The Knights’ Training Area, The Country of Eruchea:-

When Harry arrived at the so-called Knights’ dormitories, he was met with quite a different scene.

‘You call this place a knight training area!?

This place!?

This place looks more like somewhere the knights come together to drink and party!’

About 5000 knights were lying dead drunk with mugs and barrels of alcohol strewn around the large field that was supposed to be the daily practice area.

Harry was quite furious after seeing the way the knights were behaving.

These people who were supposed to be some of the most disciplined and strongest of the kingdom were passed out drunk in the morning.

And that too at the place where they’re supposed to train!

The thing was that their previous king never paid much attention to what the knights were doing.

That guy was more interested in lying around and making out with women than working to maintain his kingdom or his army.

And the knights, like any human being, had started slacking on seeing the lack of monitoring.

As a result, over the years, the training area for the knights had become anything but that.

They were rarely seen doing actual practice there and were instead using the place as a place to get together for drinking and other activities.

‘I always felt that the armies in the medieval era with their knights and stuff were weaker than the modern era.

But these guys are more pathetic than even the knights back on Earth!’

Harry had enough of looking at these pathetic excuses for knights. It was time that he whips them into shape.

“Men!!

Get up and line up!!”

Harry shouted in the most authoritative voice that he could along with mixing in a slight touch of killing intent in his words to get those drunkards to become sober.

The knights, though out of practice a little, were still somewhat knights only.

Sensing killing intent, all of them woke up in an instant and started grabbing their weapons.

But, since they were still somewhat hungover, the entire scene looked very chaotic. With knights stumbling over each other and also over things lying on the ground.

Finally, it took a full minute before all the knights looked somewhat in position.

Harry could only sigh when he saw the spectacle unfold in front of him.

“Men, as you may or may not have heard, your old king has left!

And in his place, I, Harry Scallon, have taken over the throne!”

Harry saw some of the knights looking surprised, some were nodding as though they already knew about the incident but most others were looking scared.

‘With the old king gone, they’re probably thinking that I’m going to crack down on their misconducts.

I feel like announcing their thoughts out loud and doing that “10 points for anyone who thought this” thing that I did all those years ago…’

Harry felt like laughing till he ran out of breath on seeing the faces of the people around him.

Even Qing and Shin, who were standing behind him, had to focus hard to not laugh.

“Men! Before I say anything further, I have one question.

What, according to you is your profession? What is your job in this kingdom? Answer me!”

A somewhat strong reply came, “Knights, your Majesty!”

‘Even these guys know at the back of their minds that they’re not much of knights...’

“Knights? Do you care to tell me what all have you done so far that you deserve to be called ‘Knights’?”

“Your majesty, most of us have graduated from the knights’ academy of this kingdom.

Some had the title conferred to them by your predecessor. We have even fought many battles to protect the kingdom and continue to t-t-train hard even till today!”

One guy spoke up.

‘But he did stutter at that training part…

Oh, this gonna be good!’

Harry laughed to himself.

“Knights academy? Sure.

Appointed by the previous king? Makes sense, though I didn’t think that he was the sort of guy to take interest in this stuff.

Naturally, you guys would have also fought battles.

Now, comes the main point of concern. You said that you ‘train’, right?

I really didn’t know that knights trained with booze. Naive little me used to think that knights trained with swords and armour and shields and all that stuff…

Would anyone care to enlighten me about this new method of ‘training’? Seeing you guys, I also want to ‘train’ as a knight!”

From the corner of his eyes, Harry could see the faces of Qing and her brother turn red as they barely struggled to hold back their laughter, probably thinking about how badly the knights screwed up.

The knights didn’t look any better, just that their condition was due to fear and not laughter.

“Anyone care to answer!?”

Harry repeated his word in a very serious tone and with a bit of killing intent mixed in.

The knights instantly knew that their fun times were over.

The entire group, all 5000 of them, instantly dropped to the ground.

‘Ah! The famous kowtow/dogeza from all those series I read!’

“YOUR MAJESTY, PLEASE LET US ATONE FOR OUR SINS! PLEASE LET US LIVE, WE BEG OF YOU!!”

All the knights started shouting on top of their lungs.

With so many knights, the noise got so much that Harry’s group had to cover their ears.

“Guys, guys, enough of that! You’ll make my ears bleed!!

All right, if a single syllable more comes out of your mouth, be it anyone’s, it’ll be off with everyone’s heads, you get that!?”

The horrible cacophony got instantly replaced with complete silence the very next moment.

“Good! Now back to the main topic.

You guys are pathetic excuses for pathetic excuses for knights. And that’s an undeniable fact at the current moment.

However, I cannot move forward with an army that’s more useless than a twig in a fight against the gods!

That would make me the dumbest person in history, who knew exactly how utterly incompetent his army was but did nothing to improve it.”

Harry felt that it was necessary to stuff some modern military-style discipline in these so-called knights.

“And that is why, from now on, there will be a completely new military system in place!

I’ve seen the so-called elite knights here and have decided to do away with the concept of knights completely!”

Everyone could do nothing but nod at the words of their new king if they wanted to continue living.

“But before we begin, I want 50 of the knight captains to step forward. And I want only the best ones to do so. If I find any slackers in their midst, all their heads will roll, you get it!?”

No one moved.

“Anyone who doesn’t follow orders will be executed on the spot!”

Suddenly, fifty men rushed forward.

“Hmmm, it seems that everyone who stepped forward is about similar in strength.

Good enough!

Now, I don’t care how you guys were divided before now. But starting today, these fifty men will be the only ‘Captains’ in the army, you get it? Captains, not knight captains. They will be in charge of 100 men each. They are to eat, sleep and do everything together! And if any of their teammates make a mistake, the entire ‘Company’ will have to face punishment, understood?”

