"Line the fuck up, you pisspoor excuses for recruits!"
What a drag.
Regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, Devon did as instructed and lined up with all of the other initiates who had gathered that day to enlist in the imperial military. He knew very well that it was simply a way of enforcing discipline and attempting to pound it into their heads that they were all the same in the eyes of the military.
As if I''d give a shit.
Most of the other initiates lined up alongside him were average at best, a motley crew of middling level 20s and 30s.
The higher leveled individuals must still be deciding what to do. It probably rubs them the wrong way that they came out of the tutorials as hotshots and their only option for further advancement is through the military.
He''d been surprised to learn that the only way for citizens of the Empire to advance past E grade was through the military. The government vigorously shut down any independent groups or individuals who tried to advance through means other than the military. This didn''t explicitly extend to crafters, but because the only demand for their supply was from the military, crafter''s associations were intrinsically tied to the national defense.
It was a typical military regime, with the government trying to control everything it could.
At least, that''s how it''s meant to appear to the average civilian.
The drill instructor finally finished putting them through basic exercises and started moving them to a different area of the base. Devon didn''t miss the fact that the woman put him at the back of the line, or the way her eyes lingered on him for slightly longer than everyone else.
As they were led from the courtyard into the larger compound a voice called out, "Ah, private Gregor! Would you mind staying behind? There was a slight issue with your enlistment forms I''d like to go over."
[Patar - Level 56]
"Of course, staff sergeant," Devon said, sparing a glance towards the drill instructor. By the way the woman paid no attention to the disruption of the otherwise orderly line, it seemed like this was a well-rehearsed procedure at this point.
Devon was under the guise of Gregor, one of the earlier masks he''d used during the tutorial. He figured there was no harm in reusing it since the chances of anyone recognizing it were basically nonexistent. So far as Trey and Devon could tell, they were the only ones from their tutorial block who''d arrived at this specific world.
Staff sergeant Patar led him out of the courtyard and into an office before taking a seat and asking, "So on your enlistment form you wrote you ''simply wish to advance as high as you possibly can,'' correct?"
"That is correct, staff sergeant."
Patar smiled, "You can drop the formalities for now, Gregor. I was wondering if you would be interested in a slight deviation in the military advancement chain."
And here it is, just as expected.
The Empire of the Amber Dragon was, at its core, a military regime. And as is typical for such structures, corruption saturated the entire chain of command from top to bottom.
Leaving him with the group of regulars had been something of a two-sided psychological trick. It gave the regulars a sense that even someone far more noteworthy than them was still forced to do the menial grunt work, enforcing a sense of fairness. And it was meant to instill a sense of irritation in the exceptional individual, making them more likely to accept the offer for a different route of advancement.
"What kind of deviation, sta- er, I mean, Patar?" Devon did his best to act as though he had no idea what the man was talking about, even though this was going so smoothly it was beginning to bore him.
"I''ll be frank, Gregor. The rank and file simply aren''t worth the best resources the Empire has on hand. We reserve the most beneficial items for the most exceptional of talents."
"And you think I fit that criteria?"
Patar smiled, "It says here you have a common class. Is that true?"
Devon scratched the back of his head, "Yeah."
"Do you mind if I ask how someone who was skilled enough to make it to level 50 in a month only managed to acquire a common class?" The look on Patar''s face had a note of genuine curiosity.
Devon frowned, as though remembering brought back bad memories, "I guess you could say I had a bit of a slow start. I didn''t really have any idea of what I wanted to do in the beginning so I kind of floundered around before reaching level 10. By that point I guess I''d locked myself out of anything except common classes."
"How did you manage to excel amongst your peers like that?"
Devon decided to draw upon his actual experiences to make his acting more genuine, "I got stuck in a dungeon with some stupid apes. It was either die alone down in the dark or fight to survive… so I fought. And I survived."
"So, if I were to ask you what your biggest concern with advancement is, would it be a fair assumption to assume the limitation of a common class would be your answer?"
Devon opened his eyes wider in mock surprise, "Yeah, I guess so. I''d heard you have the chance to upgrade it at level 76 when you evolve into D grade. So I wanted to try and advance as fast as possible to reach that point, even if it takes more effort than most of the other guys go through."
