Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The swordsmanship class at the Army Officer Academy was held twice a week, starting right after lunch. The duration of the class depended on the time of the sunset.

In summer, when the days were long and the nights short, the swordsmanship classes last longer. In winter, as the darkness fell earlier, the classes were shorter. As a principle, students were given an hour to have dinner before dusk.

This led to a problem: during the long summer days, the sun wouldn't set until eight or nine o'clock. After eating lunch, the cadets would practice with their longswords, not getting to eat dinner until very late. Therefore, by the last hour of swordsmanship class in the summer, everyone was famished.

After returning the training armor to the equipment room, Winters and Aike, carrying their longswords and combat clothing, didn't even have time to change out of their cadet uniforms before they dashed at full speed to the cafeteria, beginning to gobble down food ravenously.

By the time the two of them had finished eating and taken a quick shower, it was nearly eight o'clock when they got back to the cadet dormitory, and the sun was about to set.

Lamps had been lit in the cadet dormitory, and Winters could see that those students whose homes were not in The Federated Provinces Republic—namely, those from Sea Blue Republic, Highland Republic, Monta Republic, and Varn Republic—had already started to pack their bags, preparing to return home the next day.

Aike was a local from Guidao City, just a walk away from home, so he wasn't in a hurry. He grabbed a washbasin intending to wash his combat clothes and saw Winters sprawled motionless on the bed.

So he gave Winters' back a hard smack and reminded him, "Are you going to sleep so early? Aren't you going to pack your luggage?"

"It's fine; I can pack tomorrow, I don't have much stuff anyway." Winters, full and struck by a fit of drowsiness, responded lethargically.

Weariness, pain, and sleepiness assaulted Winters one after the other. At that moment, he didn't even want to move a finger; all he wanted to do was sleep.

"What about your combat cloth? Aren't you going to wash it? It's all sweaty; if you leave it until tomorrow, won't it stink?" Aike asked again with a frown, glancing at the combat cloth lying in a wooden basin by Winters' bed.

Winters weighed the options between "getting up to wash the clothes" and "continuing to sleep" and without any suspense, chose "continuing to sleep." He buried his face in the pillow and said, "Forget it, just toss it. I won't wear it anymore anyway."

"Didn't you say you wanted to practice the longsword diligently once you got back to Sea Blue? And now you're just going to throw away your combat cloth? Besides, saying you'll throw away such good clothes is incredibly wasteful, isn't it?" Aike couldn't help but laugh at the attitude that preferred sleep over keeping clothes.

However, Winters couldn't hear Aike's words anymore; the sound from Aike was going in one ear and out the other. Then suddenly, Winters remembered something very important—something that meant he couldn't sleep just yet.

He sat bolt upright, startling Aike into stepping back. Winters frowned and said, "I just remembered, I have night watch duty tonight."

He took a deep breath and let out a mournful howl from the depths of his chest, "Ah..."

"You scared me. But aren't you just going to sleep during your watch anyway?" Aike said, looking helpless.

Winters quickly got up and dressed while Aike followed up from behind, asking, "What about your clothes then?"

"No help for that, I won't have time to wash them now. If you want them, they're yours; if you don't, whoever wants them can have them. If nobody wants them, just throw them away," Winters replied while hurriedly putting on his trousers. He then grabbed his jacket and hurried out of the dormitory while shrugging into it.

The Army Officer School had three gates, each manned by two shifts a day. Each shift consisted of six people, two from each the first, second, and third years.

The Army Officer School had three branches: Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery, with each year's population fluctuating between fifty-five and sixty students. This meant that approximately once a month, each cadet would have to serve one day shift and one night shift on guard duty.

Winters jogged all the way to the school's north gate. The day guards hadn't yet left, and the freshmen and sophomores who were to replace them were already waiting there.

"Good evening, squad leader." The lower-year cadets saluted Winters one after another, which was a small tradition at the Army Officer Academy. During the freshmen's introductory training, either a second-year or a third-year cadet would be assigned as their deputy squad leader or squad leader, leading them through training.

So at the academy, it was customary for lower-year cadets to call anyone wearing more stripes than themselves "squad leader," whether they knew them or not.

Winters casually returned the salute and hastened into the on-duty room to meet the other third-year cadet on night duty. He was a robust young man, just over 1.7 meters tall, with broad shoulders, a generous width of hand, and a wide mouth and nose under a pair of thick eyebrows and large eyes.

