Soul of the Warrior

Reivyn got a good night’s sleep. Even though he had apparently been in a coma for nearly a week, his body was still hale and hearty. His mind was taxed from the vision and stress it had been through, though he had no recollection of the events that caused his mind to break, necessitating the System to step in and fix it directly.

He had never seen a situation where the System took direct action other than the very few times it had run into apparently novel situations. Like the time he had been separated from the Veridical Realm’s System, implying each Realm had their own governing System, but the language of the Notifications indicated there were protocols in place this time around.

More and more evidence showed that the System wasn’t some passive thing. It appeared to actively monitor situations and had directives it followed. It could manipulate the Veridical Affinity, and possibly other Affinities as well. The Veridical Affinity seemed to be the bedrock upon which all other types of Mana sat, at least within the Veridical Realm.

Reivyn woke up refreshed and ready to go. He turned his Divine Sense Skill on as soon as he got up. I’ll have to get used to taking a more active role in its utilization. Until now it’s been completely passive.

He “saw” his father already awake and preparing a simple breakfast. His mother and sisters were still asleep as the sun had not fully crested the horizon. There was no reason to wake them. They weren’t part of the physical training he and Refix partook in everyday.

He made his way downstairs where Refix silently slid a plate of breakfast toward him, nodding for him to eat.

“It’s good to see you ready to get back into the swing of things,” Refix said.

“What else would I do?” Reivyn asked back. “Sleep? Hah! To me it hasn’t been several days without training, so it’s just a normal morning to me, anyway.”

“Makes sense,” Refix nodded his head as he ate.

They quickly finished their breakfast and exited the house. Just like every other morning, they made their way to Kefira’s courtyard. Kefira, Serilla, and her staff were already waiting outside for their arrival.

Reivyn prepared to start immediately, briefly inspecting everyone passively with his Skill. He paused, though, and frowned to himself as he took in Kefira’s appearance.

She must be more tired and out of it than I suspected, he thought. I’ve never seen her with bags under eyes before. I’ll make sure things are settled with the mercenaries for a while and spend some more quality time with her for a while.

Kefira acted the same as she always did, but there were little hints of exhaustion hidden in plain sight. Reivyn didn’t think anyone else noticed the bags under her eyes, but his Divine Sense Skill was powerful enough to pick up any discrepancy, no matter how small. She seemed to have a shadow over her face to Reivyn’s senses, but nobody else mentioned anything, not even Refix.

The morning training went the same as any other that Reivyn could remember, and none of the others participating said anything about his recent absences. It was true that he didn’t particularly interact with Kefira’s staff, but they didn’t even gossip about him amongst themselves. That didn’t mean they didn’t at all, but he would have expected something at his appearance. Maybe they had already got all the gossip they had in them out already, Reivyn snorted.

After working up a sweat and exhausting their bodies thoroughly, everyone cleaned up the practice yard. They never left the task to the staff whose job it technically was, but they made sure to care for their own things as much as possible. It was just good sense as well as polite. The others were just as tired, if not moreso, considering Reivyn and Refix had been doing this to their bodies for years.

“Do you want to go with me to the mercenary compound today?” Reivyn asked Kefira as he carried some training weapons back to the rack.

Kefira gave him a mildly surprised look.

“Sure, that’s fine,” she replied.

“Why so surprised?” Reivyn queried.

“You’ve just never asked me to go before,” she shrugged. “I assume because it’ll be immensely boring for me without having something in particular to do.”

“Yeah, basically. I just figured you would want to spend some time with me, while I’m awake, that is. I get the impression that the past several days have been hard on you.”

“Not particularly,” Kefira said. “ At least after knowing you were fine and just needed some time to recover. I won’t deny that spending time with you while you’re awake is much better than sitting next to a silent bedside, though.”

Reivyn frowned at the answer. He didn’t get the sense that she was trying to spare his feelings. She really felt that way.

Strange. Then is her condition from some other reason?

“Do you have something on your mind?” Reivyn asked. “How are the preparations for the wedding coming along? Not too stressful, I hope.”

“Hah, as if I have anything to say about that!” Kefira chuckled. “Everything is being handled by our mothers, which is just fine with me, actually. I was never too into the whole planning and anticipating balls and other state affairs. Not like my mother or older sisters, anyway.”

“Hmm, what about your experiments with Space Mana? Are you hitting any roadblocks or other troubles?”

“Not really, no,” Kefira shook her head. She turned and fixed Reivyn with a level look. “What’s all this about? You seem to think there’s something wrong somewhere.”

“You seem… tired,” Reivyn relented. “You have bags under your eyes, and I’ve never seen you like that before.”

