"Kō wake up, commandant wants us up early for our first morning's training session." Kōsoku heard vaguely as a bright light shone through his half-open eyelids. Once his eyes had adjusted to the room he saw his bunk mate Moblit Berner holding a black lantern with a bright flame lighting the room. Moblit had light brown hair and always wore a passive look on his face and was slightly taller than all of the other cadets. From his few interactions with the boy, Kōsoku could tell that he seemed kind. When they were assigned bunks the previous day Moblit asked him which bunk he would prefer and was nice enough to offer to wake him up today. The young Reiss didn't want to be late to his first proper training session so he quickly got out of bed and put on his oversized uniform. The oversized uniform meant that when his arms were by his side his hands would submerge and would no longer be visible because of the long sleeves.
Once he was ready, he picked up the lantern that Moblit had been nice enough to light for him and walked to the field. He was one of the first people to arrive there so he sat down by himself and waited patiently for the commandant to show up and start the training session. Yesterday when the cadets had first met the commandant, he hadn't given them his name and asked to be referred to by 'commandant'. The commandant wore a seaweed colour trench coat with a cadet corps patch sewed on to his front left pocket and both of his shoulders. His bald cut and the fact that all of his trench coat's buttons were done up at all times made him very intimidating.
"Attention!" The commandant yelled out stretching the 'ent' sound out for a long time to give the cadets extra time to pay attention to him before he began his announcement. Once the commandant finished his shout all of the noise ceased and all of the cadets redirected their focus, some even giving the commandant a salute. Kōsoku made the effort to stand up to try and avoid getting on the commandant's bad side.
"Once I call your name come up to the front and receive a number; that is your team number for the exercise." The commandant started reading off names abnormally quickly because before he knew it his name was called. He walked up and grabbed a small slip of paper that had a number eleven written on it. He returned to the crowd and sat down in the back once again waiting for further instructions from the commandant intent on avoiding everyone.
"Hiking to Karanes district? From a few miles north of Trost? The commandant must thing we are super humans or something." A smug boy with messy light brown hair named Oluo repeated for the fourth time.
"We heard you the first time, I do agree with you though. This is a long hike, especially for our first training exercise." A short girl with short ginger hair named Petra wondered aloud.
"Especially considering the large mountains that we will have to climb over to reach Karanes. All of this whilst being on a time limit of one week with threat of removal from the cadet corps if we do not make it in time. The time limit is in place so that we feel pressured to run as quickly as we can which will cause cadets to collapse if they try to run for such a long distance. This exercise is not only meant to weed out the physically unfit recruits but the recruits without the ability to think ahead." A short white haired girl with glasses named Rico stated, making Oluo and Petra feel stupid.
"What's your opinion on all of this Mr. Silent? You haven't even given us your name yet." Oluo asked Kōsoku who was happily walking behind them before he heard a voice directed at him.
"Pardon, I wasn't listening." Kōsoku said even though he heard exactly what Oluo asked him. Oluo coughed before repeating him self louder than before.
"What's your opinion on all of this Mr. Silent? You haven't even given us your name yet."
"Rico is wrong, there is no ulterior motive from the commandant. I doubt he will expel us even if we take twice the designated time. This is cadet corps not a battle royale and even if he did want to narrow the cadets down to only the capable ones he would go about it differently, in the military all that matters is your ability with the Omni-dimensional mobility gear so I wouldn't be surprised if he tests us on that when we return. The purpose of this hike is to build camaraderie with our fellow cadets. If they were planning to expel cadets then they would have to do it in teams which would be an unfair system for some capable cadets who are paired with incapable cadets. What do you think the reason for the test is Mr. Repetition? I'd like to know." Kōsoku asked before pulling out a small orange book from his right jacket pocket and burying his nose in it showing everyone that he didn't care for any answer that Oluo might come up with.
Rico was furious, the boy who still hadn't given them his name had called her wrong and then preceded to explain why she was wrong and correcting her before pulling out a well known erotic novel and reading it. She refused to believe that she was wrong. She was right, he was wrong.
"If they wanted us to build camaraderie then they would have gotten us to do exercises back at the training grounds, not sent us on a weeklong hike." Rico argued.
"So you stopped defending your own point and attacked my point, does that mean you're acknowledging yourself to be wrong?" Kōsoku retorted finally taking his eyes of the erotica that he wasn't actually reading. Kōsoku used the novel to avoid conversations that he didn't want and to make others feel uncomfortable.
"My point doesn't need defending because your disproval of it is invalid so I didn't deem a response necessary!" Rico angrily shouted back.
"If you two would stop arguing we can set up a camp for the night." Petra sounded fed up from both Oluo's complaints and Rico and Kōsoku's arguing. Rico and Kōsoku both looked up and realised the sun was about to set and that they had been hiking for a full day. The area that they found themselves in was infested with bush, shrubs and trees. They stood in a small clearing that had saplings popping out of the ground every which way. The only equipment that they had been given was a very long piece of rope, a knife and two tents.
Petra had assigned everyone jobs because she knew that if she didn't she would have to do everything herself and before long Kōsoku was off in the forest looking for firewood. By the time he returned to the clearing the only light they had was from the moon and everyone was eager to set up the campfire. After the campfire was set up Rico and Petra each retreated to a tent while Oluo insisted that he could sleep out in the cold for no reason. Before Kōsoku was offered a place in the tent he was gone.
