Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

I went to the PX and a new man was there. He was both happy and energetic as he handed me a new uniform in Gillis' sizes and I went back to the bath house. I went inside the smaller room that I had used to bathe and Gillis splashed the water as she covered her breasts with her hands and had a surprised expression on her face. I shut the door and stood there and waited for her to finish. She stared at me for several minutes and didn't move.

“We're running out of time.” I said.

“Y-yes.” Gillis said and turned around in the tub as she finished washing and stood up. She didn't move and I wondered why, then I noticed that the floor was wet where I had gotten out of the tub, so I walked over to the towels and handed her one. “Th-thank you.”

I stood there and waited until she was dried off, then I held out the clothes to her. She took the underwear and turned away again as she put it on, including the cloth that covered her breasts. She took the shirt next and relaxed when it was on, then buttoned it quickly and took the socks and pants next.

“Let's go.” Gillis said when she was finally dressed.

We picked up our old clothes and dropped them off at the laundry. The man there took one look at my slightly bloody shirt and chucked it right into the waste bin. The other pieces of clothing were marked with our names, so there was no chance to lose them, and we left there to go to the classroom. We were the last to arrive and told to sit, and then the drill sergeant went over what we did today.

Nancy did her best to point out that anyone could improve when properly motivated. The whole point of the obstacle course was to build confidence in your abilities. You didn't have to go through it fast for official records, because it was a personal improvement course. If you believed you could go through it quickly without messing it up, we were free to do so, as long as those that wanted to try had one of the instructor soldiers or herself to monitor them on their off-time.

One of the guys raised their hands. “But the old drill instructor said...”

“I told you to forget everything he told you.” Nancy said without getting angry about it. “I have a completely different teaching method than his. The proper one.”

That made a few of the recruits chuckle.

“Your morning runs will continue, as will the chore schedule. He wasn't wrong with those techniques, just in their application. I'll be changing a few things around here, namely what you're supposed to be taught in class.” Nancy said. “The old schedule to do the obstacle course for the entire time between breakfast and lunch is just not viable. You saw for yourselves how quickly it can be used when it's used how it's supposed to be.”

A bunch of the others nodded and she looked at me.

“A few of you will be lacking the ability to perform at your best, and that's the whole point. You need to know what your worst could be. A damaged arm, an injured leg, a sore chest or back.” Nancy said and looked at everyone. “You'll all have an opportunity to share in the experience.”

Someone else raised their hand. “How?”

“Slings, crutches, and metal plates.” Nancy said with a smile. “It'll be completely random and I won't start it until you all have had at least two weeks on a proper schedule and exercise regiment.”

“You're serious?” Someone asked without putting a hand up.

“I'll assume that was rhetorical, since you didn't raise your hand.” Nancy said.

“I'm sorry, Drill Sergeant.”

Nancy waved his apology away. “All right. I think we're going to start right from the basics.” She said and walked over to the board. She drew a sword, a shield, a bow, a crossbow, and a little round ball of something. “Can anyone tell me what these are?”

A bunch of the recruits laughed and put their hands up. I didn't do either. She pointed to one of them and they spoke.

“A sword, a shield, a bow, a crossbow, and a fireball. The basic of basics of what constitutes an army.”

Nancy smiled. “That's both right and wrong.” She said and saw confusion on their faces. “Private Drake, please enlighten them.”

“The sword stands for close combat or offensive forces, the shield for blocking or defensive forces, the bow is for scouts or long ranged attack forces, the crossbow is for guard patrols or short ranged forces, and the small circle with squiggles is for magic users.” I said.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Absolutely correct and directly quoted from the army manual on proper procedures and regulations.” Nancy said and everyone looked back at her. “You see, the symbols are representations used on maps to keep track of units for deployment, issued on orders when relevant for specific units, and it's also on all supplies and special order items for those units.”

They all looked a little surprised by this news.

“I suppose I'll have to assign reading time in the evenings now.” Nancy said and a few people groaned. “The mind is also a muscle that you need to exercise, people!” She said loudly. “A dumb soldier is a dead soldier!”

A few of the others turned their heads to look at me.

“Each of the people that just turned to look at Private Drake, you are the dumb ones.” Nancy said and those people whipped their heads forward to stare at her. “I'm sure you've all heard something about him by now. There's no such thing as a secret among the soldiers on an army base.”

Everyone watched as she walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“You're looking at the only heavy combat trained soldier on this base.” Nancy said and everyone except Gillis looked shocked. “How else could he take down an owlbear by himself?”

“He wasn't by himself.” Someone said.

“He was supposed to be.” Nancy said. “The owlbear was already mostly dead when the others showed up.”

“Wh-what?” That same guy asked. “But... they...”

“Yes, even almost dead, an owlbear easily killed two trained swordsmen and maimed another.” Nancy said. “Unlike us, it doesn't really have a sense of self-preservation when in certain situations. It's only goal is to remove the threat and then eat to try and heal itself.”

I looked up at her and she looked down at me.

