_ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

Four days passed in the blink of an eye. It was now the fifth day, the day when the fresh recruits would arrive. Kent had managed to gather 80 new men for expanding the guards. Almost all of them were from farming households, while some also came from relatively better families. Add had allowed the cadets a rest from training as he had to manage the new recruits, but they had to be present at the field to maintain order. The recruits began arriving from early morning, and the last of them, finally arrived by midday. With the cadets and few servants maintaining order,  the new recruits were made to stand in lines of ten and the cadets then moved to make the last two lines. Kent and a few soldiers were standing behind Add watching over in curiosity. After everyone had settled down, Add began speaking,

 

“I welcome you all to the Weismann estate. I believe all of you know me, but still, let me formally introduce myself. I am Marquis Adolf Kaiser Weismann, the lord of this territory, and starting from today, I will be your employer, and your instructor as well.”

 

“From this day forth, you all will undergo training to become proper soldiers, and once the training begins, none of you will be allowed to leave without completing it, that is unless I personally kick you out. And in all honesty, the training will be very harsh. So if anyone wants to quit, now’s your last chance. After this I will accept no withdrawals. ”

 

During the silence that followed, Add waited for any of the new recruits to protest, but no one did. After all, even if he was famous as a good for nothing young master by all people in his territory, most people did not have the guts to provoke him face to face, and now that they had come here, backing out would surely anger the lord, or so the young recruits thought. As a result, no one rejected, and he continued his words.

 

He then told them how they should address him and each other, and briefly mentioned the few rules they must follow. He didn’t explain much as he had already told the cadets to do much of the explaining to the new recruits, later including familiarising the new recruits with all the areas of the estate and the various jobs they had to do.  After that, he ordered the cadets to lead the recruits to their barracks. The guard barracks was not very big, and it could only hold around 50 people, and that was with four people bunking in one room. There was a guesthouse built for any guests, who might arrive, but it was never used. Add had it cleaned up and let the remaining recruits stay there. Although it would be a bit cramped but it would not be any worse than ordinary barracks.

 

The past two days he had taught the cadets to read time on the clock. Although they could not read what was written on the clock, they could remember the symbols at least. Add told them that the clock would ring every day in the morning and evening, when the short hand pointed at the symbol ‘5’, and the big hand pointed at the symbol 12. In the morning when the clock rang, all of the cadets had to wake up and they had to be at the field before the short hand went to 6. Again in the evening, the clock showed 6 they would be dismissed from training.  With some difficulty he was able to engrave this basic time table into most of the cadets, especially the younger ones, and the others should also learn it soon . The cadets for their part were very amused with this little thing called ‘clock’.

 

After the new recruits had been sent to settle, Add once again left for the forests. Since he gave the cadets the day off, he decided to farm CP, he had not been able to earn much recently with his savings totalling around 15,000 only. This time he didn’t bring anyone with him, he didn’t need to, since even Kent approved of his abilities now. After reaching the forest, he tied his horse to a tree and confirming there were no humans around,  took out his AK-47 and MAV-20 pistol. Sitting in the shade of a tree He dismantled both guns one after the other and cleaned them with a cloth. Every part was separated and cleaned thoroughly removing any soot, dust and grime stuck in them.

 

"A soldier's weapon was his lifeline, as such, you must always keep it clean and in operational conditions, even a single grain of sand can cause your weapon to fail in the most critical moments!"

 

His instructors had always thundered in their lessons. It had become one of those everyday habits which had long since been engraved in his mind. The guns had been used for a short time only so he didn't need to do much work. The maintenance finished shortly afterwards. Add then purchased a set of military uniform with forest camouflage. It had a pair of trousers, a shirt, a cap, a pair of socks , a pair of standard army boots, a tactical belt and even a pair of undergarments. The set cost a total of 1,000 CP but it was well spent. He kept some additional magazines for both the AK-47 and the MAV-20, in his tactical belt.  The rifle was hung in front of his body with a two point (quick adjust) sling, while the pistol went into his thigh holster which he had purchased from the system shop. Now he looked like a complete soldier, well a soldier in his mid teens.

 

He moved even deeper into the forest but, for a long time, spotted no monsters, aside from some small critters. Feeling strange, he decided to change directions, and moved towards an area where he had not ventured previously. He kept his vigilance, as he checked his surroundings and after walking for over two hours across the dense woods he finally found fresh looking tracks of goblins, and began following them. The dense jungle was making it harder for him to proceed, he had to continuously chop away the vegetation with his sword.  Still, he had not seen a single goblin yet even after walking around for so long. But after a few more minutes, he reached a place which appeared somewhat strange.

 

(This looks like another camp?)

 

The place looked like the goblin camp he had seen before, albeit larger. There were tracks of them everywhere on the ground, in some places, bones of animals were also lying about. He could also smell the revolting odour of those creatures in the air.