Patar smiled like he had a great offer for Devon, "What if I told you it''s possible to change your class before then? We could have it changed today, if you so wanted."
He sure doesn''t waste any time trying to fetch a prize, does he? He''s acting like he''s doing me a huge service instead of ensnaring someone in an age-old trap. Well, I guess I shouldn''t complain. Just makes my job all the easier.
"That sounds incredible, staff sergeant. But how…?"
Patar waved off Devon''s ''accidental'' slip of the tongue with the rank and continued as though they were the best of friends, "Dungeons sometimes give out things called tokens, you might have seen one or two from the tutorial. One of the rarer ones allows you to undergo a kind of trial to change your class. We keep a few on hand whenever new initiates come through just for circumstances like yours. But… there''s a catch."
"Something like that doesn''t come for free, does it?"
"You come from outside the Empire so you wouldn''t know this, but the military isn''t just one big amalgamous entity. To encourage persistent growth, each division competes with each other to see which can produce the greatest results. Our division is overseen by Viscount Haddar, and this gift would be provided by him."
"So I''d be signing my allegiance amongst the military''s higher ups, basically."
Patar nodded solemnly, "The choice is yours, of course. But there are very few of these tokens available, which means this opportunity may not come again. I''m sure you''re well aware there is no shortage of talent within the city at the moment. You happen to be one of the first with exceptional talent to swear your allegiance to the Empire. Don''t you think it would be a waste to let an opportunity like this go?"
Devon frowned, doing his best to look deep in thought. He stared off to the side, as though contemplating his choices. Then he looked back at Patar and asked, "Tell me one thing. If I agree to serve this viscount will there be further opportunities for advancement? My goal is to reach the peak of my potential. I only joined up because it seemed like the military is the only way forward in this Empire. But if there''s an even better path forward… Well, I won''t say no."
Patar smiled, "If you meet the viscount''s expectations I can promise you that there will be no better avenue towards building your strength. His influence is vast, and he is always welcoming of promising new retainers."
Devon smiled, "In that case, consider me on board."
"Great!" Patar opened one of the desk''s drawers and started rifling through papers, "We''ll be needing an imperial contract, of course. Can''t make anything official without some paperwork first…"
Devon frowned and tilted his head in confusion, "Sorry, what?"
"An imperial contract. It''s a formal written agreement between two parties. I''d heard you had contracts back in your world, so I figured this shouldn''t be too big of a surprise."
Of course, imperial contracts had been a topic of lengthy research over the past few days for Devon, but he wasn''t about to say that.
This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"Well, sure. But… Where I come from when you make a deal it''s customary to demonstrate one''s capability before agreements are formalized."
Patar stiffened, "What are you suggesting?"
Devon put his hands up in an attempt to diffuse any misinterpretations, "No no, I''m not suggesting anything. It''s just… Rushing into a formal contract when I haven''t even seen the initial offer is… unusual for me. You can claim this token exists and works, but I''ve never heard of it and have no way of knowing the truth."
The man across the desk relaxed, "Well, I suppose that''s fair. I''m sure everything around here is new to you. Perhaps I was a bit hasty, forgive me."
Patar wasn''t even trying to keep up the charade of rank difference anymore. He was acting like a salesman who was so desperately close to getting what he wanted he was willing to break protocol a bit. And that was exactly what Devon wanted.
"Would it be alright if you allow me to use the token you were talking about, and then we sign over it? Hell, if it works the way you say it does then I''ll sign whatever the hell you want so long as there are more benefits like it down the line."
Patar smiled, "Alright, that''s fair enough. Come on, I''ll show you to the repository."
Before they left the room Patar put his hand on Devon''s shoulder and leaned in close, "I''m agreeing to this out of respect to your culture and because you''re new. But make no mistake, if you attempt to snub me or attempt to cut tail and run before signing that document I will make your life a living hell. I will own you, private. Is that understood?"
"Yes, staff sergeant," Devon said crisply, noting the return to proper military decorum.
