Chapter 276 Shown Around
Van got lost for a bit. The multiple rows of walls and all their intersections, crossways, stairs, and facilities built in and between them was dizzying to say the least. It didn’t help that student and military buildings were sometimes mixed together, making it hard for him to determine which was which.
“I just realized… I have no clue where they put my girls…” Van thought, looking around and wishing he had some sort of map.
After asking around for directions, he ran in the direction where canteen 119 was and overshot it by a good margin. Forcing him to spend another ten minutes to get back and finally join his platoon. When he arrived Eliza was already nearing the end of her speech. He took the furthest seat in the back, but that didn’t stop the girls in the room from looking back and giving him a side-eyed look at his presence.
“And speaking of the devil…” Eliza said. “Ladies, I would like to introduce you to our newest recruit. Van, please come up and introduce yourself.”
No sooner had he sat down than he was forced to get up, or at least that was how it felt to him. Moving to stand beside Eliza he quickly went to do as ordered and introduced himself to his new comrades in arms.
“Umm, hello everyone. I’m sure this is just as weird for you as it is for me, but let’s try to get along anyway. I’ll also do my best not to get in anyone's way while I'm here…” Van took this opportunity to get a quick but nervous look at his audience.
The girls were just like any other vampires, beautiful to a fault. But unlike the whimsical and laid-back juniors that he was so used to, these seniors were far more stoic and poker-faced. Showing signs that they had been in a few life and death fights with their battle-worn expressions and passive eyes.
No one asked any questions, no one even gave him a leer, though there were a few carefully scanning his body and perhaps not just to assess his threat level… He was beginning to feel a bit out of place, it felt odd that the girls weren’t just already trying to size him up on a silver plate, wondering with their eyes what they were going to do to him in bed. It was both refreshing and off putting…
Eliza surmised that this was probably going to be it and then stepped in. “Now before he sits back down, does anyone have any questions?”
The room was silent. From what can be seen from the faces of everyone at attendance, they did have questions… But none probably wanted to ask them while Van was here…
Eliza scanned the room until she finally found a single hand raised. “Yes Jynx?”
“Is he for stress relief?” The woman called Jynx asked, a somewhat puzzled expression on her face.
A few groans were heard from the girls.
Eliza sighed. “No Jynx, not unless he wants to. Those were the rules. We just went over them, remember?”
“Oh… Right… Sorry…” Jynx replied, looking sheepish.
Van wondered if Jynx was the actual girl's name or a call sign or nickname of some sort, like he remembered from a few military organizations from a few past lives of his. If so he could already figure out just by this exchange the reason why she was probably called Jynx if that was the case…
Eliza turned to address Van. “I should probably introduce you to some of the sub leaders in charge of this platoon. It’s similar to the organization you would find in your old dorm. With each room having a room leader and then an overruling dorm leader on top of that, followed by a clan leader. Except we have our own ranking system here in the military.”
“It goes, Recruit/Militia, Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Officer, Captain, Commander, General, High General. At the moment you are starting off as a recruit, and depending if you are going to join the officer core or not you can rise up to maybe be a general one day if you join the military, otherwise the highest you can be is sergeant. You will also have to prove yourself if you want to rise through the ranks if you ever want to reach such a level.”
“At the moment I myself am Sergeant rank. That is the highest rank allowed to a student though it's lower than others that hold the same rank if they are an actual trained soldier. For example, a student sergeant will have to obey the orders of a paid and commissioned Sergeant no matter what.”
“Now let me introduce you to those who you will be taking orders from other than myself.” She began pointing out one by one.
“We have Hardass.” Referring to a woman who had a glare that could kill.
“Jynx…” Jynx gave a shy and embarrassed wave.
“Scar.” A woman with a small scar under her left eye gave a stoic nod.
“And Scream.” The woman in question looked very nervous and like she wished she wasn’t the center of attention.
“These four are who you will have to listen to when I'm not around. For the moment I want you to shadow each one of them as they all have something that helps make this platoon function and run. You’ll start with Hardass this morning and work your way through the other girls as the day goes by.”
“Now that that’s out of the way.” She clapped her hands together. “Everyone, get your chow.”
Almost instantly a flood came Van’s way and washed past him to the kitchen counter behind him. A few jumped over and began to work to cook things up, though there were two that seemed to have been there from the start and had already cooked up a small meal for everyone. Which was quickly snatched and devoured.
“Just a word of warning. Usually during the first month the school provides food for you, but after that you have to cook it yourself. Everyone here plays a part. Whether it’s to train to provide better support when on the wall. Cleaning and stocking the kitchen, cooking the food, organizing the weapons and gathering supplies, or creating usable talismans for battle. If you're not doing something that will help your comrades, even in a small way, you're nothing but a burden. We can’t have burdens out on the battlefield. So use this time to figure out what you can do to help out while you have it.”