 

“But where did they go?”

 

There was not a single one of the goblins in sight, and it seemed that they had already moved on. He looked around for a bit more, before deciding to move on following other tracks which left the camp. Add felt something was wrong. He had not even seen the shadow of a single goblin since he entered the forest and now even this goblin camp looked like it was abandoned recently. He followed the tracks which went away from the camp, and still did not spot any goblins. But then, after searching for a while more, he felt something was really off. His ears caught sounds of movement and he immediately looked back, his gaze intensely scanning the thick undergrowth. As if on que, within moments dozens of goblins flooded out of the surroundings. Looking closely there were some new types of goblins mixed in them.

 

These were not the normal goblins. These had slightly stronger bodies and held rusty weapons swords, daggers and spears, probably plundered from humans. Add scrunched his brows. This time they were a lot more than any group he had tackled before. He then tuned his eyes to his front. His face was cold as he looked before him. Another large group of goblins had blocked his path from the front. He looked around, and more goblins were appearing from the surrounding thickets. He also saw a few goblins holding bows and arrows sitting on trees some distance away from him

 

"Looks like I stirred the hornet's nest this time...."

 

The goblins had surely planned an ambush here. It seems they were planning on dealing with the thing that had been hunting their kind for the past few days. He understood that in this situation, he had no way of getting out without a fight. Any other person being surrounded by so many goblins might feel fear, but Add was calm. He readied his rifle and quickly scanned the area to form a plan of action.

 

"This day is getting better by the minute....well if you want to die that badly…I will surely help you…"

 

He quickly purchased some 100 round magazines for his AK-47  and loaded one, focusing his attention all around him. The sun was gradually setting, drowning the forest  in a murky red hue. The goblins' yellow eyes were bloodshot as they gazed at the Add as if wanting to tear his body apart and devour his bones. They had surrounded him from all sides, making sure he was unable to escape and were slowly approaching.*Gigigigi* *Gigigigi* *Gigigigi* they continuously growled and roared and then rushed to attack him.

 

They charged at him from all sides. Add put the rifle in a better position. He placed the trigger arm down and kept it pulled in tight to the body, to create a smaller target for the enemy and give greater manoeuvrability. His left hand grasped the fore-end from the side, to give more certain control over side-to-side movement of the muzzle during rapid fire and support. He slightly hunched forward putting more weight over the gun for better recoil control, and to reduce stumbling. While his head was straight, his cheeks pressing against the stock. This was the best tactical standing position to shoot while on the move. The selector was on full auto as he didn’t have to worry for bullets being wasted as there was a dense horde of targets. Add looked coldly at them, he waited till they were hundred metres away from him and then fired.

 

"Die"

 

*RATATATATA*

 

All the bravado displayed by the huge goblins shattered instantly vanished as they were filled with holes with holes, although the AK-47 had poor accuracy, at less than 100 metres it was adequately accurate. Although using continuous fire made the rifle unstable and the recoil was higher, his increased physical abilities compensated for this, and he was able to keep his aim fairly stable. The imposing goblin horde was being slaughtered at a swift speed.

 

*RATATATATA*

 

As the melody of the Kalashnikov echoed in the forest, the gun slaughtered the goblins like pigs on a chopping board. Even before one could reach Add they all died. There were some goblin archers around but due to him moving around quickly, they were unable to aim accurately, an arrow flew by Add exposing the location of an archer. After 3 shots a body dropped from the trees. He kept moving forward killing anything that came towards him, leaving behind only corpses. Another goblin lunged at him from the back but, he dodged and put two bullets into its head. Again, arrows began raining on him, some hit the ground mere inches from him, thankfully the goblins were poor at aiming and with Add being continuously on the move it made hitting him even harder.

 

Finding an opening, he quickly took cover behind a tree and looked around, soon he found the goblins on trees that were shooting the arrows. He killed a few of them before the rest jumped down and retreated. But more goblins with swords and spears were rushing towards him. They were shrieking loudly and their vicious teeth were on full display as if wanting to tear him to pieces, the deaths of so many of their kin must have enraged them. From all directions, the goblins swarmed towards Add, as if they were hell-bent of drinking his blood. He frowned at this, and crouched down on one knee to take a stable position.

 

"No matter how many of you come, you still will die" He lightly said as he detached his now empty magazine and put a new one.

 

The rattle of the rifle echoed in the forest as goblin after goblin died. Their murky blackish blood drenched the land. But their companions didn't care about that, they stepped over the dead goblins and kept charging at Add. There was a saying which said that even a tiger could be bitten to death by a swarm of ants. The goblins seemed to follow this very faithfully. They just kept coming, one after the other. As the battle waged on, more and more goblins kept dying. Their initial numbers had dwindled, and they were still unable to reach Add. Realizing that they could not win and watching so many of their kind die, many goblins were getting more and more terrified. Every animal no matter how stupid it is, knows by instinct to fear death, and soon many of the goblins were so scared that they ran away. He finished off the few remaining ones who still wanted to attack, and soon all that was left of the large horde were mutilated bodies which were strewn all around, giving off the pungent smell of blood and gore, along with the stink of goblins; it would make one want to vomit. Add however, was used to such scenes and didn’t mind it.

