I woke up with a serious dilemma. Should I go and train at the citadel? Or should I just rest to prepare for my training session? 

I ended up compromising in the end. Instead of pushing myself like usual, I just did a lighter workout to maintain my skills and muscles. Since my exercise was shorter, I had time to pick up my shield before breakfast. I would also like to pick up my horse’s barding, but the craftsman wasn’t finished with the project. After waiting for a bit at the shop, my shield was brought to me by the shopkeeper. Compared to its previously unremarkable appearance, my shield now had a brilliant coat of paint. The boss was painted a solar yellow and had triangular rays protruding out from it. In contrast, the rest of the shield was colored a dark shade of red. 

“Thank you, it looks great,” I told the shopkeeper as I examined my shield. 

“I’m glad you like it,” he replied. “Say, did you get this shield painted because you’re planning to make a name for yourself.”

“Nope,” I replied nonchalantly. “It might seem odd to you, but I just like having a nice looking shield. Maybe it’s just a habit from my time in the army.”

“Well you have good taste then,” the shopkeeper commented. “A lot of sellswords go for rather gaudy designs with horrendous colors. It seems that poor taste runs in that profession, apart from a few exceptions.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to stand out,” I suggested. “Apart from the Labor Bureau, others mainly recognize sellswords from their heraldry. But the absurd amount of sellswords means that there aren’t enough coat of arms designs to share.”

“Ah, I know that all too well,” he chuckled. “Still, I personally wouldn’t want to be recognized as the guy who chose a naked woman as his emblem.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I said slyly. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, no?”

“You’re damn right,” he laughed. “Good thing my wife isn’t here right now.”

To make sure that he didn’t condemn himself to an execution, I began rapidly peering around to check if his partner was lurking about. Fortunately for him, he would live another day.

“Did you really have to do that?” he jokingly complained. “You were making me worried there.”

“That’s hurtful,” I said with a mock frown. “I was just looking out for a friend in need.”

“Thanks,” he snorted amicably. 

“Well, I’ll be going,” I said with a friendly smile. “Maybe I’ll bring you some new customers soon.”

“That would be great,” he replied. “Might have to go buy some new paint in that case.”

Finished with my little errand, I came back to the Bureau to continue my regular routine. It’s a good routine in my opinion. I make breakfast, get a sleepy smile from Minerva, and then finally get to rub Sekh’s head until she wakes up. I guess Zeph also says goodmorning, but I don’t consider it to be an important part of my day. 

“What’s your plan for the rookies?” Minerva asked me during breakfast. “I know that you said you’re going to help them buy equipment. But how do you plan to get the money? Are you going to take requests?”

“Exactly,” I replied after swallowing the food in my mouth. “So what we’re going to do is find all the extermination type requests at the Bureau. Then we’ll categorize them by location. Once we group them up, we’ll pick the area with the best requests in terms of pay and safety. Then we’ll keep doing this until we allocate enough funds for the rookies.”

“Smart,” Minerva commented. “That should also clear up plenty of problems that the local area is having.”

“Are you taking everyone along though?” Sekh queried. “I remember you saying that some of the rookies aren’t fit to be taken out hunting.”

“Yeah, I’m just leaving them in the city,” I answered. “Can you take care of them for me, Sekh? I need you to make sure that they know how to handle themselves, both as individuals and as part of a group.”

“Okay,” Sekh said somewhat distantly. 

She probably wants to come along with me from the looks of it. I began to gently stroke her tail in compensation, though I don’t think it’s a fair trade. Personally, I would have liked to bring her along, but I don’t think Zeph is as suitable a teacher for the stragglers. 

“How many are you leaving behind?” Minerva asked me as I was consoling Sekh. 

“Six rookies,” I replied. 

“I’ll teach them then,” Minerva offered. “I might not be a professional like you guys, but I have enough knowledge when it comes to the basics.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her in response. “I’m not doubting your abilities, but what about the clerks at the Bureau?”

“I’m leaving it to Edwin and his group,” Minerva answered.  “They should be able to maintain order at this point. And I can always check up on them once in a while.”

“Great idea,” Sekh suddenly chimed in. “Thank you so much Minerva.”

While Minerva gave a satisfied look, I just stared at Sekh blankly. 

“Come on,” Sekh purred. “I think Minerva is better suited to teaching the stragglers than I am. Besides, you’ll get to bring another cute assistant along.”

“You accepted it rather fast,” Zeph told Sekh. “Pretty sure that’s why he’s giving you a funny look.”

I nodded my head in response to Zeph’s hypothesis. It’s not as though I’m even opposed to it. In fact, I’m actually thinking the plan through to make sure that it’s feasible. 

"Sorry," Sekh said almost shyly. "I know this is selfish, but I wanted to go along with you."

“It's fine,” I replied as I bent over to scratch her ears. “I thought through Minerva's proposal and I believe it will be fine. So I can bring my cute assistant along.”

"Thanks," Sekh responded with a smile. "I'll make sure to do my job to the best of my ability."