Eliza left it as that and went to get her own chow on.
Jynx giggled from behind Van, making him spin around.
“Sometimes I wonder if She should have gotten the nickname of Hardass.” She commented. Then left to get her own plate.
Van was left wondering what he was supposed to do. Feeling very out of place in a sea of strangers who just out right ignored him…
In the end he decided to just find a place for him to eat, out of the way of everyone else and perhaps summon up some food from his soul realm. Taking a bite out of a fruit he brought out of himself, he couldn’t help but smell the tantalizing waft of eggs and bacon with some potatoes on the side. This world's equivalent of coffee was also being handed out to anyone that wanted it.
After everyone had had their meal, Hardass came over to him and told him to follow her.
“Follow me, we're going to the training grounds, after that I'm going to show you the barracks where they put your girls up, and where the armory is.” Her voice was nonsense and hard like iron. “After that Scar will take you, then Jynx and Scream.”
She turned around and started to walk out without even bothering to check if Van was following after her.
Quickly getting up he chased Hardass as she gave only the barest of explanations of where everything was and where to go from there. It was quite clear that she didn’t really want to be doing this and was doing only the bare minimum. Speed running his tutorial as fast she could get away with.
“This is the training ground where you will be doing most of your drills.” She said at their first destination. “This is the armory, it has an attached forge so you can make or repair equipment from scratch.” Showing a hole in the wall next to the training ground. “Any materials you use have to be confirmed by the logistics group, you can talk to Scream about procuring resources for that stuff.”
She then gave a long and very thorough speech about how to properly maintain equipment and what to do when you're done using the tools in the forge and how to properly clean and put away the practice weapons in the armory after using them in the training field.
“Finally we have the barracks. Your girls should already be waiting inside, but we don’t have time for that so we're off to the next place.” And quickly began walking towards their next destination. Van barely had time to memorize the number and the look of the large stone fortification that housed his girls and probably everyone's else's soldiers before he had to chase after Hardass.
“This is our HQ in the sector of the wall. It’s where our communications room is and that’s where you will find Scar. Good luck.” And with that, Hardass disappeared, leaving Van to look around inside by himself. Thankfully it seemed Scar was expecting him, or at least was expecting something like this to happen and so prepared accordingly.
“Hello, Van.” Scar said in a measured tone of voice. “I am Scar and I am Eliza’s second in command. I help run everything that she’s too busy to do herself. I also take care of the info-gathering side of things and will be showing around possible tasks you may have in the future should you desire to work under me in the future.”
Van was already feeling a lot more thankful to Scar’s professionalism than he did to Hardass.
Scar then began showing him around the command center and all of its facilities. Showing him maps of the walls as well as all the areas beyond the walls that they have investigated so far. The room where they use long-range communications with those out in the field. And about half a dozen other important-looking places he couldn’t wrap his head around.
“We also have the logistics facility where Scream works. She will be taking over for now.” Then went away leaving a very nervous Scream to him.
She was so nervous in fact, that she could barely get a few words out and in ten minutes was already trying to find Jynx and push him off to her after telling him only an inkling of what she did and what her tasks entailed.
“Yoo-hoo~!” Jynx called out of Van. “Hello there Van! I’m Jnyx! And I am in charge of everything magical in the platoon!” She said happy-go-lucky. “It’s a lot of hard work making sure everyone's gear is enchantment and empowered with enough mana to make it work. And don’t even get me started on the amount of talismans I have to make because apparently, these girls don’t know the meaning of conservation!” She joked.
“I have to make them so fast just to keep up with demand that sometimes they misfire! And then they have the gall to call me Jynx! Well… I suppose it’s better than Jester!” She gave a laugh and then went into her pitch about how Van should join the magical department of their platoon.
“I have the strangest feeling she’s really trying to sell this in the hopes she gets some help in making those talismans…” Van thought.
Jynx then went on about other magical objects and doo-dads and how great and totally not under sheer amounts of pressure everyone was working on keeping everything that had mana running in them in working order.
“And so then I went, ‘did you try turning it off and on again?’ and she was like, ‘uhhh…” Jynx then gave a large laugh. “It turned out it was just a misaligned regulator rune. But it was pretty funny to see her expression when I asked her that.”
Van was now more sure than ever that artificers were what happens when you mix engineers with software geeks.
“So, how soon can you come work for me.” She said with a large winning smile.
“...I’ll think about it.” Was all Van responded with.
Hours later Van went back to his new room. Tired beyond belief. He was hoping to hit the hay, but apparently, that was too much to ask… Marie and Luna were there waiting for him. And he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon…