Getting up, I walked over to Boris and held out my hand. “Are you up to walking, Boris?”

He looked at me with some surprise but took my hand. With a grunt of effort, I helped him pull himself to his feet.

“Thanks.” Boris said. “It was about time I got off my ass. I always knew eating all that fatty food would come back to bite me, but I never thought it would happen like this.”

“Who in their right mind would expect this?” I sighed as we started to walk.

He nodded sadly. “It was all so sudden. And so much walking… I feel like I’ve lost weight already. In a way, this place is going to be good for me, but I just don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with everyone else.”

Shaking his head, he continued. “Look at me. Not even three laps and it’s all I can do to keep walking. I don’t have much magical talent compared to everyone else, and the lessons, they’ve only just begun and already I feel like I’m out of my depth.”

We walked in silence for a few moments while I tried to think of a proper response.

“You’re certainly in a tough place.” I said finally. “But not as bad as you think. As much as they would like to think of us as heroes, we’re just a bunch of tired people who worked in dead-end jobs. We aren’t fighters. Chances are we’ll all start up some sort of trading company. After all, if there’s one thing we all know we can do, it’s paperwork.”

“But what if we don’t? What if, if we do end up fighting in this war? I don’t want to go to war.” Boris breathed. “I’ve heard the stories. I don’t want to go to war. And I’d just be dead weight. Literally.”

Waving a fly away from my face with little success, I reasoned, “Even if that does end up happening, no reason you can’t split off from the rest. I’m sure there would be some others that would be more than happy to have an excuse to get away from combat.”

“You’re right.” Boris nodded. “But still… Even if it’s just while we’re here, I’ll be stuck behind the pack. They’ll call me ‘the useless hero’. Do you know what that’s like, being deemed useless?”

“No. Not really.” I admitted honestly.

“It’s horrible.” Boris muttered. “Makes your thoughts go dark places. Makes you wonder if they’re right. Makes you wonder if there’s anything you can do, that you can ever do, that’s really worth doing.”

“Then you can just tell them to piss off.” I frowned. “Or better yet, prove them wrong. You’re disadvantaged, yes, but that doesn’t make it impossible. If you give up, I can guarantee you things will get worse, but if you keep trying, harder than the others, things might get better.”

Boris was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “I don’t know if I can. I always end up giving up.”

“The stakes are higher this time. Sink or swim. You’d be surprised how much motivation that can give you.” I shrugged. “You should do extra training. Laps before breakfast and after dinner, that sort of thing. I’ll be doing the same, I really need to get more fit myself. I can probably rope Greg into it as well. Not like we have anything else to do anymore, right?”

“Alright. I’ll do it.” Boris said.

Boris’ breathing started to get heavy again after that, so we stopped talking and just kept walking.

I knew running or even jogging the rest of the way was beyond me, and Boris as well, so we just kept walking. I thought that we could at least do that.

But by halfway through the next lap, Boris and I were once again staggering along like drunkards. When we finally managed to reach the end – where the captain and quite a few others were standing – Boris fell over in a dead faint.

Captain Pierce checked Boris over, and was apparently satisfied that he would be fine. I hoped the captain would pardon the fact that he didn’t do that last lap given he was unconscious.

I myself was scarcely in better shape than Boris, and I sat down to wait for my skin to return to normal from its currently vibrantly red hue. My legs… I’ll feel that in the next week of mornings. But worst was my clothing. I sincerely hope they have replacement clothing for us, because this is not what this type of attire was designed for.

Everyone was just sitting or standing around, resting and waiting for everyone to finish. People trickle in slowly over the next few minutes as I recuperated. After a while, I felt like I was well enough to stand, so I hobbled over to the water barrel. The water inside it was at a noticeably lower level than earlier; it was clear that the exercise had taken its toll on all of us.

Greg was already there when I had reached the end, of course. He too was completely burnt out and did little more than a slight wave in greeting.

We waited for almost ten minutes. I half thought that everyone was already there, and I was too tired to be bothered to count and prove myself wrong.

That’s when she walked up. Her name was Rebecca, if I recall correctly. She worked up the other end of the office, so I didn’t know as much about her as I did about, for instance, Boris, who worked on the opposite side of Greg.

