Well, to be more exact, that person was not the only one that needed to be on board before the barge could take off. There was the tall young man whose figure was almost completely covered by the thick fog on the dock. Mike Zakarius who was apparently taking advantage of the rare occasion to say some long and dragged-out good-byes to a woman. A lover, probably.
One of his lovers.
Mike Zakarius was a very notorious playboy of upper-society. A fact even Erwin was well acquainted of before his Commander gave him the records of the new recruits. Mike was the youngest son of some nobleman, either a Viscount or a Marquis. A member of the Order of Sacred Knights of the Throne by birth, and he was able to make his own name at a relatively young age as one of the best soldiers of that particular order through his own physical prowess and hard work and was highly respected among all the four branches of the Kingdom's military force.
Yet every man had his own downfall. And the one for Mike Zakarius was 'woman'. It was no surprise that some day the scorned husbands of all the women he had slept with and the furious mothers of the young girls he had defiled would come together and plotted for his downfall. What was surprising was how far he had fallen.
Rumor was that some very powerful mother of a girl that he was associated with had something other than justice and revenge on her mind. She set her heart on cornering him into marrying her daughter. The only other option Mike was offered was to join the Scout Legion as one of the worst criminals of humankind. The mother was quite confident she had finally got him trapped because as far as she was concerned, any human being in his right mind would choose her daughter over joining the Scout Legion, which was practically a death sentence in every possible sense.
Erwin almost chuckled to himself imagining the fury and surprise on that mother's face. When Mike threw the golden opportunity she had offered him right back onto her own face and walked out of the door, with a boisterous and hearty laugh, before turning himself into the hands of the officers of Military Police who were waiting outside. As described in every meticulous details in the Commander's records.
The dock was busy and crowded despite the early hours and the heavy fog. It was still very dark. Only the very close-by street lamps, lights on the boats, and lanterns people held in their hands managed to pierce through the thick mist and beam like faint stars from some very distant galaxies.
It was very hard to figure out what was happening on the dock farther than a couple of arm lengths away unless the person or people were making a lot of noise. Just like the ones that were trying to make their way through the dock right now.