After eating breakfast, I went to the practice field along with Sekh and Zeph. We arrived fairly early with only Justin, Irene, and a few others having come earlier. Although we could go right to the Bureau to start sorting jobs, I want to have everyone along to teach them some valuable skills.

It took around thirty minutes for everyone to arrive. Without giving the latecomers time to rest, I marched the crowd towards the Labor Bureau while explaining my plans along the way.

“Alright, gather all the information you can about extermination type jobs,” I ordered the rookies when we got to the Bureau. “We’ll use a room on the third floor as a meeting area to discuss our findings.” 

While the rookies were out collecting information, I flipped open a large recordkeeping book. This book in particular was a sort of archive for all the requests relating to extermination. There were also other books for different categories of jobs, with multiple tomes dedicated to local construction and repair requests. However, documents like these were off limits to non staff members, due to the confidential nature of some of the information. 

Thus it took forty five minutes for the rookies to finally finish up their search and sort the various requests by geographical location and quarry. 

“How come we’re not doing a caravan escort?” one of the rookies asked me. “Wouldn’t that be the safest way to procure money for equipment.”

“It’s the other way around,” I told her. “Most escort requests end up getting monopolized by better equipped veterans. The ones that are left are either dangerous, poor paying, or both. You have to consider that merchants want to hire competent guards who are actually worth bringing along, not some nobody that they’ll hope is useful.”

Generally speaking, there are two ways for competent mercenaries to develop. The normal way is for someone with a martial background to join the trade. These people tend to be nobles outside the line of inheritance or veterans seeking a way of making money after a conflict has ended. The less common way is for rookies, like the ones I’m teaching, to slowly climb their way up from the ground. Although there are plenty of sellwords who fall under the latter example, there are also a lot of unlucky people who end up as monster feed. 

“Alright that should be everything,” I said as I finished marking up a makeshift map. “If you look here, you’ll notice that the requests are concentrated in the west and southeast of Damask. The jobs in the south don’t pay well for the risk, and the northern requests are too few to make it worth our time.”

“Then we should head southeast,” someone suggested. “The pay for those requests is way better than the west.”

“But they’re more dangerous,” Justin chimed in. “It’s better that we go west to procure experience and equipment, then head southeast later on.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said with a nod. “To the west are a number of ratmen jobs, along with some reed serpents and other monsters. On the other hand, the southeast looks worse in comparison. Especially the request that doesn’t even specify what our quarry is. Jobs like those are always a dangerous gamble, since you might end up hunting something out of your league. Worse, you don’t even get much of an opportunity to prepare a strategy to take down your target.”

Once we finished planning our travel route, we moved onto the next phase of our plan: buying provisions. Since we’re moving with a solid thirty three people, foraging isn’t quite so easy. Especially since I can’t trust that many of my rookies to hunt. Thus we ended up going to the marketplace before we could start our journey. 

“You should know this by now, but always buy rations that don’t go bad easily,” I said as we were walking to the marketplace. “Dried grain, salted meat, and dried fruit is pretty much the way to go.”

Everyone looked as though they already knew what I was saying. But this should be the bare minimum. Honestly, I’d be genuinely shocked if they managed to survive without knowing this information.

Finally around noon, we were finished with our preparation. So after eating a hearty lunch, our group of thirty three began our journey. Our plan was to move northwest and take care of the ratmen in the local forests, then move south to the wetlands and take on more difficult beasts. 

Although the journey should take little more than a day to arrive at the northwestern forests, we had a noticeable issue. Because most of our group consists of rookies, they don’t have a good means of transportations. The luckiest ones had rounceys to ride upon and pack mules to carry their goods. But most of the rookies just walked carried their equipment as they traveled. So I’d probably kill them if I kept our usual pace. 

“Excuse me, but can I use your horse?” a rookie asked me as we were traveling.

I turned and gave the young man a good hard stare before speaking. “No. I don’t want to burden her too much, since she’s already hauling my armor. Besides, this is a good time to develop your stamina.”

The youth groaned at my reply and a number of rookies gave disappointed looks.. Though I’m more than willing to let an injured or exhausted person use my horse, now isn’t the time. Since if I make an exception now, I don’t know where I would be able to draw the line.

During our travel, I along with Zeph and a few rookies took some time off to hunt. While the rest of our party rested, we managed to pick off a number of rabbits, ducks, and other small game. Thus we were able to supplement our dried meat porridge with some fresh meat. 

“How’s the food,” I asked Sekh and Zeph as we ate by the campfire. 

“Worse than usual,” Sekh remarked with a shrug. 

“It’s good,” Zeph said with a genuine look. “The duck is really rich.”

“Well it’s good enough considering our situation,” I sighed. “It’s also nice that some of the people here are good cooks.”

“Is that a jab at me?” Sekh probed with a mischievous look. 

“Yes,” I joked.

“I see,” Sekh laughed. “But I’m glad that you’re not lying to me.”

“It’s ok Sekh, I like your cooking,” Zeph consoled the leopard girl. 

“You like most people’s food,” I informed Zeph. 

“I’m someone who can enjoy the simpler things in life,” Zeph retorted while puffing out her chest. 

“Like how you have such a hard time sleeping without pillows?” I teased. 

