When Rohan was ostracized in the village, his mother had told him.
- Children like food. If you want to approach them first, share your food with them.
Rohan went hunting and shared food with the children.
He did not feel any need to grow close to them, but he wanted to listen to his mother.
Children especially liked meat.
Rohan, who was a skilled hunter, eventually managed to grow close to them.
To Rohan, Kaisen before him did not seem very different from the village children.
"Where did you get this? The rabbits nearby should've been hunted to extinction."
"Who knows? They were close by."
It was not particularly difficult for Rohan, who had hunted countless rabbits.
He knew every detail of their behavior.
The current Rohan could find a rabbit hole with his eyes closed.
Kaisen snorted.
"Hmph. You kill people without batting an eye. How do I know you haven't poisoned it?"
"Then don't eat it."
Rohan sat down and tore a long strip from one of the rabbit's legs.
The pale flesh of the well-cooked meat was exposed.
Steam billowed from the torn flesh, and the rich smell of flame-seared meat filled the tent.
The Squad Leader showed little interest in it, and Johanna merely glanced over before arranging her bedding.
Kaisen cleared his throat and turned his head too.
"Ahem. Those potatoes look delicious. Nothing beats mashed potatoes."
But his eyes remained on the rabbit meat.
Rohan casually stuffed the meat into his mouth and chewed.
He could see Kaisen's Adam's apple bobbing.
"Come out for morning training after you eat."
Creed put on his outer clothes and went outside.
He had spoken at length with Shupern last night, but did not show any particular reaction.
His gaze did not even touch the meat.
He had never been particularly interested in food to begin with.
Johanna, who ordinarily skipped breakfast, followed the Squad Leader without a word.
Only Kaisen remained stuck where he was, staring at Rohan.
Chew, chew.
Gulp.
The sounds of food being chewed and saliva being swallowed alternated.
In the end, Rohan ate both roasted rabbits where he sat.
Kaisen watched as if entranced.
When Rohan stripped the meat from the final bone, Kaisen suddenly came to his senses and stood.
'Fuck, what am I doing?'
He had been standing there watching a little kid stuff his face with meat.
He felt as though he was being manipulated, and his pride was wounded.
Rohan had asked him once if he wanted some. When Kaisen refused, the boy simply ate it all.
'What kind of kid does that?'
Was it not common courtesy to offer one more time?
Of course, Kaisen would not have eaten it even if he had.
Rumble.
Unlike his mind, his body was honest.
His oblivious stomach kept roaring at the smell of meat.
After smelling it, merely looking at the mashed potatoes made him feel as if he would vomit.
"Goddamn it!"
Kaisen shouted and left the tent.
It was time to attend morning training.
***
There was nothing particularly special about a wartime routine.
Ten laps around the training ground in the morning, then rest.
After that, practice the basic forms as a group, with the exercises changing by the day of the week.
Then came a short speech from the Knight Commander and lunch.
Lunch was mashed potatoes yet again.
Rohan, full from the two rabbits he ate that morning, did not touch it, and Kaisen and the other squad members scraped the bucket clean, including his share.
The afternoon was personal maintenance time.
Because they did not know when the enemy might attack, most people were conserving their strength.
The unit was peaceful, but an inexplicable tension hung over it.
This was a place where they could lose their lives at any moment.
The daily schedule focused more on rotating guard duty than training.
Most rested inside their tents or went hunting.
Creed's squad members, however, scattered to train on their own.
In the meantime, Rohan toured the camp.
It was not very different from Hans's memories.
He lingered around the notice board at the center of the camp.
A large wooden notice board stood alone in the middle of the camp and was mainly used for communication between soldiers.
- Crin, Second Squad, First Platoon, Sixth Company, report to Hansen of the Eighth Company immediately. If I get to you first, you're dead.
- Yoo XXX of the Eighth Company, repay the 2 silver. If you don't pay by today, I'm posting your real name.
- Ah, I want to go home.
Those were the sorts of messages usually written there.
Rohan's eyes, however, searched for something else.
The spies used this very notice board to schedule their meetings.
Their messages were ordinarily written in code, making them difficult for a normal person to understand, but Rohan already had the cipher in his head.
Now that he had appeared, they too would want to hold a discussion quickly.
He had set a deadline of one week because he was confident they would gather during that time.
'Nothing today.'