“Yes, your majesty!”

Everyone replied together.

“You are to reply to me with ‘sir, yes sir’ or ‘sir, no sir’ only. Not ‘your majesty’ or anything else unless mentioned beforehand. Is that clear!?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Sir, yes sir!!”

“I said, LOUDER!”

“SIR, YES SIR!!”

“Good! From now on, I’m your ‘General’ when I’m here, is that clear? You are to refer to me as ‘General’ or ‘General Scallon’ or ‘General Harry’.”

“SIR, YES SIR!!”

“Okay, good. Now, you there! What’s your name?”, said Harry as he pointed to a somewhat thin and young boy who was probably only in his twenties.

“Sir, My name is George, sir!”

“Okay, George.

 I noticed this when I came here, how come you were the only person here who wasn’t lying dead drunk?”

“Sir, I was a newly inducted knight, sir! The other knights didn’t allow me to join them on these occasions and usually treated me as an assistant… Sir!”

It seemed that this guy was still somewhat new. And all that bullying from his peers hadn’t allowed him to grow much.

“Say, George, how would you like to be above all your old seniors?”, asked Harry.

“I bed your pardon, sir?”

“I’m saying, how would you like to become the ‘General’ of this army in my absence? The senior-most position in the army and you’ll report only to me. Everyone else has to follow your orders without questions and you only have to follow mine. What do you say?”, said Harry with a mischievous smile on his face.

“Sir, but I’m completely new at this! I don’t even have anyone to call my friend yet. How can I suddenly take charge of 5000 men!?”

George was feeling quite scared thinking about all the bullying, threats and various other problems that he’d face if he became this ‘General’ or whatever.

“Ah! That’s also there. You’re completely new to this. You do seem to be the most honest person here. But how can I suddenly expect the newbie to lead so many people when he barely has any experience with the work itself?”

Seeing Harry’s response, George breathed a sigh of relief.

“But then again, my orders are supposed to be followed without question. Therefore, I ‘order’ you to accept the position of the army’s General in my absence! Try to refuse and your head rolls!”, Harry declared right after seeing his reaction.

“B-b-bu-but… fine…”

George could only nod in response.

“What did you say?”

“I mean, SIR, YES SIR!!”, George quickly corrected himself.

“Good! Now, everyone, listen up! In my absence, this person here will hold as much authority as me in terms of military matters! Anyone who dares to disobey or harm him in any manner will be answering to me! Is that clear!?”

“SIR, YES SIR!!”

“Good. Now, further details regarding the military structure will be given to you later in the day.

For now, we will focus on doing exercises shown by me. These are to be performed daily and anyone who fails to do so will be punished! Understood?”

“SIR, YES SIR!!”

“Now watch me very closely!”, said Harry as he prepared to do frog jumps.

This was a very easy looking but very difficult exercise that was done in the military.

Harry had read in novels about how even elite knights in other worlds used to suffer from underestimating its difficulty level.

Harry, using his extreme strength, showcased making one round of the huge training grounds while doing the frog jumps.

His strength added fuel to the fire and made it look even easier than what the people standing there had thought.

Qing and Shin, on the other hand, went and sat inside one of the rooms behind them.

They were having so much trouble controlling their laughter after thinking about what was coming next that they decided to hide themselves to not demotivate the soldiers.

“You now know how to do it. All of you now have to repeat this for 20 rounds of the entire ground. I should not see anyone slowing down or stopping!

Now, get in line and get to it before I get to you!!”

All the soldiers quickly formed lines and started jumping.

After barely half a round of frog jumps, Harry could see the strain of many people’s faces.

“Hey, you there! I’m giving you a count to five! Get up and continue or get punished!”

Harry kept shouting this several times.

By the tenth round, even the fifty captains were showing extreme levels of stress.

Harry could tell by their expressions that their legs felt like lead.

But he didn’t ease up one bit.

These people had to fight against cheat-level cultivators in the future. How could he go easy on them now?

After the twentieth round was done, some people were lying on the ground while others were holding their legs and crying in pain. But somehow, everyone had managed to hold on to their consciousnesses.

However, Harry the demon (As he heard some people call him while doing frog jumps) wasn’t done yet.

“Men! Your performance was great when we look at how you were just an hour ago!

However, in my eyes, it was still too much below average to be considered anything even remotely good.

But since this is your first time, I’ll be a little lax on your evaluation.”

Many of the panting soldiers felt like murdering Harry when they heard his evaluation.

You demon! How could you put us under so much torture and still dare to insult us!?

“And as another reward of my generosity, I am giving you 30 seconds instead of 10 to line up behind the 50 captains!”

Everyone cursed as they heard Harry.

But, suppressing their desires to skin him alive, they dragged themselves and their companions to behind their “Captains” (who seemed to only be heavily panting from exhaustion) forming groups of 100.

“Now, since it’s nearly lunch, I’m giving you all one hour! One hour to run to the dining halls of your dormitories and eat lunch. If anyone is late by even a second in finished their food, it will be taken away and they will be punished with another twenty round of frog jumps. Is that clear!?”

As soon as Harry finished speaking, all the soldiers ran at top speed over to get lunch.

They didn’t even bother replying to him before leaving.

Their speeds made Harry wonder if they were faking their exhaustion from a few seconds ago.

“Well, if they have the audacity to run away at that speed without even replying to their General, then they can easily do 20-30 rounds of frog jump more after lunch!”, said Harry as he also proceeded with Qing and Shin towards the lunch table that had been set up for the three of them nearby.