Rebecca made the mistake of trying to join the rest of us, but the captain would have none of that, and told her straight to her face to start running again: she had another lap to go. She threw a bit of a fit but wilted when it seemed like he was about to throw her, and reluctantly started to run again.

It was at this point that Antonio walked up. Unfortunately, I did know him, because his cubicle was on the other side of mine, and he liked to make himself known. He was quite a prideful man before all this, so one can imagine how it affected his already over-inflated ego when he found out he had all element affinity.

Knowing him, he was probably too busy exalting himself to realise the difficulties of being able to use every type of magic.

Captain Pierce immediately confronted Antonio. “How is it that you have only now finished your third lap, when everyone else has done five? Did you stop to take a piss halfway?”

To his credit, Antonio didn’t even try to deny what the captain said, but he still tried to vindicate himself. “I already know that I’m going to be a mage, so what’s the point of me doing physical training anyway?”

Maybe he was still incensed from his clash with Rebecca, but by the time I noticed that the captain had moved, he was already behind Antonio, holding a knife to his throat. “The point,” He said, “Is that you’ll be able to react when someone gets up close or takes you by surprise.”

Captain Pierce removed the knife. “Now get running. I have a schedule to keep, and you’re threatening to throw it off.”

He spoke with a note of finality, but it appeared that Antonio couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. “Come on! Over a hundred swings of a sword and five laps right off the bat? What sort of crazy training is this?”

Military training. And the military had this funny thing called discipline, which meant that the people in command took it badly when recruits – us – stepped out of line.

“See that man over there?” Spat the captain, pointing at Boris. “He did four laps in half the time you did three, then fainted from exhaustion. Yet here you are without a drop of sweat on your face and still you complain. I would take a fat recruit with a spine rather than a skinny recruit without one, any day. Now run.”

At this point, Antonio didn’t dare to argue further. He immediately started to run… And tripped before he made it past a few meters. After he got up again and left, I wandered over to where he’d tripped. The ground was fairly flat and devoid of any rocks, so I was curious as to what he’d tripped over.

There was a depression in the dirt, about as wide and deep as the first two joints of my forefinger. The dirt visible within the depression was darker than the dirt on the surface, so it was freshly dug. I seemed to remember that captain Pierce had been standing there, before he made that move on Antonio.

What that meant, exactly, I didn’t know.

Soon after, the captain made us do push ups. Then sit ups. Squats. Weight lifting large rocks…

By the end, everyone had practically collapsed.

“Alright, that concludes the warm up.” Captain Pierce said. He laughed when we looked at him in despair. “I’m joking, I’m joking! That’s all for today. But we’ll be doing this every day from now on.”

Everyone sighed in relief.

“Now, let’s get you some proper clothes. Follow me.” Captain Pierce said, turning and walking towards the doors.

We followed him to a small room filled with crates of clothes. Each of us picked out two sets of loosely fitting brown tunics and pants, a pair of leather boots, some cotton stockings and a plain leather belt in sizes that fit us.

After that, we were led to the baths, gender separated communal ones filled, or so we were told, with water produced from water magic. We were also informed that ingesting the water would cause us to become poisoned but were assured that the water was otherwise perfectly clean and safe.

I’m not entirely sure that I enjoyed the thought of bathing in what was essentially poison, but I did regardless. I certainly needed it.

Once we finished, we changed into our new set of clothes. They were quite itchy and course, but they were at least significantly more flexible and easy to move in than our previous attire.

“Your next class is general knowledge. They’ll teach you everything you need to know to live in this world – money, etiquette, some of the larger businesses and specifics about the five kingdoms.” Captain Pierce said, leading us again through the stone corridors.

---

The magus who taught that class was called Norek. He did teach us some interesting things, such as the rankings of magi: apprentice, intermediate, high and arch. They wore robes of different colours: brown with black trim, a colour denoting their dominant affinity with white trim, silver trim and golden trim respectively.

Of course, just because that was the norm didn’t mean that everyone did so. While the magi who were in the army or worked directly for the monarchies would, adventurers, mercenaries and wanderers were more likely to wear whatever was practical. This meant, of course, that you could never be entirely sure whether your opponent was just a simple soldier, or whether they were secretly hiding their ability to cast magic.