"Good. Follow along."
Over the next half an hour Devon watched as Patar went through the process of getting what he needed from the base''s repository. Devon didn''t miss the look Patar and the requisitions officer shared as Patar was handed a gray ball with runes adorning the surface that glowed a soft blue.
When the ball was passed to Devon he asked, "Is this it, staff sergeant?"
"Yes. These rune spheres allow us to store tokens in a more physical medium, instead of having to pass them between people over and over again. Have your system interact with it and you should be prompted with an option to take possession of the token within. Come, let us return to my office. That''s probably the best place to do this, nice and private."
Devon quickly glanced over the cursed king''s list of system commands as they walked and breathed a silent sigh of relief when he found the right one. More and more of the commands were starting to make sense as he learned more about the outside world, but there were still several that he had no clue what they were meant to be used with.
Some of these commands are so absurdly obscure. If I ever run into something that isn''t listed here I might just find myself screwed. Let''s see… Parse entity; rune sphere.
Entity [Rune Sphere] contains system object [E-Grade Re-Class Token].
Extract object; E-grade re-class token.
Confirmed.
The runes on the surface of the token sphere lost their blue glow as the token was transferred from the sphere to Devon''s inventory. They arrived back at Patar''s office less than a minute later.
"I''ll be needing that sphere back if you''re done with-!" Patar didn''t get to finish his sentence as Devon moved faster than the man could perceive and shoved two healing pills down the man''s throat. A few seconds later and the man was slumped against the wall, asleep.
Eventually I''m going to need to find alternative ways of knocking people out if I intend on making it a habit. These pills will lose their effect in D grade, so they won''t be my catch-all solution forever.
Devon picked up the imperial contract Patar had tried to make him sign and pocketed it. It would be a good reference for when he took another look at the other contract he''d been presented with.
With that, he left the room and casually walked through the halls of the base, assuming a different face. It was the first identity he''d assumed that wasn''t human, but since the vast majority of citizens within the Empire were humanoid anyway nobody looked at him twice as he walked through the halls with a false sense of purpose.
Taking on another human identity would have gotten him called off by half a dozen other officers looking to pick fun at the new initiates. He was able to avoid being noticed as strange by anybody before he made it to the edge of the base.
When he was in a secluded spot he observed the walls for a few minutes before he made his move.
Ordinarily a stunt like this wouldn''t have had a shot in hell at working, but since the military doubled as a town guard in this frontier world city their forces were stretched extremely thin with the arrival of the initiates.
Just as Kalion had told them would happen, the town was rife with disorder after the wave of deaths within the city, both those of the cursed and of the hopeful citizens and military that had tried to take advantage of the chance to get some marks of affection. The events had deeply disturbed both the townfolk and the initiates, and the promised assembly on the third day explaining to the initiates about the existence of the cursed and the Empire''s duty to eradicate them did little to quell the disturbances within the city.
Between that and the military staff being diverted towards folding the initiate recruits into the armed forces and you were left with a division stretched far beyond its limits. Spotty watches on the wall were a direct consequence of these events. And it was something Devon intended to fully capitalize on.
He played with the gray sphere in his hand as he waited. According to Daz, their first priority should be getting stronger. That was something neither he nor Trey had any objections to, as they both knew that power would be necessary to survive in the future.
There were three issues with their current progression, however. The first, and the one Devon saw as the most pressing concern, was Trey''s class. The further he progressed with a class that wasn''t suited for him, the worse his future prospects were. It had been chosen out of necessity, but going forward it was clear it would constantly underperform. And that was where the re-class token came in.
Devon had been concerned Daz wouldn''t even consider Trey worth paying attention to, but the woman didn''t seem to have any issue with extending him the same courtesies she did to Devon. According to her, good pieces were hard to come by. And if he had even a modicum of potential then it was no skin on her back who Devon chose to be his pieces.
That had left the matter of obtaining the token. On the open market they were exorbitantly expensive, if they were even available to begin with. However, the military kept several in reserve on starter worlds whenever there was a mass initiation, something the Empire did about every decade or so. It had just so happened to be Earth''s time to be initiated when the Empire deemed it time to hold the mass initiation.
