Perceived Fate

Alicia looked at her new Squad Leader, she was someone who she had noticed as they had been marching towards the camp.

He was hunter, one of the better ones and not only that but she had seen him do well against the instructor during the first Hell.

She kept close to Jake, her boyfriend, as they both agreed that he would be the best choice. They both knew that she wouldn’t be allowed to be leader and Jake was to lazy to do it properly so for them it was an easy choice.

She looked closer into his eyes. He seemed focused, in fact, every time she looked at him he seemed to be thinking. He was never idle, always doing and for a leader being motivated was a good start.

Her mother had always praised motivated people, they tended to do well in life.

She refocused back onto the instructor.

Gerald was fiddling with his ear. Some wax had been bothering him lately so he was trying to fish it out.

The vote for leader was an easy choice for him as Malum was the only person who he reckoned he couldn’t beat. Might was right, that was his fathers way of living and it was the correct way of living.

Therefore Malum was the leader. Simple, easy, done.

He continued to try and remove his earwax, but he soon gave up and instead looked towards the true Leader of the encampment and the man he respected most, the Troop Leader.

Jerome was thanking his lucky stars that a group had accepted him. He was worried he was going to last picked again and would then have to go through the embarrassing situation of being randomly assigned a team.

This group luckily had pulled him in as they needed one more and so Jerome continued to pray to the God of Luck.

Even luckier was the group seemed strong. Malum and Gerald especially seemed like one of the stronger people in the group. He had seen Malum fight in the first hell as he had been knocked out so early he had woken up to see the end of it.

He fought smart, not hard. Something Jerome found to be extremely cool.

He voted Malum as he everyone else was doing so first. He didn’t want to single himself out to create any conflict. For now, he would just stay out of their way and train as much as he could.

He wanted to survive, to prove to his brothers that he wasn’t expendable and they had made the wrong choice sending him away.

“3, 2, 1 and done.

Now the instructors are the lovely people you see standing by that small hill over there. I’ll give you a hint, the nice ones are the ones are the right the first squad leader to tag them gets them their instructor...”

“...”

A few smart people quickly dashed towards the right hill as Malum was hastily trying to get himself a lead.

He knew once a race started maintaining a lead was far easier than catching up on lost distance, so he tried his best to break out from the group as one of the people at the front.

Being both one of the fastest, and one of the ones to pick up on the lacking `start` he managed to secure himself second with just one person ahead of him.

Oddly being strong helped as many were playing dirty, but Malum wasn’t one to fall by a small push and so many who tried to knock him over at the start ended up on the floor themselves.

The distance remaining was quickly falling and as the faces of those teacher came into Malum’s view he saw the goal he seeked.

First was quick, and was taking the `nicest person` but Malum reckoned second was his unless he tripped or something.

The small hill provided a small obstacle as Malum trudged his way up ignoring the mud he was flinging below himself.

At the feat of the man Malum did a small dive to tag him on his ankles when he naturally looked up to the man who would soon be teaching him.

A scar ridden face, a clean-shaven face, and an angry expression as he stared at Malum's muddy hands that had ruined his spotless boots.

`That’s not a man whose kind.` Malum looked more to the left and saw several `nicer` looking people.

`It’s in reverse order isn’t it.`

With the fakest smile on his mouth, Malum went back into the dirt as he began to scream.

“Fu************************************”

For once in his life, he wished he was slower.

He was right, and the next 8 hours of Malum's life was spent repenting for his mistake. His squad didn’t blame him for picking the rightmost available person, but some bitterness still managed to seep through.

“C’mon ladies, my grandma could do more push-ups than you!” His jokes were terrible, offensively untrue, and yet all of his squad let out a small laugh.

They had to because if they didn’t the training would get even more severe.

Malum didn’t know so many sadists were present in the realm, either that or for some reason he was now attracting all of them towards himself.