We were at apprentice rank, having just started training. Intermediate ranks, apparently, were simply magus who had gotten a firm grasp on creating magic formations, were able to cast a good range of spells, and had a good quantity of mana.

High magi were the real deal; capable of decimating groups of enemies at a time, causing minor changes in terrain such as localised earthquakes or swamps and having control enough to… Apparently immerse trees in fire without burning them. However that worked.

Arch magi, being the highest rank, have much larger variations in skills and power, not even counting magi who were specialised in non-combative professions such as healing, enchanting or alchemy. They were strategic assets, and how they were used could effectively win or lose a large-scale conflict.

The money in the five kingdoms were coins: copper, silver, gold and platinum, with each being a hundred times more valuable than the last. They had inlaid magical formations that accepted pure mana to form a small hologram, the intricate detail of which could prove the authenticity of the coin, as well as the kingdom of origin.

In regards to the five kingdoms themselves, the human kingdom Stalia, which was where we were then, just on the eastern border, has the most citizens and the most magi.

The dwarven kingdom Morrock, to the far north-west, produced the highest quality weapons, armour, as well as any other metalwork or architecture.

Enlux, the elven kingdom, is the world leader in agriculture, and exports large quantities of produce to the other kingdoms.

The kingdom of beastmen, Binod, is famed for its powerful warriors, and the demon kingdom of Xin has the most advanced technology.

Other than the five kingdoms, there were also other races such as gnomes, halflings and orcs, but they are apparently roaming communities or reclusive, without rulers.

He also mentioned the adventurers’ guild, mercantile conglomerate, mercenary association and a few other things.

We basically sat there for four hours listening to him gabble on, but for the most part, those were the more important and interesting things he talked about.

Once that was finally finished, we were told that we had some free time before dinner, so I roused myself from my stupor, woke Greg up and pulled him along with Boris to do some laps. Our whole bodies were still aching from our earlier torment, but what with the bath and four hours of rest, one or two laps wasn’t a problem.

We stop when Boris looks like he can walk no further, experimenting with the manipulation of mana until dinner.

After eating dinner and heading to our room, we were surprised to see everyone who had finished before us sitting in a circle. Someone gestured for us to sit, so we did.

We waited for a while for everyone to get there, and then Nelson started to talk. “Me and a few of my friends have been thinking for the past few days that we should have a meeting, talk about everything that’s been happening lately. What with all the travelling, it hasn’t really been possible until now.”

Some people’s eyelids were drifting closed, tired by the earlier training.

Nobody said anything, so Nelson coughed and continued. “I’ll start by reiterating the events that occurred. We were all in the office, that… Magic formation appeared, and then we were in that cave. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that it was only the people who were in our office block at that moment that were transported.”

Nelson looked around, but nobody spoke up. A few people nodded.

“Then the soldiers found us, transported us here, and now we’re training to be some sort of heroes to save the world from the demons and some evil god.” Nelson paused. “I think, at this point, we can say that this isn’t just some elaborate hoax. The villages, their weapons… I would say they were equivalent to roughly medieval era technology, if not for the magic.”

Everyone nodded again.

“We have been told that we’re free to leave or stay.” Nelson said seriously. “In my opinion, whatever we choose to do, we should stay together. That should give us the greatest chances of success.”

Seeing that nobody denied his statement, Nelson continued, a little more hesitantly this time. “I think… The worst possible choice at the moment would be to leave. We simply don’t know enough about the world, and if what they’ve told us about monsters is true, we may not be able to survive unless we get stronger. Then, the real question is when should we leave, if at all? And a factor to that would be what we think about this supposed imminent invasion of the demon race.”

On that note, I spoke up. “It’s not just a matter of whether or not they invade, but if they do, why. If the alliance started the war and are just trying to use us to further their agenda, I want no part of it.”

