my squad had become a permanent unit under me, Peter also joined the rest of my squad in the longhall instead of staying with another squad. The differences between him and the rest of the squad were also mostly resolved, so it did not make any sense for him to be placed somewhere else.

“Sergeant, do you even know how to use a sword?” Peter asked me rudely, pointing at the sword around my waist. More than one year in this squad had affected him as well. While he was still a stickler for rules, for some reason he was no longer formal with me, especially when it was just the two of us.

“Nope,” I replied without hesitation. “The Captain gifted this to me, and it looks good, so from now on it is going on me wherever I go.”

“Why don’t you learn some basics? It could be good for fighting up close,” Peter asked.

“I don’t have an instructor. Moreover, I am trying to build my style with the spear. I hardly have time to learn another weapon.” For now, I was completely focused on creating a mana-based spear skill. I did not want it affected by adding a new weapon. As for close-range combat, I preferred knives. I was more agile, and when I coated a knife with mana, I could extend its range a little further, helping me break the fighting rhythm of my opponent.

“Well, I can teach you if you want to. It might even provide you some inspiration for your style,” Peter said.

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“Oh, I completely forgot, as a noble-born, you would know how to use a sword.”

“Yeah, we are trained in both sword and spear. I am better with the spear, but I know the sword well enough to hold myself against a normal private,” Peter replied.

“Well, I will consider it,” I said, dismissing the topic. “The reason I came to find you is that the Captain has offered me two months off, but only if our squad goes to Velkar Town for the time out. I want to know if it is a good place to go for time off.”

“Yeah, Velkar is one of the largest towns in Avalon, almost on the verge of becoming a city. The mayor is Tier-3, and the guard commander is Tier-4. Add my father as the stationed royal army captain in town, and there is a presence of 2 Tier-4s, making it one of the safest border towns. It is also divided by a river flowing through it, making—”

I cut Peter off with a shake of my head and said,

“Well, safety and geography are not that big of a concern. What I am worried about is that I am someone who is leading the Captain’s son, and as you know, I am not good at noble politics. I would rather not take time off if there is some political test waiting to judge my capability as a leader or someone targeting you with their political games while we are there.”

“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that. My house is a military house. If someone from my house has any problem with you, they will tell you to your face. And if they want to test you, you will be challenged to a duel or a game of strategy. As for other nobles in the city, I am not the heir or someone with good enough elemental affinity, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

I sighed. “That’s good. As for duels, they might not be completely bad.”

“Umm... but there is one thing I should warn you about. While at first my father looked favorably at you, in recent letters I have gotten a sense that he has some problem with you, or to be more specific, the squad you have chosen as your permanent squad.”

I frowned at Peter’s words and then simply shrugged. “Well, he is your father.”

“What does that mean?” Peter asked, sounding almost offended by my words.

“What? It is not like you liked how I was running my squad at first. It would be more surprising if he approved of my squad,” I replied.

Before Peter could say anything, I just walked away. “See you tomorrow at the training ground,” I said, waving at him.

Talking to Peter confirmed my plan of going to Velkar Town, mostly because now I knew Peter’s father was not fond of my squad, which meant he would keep watch on their activities. While I could trust them in the wild, this would be their first time close to civilians. I was not sure how they would act in town, so aan army captain who was already suspicious of them and knew who they were was not a bad thing. He would keep watch over them and make sure they stayed in line.

After informing the Captain about my decision, I made my way to my room and looked at the mana segregation device.

It was no longer the box I had initially created. Now it was a box with a coil of tubes running through it. The tube started on the left, circled across the top of the box, then descended from the center of the coil and ended in the middle of the box. The tube was made of different sorts of clay we had collected, and it had the smallest possible openings I could make. This would expose mana to a large surface area of clay and give the clay enough time to absorb elemental mana.

I activated the bottom of the box, which was divided into 6 portions, 5 sections made out of earth, wind, fire, dark, and water clay, and one portion made out of non-mana liquid, which now looked more like paste. The bottom part of all the clay was covered with herbs of that type. I had discovered that when elemental mana was provided to a partial portion of clay, the whole section activated. So while I exposed the bottom layer to mana from herbs, the upper portion of the clay inside the box would absorb elemental mana inside the box. The same thing happened with the non-mana paste.

Once the bottom layer was active, and after 15 minutes, when most of the mana was absorbed, I deactivated the bottom. Then I placed the mana crystal on the left side, on a holder I had made near the start of the tube. With most of the mana inside the box absorbed, mana automatically flowed through the tube toward the mana-deficient area.

As mana started flowing through the tube, I held my breath.

This might be one of the most important moments of my life.