“Giving it food to attract it was both smart and stupid, especially if you didn't know all of the facts about the large creatures.” Nancy said. “Luckily, you damaged the mouth quickly enough that it hadn't eaten too much and then it couldn't eat afterwards.”

I nodded and would remember to always aim for the mouth with my knife, if I ever met another one and managed to sneak up on it. She let my shoulder go and walked to the front of the class, to see that she had everyone's attention.

“Most of you might be just soldiers. Some could specialize into swordmen, bowmen, or crossbowmen. When they get proper mage testing equipment created, some of you might even become mage apprentices.” Nancy said. “You can worry about that in a couple of months. For now, it's my job to give you a good strong basic understanding of the army, its procedures, and what is expected of a soldier.”

She nodded to one of the instructor soldiers and he passed out pieces of paper and pencils.

“I want you to write down what I do.” Nancy said and starting writing on the board.

We all did so, even me, because once she wrote the first sentence on the board and it concerned the very first regulation in the army handbook, she told us what it meant and also what it didn't mean. That surprised a few people and when she looked at me, she saw that I wasn't surprised.

Nancy smiled. “Let's discuss why it works this way and not how most of you thought it did.” She said and sat down, then we talked about it until lunchtime.

After lunch was more classroom time and more learning, she assigned reading materials for that evening, and then dismissed us to do our assigned chores. We had until supper to do them, unlike the other drill sergeant where we had to do them after we ate. I went to the kitchen and did my work without question and everyone seemed to be a little friendlier as I did.

I still did the worst jobs that no one else wanted to do, though. Only this time it was me offering to do them and not them giving them to me. They were all just a little bit happier about that, too. It was a lot harder to do my work while wearing all the extra weight, and that 'sucked', as the perky woman said. My magic worked fine, though. I peeled potatoes and vegetables like a champion, or so the perky woman explained.

I ate supper first and served everyone, then helped clean up the kitchen and went back to the barracks. The trainees had the evenings to themselves, which was a huge difference than the first few days of training, that was for sure. It was our 'personal growth' time and we were to read our assignments and we were to write a bit about it, then we could do what we wanted. I went to bed and slept, because I was really tired.

Being normal sucked.

_______________

Montage mode engaged. Generic repeating of events during training period streamlined.

Military procedure learned: 95%. Standing in the army: Good. Camaraderie level with fellow soldiers: 60%. Camaraderie level with officers: 25%.

_______________

After two months of basic training and learning skills, like how to fight properly with actual techniques and to use the strength that a normal body had, we moved on to hand-to hand combat.

I sucked really badly at it. Even though I could use my vigilance technique and could tell when to dodge, when to attack, and when to counterattack, my body was so weighed down that I couldn't move like I wanted or like my brain tried to get my body to move. I couldn't do anything about that, so I changed tactics.

I became a shield. I was covered in armor plating, so instead of trying to dodge attacks or counter them, I would only move enough to interpose a metal plate to deflect whatever came at me. I was still strong with my hands, so I would disarm my opponent after a couple of strikes by just grabbing their weapon and yanking on it. I started winning fights and Nancy had to step in to get me to stop.

“They won't learn anything if you keep disarming them.” Nancy whispered to me.

_______________

You have a choice to make. Will you continue like this or will you speak up?

A) Say something. B) Stay quiet. C) Complain. D) Run. E) Yell. F) Kiss her. G) Choose two.

Okay, is there something going on? What's with the kiss option? That would get me on report faster than trying to kill her would. I thought with amusement. I ignored that and realized that the other options were almost as bad when I read them over again. I'll choose A and C.

_______________

“I'm the one not learning anything.” I whispered back.

“What do you mean? You've already mastered blocking an opponent and...”

“It'll only work if I handicap myself with this armor. Learning how to use something I won't be using after training is a waste of my time.” I said and she looked surprised. “You can't order me to keep wearing it when I leave, either.”

“I can have it added to your standing orders by your next CO.” Nancy said.

“As Gillis would say, it's inhumane to force me to remain encumbered like a beast of burden.”

Nancy sighed for a moment, as if defeated, then she chuckled. “It took you long enough to admit it.” She said in a normal tone of voice.

“What?” I asked, surprised.

“Haven't you noticed that you've been moving as if you didn't have heavy armor on?” Nancy asked.

“Um... no?” I responded and she laughed.

“You're doing the obstacle course and you're exactly in the middle of everyone's performance times. You're also not completely soaked with sweat afterwards. If I hadn't ordered mandatory baths after the workout, you wouldn't actually need one.” Nancy said and lifted my arm. “Look, no sweaty armpits and you've been sparring for nearly an hour.”

I looked down at my clean shirt and back at her face.

“You're still going to have to wear the armor, just to keep you in the same realm as the rest of the others. However, I'll remove you from the normal fight rotation and you'll be taking classes with different instructors for the next month.”

“That's not fair.” Someone from across the room said. “It was my turn to practice with him next.”

“I'm sorry that you won't have another easy sparring session, Gillis.” Nancy said.

“Aw, dammit.” Gillis said and a few people laughed.