Chapter 42 Inesperate Visit

“Oh, look! It’s a gauntlet! This one is mine!”
“Hey, aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? Who’s the one who dealt with most of the thing?”
“My hostage. My monster. My business. My item.”
“Tell you what: since they are bound to the blood of someone who strikes it, wy don’t we test whose blood it’s bound to?”
Reeve couldn’t argue with that logic. If it wasn’t bound to him, it’d be a useless item for him anyway.
They did the test. And the gauntlet ended up with Reeve.
‘Damn it.’ Josiah thought.
“Dude! Are you ok?” Albo appeared right behind him. He had descended his block and climbed up on the one Josiah was on.
“I’m ok. And you too seem fine. Go… I still need to find ‘my’ hostage.”
“I know where she is!” Albo exclaimed.
“Is it ok for the hostages to help the participants? I don’t think so.”
“Relax. It was all against the rules to begin with, anyway. Do you know soldier Yvone? She must have misheard the instruction and hid some of the hostages who weren’t their number in the beginning. I received the info from Tal in my transmitter.”
“…”
All in all… The second phase was just classificatory. No matter what came out of it, the instructors would decide whoever went well or whoever went poorly.
Josiah himself wasn’t expecting much, though. As he didn’t manage to find his own hostage after all and even disobeyed the rules to save another one’s.

“Listen. The third and last phase of the test is going to be at the camp. We are going to camp on Dryweed Fields, east of here. It’s a journey not longer than three hours on foot. Just as the second, the performance of you sixteen is going to be examined through the exam.” Sargeant Koda said to the sixteen selected soldiers from the emerging talents, who were standing on a line with their backs to the wall of the 288 building under the sun of noon, right after the second phase had ended.
“Permission, sir!” One of the sixteen soldiers named Douglas asked.
“Granted.”
“When are we going to receive the results of our performance in this second phase?”
“Never. That’s confidential.”
Doug kept his mouth shut.
“But you are going to know the classification order after the third phase ends. Rest for the time being, we depart tonight.”
“Tonight!?”
“Yes. We are moving to Dryweed Fields during the night. The third phase is going to happen in a camp. Each of you is bringing a tent. Clear? Now go. Take a rest and then get started on the preparations.”
The sixteen soldiers spent the rest of the afternoon packing up their things. Some of them carrying a lot of extra stuff, since they didn’t know what was coming up. The first phase had left them wary.
Josiah got his tent, all of his clothes, his weapons… Apart from that, he didn’t have much else.
‘I wish I could have some cool utensils as Watt does…’ Josiah though internally as he double-checked his packed things, piled up on the corner.
‘Anyway… It’s almost time to get on the truck. I better not slack off.’

The sixteen had to carry their things up to the destination. Walking carrying heavy things may be tiresome. That’s why even for a group of trained soldiers, it took more than the expected three hours to get to Dryweed Fields. When they arrived at the destination, it was late at night. Everybody was sweating their souls out of the body.
“Gaaah! I wanna die!” Greg said as he finally could sit down for the first time in the last four or so hours.
“Each of you! Set up your tent where you see fit. We are going to the briefing today, and from tomorrow on the activities start.”
The Dryweed Fields seemed a strange place to hold a test phase in the eys of Josiah. It was probably the most boring place he ever set his eyes on. Everywhere in sight, there was a very shallow and brittle grass. The terrain was completely plain, and scattered on the grass were growing seedlings of what they called dryweed; some kind of plant from that world. They didn’t grow much. Up to four or five feet. Plus, they were very thin and ugly. It didn’t help they were all dry and yet to fully grow, which all gave the scene the feeling of a dead place.
“Wow. There is literally nothing here. Just us.” Watt observed. “Are you going to mount your tent somewhere around?”
“I don’t know. Any place seems as good as any.”
“Haha. True.”
Arming a tent was a cakewalk for anyone on the emerging talents. It didn’t take long before the campo was all set. The competitor didn’t set the tents up too close one from the other. Since it was a competition, after all, being extra cautious was never too much.
“Come here, form a circle, and stay silent. The explanation is going to be told only once.” Sargeant Koda shouted. He was in the middle of a circle of burnt grass which he did while the sixteen participants were setting their tents up. Everybody reunited there to listen.
“The third and last phase of the final exam is going to be a one-on-one tournament. We chose this place because we don’t want to see people from other groups snooping around and gossiping. ‘Oh did you see John Doe’s fight?’ and that sht. So whatever happens here stays here, do I make myself clear?
The crew nodded affirmatively.
“…We evaluated your capability of surviving and following orders, now it’s time to evaluate your individual skill. Of course, this is classificatory, as the previous one. It can be that the losers get a good evaluation and the winners a bad one. But the winner of the tournament is definitely going to be granted a spot at the year’s crew. And plus… The prize is going to be an honorable badge and this universal bloodbound bracelet.” Koda lifted the prize on his left hand.
“Woah.” Josiah heard someone mumble.
A universal bloodbound item was an item which bound with anyone who dropped his blood on it, it didn’t need compatibility.
“The brackets of the tournament is going to be announced tomorrow. The ones who did poorly on the second phase can expect to be paired on the worst spots. The fights are one-on-one. Weapons and bloodbound items are allowed. Fight until the opponent gets knocked out, admits defeat or the instructor stops the fight. That’s it. Fall out.”

‘Such condensed info. It’s no different than the other two phases. The rules are similar to the sparring fight. But I imagine this one is going to be more brutal, it won’t be interrupted so easily… Well. The good thing about the short speech is that I can knock off earlier.’ Josiah thought while he went inside his tent. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
But as Josiah entered his tent he saw someone he never expected to see inside.
She was sitting on her back, above Josiah’s sleeping bag. But he recognized her from the back.
“L… Lenny!?”
*