To Winters, his roommate's physical characteristics signaled that he was a kind, unpretentious, and tolerant person. The young man saw Winters approaching, punched him lightly on the shoulder, and, grinning to reveal a double row of teeth, said, "You're here."

Winters flinched as he was hit where he had bruised during swordplay that day and sucked in a breath of cool air in pain.

"What's wrong?" The young man didn't understand how his light punch could provoke such a strong reaction from Winters.

"Got hit hard on the shoulder during swordsmanship class today—no big deal," Winters said with a smile.

"Was it the master who did it?" The young man understood instantly and responded with a laugh.

Winters pulled over a chair, plopped down onto it with a casual air, and said proudly, "You didn't see it today—I actually scored seventeen points against Aike, got him so flustered. If I hadn't been so worn out afterward, I would have ended Aike's undefeated streak."

"Really? You're not bullshitting me?" the young man was surprised because scoring seventeen points against the master was only a notch below beating the master.

"Why would I lie? There were so many people watching during the class, you can ask anyone," Winters said confidently.

The young man punched Winters lightly on the other shoulder and burst out laughing, "Seventeen points! That's impressive! Too bad, if you had won, we could have avenged the beatdowns we've gotten from the master over the years."

Just then, a head peeked in at the door—it was a first-year cadet. The junior saluted and said, "Squad leader, the duty instructor is coming."

Winters and the other quickly straightened their appearances and left the cadet duty office. Night watch duty is different from day watch. There is no patrol duty during day watch, and six people are on duty for the entire day, with each team taking a four-hour shift. You report to duty before your shift starts and you're free to go once it's over.

But night watch duty is more complicated, as it involves patrol duty. The routine for night watch is that each team stands watch for four hours, patrols for four hours, and sleeps for four hours. This ensures that at any given time, one team is on patrol, another is on watch, and the rest are sleeping.

Since you can't return to the dormitory to sleep during night watch, there are two small brick buildings constructed next to the main gate, on the inside of the perimeter wall, serving as the cadet and instructor duty offices, where those on night watch can rest. Those resting in the duty office also serve the function of being "ready to provide immediate support in case of emergency."

Why is there an instructor's rest room? Because the instructors also take turns on night watch. The school authorities believe that night duty is complicated, and students alone are not enough—in the event of an emergency, it's necessary to have an active duty officer present to ensure stability.

In theory, everyone from the headmaster to the lecturers has the obligation to take night duty. But in practice, it's the fresh, low-ranking, single instructors living in the staff dormitories who end up taking the shift.

However, instructors don't actually have to stand watch; they just need to sleep in the instructor's rest room.

The one who came was a short-armed weapons instructor, his face flushed red, his shirt unbuttoned down to the third button below the collar, clearly having had a drink. The two who hadn't left day watch yet, plus the six on night watch—a total of eight—formed a horizontal line under Winters' lead.

Everyone braced themselves and stood at attention, while the instructor on duty nodded without expression—no one was in a good mood on night duty—and began to call roll.

"Winters Montagne!"

"Here!" Winters answered.

"Gerard's Bard!"

"Here!" the solidly-built young man familiar with Winters replied—that was his name.

Bard's name was unusual because he had no surname. Gerard was his hometown, and calling him "Gerard's Bard" was to distinguish him from any others named Bard.

In this era, last names were a product of pragmatism, quite different from the orderly naming customs of "given name, surname, clan name, courtesy name, and pseudonym" in the people of Silk Country at the time. Even emperors and kings a few hundred years back didn't have "real surnames."

Maybe one day Bard will take Gerard as his last name, but for now, he's just Bard, formally known as Gerard's Bard.

Then the instructor called the remaining names, dipped his quill pen in his mouth, and checked off each name on the attendance list.

He then asked, "Are the weapons accounted for?" Winters had been too busy chatting with Bard to check the weapons. But Bard gave him a nudge, and Winters understood; it seemed Bard had done it.

Now with confidence, Winters answered loudly, "Six halberds, six muskets, all accounted for."

"Alright, dismissed! Call me if anything comes up." The duty instructor nodded and then went to the instructor's rest room to sleep.

The two cadets on day shift said their goodbyes and hurried back to the dormitory. Winters and Bard began their last shift on night watch.