Today's notice board was clean.
One of the seven days had passed.
After making a circuit of the camp, Rohan headed for the training ground.
'I need to build my stamina.'
Rohan thought.
During the ten laps that morning, Rohan had finished almost last.
Even then, he had only come in slightly ahead of the soldiers who loafed and took it easy.
So during personal maintenance time, Rohan voluntarily ran another ten laps around the training ground.
He returned to the tent gasping for breath, where the Squad Leader called him.
"Rohan."
"Yes."
"Follow me. Bring your sword."
Creed led him to the training ground.
There was little to distinguish it as one. It was merely a wide dirt clearing lined here and there with exercise equipment and weapons.
Other soldiers could be seen training throughout it.
Creed stood to one side of the ground and spoke with a displeased expression.
"What do you want?"
At the abrupt question, Rohan looked as if he did not understand.
Creed rubbed a hand over his face and elaborated.
"The Knight Commander ordered me to grant almost anything you want. He told me not to question you even if I was curious, and not to press you if you refused to answer."
Rohan gave a faint laugh.
'He said that?'
It meant he was offering Rohan his full support in catching the spies.
Though Creed did not appear to know about them.
Of course, Rohan guessed he had also been told to kill him if he tried anything foolish, but Creed did not bother saying it aloud.
'A soldier through and through.'
Creed was the kind of man who would die immediately if his superior ordered it.
A soldier who neither asked nor questioned.
Perhaps that was the driving force that had made him a Squad Leader.
Rohan grinned and spoke.
"Give me command of the squad."
"What?"
Creed's face twisted.
The request was so absurd that he had to replay what he had just heard.
No matter how strongly Shupern had ordered him to listen to the brat, it was a demand he could never grant.
And to think the boy would make such a request of the Squad Leader himself. For a moment, Creed wondered if he had misheard.
"Do you think the military is a game?"
"Why? Isn't this the Knight Commander's order? You only need to lead the squad the way I want once."
"Are you kidding me, you bastard?"
Creed growled.
If not for Shupern's order, he looked ready to beat the boy senseless.
Barely suppressing his anger, he spoke through clenched teeth.
"That will never happen."
"Are you disobeying an order?"
"Haa..."
Creed sighed and picked up a wooden sword from one side of the training ground.
Then he spoke to Rohan.
"Draw your sword."
SHING—! Rohan drew it without hesitation.
It was the sword he had kept since killing his first Noxis soldier.
Creed raised the wooden sword in one hand and pointed it at Rohan.
"If you want something, you ought to know how to win it. Show me everything you can do. Give it your all."
"Then will you give me command?"
"If your blade so much as grazes me, I'll hear you out."
Rohan's eyes changed the moment Creed finished speaking.
Creed suddenly felt something alien.
The boy's eyes seemed less like a human's and more like a beast's.
The murderous intent in them was so thick it was almost absurd.
"You need a beating."
The rod was the answer for a beast that refused to listen.
Creed raised his sword.
"Come... at me."
Rohan charged before Creed finished speaking.
***
CLACK! CLACK!
The sound of wood and steel colliding rang through the air.
'Is this bastard really insane?'
Creed thought.
He had nearly been cut during their first exchange.
Rohan had charged and thrust his sword before Creed even finished speaking.
He charged with a real blade without the slightest hesitation.
Creed could even sense the murderous intent to truly kill his opponent if the chance arose.
CLACK—!
Rohan's sword and Creed's wooden blade met in midair.
Creed had dismissed him as a novice, but the boy's skill was better than expected.
'Useful.'
His strikes might even have been better than those of half the soldiers here.
But that was all.
The path of Rohan's sword soon took shape in Creed's mind.
It was probably due to their difference in experience and absolute strength.
Rohan was scrawny and lacked muscle.
That led to wide, slow movements.
Creed, meanwhile, had survived countless battles.
His survival had not merely been a matter of talent.
It was thanks to grueling effort and study.
To survive, he had to discern his enemies' intentions first and respond.
'Straight ahead.'
The moment Rohan's shoulder twitched, Creed turned his body sideways.
The sword thrust straight forward.
'Right diagonal.'
Rohan's leg twisted, and the muscles of his side stood out.
Creed thrust his sword into the center of the predicted path.
Clack. The sword heading diagonally right stopped in midair.
'He's just a novice.'
