The very next day, Arthur was sitting in his carriage’s coachman seat and allowing himself to be depressed before anyone else could wake up and see him. Ben, Silfa, and Val'narii had managed to prepare thirty oil bombs before Catherine finished preparing the meal yesterday. However, once they ate and washed themselves, they simply fainted as quickly as they lay on their beds. While their health and stamina were restored during his healing, they were still exhausted by the training. Contrary to him however, they’d slept the entire night. Arthur was still sitting in the driver's seat of his carriage and looked up at the single Saftian soldier in the vicinity as he walked toward him with a careless smile on his face.

  "Amos... What the fuck?!" Arthur asked as he rubbed his face in absolute disbelief.

  "The Company should be ready to resume travel in about four hours." For reasons unknown to the Inquisitor, the Captain was proud of what he had just said.

  "FOUR HOURS?!"

  "I know, Lord Ives." He straightened. "Impressive, isn't it?"

  Arthur wasn't sure if he was joking, or if the Saftian discipline was even worse than he had thought.

  "I think that you have mistaken my disbelief with praise, Amos." Arthur finally snapped. "This is unacceptable. You call yourself soldiers?"

  "Lord Ives, I can assure you that this is one of the most elite forces in the entire kingdom," Amos said with a voice so serious that Arthur lost all hope, along with his temper.

  "If this is the truth, then I can conquer this place alone, Amos," Arthur said with a grim voice as he stood up and gave the man an unimpressed stare. "Most probably, I could do it accidentally during my sleep, so don’t fucking mind me if I do…"

  "I know that you are powerful but..."

  "Stop joking, Amos!" Arthur jumped down from his seat on the wagon and made a wide gesture around. "Where are the guards and patrols?! Why does this camp look like a fucking fair?! Why are your supplies left unguarded outside the camp?!"

  The man looked like he had no idea why Arthur was so angry.

  "I might overlook your inability to protect yourself, your city, and your country, but for the duration of this mission, your actions might endanger my companions. And possibly even me, because even I must sleep sometimes." Arthur straightened to his full impressive height and unleashed his anger on the man he considered competent so far. "However, while I won't be in danger, I won't forgive you if my companions get hurt."

  Amos clenched his fists but stood unflinching under Arthur's gaze. He was angry, but there was something in his gaze that convinced Arthur that Amos already acknowledged the problems he pointed out.

  "If you think that Sir Amos isn't doing a good job as our commander, why don't you take over, Lord Ives?" One of the soldiers who came out of the tents once Arthur started screaming asked him with a quiet threat in his voice.

  "Are you sure you want that?" Arthur slowly stepped towards the man. "Because if I start giving you orders, you won't like the consequences of disobedience."

  "Sargent Vicc! That's..." Amos snapped towards the man.

  "No, Sir!" The other soldiers joined. "Let's see how he thinks the army looks."

  "You will regret the day you were born," Arthur promised the sergeant, his lips pressed into a flat humourless smile.

  "I'm looking forward to seeing this, Sir!" The man bared his teeth in an annoyed grin.

  "Attention!" Arthur shouted the command that reverberated in the air as loudly as if he had yelled directly into their ears.

  He was angry. He had allowed them to provoke him, but he was just a man. He couldn't stand the thought that Catherine could get hurt by their stupidity and incompetence. May the Gods of Arcadia forgive him, but he can't stand it anymore. The entire company gathered in front of him.

  "This piece of garbage you call a camp has to disappear in ten minutes. MOVE!" He ordered with a voice laced with his Authority skill.

  The soldiers moved, kicked into motion by the whip-crack of command carried in his voice. He was left alone because even Amos ran to dismantle his tent. Ben's head poked out of the tent and the young man looked at Arthur with a puzzled stare.

  "Ben, once you all wake up, continue to produce the bombs. When you use up all the bottles, start making fire arrows for your sister. She should know which used arrows are still good enough for this, but don't use any fresh arrows without my permission."

  "As you order, Sir!" Ben unskillfully tried to copy the Arcadian knightly salute.

  "I will teach you how to salute later, Ben." He said with a soft chuckle. "Ask Catherine to prepare breakfast once she wakes up."

  "Yes, Sir!" He smiled happily and disappeared back into the tent.

  Arthur looked around and climbed back onto the carriage driver’s box. The entire camp was full of activity, but it was mostly pointless. Nevertheless, this time it took the soldiers just half an hour to pack their tents and gather in front of him with smug expressions as if they had done the impossible.

  "Twenty minutes too late." Arthur crossed his arms and looked at the soldiers with scorn and raised his hand to silence them. "Your country has forgotten what war is. You, the soldiers, have forgotten what it means to be warriors. But don't worry... You asked for it yourselves, so I will be kind enough to give you a little reminder." His voice dropped to absolute zero. "Lesson one. A field camp..."

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  For the next hour, Arthur explained in depth how a proper camp should look. The soldiers were listening to him, but it was obvious they were sceptical.

  "What's the point of keeping such tight security? No monster would attack such a big group of people, Sir..." One of the petty officers finally shouted back.

  Instead of answering, Arthur snapped his fingers and the man was crushed under the pile of thirty dead Gnolls. His fairly energetic but muffled screaming indicated that he had survived the unexpected avalanche.

  "Those are pests whom I killed just tonight. I have forsaken my sleep for keeping your worthless asses alive for just a few moments longer. At this rate, most of you will die fighting pests. Because the Gnolls are just that: pests." Arthur snarled angrily at them.

