Kunsan Mountain Range, The Wastelands:-

William was one of the soldiers who had shown up in the military exam.

This was something that no one had seen coming until yesterday. And when it came, it couldn't be ignored. 

Their king had informed them earlier but nothing had happened for a very long time and all of a sudden, it was declared in the evening that the exam would take place the next morning. 

Nothing could be done. 

It was their King's order. 

And if William thought of his attitude during training, it felt like a blessing that they were informed at all. 

While training the army, their king seemed to be a true demon king.

Their king had completely destroyed many of their old rules and beliefs that they held as knights.

Everyone was forced to practice all sorts of techniques and skills that focused on winning battles without keeping honour in mind.

Knights were always taught to face enemies head-on and always maintain a sense of dignity of both the enemy and their own.

But their new king got rid of all that and made them learn many underhanded tricks to win battles.

And they were made to do this every day as a part of their daily training.

It didn’t matter how tired or hurt the person was, they were forced to finish the daily routine without fail.

Failure to do so ended with severe punishments.

William himself never ended up getting punished but from what he heard, the punishments handed out were so crazy that his fellow soldiers used to get amnesia and could never remember the exact contents.

How scary!

Naturally, the delinquent company was the one with the highest rate of being punished.

William had thought that this exam would also be something similarly scary.

But from what he heard in the speech given by his king, the actual exam wasn’t that scary.

It was a simple task where they had to defend themselves and collect simple bands from others.

‘Well, even though he does behave very cruelly during our training, he always ensures to make us take care of our comrades as our brothers!’, William thought to himself.

The thing with their king was that not all the old knight rules he broke were necessarily bad.

He had taught the soldiers to move together as a team and to take care of all their teammates like family.

This was completely opposite to their old belief where every knight just looked after himself.

But this had improved their growth a lot.

William felt that his king’s words that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, were true.

William felt that his team could take on and win against any threat if they worked together.

And then, the test started.

William’s team got the brown band and were the brown team.

All teams quickly ran into the forest behind them and started moving to find their designated areas.

Once those were found, everyone gathered back together for one task, finding where the last company went.

No one wanted to deal with those guys and they decided to stay away from them.

Using the skills they learnt during training, the group was quickly located and everyone returned to their original areas to start the real preparations.

William’s team’s area was an elevated and slanted region.

So, they decided to dig out their own cave on the side of the mountain to hide in.

And within fifteen minutes of the exam’s start, the brown team had their base and their strategy completed.

William was put into the offence team, consisting of 32 other people.

Their company captain was included in the defence team since he was too valuable to be in the field.

They were just about to leave when someone on the scouting unit shouted, “Enemy inbo-”

The guy was already out before he could finish.

“EVERYONE, PREPARE TO DEFEND!!”, shouted their captain.

All units quickly got into defensive positions.

The enemy was here and there was no time for the separate units to do their assigned jobs.

Everyone would have to defend their base first.

“IT’S THE WHITE TEAM!”, shouted William.

‘Why did it have to be the white team!?

Those guys are like the top of the class!’

Similar thoughts were going through everyone’s minds.

These people were some of the best performers during their daily training and had been punished the least so far.

William’s company members were pretty good themselves, but they were nowhere close to these guys.

‘Why are the gods so cruel to us to get us kicked out so quickly!?’, William lamented to himself.

The white team’s members moved like lightning and instantly took out 5 members of the brown team.

And the guys taken out were some of the best members.

Things were looking bleak for William and his team.

But just then came their saviour.

Well, sort of…

“IT’S A GERSTLE!!!”

Everyone from both groups was instantly thrown into panic.

Gerstles were large lions that had great camouflage skills.

The only reason that they were spotted was that one of them tried attacking a member of the brown team.

Thankfully, the member of agile enough to barely slip out of its grip with minor injuries.

Everyone decided to leave the exam’s task and stop this beast first.

Gerstles weren’t that strong and could be dealt with comparatively easily.

The only problem was their size and camouflage abilities.

This usually cost knights the most lives.

But this time everyone was must stronger than before.

The top guys from both teams jumped in to defeat the monster.

They didn’t have weapons but they were confident in their physical strength.

Punches and kicks were thrown at the weak parts of the gerstle.

It took about 20 hits to break its front knee.

Things were looking good.

No one was majorly hurt and the gerstle would probably go down in some more minutes.

As the saying goes, one should never could their chickens before they hatch.

Or in this case, one shouldn’t count their gerstles.

And just like that, a second gerstle appeared from behind the group.

‘Sh*t! Gerstles from both sides!?’, William started panicking as he saw the 5-metre tall puma appearing out of nowhere.

There was nowhere left to run anymore.

All their elite members were focused on only one gerstle.

And with the appearance of the second gerstle, their rear was in danger.

It seemed that if none of the judges intervened, they would definitely suffer from at least a few casualties.

William started thinking of a way to run away.

He wasn’t the strongest person and was unsure of his survival if he faced the gerstle.

It was better to get kicked out of the military than give his life up.

But just as William turned to try to run, he bumped into someone.

And this someone was his team and company captain, Captain Harold.

Looking at the increased danger, the man had decided to step into the field himself.

Seeing their captain appear, everyone started cheering. (Everyone, as in the people who weren’t fighting. The ones who were engaged in combat were too busy to notice such a small detail.)

The reason for their joy was that he was a man who could take down gerstles almost completely on his own back when they were knights.

So, now, he could definitely take on the other gerstle all by himself.

“You! Where do you think you’re rushing off to?”, Captain Harold asked William.