To be fair, the hellish training was far better on him than some of his squad. Gerald was hardly breathing, and Alicia, Jake and Jerome were all face down on the floor unconscious.

Malum had heard from his Uncle that training was best done in small amounts over a long period of time, sadly in this situation they were lacking the time part, so they decided to push up the other part of the equation.

His heart was beating through his chest, every muscle in his body felt like they were rebelling against him and yet he managed to do another push-up.

1 more.

He needed to be stronger.

1 more.

For his revenge.

1 more.

For his strange Uncle.

1 more.

And for his family.

As much as Malum pushed on his arms, as much as he tried to get his body away from the mud below him, his body finally caved in.

The mud wasn’t even cold, so he just relaxed for a moment, before

“Well looks like Mr stamina here is finally done. Well only two of you are conscious so you better carry your friends here to the canteen before you hit the sack. For your first day,”

Malum could swear he was hearing things, perhaps it was the exhaustion, it almost sounded like he was going to get complimented.

“I have seen worse.”

What kind of tough love was that. It was like his Uncle all over again, Malum didn’t even care enough he was tired of thinking, in fact, he was tired of all doing. Still food was needed so he grabbed his friends and got them up with the sweet news of finish.

“Were done?”

Jerome said to which Malum looked at the loner with a smile on his face. Today Malum had seen that the skinny boy had put in his all and so he could ask for nothing more as a squad leader.

“Yeah, were done.”

“Ah, thank the Dao.”

Malum helped him up as he found his other squad members to be slowly reviving from the dead. As far as age was concerned, Malum was actually the youngest in the group being barely 16. Gerald was little into his 17th year, and Jerome was only a few weeks of his birthday. Alicia and Jake were a little older being 19 and 20 respectively and Malum also learned that they were dating and been for years.

Malum would slowly learn more about his squad mates through his training course, what was on his mind now was just 2, four letter words: food and rest.

Luckily, they didn’t seem to skimp of the meals. Oats and fruits were what they had for breakfast, and lunch had been had a generous 3 eggs with bread on the side. Malum could hardly say he had eaten so well ever since his baby years.

On the menu tonight was some potatoes with a few vegetables on the side. A heart meal, although the taste was rather bland. Malum was no noble, he ate he good food with a smile on his face. He needed the energy that this food would provide and to heal his sore body.

Roll call was done to ensure no soldier had run away, they had begun from breakfast this morning and although it was a menial task the dark thoughts of why such a task was done was rather depressing.

To cheer himself up he thought of a quote from his Uncle. Malum searched the wide selection he could choose from and picked out a good one, `the best medicine is a healthy diet` with a belly full of food Malum was sure no illness was going to be his killer. His Uncles endless wisdom was truly a marvel although considering his age it was sort of to be expected.

168, and he was completely physically able when Malum had last seen him. That gave Malum a guess that he would live until his two hundreds, cultivation was truly an enchanting mistress, and it gave Malum a small smile all the way until he climbed into bed where his dreams picked up where he left off.

“So thoughts?” said a voice, it was clear and well spoken. There was only one man on camp other than Malum who spoke such clear tongue, the Troop Leader.

The other instructors sat around him at different chairs at the table, each with differing expressions. A man whome Malum would recognise as one of the kinder instructors spoke first,

“My lot are pretty decent, not strong but they work hard.” Next to speak was one of the stricter ones, just before Malum's.

“I deal with the opposite issue, there good but some have pretty much given up.” The commander spoke next,

“Well that is what you will be trying to fix in the next month, I trust all of you to do your best after all word from command is that the fronts are only growing worse.”

Starting with the word front put faces of despair on each of the instructors faces, even the Troop commander looked solemn as he spoke. Sadly despair wasn’t what they needed, so the Troop commander said with pride,

“As citizens of the Kingdom it is our duty to protect our homeland, to protect our families at home we shall do the best we can. Is that clear?!”

“Sir yes Sir!” Spoke the group in far better synchronisation than the recruits.