“Really?” Kefira was genuinely surprised. “I hadn’t noticed. Then again if anyone did notice, it would be you. I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary off the top of my head. I feel fine. It must just be the accumulation of stress I felt earlier, and now I’m finally able to relax.”

“Probably. That makes as much sense as anything else. Either way, I still wanted to spend more time with you. Ever since we got back from Vairo, things have been going so quickly. One thing after another has prevented us from spending as much time together as we would have liked.”

“True, but running the Dungeon together would have been a good first step in getting back to how things used to be. Maybe we can go on a short ‘adventure’ within the Region. We could tour some of the other cities and Dungeons. There are other places we could sightsee like the Dagger Mountain, too.”

“Sounds good to me. We can keep in easy contact with everyone here, and if a message comes through the teleport portal requesting aid, we shouldn’t be too far away that we couldn’t get here in time to answer the call. I was thinking of sending Jekle or one of the other Captains by themselves for the next deployment, anyway.”

“You don’t want to go yourself?” Kefira quirked an eyebrow at him.

“We’ve expanded the ranks of the mercenary company for this very reason,” Reivyn said. “One has to trust their officers, and Jekle’s been with me the longest. If any of the Captains can lead the soldiers successfully, it’ll be him. I’ve taught him everything I know, and he’s a natural leader.

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“My vision for the mercenary company is to have multiple deployments at once with reserve units available to reinforce or replace, just like the regular army. I don’t see why we couldn’t make it work, even with a higher rotation rate of active members than the imperial army.”

“Ambitious of you. How large do you want to expand the mercenary company?”

“We probably don’t need to expand much beyond what we already have. Honestly, most of those that join will only stick around for one or two deployments. They’re not joining to make a career of it, but to expand their Class choices going forward. There are still a lot of people willing and wanting to join. It wouldn’t be realistic to take them all in as quickly as possible, and even if we could, it would only stifle us in the long run. It makes much more sense to keep the company around the size it is now with the ability to quickly let people in and out.”

The cleaning of the practice yard ended. Kefira gave Reivyn a quick side-hug before shooing him away.

“I love you, but we’re all sweaty and gross,” Kefira said, wrinkling her nose. “Go get cleaned up and I’ll meet you at the front of the palace in a few to head over to the mercenary barracks.”

Reivyn snatched his other hand around Kefira and brought her in for a full-body hug before she could get away. She gave a little shriek of indignation.

“Are you sure? I’m perfectly fine with the way we are right now,” Reivyn said, grinning.

“Aah! Let me go, you big lunk!” Kefira playfully swatted at his shoulders with her fists.

Reivyn laughed before lettering her go. She stepped back, blowing hair out of her face where Reivyn had messed it up. She gave him an irritated glare before looking down at her now much sweatier clothes.

“Eww,” is all she said before turning about and stalking off toward her house.

Reivyn just laughed again as he joined his father waiting near the entrance to the courtyard.

“Careful, son,” Refix smirked, a twinkle in his eye. “Girls like to be all clean and proper. Kefira strikes me as one who’ll get back at you for your little stunt. Keep an eye out.”

“Sure, sure. Even if she does, it’ll be in good fun,” Reivyn shrugged.

—

“I know you have some actual work to do, so don’t mind me,” Kefira said, dragging one of the chairs in Reivyn’s office to the corner before plopping down in it. She gestured for Serilla to grab the other chair, and her friend smirked and quickly followed suit.

Reivyn looked back and forth between the two girls and the now empty area in front of his desk. He shook his head with a smile before raising his voice.

“Sergeant, grab an extra chair and bring it to my office,” he called out.

There was a sergeant manning a desk out front near the stairs. Their main duty was to filter out people who didn’t really need to take up Reivyn’s time. It could have been done by someone of a lesser rank, but sometimes sensitive information passed through the desk, so they wanted at least someone with some experience and trust with the officers, hence, a sergeant.

“Right away, sir,” the call came back.

Kefira simply giggled before leaning forward to whisper with Serilla. Reivyn turned his Divine Sense Skill off. He could still hear them with his high Stats, but it wasn’t as dominant in his mind with the Skill turned off. He had gotten a lot better at filtering what took up his attention with his Divine Sense, but there was still a modicum of peace from turning it off.

I should turn it on and off occasionally when I’m not using it, just in case, Reivyn thought. I highly doubt anything unusual will catch my attention in my own office, but it’s good to get into the habit of it. If I don’t make a habit of it and find myself in a temporary office in a base on the frontlines, I might get complacent and miss something crucial.

He made a mental note to flicker his Skill occasionally. With that determination made, he picked up the stack of paperwork needing his attention.

There wasn’t nearly as much work built up as he had assumed. It seemed like his captains were doing a good job of only holding onto the really important decisions, or ones they simply had no idea what his plans were for, and taking care of the rest.