“N-no-nowhere, sir!

I was just trying to see if there was anything I could use as a weapon!”, William replied trying to hide his initial plans.

But his captain just ignored his explanation and proceeded towards the gerstle.

The first gerstle had its third knee broken by now.

And with the reduced danger levels, other soldiers, including William, stepped in to help in defeating the gerstle.

Seeing this, the original group fighting the gerstle decided to step back.

It was now weak enough that it would be dealt with if a large group of people attacked at once.

The new group proceeded towards the gerstle with whatever things they could find lying around the area.

Most people picked up sharp stones and others picked up sharp pieces of wood (trees broken during the gerstles’ attacks) that were lying around the area.

They instantly started trying to do everything from punching, kicking to stabbing and throwing rocks to injure the gerstle even further.

The fight continued for a few minutes.

And after William finally pushed his large chunk of wood into the beast’s very damaged head, it finally took its last breath before collapsing.

This was William’s sort of proud achievement.

He had defeated a gerstle, albeit with a lot of help from others.

Looking back towards the other gerstle, William could see it getting mercilessly destroyed by their captain, before collapsing a few seconds later.

The crisis was finally averted without anyone dying!

Everyone was extremely overjoyed.

They were so happy that even a member of the white team came to hug William.

“Congratulations on defeating the gerstles, man!”, said Henry, the white team’s member, while hugging William.

“Thanks! I really couldn’t do this without your help dude!

Oh, and speaking of help…

Thanks for the point!”

William was just thanking Henry when he remembered about the exam.

It was still on and they had to collect bands.

That’s why he ever so shamelessly backstabbed Henry’s gesture of kindness.

Friendship and team spirit were good, but currently, points were better!

Everyone, including Henry, could only stare at William’s deed in utter shock.

“Guys, come on!

The exam’s still up and we have to take badges!

It’s not like I have broken any exam rules!”, said William as he tried to defend his actions.

William was heartless this time, but his captain wasn’t.

“YOU!!

I don’t care about exam rules!

You are horrible enough to do such a cruel deed of backstabbing a comrade!

I don’t care if we score more points or not, but YOU. ARE. GETTING. PUNISHED!”

Instantly, William’s band was taken from him and given to the white team.

The guy tried to be over-smart and deserved to be punished.

With this, the white team left along with the defeated soldiers.

And along the way, the two groups went their own ways.

William could only hold his head down in shame as he made his way to the outside of the forest.

He thought that he was being smart initially.

But when he was kicked out of the exam by his own teammates, his senses returned to him and he realised his mistake.

And so, William was forced to sit out the exam from very early on.

The exam ended after around one and a half hours.

Everyone gathered to count their points.

In the meantime, a lot of “dead” people had already assembled outside the forest.

The teal team (the delinquent company) lost badly since they were completely boycotted by others.

And when they tried approaching the other teams, they ended up losing their own bands.

And after William’s actions were brought to light, even his evaluation dropped to their level.

It appeared that William’s days in the army were over.

But as if the gods were giving him one last chance, they were informed of the swordfight and the written test that were still left.

This first exam wasn’t the only thing that would decide his fate.

If he managed to get decent scores in the other two tests, his expulsion might be stopped.

Still, even with this, it wasn’t like all of William’s troubles were gone.

His actions from earlier had ruined his image in others’ eyes.

William had not even spared the person who saved his life.

There was no way that anyone would treat him nicely.

He will have to suffer a lot of bullying and taunting.

***

And just like that, the next morning arrived.

It was time for the swordfight test.

William arrived at the designated location with the other soldiers to find only three of the four judges.

“Today is the second test of your 3-part examination!

Today, all of you will take part in swordfighting matches against each other.

However, since his majesty has several other important tasks today, he will not be one of the judges for this test!”, announced General George.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

With the demon king busy, they could relax a little during the fight.

Everyone had heard what happened with the delinquent company and got very scared of Harry’s deeds.

But he wasn’t present here today.

This meant that there won’t be any of that craziness.

“But this doesn’t mean that your evaluation will be any less strict!

His majesty has already given us the list of criteria to mark you and I can assure you that no leniency will be there!”

William could only despair at General George’s words.

The three present weren’t small fry either but they weren’t as strong as king Harry.

However, it turns out that their king had already set up the test such that his absence won’t make a difference.

Next, they were told the rules and given blunt wooden swords.

Everyone had to fight in one-on-one matches that would last 5 minutes each.

The winners would then proceed to the next round.

And the winners of each round would fight in the next rounds until only one person was left.

The soldiers just had to incapacitate their opponents to win the rounds and any major injury would lead to the disqualification of the instigator.

However, considering the large amount of soldiers and that there were only three judges, it would still take a few weeks for the testing to be over.

And in that time, the free soldiers were supposed to continue their daily training.

No relaxation was allowed unless there was some major injury.

Hearing this, everyone started mentally preparing themselves.

After the rules were explained, boxes were brought that contained chits with names of half of the soldiers.

Next, the other half of the soldiers were called to take out chits to decide their partners.

And once this was done, the test began.

However, as William’s luck would have it, not only was his turn the first (4 matches happened simultaneously), but even his partner turned out to be Henry, the soldier whose band he had pulled off.

William approached the arena reluctantly as General George signalled the start of the fight.

“Hey, buddy!

Sorry about last time, but could you go a little easy on me?”

“Of course!

I planned on making you suffer, but I’ll end it quick!”

And with these few words, Henry jumped towards William with his sword.

It took 5 seconds before William collapsed.

With that, he was once again forced to quit the test early on.