“I regret telling you that story,” Zeph said with a pout. 

The rest of the night went as expected. I chose the more energetic rookies to help me keep watch, while allowing for the others to get some much needed rest. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my shift with Sekh, since I divided the watch hours into three sections supervised by each instructor. 

“It’s quite boring, right?” I asked Justin while we patrolled our camp a few hours before dawn.

“Definitely,” the youth said in response. “But I think it’s better that way. I’d really prefer not fighting monsters in the middle of the night.”

“True,” I commented. “Are you speaking from experience?”

“A bit,” Justin said with a shrug. “I had to fight off wolves once but that just involved me waving a torch at them.”

“Ah, I’ve been there before too,” I laughed. 

“You sound way too happy for someone who had such an experience,” Justin quipped. “You sure you’re right in the head?”

“I’m certain,” I said with an easy smile. “Though I’d probably say the same even if I wasn’t.”

The two of us had fun joking around for the rest of the early morning. When we finished eating our breakfast, our group went on the move once again. The whole day went by without anything notable. We moved, hunted, ate food, and didn’t find any ratmen. Now this is the reason I don’t like traveling in large groups without good equipment; we just end up wasting too much time moving slowly. 

It was only until late morning of the next day that we finally arrived at the forest where our quarry lived. Our suspicions were confirmed when an advanced party found old ratmen tracks and droppings near the outskirts of the trees. 

“We’ll have to split into smaller groups this time,” I told everyone as I examined our surroundings. “This is a pretty big forest so we won’t be able to clear it as three large groups. I think the best strategy is to divide the forest into three sections with three smaller groups taking care of one section.”

“So almost like before,” Sekh commented. “Well I think it’ll work. Though I doubt we can pull off any sophisticated tactics in a forest environment.”

Everyone else seemed to agree with her sentiments based on the numerous nods. 

“A few important things before we start,” I announced. “Try to keep close to the other three groups in your section, at least enough to communicate. And be careful as you go through the forest. Ratmen aren’t that dangerous, but they can overwhelm you with enough numbers. Also keep in mind that there are other creatures that live in a forest. If you even catch wind of a bear, I want you to run away and alert everyone else.”

Shortly after, we split into nine groups and began our foray into the forest. In particular, I was working with a group of three of the less competent rookies. The other groups consisted of more capable people such as Justin and Irene. I, on the other hand, am with these three to make sure that no disaster occurs. 

For around forty five minutes, we trekked through the arboreal without issue. We swept through the area in search of ratmen prints or other signs. Fortunately, we had come upon a pile of dried feces. From the looks of it, there was probably a tribe that numbered more than ten.

Our searching finally bore fruit an hour later. As we were wandering through the trees, I noticed the angry howls of a group of dogs. When we rushed to investigate, we were greeted by the sight of a pack of wild dogs attacking a ratmen tribe. 

The group of sixteen or so dogs was locked in a vicious battle with around thirty ratmen. Although the ratmen outnumbered the hounds, the fight was more or less even. 

“We should call in another group to help us,” I told the rookies. “If we just rush in, we’ll likely be overwhelmed.”

Thus I left my three students in order to pull in another unit. Soon after, our group of four doubled with the presence of reinforcements. By that time, the wild hounds had retreated after realizing that they couldn’t defeat the ratmen. 

I motioned for our single archer to support of us from behind, while I took my place along the melee line. Although I could provide covering fire, I believe that I would be better placed to assist the rookies if I fought on the frontlines.

The seven of us rushed at ratmen as they were recuperating. Most tried to flee, while a few attempted to hold us off. It was a futile effort since the defending ratmen were quickly slaughtered before they could mount a proper defense.

Afterwards, we continued to run down the fleeing ratmen, butchering all of those that we came upon. Unfortunately, the wild dogs were too far gone for us to chase them down. Once the battle ended, if you could call it a battle, we began to cut off their tails and dispose of the bodies.

“Should we keep the tails from the ones we didn’t kill?” one of the rookies asked me as we were making sure we didn’t start a forest fire. 

“It’s fine,” I sighed. “Even if the wild hounds killed those ratmen, I guess you could say that we guaranteed the kill. So just take the extra cash to invest in better equipment so that you can better fulfil requests. Besides, every mercenary does business like this. Doing otherwise would do little more than hampering your own income, and thus your capacity to assist the Bureau.”

Personally it would be best for mercenaries to be honest about their work, but that’s just not happening. Thus teaching these rookies to uphold some ridiculous morals is pointless in my opinion. The system won’t change, tax money will still get siphoned, and some unfortunate sellswords would just end up penalizing themselves without creating any noticeable change. 

By the end of the day, we met up with the other groups outside the forest. The total number of ratmen tails that we collected came up to a total of almost one hundred fifty, which should stymy the ratmen in the area for quite a while. Additionally, a few groups also took care of some wild hounds that roamed the forest, though we won’t get compensate for that.

But there was bad news as well. A handful of rookies had injuries above the level of a scratch and bruises. Most of these wounds were the result of carelessness. But carelessness isn’t something that a mercenary should take lightly.