 

[Ding! You have killed Goblin x 173]

 

[Ding you have received 17,300 CP]

 

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The battle had given him a sizeable amount of CP but instead of being happy, the Young Master was frowning. He was concerned about the battle which he had just fought, although he had easily obliterated the enemy, but this was due to him having guns and the enemy being a mostly ‘stupid’ race. They had no proper tactics and relied solely on numbers and instinct to win. Add was trained to fight humans, but here he realised that all that training fell short in front of those ‘monsters’. Their movements, habits and behaviour were unpredictable to him, and this troubled him a lot. A human would have run away seeing his fellow men being slaughtered, but the goblins didn’t. They had kept coming at him disregarding their lives. If what he was facing was a strong monster instead of the goblins, Add would have been dead long ago. He clearly understood his weakness. But he never liked the idea of keeping his life up to fate. He had to become strong, so strong that he could ascertain his own safety and freedom, without having to care for others. 

 

And since to gain strength he needed even more CP, he had to keep hunting monsters dedicatedly. However, the number of goblins in the area, and their weapons worried him. normally there should not be such large groups of hundreds of goblins in this region. It was apparent that something shady was going on. As he moved on, he recalled all the information he had gathered about monsters. Facing hordes of normal goblins like the ones he had met till now, would not be much of a problem for the current him, but what worried him was the existence of Hob Goblins and Goblin Champions.

 

These were special breeds of the Goblin race. The hob goblins were D ranked monsters, standing as tall as a human and were much stronger than a normal humans. The Goblin champions were in a whole new league of their own. They grow much larger than regular goblins, often being taller than humans and have a lot of strength. They have low intelligence, but are capable fighters that can give even veteran warriors trouble. They are considered to be C rank monsters and are very tough monsters to deal with, as sometimes, even very experienced Warriors have been killed by them. Encountering a group of them alone would a dangerous situation.

 

He needed to form a proper strategy, if he was to run into them and his intuition told him that he would. While he was thinking of new plans, he remembered that he had not yet purchased a sniper rifle. Granted the AK-47 was good enough, but it was a mid to close range weapon, and did not fare well over long distances. As such, he chose to purchase a sniper rifle, something which he wanted to buy for some time now. Sniper rifles were more powerful even in the same calibre, and he could shoot from a safe distance. He opened the system shop looking to buy one, he had 32,000 CP, but still chose to be economical.

 

"Let’s see...system list out all the Sniper rifles under 10,000 CP...."

 

He began looking through sniper rifles. Getting new skills had also come to his mind, but he prioritised having a long range weapon first. The system displayed s lot of rifles, including the well known, Soviet Dragunov, the American  M24, Steyr SSG 69, etc. After debating for sometime Add made his choice.

 

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Item : Accuracy International AX338 Long range, bolt-action rifle. (Grade – Rare)

 

Description : The Accuracy International AX338 Long Range Sniper Rifle is an advanced version of the battle proven, Accuracy International AWM (AI - Arctic Warfare Magnum) also known as the Arctic Warfare Super Magnum. It is a bolt-action sniper rifle manufactured by Accuracy International. It houses the magnum rifle .338 Lapua Magnum (8.58×70mm) high-powered, long-range cartridge. Can fire normal as well as LAP (Light Armour Penetrating) rounds.

 

As a manually-actuated bolt-action weapon, the AX338 is a true sniper rifle in every sense of the word. Its .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge is capable of anti-personnel function, and limited anti-material function. Based on the AW (Arctic Warfare) line of rifles, it follows the tried and proven design qualities of its predecessors. One of the finest designs, of its time, the AWM has dominated many battlefields and is a favourite of snipers.

 

Effective Firing Range : 1500 – 1800 metres

 

Price : 10,000 CP

 

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[Purchase with 10,000 CP ? Yes/No]

 

"Yes"

 

The 1.2 metre long, 8 Kg rifle cost him a whooping 10,000 CP, it was 5 times more expensive than the AK-47. However in comparison, the AX338 was a devastating weapon in its class. Its bullets could even penetrate most bulletproof jackets of its time. In the hands of a skilled marksman, a human targeted by it was as good as dead. He also got the Scope and suppressor along with the weapon and didn't have to buy it separately.