That just further bolsters my idea to send the captains out on their own next time, Reivyn nodded to himself. Speaking of…

The sergeant knocked on the open door before entering with the extra chair he had snagged from somewhere else in the building. Reivyn waited for him to set it down in front of his desk before addressing the NCO.

“Sergeant, send word to the captains to meet me in my office as soon as possible,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied. He performed a brisk about-face and left to attend to the new duty.

The other captains all had offices in the same building, so it didn’t take long for them to arrive. There weren’t enough seats for all the captains, but there wouldn’t have been even if Kefira and Serilla hadn’t claimed two of their own prompting Reivyn to acquire a third. The other captains deferred to Jekle for him to take the lone seat available, but he shook his head and stood with the other captains, leaving the lone chair empty.

“I won’t take up much of your time,” Reivyn said. “I’ve been thinking, and from what I’ve seen here,” he gestured to the small stack of papers, “and the performance of the men and yourselves, I’ve decided to give each of you a chance at command for the next deployments.”

Reivyn looked each of his officers in the eyes and noticed a spark of interest. Good, they’re eager. If one or more of them had been hesitant over that proclamation, I would probably see about replacing them soon.

Reivyn nodded his head before continuing.

“That is, of course, if the next terms don’t require our entire contingent. As long as the next time someone seeks assistance from us it’s under the same terms of sending a company, it’ll be one of you.

“Now you all know I’ve been with Jekle as my right-hand man from the beginning. Heck, if you want to count the forming of this mercenary company as the beginning, then he’s been my right-hand since before the beginning. I have every trust and confidence in his abilities.”

He gave Jekle a stern look before continuing.

“That being said, I won’t play favorites. Each of you now has the task of formulating a training schedule for your companies. On top of that, I want you each to prepare multiple strategies for different terrains and environments. This will be a good exercise for your lieutenants, as well, so get them on board, too.

“The selection of the captain receiving the first command will be based on the performance of your men in a mock campaign as well as how prepared you all each are individually as commanders to assume command.

“I haven’t determined the specifics of the mock campaigns, but assume it’ll be at least a week in the field. First place will obviously get command. Second place will be the company in reserve in case of needing reinforcements. The reserve company will also be in-line for deployment if a new assignment comes while the first company is still deployed. If that happens, third place will move up to the reserve positions, so on and so forth.

“Any questions?”

The other captains maintained their bearing in front of Reivyn and didn’t look around at each other.

“No, sir,” they each responded.

“Good. I’ll work on setting up the specifics for the mock campaign. I’ll give you the general information, but expect some surprises. You can’t always expect to have all the information up front when heading into conflict, so that’ll be part of the evaluation.

“Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” the captains each performed an about-face and marched out of the office.

Reivyn quickly went through the rest of the paperwork on his desk. Most of it had to do with finalizing things on the battalion level that his captains simply weren’t authorized to sign-off on. Reivyn wouldn’t have minded one of them stepping up, but now that the officers were members of the regular imperial army, they had to follow their rules for certain things.

Now that I think about it, I’ll simply file the paperwork through Kayzor to appoint Jekle as the XO and have him act in command if I’m ever incapacitated again. I had simply never even considered the possibility of losing consciousness for an extended period of time and hadn’t made ample preparation for such an eventuality. Bad on my part.

Reivyn finished signing the paperwork and neatly stacked it on his desk where it could be picked up and delivered to the relevant recipients. He turned to Kefira and Serilla who were still whispering together in the corner.

“Well, that was pretty painless,” Reivyn said to them. “Much faster than I thought it would take, honestly.” I didn’t even have time to flicker my Divine Sense Skill.

He went ahead and activated it once more.

“Done already?” Kefira asked, sitting up straight to look at him.

“Yup, and the captains now have something to keep themselves busy for the next week or so. I’ll have to do my part, but I think I can knock it out pretty quick.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Kefira smiled as she stood up. Serilla followed taking her place just behind Kefira as the trio made their way out of the office. The sergeant at the front desk made to stand, but Reivyn waved him back into his seat.

“That’ll be all for today, sergeant,” Reivyn said. “Excellent work for everyone the past couple of days while I’ve been absent. Unless something is urgent, just place it on my desk like you’ve been doing. If it is urgent, contact General Kayzor and have him make a judgment or send a runner to the Imperial Palace if he’s out of pocket.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant affirmed.

With that taken care of, Reivyn reached out and took Kefira’s hand. The trio left the barracks and walked back to the city to take a leisurely stroll for the rest of the morning. Reivyn was determined to spend the whole day with Kefira, and so they did just that. It was a relaxing time, and Reivyn hoped it would alleviate some of the stress that had built up in Kefira over the past several days.

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