And so the condition of the division paired with their desperate need for the token had led them to the idea of stealing it. Actually joining the military was completely off the table. Neither of them had any interest in being so tightly bound to the Empire itself, and it would greatly limit the range of motion Daz apparently wanted them to have.
Ironically, if Trey had come to the Empire on his own and chosen to join the military he likely would have been welcomed even more enthusiastically than Devon had been. It made sense, considering his class was perfectly suited for a squad captain or similar roles. But they never would have allowed him to get remotely close to the re-class token no matter how Trey himself felt about his class. In typical military fashion, he would have just been told to suck it up.
Devon noticed one of the two lookouts on the wall walking away and saw that the one left on the wall was alone.
As usual, due to the lack of bodies the replacements won''t come for at least another hour.
He slipped the sphere into his inventory and picked up a stone laying on the ground as he made his way up to the top of the wall. Moving to the point on the wall as far away from the guard as he could, he threw the stone with as much precision as he could toward one of the other buildings within the compound. The shattering of a window made the guard turn away from him, and he dropped down over the wall.
Unlike the modern infrastructure Devon was used to, the military compound was built in the center of the city. And like the fantasy settings Trey apparently enjoyed so much, everything was built close to each other. Which meant it was easy for him to dash straight across the street and into an alleyway before the guard turned back around.
Well, that''s the hard part over. Now to return to the bar. I can see why the system wouldn''t let me create a plot over that, it was far too easy.
<hr>
Konzaran watched over the city from the top of the compound''s watchtower, the highest structure in the city.
The watchtower wasn''t really meant to be used to observe the city itself, but the wild woodlands beyond the city''s borders. Frontier worlds often had a plethora of wildlife that didn''t take too kindly to sentient presence.
He was the one assigned to be this world''s arbiter, the designated seeker who culled the blighted little sheep that poured in during initiation. But he''d already done that. So far as he could tell, he and all the other amateurs that had poured out of the cracks had already wiped out all the cursed beings.
Now he was bored.
Ordinarily, he would have returned home at this point. But there was one event that stuck out to him as strange even among the chaos that had engulfed the city at the height of the panic over the deaths.
The son of the city''s mayor and three of his friends had been slaughtered in a back alley with no witnesses to the deed. They were youths who had skirted the Empire''s rules and advanced outside of the military using the influence of the mayor. Konzaran could only assume they held delusions of glory and had tried to get their grubby little hands on a trophy that wouldn''t be spoonfed to them.
The story was hardly unique. There were several cases of vigilantes getting cut down in the process of trying to sniff out the cursed over the past few days.
The oddity of the situation was that the youths had all been above level 50. As far as Konzaran had observed, none of the cursed that had trickled out of the tutorials had possessed anywhere near enough strength to take on even half the group.
Among his associates, Konzaran was seen as an oddball among oddballs. He constantly followed his whims, even if it got him into trouble more often than not.
And yet even with his known personality and track record, he''d still been chosen as the arbiter for this frontier world.
Just goes to show that talent trumps all.
But now Konzaran''s interest was being pulled in two directions. On one hand, he was desperate to get off this E grade world and return to a planet with decent tech. He''d been promised that the restraints he''d been under for the past year would finally be lifted and he''d be allowed to evolve into D grade when he returned. On the other hand, these deaths piqued his curiosity.
He was debating what to do when he saw a figure scale the wall of the military compound.
Frowning, he tilted his head at the oddity. It wouldn''t have been surprising if it was someone coming into the compound, he could envision the greed of the newly initiated being stoked by the treasures stored within the armory. But the wall-jumper had been leaving the compound, not entering it.
Furthermore, they wore the imperial uniform.
A deserter, now?
The timing didn''t make any sense. Any attempt by the seasoned rank and file would be ill advised at best because of their increased presence in the city at the moment. The probability of being caught was simply too high to be logical.
It also seemed too soon for any of the newly recruited initiates to be jumping ship. It was expected that a few of them would, eventually. But now, after only just arriving?
How strange. How interesting. How utterly intriguing…