 

This rifle was one of the best sniper weapons of the 21st century. It had many advanced features like the Schmidt & Bender 5-25×56 mm PM II LP/MILITARY MKII 5-25×56 0.1 mil parallax, illumination, double turn telescopic sights; and could adjusted to night vision as well. It also had high performance suppressors to reduce the flash and noise signature. It used a compact and reliable double stack 10-round magazine. Its power was commendable with softer recoil than its peers and it could be used almost anywhere on earth, from temperatures of -50°C to + 70°C. This rifle was a masterpiece of the British weapons designers, who were known to design their weapons while having tea and cookies.

 

Looking at the black sleek weapon in his hands, a slight sense of excitement welled up in his heart. He stroked the rifle a few times, appreciating the weapon.

 

Before leaving the forest, he changed to the regular clothes to avoid any unnecessary attention. He planned on returning tomorrow to explore further, but he had to get some detailed maps and information about the terrain of this region and make plans. Blindly going in will only repeat what happened today, and the next time he might not get so lucky. While thinking of all the stressful matters he had to deal with, returned to the estate and took rest, for tomorrow, he had a lot of work to do.

 

“I feel that my life as a soldier was better after all…”

 

He mumbled as he gazed at the starry sky. Being a lord was a new experience for him, which he was not particularly enjoying. He swore in his mind that after he had developed his territory enough, he would find someone to dump the administration of the territory on so that he could focus on improving the Military, something which he felt much easier and simpler to do.

 

_ _ _ _ _

 

The Weismann estate has been quite noisy for the past few days. For the servants and guards, life starts early every morning. Even before the sun rises from the distant horizon, they are up and about, doing their various duties. But recently, a strange object introduced by the young master had added a little to their troubles. The accursed thing referred to as  ‘Clock’ by the young master, seems to ring at a fixed time every morning and evening.  To the servants, its ringing sounds oddly irritating to be honest, but they dare not say that loud, for the head maid Martha seems pretty pleased with it. She always wakes up first and has the other servants follow suit. No extra sleeping for anybody. Including Martha, there are a total of 12 servants, 4 maids and 7 male workers. There is also 2 cooks, and an old gardener along with is young grandson who tend to the small garden before the mansion and occasionally trim the overgrowing trees and shrubs.

 

Since a few days ago, something new has been going on at the estate. A little while after the servants  start their daily chores, a large group of men gather in the field behind the mansion. They are the guards who have recently been increased in number from 20 to 100. Even a fool could understand that there was no meaning having 100 people protecting a mansion in this remote area, which was largely considered unimportant, given the fact that the town’s troops were stationed nearby. The young master who had recently, suddenly given up his ways of squandering money and wasting his life, seems to have some other plans for them. It has been noted by almost all the people at the estate, that the Young master is always the first to arrive at the field, and can be seen to be doing strange exercises, which he makes the guards do as well. However, no one was sure if this change in the young master was for the better or worse.

 

“You sorry excuses for humans! Run Run damn it! What have you been doing all life, you fools cannot even run decently!”

 

The voice of the young master thundered across the field as he followed the sluggish group of cadets while they did their morning rounds across the field. Occasionally a strange and loud whistling sound was also heard. This was simply called a ‘whistle’ by the young master, who had brought it out suddenly one day. It was a small object which made a loud sound whenever a person blew air into it.  It had now been 4 days since the new recruits had joined in, and most of them were already regretting joining up. The pay was good, the living bunks were okay and the food was also decent enough. But what scared them the most and caused all their discomfort was the very person who they were supposed to work for. The Young Master Adolf Kaiser Weismann seemed to be really befitting of his reputation : “Nothing good comes from mingling with him”, which was well spread across the town. But now these young men knew how much more worse it was in reality.

 

“You know what! I feel it’s fortunate that my grandmother isn’t here to look at you! Even she could run faster than you sloths!”

 

The frequent insults followed by the loud and painful noise of the ‘whistle’, cause a lot of irritation, but the cadets suppressed their urge to curse back and kept dragging their weary bodies. The first day many of them were late. They were cursed at by the young master and made to do tens of squats each. As expected, many complained at these insults and harsh physical exercises. The answer to their complaints? Why of course  they were all based by Add while the former guards who knew of his brutal methods looked at the new recruits in pity. Then they were made to run and those who didn’t were not given food for the entire night. The next day most of the recruits tried to leave.

 

They were again beaten and the more energetic ones were tied upside down and hung on the trees for hours. What horrified them most was that the young master was strong beyond measure. Even when they tried attacking him in groups, they were still badly thrashed and thrown around. They realized quickly, just what pit they had thrown themselves into; not allowed to quit this ‘training’ and not allowed to run away, if they did, they would be beaten. Helpless they could only continue, hoping to not get beaten. On the third day, they arrived at the training fields in fear, their faces grave in hopelessness. They were still cursed at and made to toil till they were about to pass out, but fortunately, this time no one was beaten.

 

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