Rohan's movements never exceeded Creed's expectations.
THUD! Creed's wooden sword struck Rohan in the solar plexus.
Since his opponent was serious, Creed decided to be serious too.
No enemy on a battlefield would go easy on him.
"Hurk, cough!"
Rohan doubled over and coughed.
Creed looked at him and spoke.
"I won't go easy on you. No enemy on a battlefield will care about your circumstances."
He coughed only briefly.
Rohan spat thick saliva onto the ground, glared, and charged again.
'He's got spirit.'
Creed thought as he deflected Rohan's blade.
Rohan truly seemed to be using every style of swordsmanship at his disposal.
Creed did not know when he had learned them, but decided not to wonder.
That was Shupern's order.
'Oh, did he reinterpret this one?'
When every style was blocked, Rohan began varying his swordsmanship.
A strike that should have driven in from the right came diagonally instead.
His understanding of swordsmanship seemed exceptional, but Creed still found him slow.
Clack, clack! Clack! Thud.
Head, shoulder, side.
Rohan was struck again and again.
Creed finished by kicking him in the stomach and sending him rolling across the ground.
'He won't recover from that right away, will he?'
Creed had not struck lightly.
He intended to crush the boy's rotten attitude while he had the chance.
Rohan, however, sprang to his feet.
He raised his sword again and charged.
For a moment, a chill ran through Creed.
'What kind of kid is this......?'
Clack, clack, clack! Sword and wooden blade met ever faster.
As he fought Rohan, Creed felt that something was increasingly strange.
Rohan's swordsmanship did not seem consistent.
He would use Carnia swordsmanship, then Noxis swordsmanship, then movements like a wild animal's.
It was almost like...
'Fighting several people at once.'
It was disorienting.
The boy was now using a completely different kind of swordplay.
At one moment, it felt like facing a seasoned soldier.
At another, there was the reckless blow of a young soldier.
At yet another, the defensive swordsmanship of a coward.
Most people's swordsmanship settled into their own style, but Rohan's had no style to speak of.
No, how should he describe it?
Every individual strike had its own character, but they did not seem to blend into one whole.
'I have to end this quickly.'
Creed sensed that he was being pushed back.
There was certainly a difference between Rohan, who attacked as if to kill, and Creed, who sought to teach him.
Even accounting for that, however, Rohan was becoming increasingly difficult to handle.
He kept charging like a wild beast that had lost all reason.
At last, Creed stabbed the wooden sword into Rohan's throat and kicked high the instant Rohan's right leg lifted.
THUD—! SPLAT!
Rohan flew into the air with a choking sound and crashed to the ground.
"Haaah, hurk, cough!"
The pain must have been considerable. He clutched his throat and rolled for some time.
It was excessive treatment for a child, but Creed did not feel particularly sorry.
His opponent had charged at him while radiating genuine murderous intent.
Moreover, the boy had demanded command of the squad, an attitude that clearly disrespected his commander and had already annoyed Creed.
Creed approached Rohan as he rolled on the ground.
The sight of the boy writhing in pain and even drooling looked almost pitiful.
The moment Creed extended his right hand to help him up.
FWOOSH—! His vision whitened and his eyes burned.
"Argh!"
Startled, Creed covered his face.
Fragments of dirt had entered his eyes, making them difficult to open.
He hurriedly rubbed them and looked ahead through reddened eyes.
Rohan stood before him.
"You bastard......."
"I won."
"What?"
Rohan cut off Creed's words.
Creed felt something hot run from his Adam's apple toward his chest.
Only then did his neck begin to sting.
When he touched it, blood stained his palm as though the sword had cut him shallowly.
'That lunatic went for my throat...!'
Even in a spar, aiming a real blade at an opponent's neck was something not even seasoned soldiers did.
The slightest mistake could truly sever a neck.
Yet the child before him had not only grazed Creed's neck with a sword, but wore an unconcerned expression.
A chill ran down Creed's spine, but he did not let it show and clenched his teeth.
"Where in the world did you learn such cowardice?"
"From you, Squad Leader."
"What?"
Creed was dumbfounded.
No one had lived more honorably than Creed.
What part of him could possibly have taught the boy cowardice?
"You said no enemy on a battlefield would go easy on me."
"......."
"I didn't go easy on you either. This is a battlefield."
Creed could think of nothing to say.