When Kōsoku was little he was diagnosed with anhidrosis which made it dangerous for him to be too warm so he lived his life in a cold climate so he preferred to sleep outside due to the humidity of a tent. Kōsoku kept wandering until he found an open area and lay down facing up to the night sky and fell asleep.
The rest of the trip went by slowly for Petra and Oluo due to Kōsoku and Rico's constant arguing over trivial things. They were complete opposites and could never agree on anything whether it was routes to take, times to stop, reasons for things or estimates of time. But at last they arrived at Karanes district on the sixth day which seemed to annoy both Rico and Kōsoku because Rico guessed it would take five days while Kōsoku said seven. Once they made it there they were directed to an unknown cadet camp and were told to stay there until the rest of the cadets arrived. The camp was exactly identical to the one near Trost except for a few geographical differences.
It took a total of four days for the last group of cadets to arrive and during that time Kōsoku sat by himself reading a book that he had brought with him. Multiple times people tried to convince him to participate in some fun sport events or exercises but he decided that it was worth too much trouble.
Once the four days were up the commandant called them all out to the edge of camp where there were enough carriages to shelter all of the cadets with room to spare. Next to the carriages were a pile of large backpacks that contained snow gear according to the commandant rested. Each cadet was told to grab a backpack and get in a carriage that was going through Stohess to the mountains deep inside wall Sina. Kōsoku was placed in a carriage with a girl with short blonde hair styled in an undercut with bangs named Nanaba, a boy with a brown hair styled in a pompadour named Gelgar, another boy named Henning who had short brown hair slightly darker than Gelgar's and another girl named Lynne who had a long, messy dark brown pony tail with bangs that were parted down the middle.
The journey wasn't too interesting for Kōsoku as he didn't interact with any of them unless they specifically asked him a question to which he gave some vague response. Once they arrived at the foot of the mountain they saw that there was a light layer of snow on the ground which was the first time many of them had seen snow. Before any of the cadets started making snow angels the commandant.
"There are currently exactly one hundred and one of you which means that you will be splitting into fifty pairs. Each of you will be assigned a random number between 0-100 by drawing lots, your partner for this exercise will be the person who has a number that added onto your number equals one hundred. If you draw the number 50 then you will be in a group of three with numbers 49 and 51. Once you find your partner your task will be to make it to the top of the mountain, do I make myself clear?" The commandant asked earning a 'yes sir' in response from almost everyone. Kōsoku walked up and grabbed a small cardboard cut out with the number thirty-one on it before sitting down waiting for his partner to come find him. Slowly the cadets left the site with their respective partners until only two cadets remained.
Rico looked away from a laughing Kōsoku and cursed her luck. She was stuck with the boy whose name she didn't know and who had a habit of driving her up a wall. Kōsoku thought that it was funny seeing Rico looking so desperate for another partner but he wasn't exactly happy about being paired with the girl who seemed to disagree with him for the sake of disagreeing with him.
The hike was supposed to take twenty hours which meant that they would have to hike until seven in the morning tomorrow without any sleep. Rico and Kōsoku had successfully made it fifteen minutes without an argument due to both of them being silent however they would not make it sixteen minutes because of a dispute about which way they should go. After the first argument started the arguments didn't stop coming and before long the sky was pitch black except for the moon which was covered by the concert of spruce trees that listened to their arguments.
"Why aren't you wearing your jacket? It's freezing! Do you want to die?" Rico asked Kōsoku who just shrugged in response before Rico continued, "It's polite to tell people your name as well but I guess being polite isn't really your thing." They trudge along for another ten minutes in complete silence before Kōsoku speaks.
"Kōsoku."
"What?"
"You wanted my name."
It was six in the morning and they had one hour left before they reached the summit whilst the sun shone brightly over the summit of another mountain signalling the start of a new day. The final stretch the easiest part because they could see in front of them and didn't need to be focused on the hazard of falling down the numerous tree wells that they knew were there. Once they made it to the top they noticed that there was no-one there except for the commandant, Moblit and Oluo and then suddenly Moblit and Oluo disappeared off the edge of the mountain leaving only them and the commandant.
"What are you waiting for? Put your ski's on, you have to get down somehow." The commandant asked them and watched as their expressions changed from confusion to horror.
"B-but sir. What if we get lost or injured?" Rico asked in some futile attempt to avoid the descent down the mountain.
"That's why you are in pairs! Now hurry up, if I see that you're still up here in thirty seconds you're both getting expelled." Reluctantly Rico and Kōsoku fetched the ski's from their backpack and put them on. Using their ski poles to stand up they looked down the mountain and saw that it wasn't going to be an easy descent. Suddenly they felt what they assumed to be a hand collide with their backs and start their momentum towards the bottom of the mountain.
I tried to get as much of the cadet corps done in this chapter as possible because I don't want to spend more than two chapters on it. Also I'm not sure if there are ski's inside the walls but I thought it would be funny so yeah. Also I appreciate all of the reviewsso please leave any criticism, things you liked or suggestions in the reviews :)