The camp I was assigned to was one where only the most gifted and talented soldiers went. It was called Camp Glory, but there was a second nickna for it: Camp Gory.
While it sounds silly, that na was no joke.
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, if even a single splotch of the Scourge’s black ooze touches you, you’re dead.
Therefore, a soldier had to wear armor from head to toe, with a skintight leather and cloth bodysuit under it.
It was by no ans comfortable. During the hot months, it was downright unbearable.
So, other than simple combat training, the focal point of the camp was learning to adjust to wearing that awful armor every second of the day.
If you had to go to the bathroom, you were taught to piss your pants. Sa for defecation.
Either that, or you had to risk taking off your armor.
If you were spotted and even a single bit of skin was showing during the process, it was customary for the witness to be forced to attack, playing the role of the Scourge foe who cared not for mortal obligations.
And if you couldn’t find a way to sneak away in ti, then it would be up to you to find the ti to change clothing sets without being caught.
If you got caught in that act...
Gory.
That was the only way to describe the aftermath of what would happen to you.
After all, fighting the overseer of the camp while naked rarely ended bloodlessly.
Age, gender, status, race?
Nothing mattered to that man. Nothing other than instilling discipline.
I can still rember his voice clearly. That booming, terrifying voice of General Sourdough Gimpel.
"Ixion! Don’t you dare ever lift your visor in combat!"
At seven, a month after joining the camp, that was the first ti I suffered his fury.
"S-sorry! I couldn’t see!"
My excuse only made the general bash my back in with a flail.
"Neither can you see if you’re dead!"
Then he bashed the flail over my skull.
Technically, he had a point in his lessons and teachings. But I still hate him and his thods.
So believe that it was his fault I turned out crazy. Not like he can defend himself nowadays. He died quite a pitiful and ironic death.
He was taking a shit in the woods when a corrupted worm crawled up the grass and touched his ass.
That was how Sourdough Gimpel died.
To this day, I still don’t know why he had such a stick up his ass, but to die from his ass was quite poetic, no? As for why he was the way he was, my only theory is that it was because of that awful na.
I an, the bread tastes good, yes.
If the bread were nad after him, maybe his na would actually be respectable.
But no.
The bread ca before he was nad. In fact, the story goes that he got his na because his father was eating sourdough bread during his birth.
Or he was an asshole because he was a commoner at birth.
Statuses like king or queen ant very little on the battlefield, where all that mattered was tactical or physical might, so it was the only place where one born to low or no nobility could rise.
Where they could gain a semblance of political power, rising over their oppressors.
Anyhow, young spent three arduous years at Camp Glory, only graduating because of my advancent to Ergent.
It was then that my training grounds beca the front lines.
Not that I fought yet. I wasn’t sent into battle until I was at the ripe age of thirteen.
No.
If Camp Glory was ant to build and hone my discipline and strength, "Camp Horror" was ant to hone my resolve and tactical mind.
Mainly, I shadowed the pseudo-commander, Vexshan.
Despite being Praxian and a Lizardman, all respected his tactical mind. So much so that he was given the right to command the Catatran forces until I beca capable of the job. And it would also be him who deed if I were worthy of it.
But while learning tactical combat was primary, I call it "Camp Horror" because of what I was made to witness, and watch, and especially what I was made to learn.
I rember my first lesson well...
Standing atop an ashen barrow, looking down on the raging sea of black as it crashed against Hope’s brilliant sun, Commander Vex spoke to .
"Little one, tell , what do you see?"
I had known death and blood.
"I..."
I had known fear and horror.
"I..."
Or at least I thought I had known.
"I see death."
"Is that so?" Vex flicked his armored tail back and forth. "Let tell you my answer, little one. What I see is numbers."
I cocked my head, which I had grown into quite well by then, to the side.
Vex pointed to the middle section of the battlefield, where Hope fought.
"70-30."
He pointed to where Duke Lorkel, Marquise Abd al-Rahman, and a few Praxian heroes fought.
"45-55."
Then he pointed over to the right, the last section of the battle, the one where the collective human forces were losing terribly.
Arms were being torn off, armor crushed. Soldiers were infected one after another, then turned on their own. Fathers mutilating sons. Daughters chewing out their mothers’ throats.
"10-90."
The green Lizardman’s long mouth curled into a smile.
"The first role of a commander is to understand your own force and its capabilities. Then spread them in a way that will claim victory."
I studied the dilated demihuman’s eyes.
"But it looks like we’re losing. If you knew that, why reinforce the right side so weakly? Were you praying Hope would deal with his front, then assist them?"
"Hah! That is indeed a strategy, Drath taught you well. But, no. That wasn’t my intent in this situation."
"Then what was?"
"I wanted to show you what happens when you misplace your forces. Just how unforgiving the battlefield is to a poor commander."
I didn’t understand at first.
But I quickly learned what he ant.
He’d drilled the lesson into that my choices carried the weight of life; that I also couldn’t dwell on losses we suffered — that they were rely a statistic.
A lesson he drilled into at the cost of 1,028 cadets’ lives.
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