  All of them were silent as they inspected the bodies. Once they pulled their supply officer out from under the Gnolls, the man had at least enough decency not to raise his voice anymore. They looked ashamed and lowered their gaze. Arthur continued his lecture and made sure they understood what he was saying. Once he finished explaining, he asked questions about what he had just said. Men paid attention to his words after he explained the definition of space-time to one soldier who wasn't listening. The soldier was ordered to dig the trench from now until noon.

  And it was only a few minutes past nine…

  "Do you understand the lesson?!" He bellowed as he finished.

  "Yes, Lord Ives..." The sad choir of disheartened voices replied to him.

  "You reply: Sir, yes, Sir!" He yelled at them. He asked once again, much louder. "Do you understand?!"

  "Sir, yes, Sir!" They bellowed acceptably.

  "Good!" Arthur smirked. "Set up the camp!"

  They looked at him in surprise, but started moving once his stare hardened. He made them set up and break the camp for the next few hours until they needed less than fifteen minutes to do so. However, this time the camp was functional and orderly organised. The tents were spaced out to ease the movement of the soldiers. The supply carriages were in the middle of camp, and the covered carriages were arranged in a semicircle and anchored to the ground to create a wall that would offer protection from a sandstorm if it hit them during the night or a monster attack. Somewhere after noon, Catherine brought him food and he realised he was hungry.

  "Thank you, Cate." He said softly and took a bite of the skewers. The spices worked perfectly with the meat and vegetables she used. "By the Gods, this is delicious!"

  "Thank you, Sir Arthur." She said with a bright smile and he was incredibly happy to just see her.

  However, she quickly returned to the tent and he returned to drilling the soldiers. They were exhausted, especially the one punished by the space-time definition, but surprisingly, they weren't complaining. Once Arthur was pleased with the speed they set up camp, he made them set up guards, prepared patrols and even designated cooks. It was a late afternoon but the camp looked like it should. After they had eaten the food prepared by their cooks, they gathered near him.

  "Lesson two," Arthur said with a cold voice and they all tensed. "Camp security and the camp under attack."

  By this time, Arthur's companions had come out and began their training again without a single protest. The soldiers glanced at them as they did, but this time no one commented. They listened to Arthur's explanation, and no one let out a groan, but most of the soldiers looked at him with growing despair. Arthur began another lecture about how to protect the camp and how the guards and active personnel should react to an attack. This lesson was shorter, but once he finished, they sent worried looks at him and Amos.

  "This lesson has an exam included." He finished with a jovial tone and pointed towards the darkening sky. "Tonight, I will go to sleep and, while my tents and people will be protected, you won't be. It's up to you and how seriously you take your own survival if you live through the night. The two lessons I gave you are the absolute basics. We will see if you are ready for anything more complicated if you survive the night."

  "Thank you, Sir!" The soldiers bellowed and Amos looked at Arthur.

  "Sir..."

  "It's not your fault, Amos." Arthur quietly interrupted him. "I saw how you tried many times, but you are playing a losing game. Everything I saw so far is deeply rooted in your customs and taken as something to follow. Just use what you learned from me as the new standard and everything should be fine."

  "Thank you, Sir." He saluted and turned towards the soldiers.

  Arthur glanced at Cate who was once again tired and covered in sweat, but not as exhausted as yesterday. Ben, Silfa, and Val'narii were also slightly better than yesterday. However, instead of allowing them to train more, he called them to come closer.

  "Today, you will end your training earlier. While it's important to train, you must also save enough strength for other activities while you are in the wilderness." He explained patiently and their unhappy grimaces softened. "Yesterday, I allowed you to train well over the point where you should rest and you know how that ended."

  They lowered their gazes, especially Catherine, who had slept almost to noon. Arthur briefly chuckled as he clapped his hands sharply to gain their attention again and they looked at him.

  "As I said, I allowed you to overtrain yesterday so all of you could see the result." He smiled and all of them brightened. "However, from now on we will limit your training to just an hour daily so that all of you will have enough strength left to stay vigilant."

  "Yes, Sir Ives," Ben confirmed with zeal.

  "Now, you all will take turns in the bath, and once we eat, we will discuss the Gnoll hunting before going to sleep." He informed them and looked at the three women, smiling at the Nekomi. "Since you are our irreplaceable cook, it's your call if you want to take a bath first or last, Catherine."

  "In that case, I prefer to wash myself last." She said and went to the tent to wash her hands and face before returning to the outside table where she started preparing dinner.

  "In that case, Miss Val'narii will go first." Arthur shrugged.

  "You can call me just Val'narii, Sir..." She said with a shy voice, which immediately got a flat stare from Catherine, and surprisingly, Silfa.

  "If you want." He shrugged with a wry smile. "However, I wouldn't count on mercy during training if you think that becoming more friendly with me will save you if I were you."

  "I'm not that naive, Sir." She looked at him with a sigh and went to the tent.

  "All right. Ben, Silfa..." He looked at the siblings. "In two weeks, Ben will have his birthday. Since you swore your allegiance to Arcadia, I will enlist you into my retinue... This is good and bad. Bad, since you are woefully unprepared to be considered Inquisitorial retainers. As you imagine, I plan to train you so much that you will probably wind up regretting your decision. The good part is, by the end of the training I expect you will at least reach the acceptable level for Arcadian Guardsmen trainees."

  "Thank you, Sir Ives!" Silfa smiled. "I don't mind hard training, and I promise not to spare my sweat and blood. You already saved us from the slaves' fate. We won't disappoint you!"

  "Exactly, Sir!" Ben just bowed with a smile.

  "In that case, let me explain to you your training from now on..."

  Thank you all for reading.

  I wish you all a great day and as always I wait for your comments.

  A big thanks to and who edited the chapter!