"Do you really not know, or is this just some poor way of gloating?" asked the first recruit, a boy with green coloured hair.
"Don't be rude, Jamie," said the second boy, who also had green hair, and bore a great resemblance to Jamie. "He's a big shot after all. He has actual military merits, unlike us who've done nothing so far."
The third boy, with light brown hair, flashed Nero an apologetic smile and said, "please ignore these two idiots. They're just jealous. All the recruits know about you after the Clear Path incident."
Nero strained to keep his smile on. Even though the recruit with the brown hair answered him and was putting up a polite front, Nero could feel the mild hostility from his body language.
"The Clear Path incident? I'm afraid I don't understand. I've been away training for a while, so I'm not caught up with everything that has happened. Would you mind enlightening me?"
He was still being polite, though his friendliness had reduced drastically. Whether it was jealousy or something else, since they had displayed their hostility towards him, he would not forget them, though that did not necessarily mean he would act against them either.
"You're joking right?" asked Jamie. "How could you not even know?"
"No, I don't believe he is," said the other recruit with green hair, scrutinising Nero. "The Clear Path incident is pretty straight forward. Apparently there is an organisation called Clear Path, and they had enslaved 39 recruits from the draft, but the army found out about it.
The details of the incident are not known, but somehow word got out that the reason the army even discovered those kids is because of you, and how you killed an Initiate member of the Clear Path.
"After that, countless other slaves, and members of the Clear Path have been detected in the army. So far it's only limited to Neophytes and Initiates, but it was a pretty major incident. You're definitely going to get service merits for your part in uncovering the scheme.
Those 39 recruits… well, I should say of the 20 recruits who are still stable enough to continue serving recruits, all of them have become great fans of yours. Apparently, they've been searching for you to thank you for helping to free them."
Nero frowned as he realised the scale of this incident was much larger than he expected! To secretly enslave 39 recruits without being detected was no simple task. Nero could not conclude if there was insider help, or if the insider himself was a slave. Either way, this level of infiltration was unprecedented.
But then again, considering what was on the line, it made sense that everyone was trying their best.
"Thank you for sharing the details with me. I'm glad I could help, however I could."
Since the three weren't exactly welcoming, Nero was about to turn to leave, but the brown haired recruit still had something he wanted to say.
"Since you've clearly been… busy… I thought I'd warn you. Your feat of killing an enemy Initiate has spread amongst all the recruits, and many of the more… let's say self-confident recruits are irked by all the attention you've been getting, and have been looking to challenge you. But since no one could find you, all they could do is spread all sorts of rumours about you.
There's a good chance that someone might find trouble with you now that you're back."
Nero merely raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"I don't have time to play games with children," Nero said, though his polite smile never wavered, and then with a nod, left.
The Clear Path incident was shocking, but more concerning was why his involvement was leaked. Whoever had leaked it, and had painted him as the focal point of the incident was trying to create animosity between him and Clear Path - even more than there already was.
What was their purpose in targeting him? Who had done it? And why hadn't anyone told him about it?
Nero left the lecture room with those thoughts, ignoring everyone looking at him. He could imagine that word of his arrival would quickly spread. Considering that hundreds if not thousands of teenangers had gathered here, despite the increased demand for discipline, he could easily see someone finding some way to challenge him.
It would be annoying, but the best thing to do would be to respond immediately and convincingly to deter any more inconveniences.
After the briefing, he had been informed that he had to go to his team to receive more mission specific details, but he had no idea who his team was. He hadn't had enough time to meet them, not to mention that trust would be a serious concern now. After all, it wasn't necessary that all members of Clear Path had to be enslaved!
What if they had other, normal members among the recruits? They'd already proved their competence in infiltrating the army, so there was no reason to believe they'd only done so with slaves. After all, where there were slaves, there had to be slavers.
Although some had been caught, had all of them been caught?
These were questions he was not going to easily find answers to. But first he had to find out who his team was? So he had to look for the major, or maybe sergeant Dan, who had been leading the training camp.
But as he navigated the building, he spotted something that gave him pause.
There was a recruit with a particularly bulky figure, much more so than anyone Nero had seen before. That in itself was not enough to give him pause, since not all recruits were teenagers. The only criteria being Neophytes meant that there were even some recruits in their early 20s, which would naturally give them more time to grow and develop.
No, what gave him pause was that the tall, bulky recruit had purposely tripped Silas, and then put his foot on his face, squeezing it down.
Silas' scream was audible even over the crowded corridor, which naturally drew everyone's attention. Everyone paused where they were, and those who were close moved back, forming a small circle around them.
"Ah, Silas, what are you doing on the ground?" the bulky recruit asked, his foot still on his face. "I totally didn't see you there. Oh dear, it seems like you're hurt."
Finally, the bulky recruit removed his foot, revealing Silas' bloody face.
Even though Nero was far away, he saw everything clearly, and heard every word. Oddly enough, Nero didn't feel angry. He had never encountered the scene of his friends being bullied before, so he always imagined that it would cause him to erupt into a rampage. But instead, like he did so often before battle, his emotions became completely calm and he became level headed.
Calmly, and without any urgency, Nero walked through the crowd and approached the scene. No one seemed to pay him any mind. Everyone was focused on what was happening in the circle.
The large recruit had picked up Silas off the ground now, using his collar, and was holding him up in the air.
"Why don't you say anything, Silas? I'm telling you, lying on the ground like that is not a good habit. Or wait, were you trying to get a peak under some skirts? I didn't know that's the kind of man you were."
Silas, with a stream of blood leaking from his nose and tears running down his face, said nothing, and only glared at the bulky recruit. His trembling, yet clenched fists revealed a resignation. Either Silas had experienced something similar before, or he knew he could not defeat the bulky recruit.
What was everyone else doing though? How could there be no one in the entire hall who could not stand up to him? Nero did not believe that there wasn't a single person with basic decency in the entire hall, so that could only mean the bug guy had an intimidating background.
"Really Silas, next time you want to polish my shoes you don't have to go about it in such a roundabout way. You can just say so and I'll let you do it, preferably with a rag next time. I don't want your saliva on my-"
The bulky recruit suddenly felt something hit the back of his knee, causing his legs to buckle. He tried to keep himself from falling, but before he could do anything, he felt an arm wrap itself around his neck and pull him down.
The sudden attack left him unable to respond. Falling, while being pulled down as well as choked overwhelmed him, especially since he had not been expecting someone to actually attack him!
The next thing he knew, his body slammed onto the ground. Before he could get his bearings, Nero kicked him straight in the face, breaking his nose and his teeth.
"Oh dear, I didn't see you there," he said, feigning genuine alarm. Then he picked up his foot and slammed it down on his neck.