“I agree.” Said Nelson. “But it’s impossible to tell something like that from here. In the event that that is true, any information they give us could be biased. So the only real information we have is that single prophecy, which frankly I don’t think is at all reliable. Assuming for the sake of argument that god or gods exist in this world, and that they issue prophecies. The person could be lying, and even if he thinks he’s telling the truth, a single piece of evidence isn’t enough to condemn an entire nation.”

“That’s right!” Someone said. “It’s ridiculous that a war may start based on the words of a single person, no matter how respected he is.”

Nelson looked around and saw most of us nodding in agreement. “Then we will train here until a time comes that we believe we are strong and knowledgeable enough to survive in this world.”

It was at this point that Antonio decided to pipe in, for whatever reason. “That shouldn’t take more than a month, right? After all, we are extremely talented.”

The sheer arrogance of his statement gave me an urge to cave his irritating face in, but I refrained and limited myself to a more verbal response. “Right, because talent can let us catch up to people who have been training their whole lives in a mere month. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that it took Usain Bolt more than a month of training to get to the Olympics.”

“It’s different.” Antonio said dismissively. “We are the summoned heroes, destined to be legendary!”

“As if this so-called destiny would have protected you today if captain Pierce decided to move his knife the other way.” I stated. “Just because this happened to us doesn’t mean we’re special. We aren’t invincible. And if this world is as dangerous as they tell us, odds are that some of us are going to get killed.”

“I-” Antonio started to continue, but he was cut off by Nelson.

“That’s enough!” Nelson rubbed his forehead. “Your argument isn’t getting us anywhere… I for one think that we’ve talked about everything that bears mentioning. I’m going to get some sleep, and you two should do the same. Tomorrow is going to be just as hard as today, if not worse.”

I took a deep breath, and my anger was exhaled along with it. Nodding to Nelson, I headed for my bed. Antonio didn’t say anything else, either, and everyone dispersed to their own mattresses.

---

The second day began with a stretch and a grunt of pain as my muscles each rebuked my abuse of them the previous day.

Magic lessons were, again, theory. 

That day Jamison taught us about the strengths and weaknesses of each element. Most elements mutually opposed each other. Light and darkness, water and fire, holy and decay, lava and ice.

Others have specific counters: water counters earth, earth counters lightning, lightning counters water.

Air and illusion don’t really have a counter, but on the other hand, they don’t have much direct power, either.

Apart from that, Jamison just had us practicing controlling mana again, walking around as we did so, occasionally giving tips. Turns out that mana control is important, no surprise there. From what he tells us, while training mana control this early on won’t show many results, when one is a high magi or arch magi, the speed at which one can cast spells and the fluidity with which one can direct them is incredibly important – and training mana control is the only way to improve that.

That took up the rest of the lesson, so it was then on to training with the captain. After another bout of torturing our bodies, it was again onto general knowledge class.

After going into the ranks of nobility, which might have been interesting if we didn’t already have historical evidence of the many flaws inherited positions can bring about, Norek then went on to lecture about many different aspects of etiquette.

Approximately 99.99% was such utter bollocks that I didn’t bother to waste my brain capacity on remembering it. Why in the devil do you need some five each of forks, knives and spoons? Look, you just need one fork and one knife, perhaps with a single spoon. Teaspoon if you happen to be having tea. Maybe a tea fork, too, if you think there may be cake. Add a good ol’ spork and you’re set for any eventuality. Well, you could have a steak knife too. But that’s only if you need it. Realistically, you shouldn’t need more than two utensils for any single meal.

By the time he finished, I was almost catatonic, something that seemed to be becoming a trend in Norek’s classes. That wasn’t to say there wasn’t anything interesting that he had to say… Just that the interesting things were in the minority.

Greg, Boris and I went for another couple of laps in our free time afterwards, practicing moving balls of mana alongside us as we gasped along.

I don’t know what it said about me that I was able to sustain magic, which I awakened literally the day before, longer than I was able to run, which I’ve been able to do practically my whole life. Since the alternatives are a terrible neglect of my body and a great talent with magic, I decided that the latter was a more palatable option.

Before going to bed, Nelson tried to pull us into another meeting. It was quickly decided to put it off for another day, as everyone was too tired.

…It’s as if they expected that we wouldn’t be as tired the following days.

I admire their optimism, even if it was misplaced.