The minutes seemed to stretch into eternity, refusing to pass. At first, out of boredom and some irritation from standing too long, some cadets began to move a little exactly where they stood. After a few more minutes, the movement became more obvious, for after their early morning run, they had been standing in place for a long time.
Then, one of them whispered, asking if someone knew how long this would take. That was the hair that broke the camel’s back, so to say. Almost all the cadets began to whisper, and seeing how no one came to stop them, they slowly became more brazen in their actions.
They were still Kolari, and they knew the army well, so naturally no one left their places, and they avoided talking loudly as well. But it was enough so that Nero knew exactly what was coming.
Internally, he groaned. He did not want to suffer joint punishment so needlessly, but knowing that it was inevitable, he decided to change his perspective. He needed to make the most of this opportunity.
He would treat the punishment as training, as well as an opportunity to bond with the other cadets. Nothing brought people closer together like suffering hardship together, and with such a convenient common enemy, it would be no problem. Compared to his initial urge to treat all the cadets around him like amateurs who didn’t know what they were doing, this was a much better plan.
He was already learning from his parents’ repeated instructions to pick fewer fights and make more friends.
With a refined outlook on the situation, Nero no longer found the incessant chatting annoying. Instead, he only heard the sounds of opportunity. Some of the cadets tried to talk to Nero as well, but he did not respond, staying perfectly still where he stood.
Nearly forty minutes later, the officer that had gone into the build returned, causing the group to quickly become silent once more. Even so, it was fairly obvious that the man knew exactly what had been happening. .
Yet he did not seem angry at all. Instead, he was grinning ear to ear, looking at the cadets as if they were chickens laying gold eggs.
"Did you all have a good chat while I was away?" the officer asked, "Did you make yourselves comfortable? Maybe you made plans for breakfast once you’re done here."
The man spoke in a polite and concerned voice, but the more he did that, the more everyone was hit with a sense of impending trouble.
"How about this? I’ll let you go. All of you can just turn around, march outside the gates and have a good old time. How does that sound?" the man asked, looking at all of them.
"Well? How does that sound?" he asked again when no one answered, but yet again, he was greeted with only silence. None of the cadets dared to respond.
"That’s what I thought," he said once more, but this time his smile dropped into a grimace, and he looked at the cadets with disgust.
"I am Drill Sergeant Renald, and I will be responsible for training you all," he said, maintaining a deep and grave voice. At least he wasn’t screaming though, which was nice. For some odd reason, Nero thought there would be screaming.
"Do you know what that means? It means every day, until your physical training is done, you all belong to me. If I say jump, you jump. If I say sit, you sit. If I say stand at attention, you stand at attention !
"This is not a summer camp, or a retreat for children. If you are incapable of obeying orders, if you are incapable of maintaining discipline, then you are not an asset to this country, you are a liability! Promoting someone like that to officer would only deteriorate the army, and result in the deaths or casualty of many capable soldiers."
Drill Sergeant Renald looked at the group of cadets with absolute disgust painted on his face, as if he was looking at a bunch of degenerates.
"Understand this. If I think that any of you are unfit to become an officer, then that opinion will hold a lot of sway within the academy. So if you wish to graduate, prove to me that you deserve the role you are seeking. Once your tests and assignments are done, there will be a 50 km weighted run for all of you, and no food or further activities until you all finish."
Drill Sergeant Renald did not yell. He did not scream. In fact, at the end, he even lowered his volume by a lot, yet his words sent chills down all the cadets’ backs, including Nero. The last thing he wanted was to fail to graduate now that he was finally within KMA. He needed to make sure never to offend Drill Sergeant Renald.
The effect was great, and in fact, far more effective than any screaming could have been.
"Next line, follow me inside. The rest of you, keep standing at attention. If even a single one of you dares break discipline until I return, I’ll double the weights for your run."
Since Nero was standing in the middle line, he was forced to wait outside once more while the rest entered. This time, the wait was even longer, lasting a whole hour, but no one moved or talked.
It was annoying and uncomfortable, but bearing discomfort was practically a soldier’s job. If anything, this was merely a small teaser of what awaited them in the future, so they forcefully bore the discomfort.
Of course, to those who were Initiates and already had their bodies enhanced, there was no discomfort at all, only boredom.
An hour later, Drill Sergeant Renald exited and surveyed the three lines. This time, he didn’t take in a single line, but brought all of them inside.
The entrance led to a large reception hall from where they were brought to a waiting room where, to the relief of many, they were allowed to sit while they filled out a simple questionnaire.
Nero read through the questions, not expecting the types of questions he was faced with. For example, after adding in his name and family details, he was directly asked which army corp and division would be his first preference to join if he were given an option to join.
Nero was under the impression that the decision was made for him and then he was assigned to the best place, but it seemed that to a certain degree, his own choice also impacted the decision. It only made sense - everyone would try to put in more effort for something they wanted than something they detested.
The question wasn’t open ended. There was a separate information sheet given beside the questionnaire which contained pertinent information one might need while filling out the form. Upon it, Nero found a list of all available divisions, and found there weren’t many.
The divisions were things like logistics, aether engineers, medical, vanguard and so on. Each corp had a few common divisions, such as medical and aether engineers, and then a few specific to the function of their own role, such as vanguard or ward divisions.
This meant that if Nero wanted to work on something like border defense, he could pick the relevant division, or if he wanted to work with Cursed zones he could list the relevant division. He would work in intelligence, in logistics, in Curse prevention, or in any other division that attracted his attention. Of course, what role he got in that division would not be up to him, but it was a start.
Since there was no time limit, Nero carefully went through the list and then thought about which place could contribute to his strength the greatest. Nero wanted to find a division that could give him the greatest in terms of merits, resources, exposure, power, influence and more.
Naturally, everything was hard to find in a single division so he needed to prioritise certain things. Merit was the most important, alongside an opportunity to grow stronger. Merit would assure his rise through the army ranks was smooth, and personal strength was naturally something he could not fall behind in either.
Just as Nero was picking, a thought occurred to him that gave him pause. He also needed to pay attention to which corp he joined. Each division was naturally under the appropriate corp, and he already had some history with the corps.
He wasn’t sure which corp Whisper Guard was under, despite rumors. Rumors weren’t a reliable source of information. Moreover, he personally had a good history with the Demon corp, while the Dom family seemed to have some influence in the Terra corp.
After some thought, Nero decided to stick to the Demon corp. Not only was it less likely to get him stabbed in the back, though that possibility never really went away, it would also allow him to work with curses, making the most of his two innate abilities.
It was almost as if it was meant to be.
Nero listed his first preference as the Vanguard division of the Demon Corp, which was also known as Vanguard-1, thus making it easy to distinguish between the Vanguard divisions in other corps.
Following that, he listed down a few more preferences, all of which would give him the highest combat exposure, or exposure to critical tasks. Only in that way could he earn merits. It was dangerous, but that hardly mattered at this point.