It didn’t take much time, but Ranthia’s belongings had been packed away and put into storage. There was no way for her to carry out her contract with the Owl’s Sanctuary while she was at the Ranger Academy, even if her heart wanted to break at the idea of giving the place up. It had been her home, the first she truly had (Perinthus so didn’t count).

  Hexara let her stay over for the last couple of days before she had to head out though, which was amazing. That much Ranthia could definitely get used to.

  The day had finally arrived. The summer solstice had come and gone, yet each day after it had felt longer than the last. Ranthia was armored and geared up before she finally relented and allowed Hexara to apply some light makeup and fix up her hair, though she had adamantly refused full treatment. There was no reason to be all dolled up and nicely scented when she was headed to a bootcamp!

  The light paint on her lips ended up wiping off when they kissed goodbye anyway. The goodbyes, of course, lingered. Ranthia faced two years of academy life. Hexara had remained optimistic that there would be breaks—frequent ones for Ranthia’s level—where Ranthia would be allowed to return to the city, but privately Ranthia still strongly doubted it. She wasn’t about to crush her girlfriend’s ambitions for them to have more time together though.

  Farewells made, Ranthia made her way into the governmental end of the city. She’d scouted the path previously so that she wouldn’t get lost on her way to Ranger’s Headquarters. Ranthia had to show the guards the scroll that served as her admissions pass to the Ranger Academy and allow a healer to jab her with his entire fist (was that seriously necessary?!) before she finally received directions to an oddly nameless room.

  The nameless room was massive—it could seat several hundred—with an enormous, important-looking stone wall at its far end. Even with her vitality, it was hard to make out details about it, since she ended up towards the back of the other trainees gathered. There were so many men and women crammed in that Ranthia couldn’t even find any of the other Adventurers. Twenty-some-odd (she had no idea if the Guildmaster had managed to get 24 to say yes) out of over four hundred made for challenging odds when it came to spotting familiar faces.

  “Welcome, new Ranger Academy recruits! It is my honor to welcome all of you to the class of 4808!” An impressively loud man called from the podium.

  …Or maybe less impressively than she thought; his main class was a Sound-aspected [Warrior], [Divine-Touched Identify] reported. It explained the volume, even if it left Ranthia curious about what sort of build he used. [Divine-Touched Identify] was, fortunately, more ‘intelligent’ than its nature as a passive would have suggested, so her field of vision wasn’t just a sea of class types and elements. She had to pay attention to someone (or a larger group) to get the information to appear. …Which speaking of, after she surveyed the group of prospective Ranger Trainees, she was pretty sure she knew where in the crowd the other A-Ranked adventurers were. They stuck out a bit, level-wise, compared to the others present.

  “You will all be taught by our chosen instructors, assisted by Ranger Team 1 and, when they have time, even the Sentinels themselves. Consider yourselves fortunate, recruits! Each and every one of them will work tirelessly to give each of you a chance to learn the skills you need to survive out there! Do not squander anything!

  “You are the best recruits that Remus has to offer. Some of you went through a grueling pre-selection process! Others of you have lived that process for years of your lives and come to us forged through other crucibles! From this moment on, that no longer matters! Each of you here today must prove yourselves anew as you struggle to become one of Remus’ elite – a Ranger!

  “Right now, there are 427 of you! Less than a quarter of that number will make it to graduation and even then, there will be several graduates that will not make the cut to become a Ranger. If you fail or are not selected, you can always re-enroll in two years, once you’ve trained yourself further. So do not despair! Do not give up! If you are in this room, you have the potential to become a Ranger!”

  The group roared with approval, with Ranthia’s slightly less enthusiastic voice joined into the sea of sound.

  A different man stepped forward, as the Commander that had given the speech fell back. The new man was short but had the lean, hard build of a man that had long forged his body in dangerous situations.

  “Trainees, on me! We move!”

  There was a bit of chaos. Some trainees lined up in neat, orderly military lines. Others flailed about as they failed to come into formation. …Ranthia took a certain amount of Xaoc-inspired pride in the fact that the Adventurers found each other and made everything worse. They had naturally formed a wedge formation—eminently more practical than an idiotic square of neat marching targets—amid the other trainees. Ranthia and the three other A-Ranked formed the tip of the wedge.

  The trainees jogged at a surprisingly slow pace after the man that led them. Perhaps it might be challenging but fair to the pure [Mages], but even with Ranthia’s split class focus the pace felt slow as they moved through town. Guards had cleared the road and there were members of Ranger Team 1—the ones that remained in Ariminum—darting around moving obstacles that the sloppy guards had left.

  Ranthia spent the entire run sorely tempted to convince her peers to drive their wedge through the nice formation ahead of her, just to take the lead position. Rows upon rows of neatly arrayed targets would at least look less idiotic positioned behind a hard wedge. Unfortunately, she figured actively causing aggressive chaos was a bad career move; Hexara really wanted her to do this after all.

  She had no intention of getting expelled almost immediately. Not this time.

  She assumed the instructors—aside from the man in the lead—were somewhere behind the trainees. The jog took them out of the city proper and, at length, finally led them down to the docks where three large ships waited. The instructors divided the trainees among the ships efficiently and soon they were off.

  Ranthia had to roll her eyes at a group of [Mages] that immediately collapsed onto the deck and gasped for breath as if they had just gone through the hardest thing they had ever done. They would never make it without physical conditioning. Vitality was key for a [Mage]’s survival too; they clearly hadn’t thought through their builds or their goal of becoming Rangers.

  A relatively short time later, the ships arrived at… some rich asshole’s private island? A large island dominated by a massive building that reminded Ranthia of a slightly worse version of the Owl’s Sanctum. Servants and… prostitutes? milled about. Food was everywhere.

  As people descended from the ships, instructors called out names and room numbers.

  Ranthia groaned, as she realized the obvious meaning. She glanced at Kaesios, who had remained near her. They looked at the estate, then nodded to each other and silently mouthed the same thing in unison.

  “Honey trap.”

  It was all-too-familiar, it was the same tactic Adventurers usually used to go after rogue classers. Seemingly give people exactly what they want, let them lower their guard, then attack when they’re vulnerable.

  A little later Ranthia arrived in her room, only to find a note on her bed that instructed her to meet immediately elsewhere. Ranthia had to sprint across the complex to reach the room. She wasn’t sure what this was about, but she wasn’t about to drag her feet.

  It took a while before people stopped trickling in, but Ranthia already had her suspicions about what the meeting was for. There were 46 women milling about the room. Four of them—five counting Ranthia—were Adventurers, not that Bia would return any of the waves that Ranthia sent her way. The kid could hold a grudge, it seemed. But Ranthia was fairly certain that the room contained every single woman amongst the trainees.

  At last, the only female instructor entered the room.

  “Excellent, thank you for being prompt. Ladies, first of all thank you for finally being the class that breaks through the 10% barrier. Over ten percent of our trainees are women this year! Let’s show the men how it’s done and maybe another decade from now we’ll be an even mix!”

  She got a few sparse cheers.

  “Right. On the table behind me you’ll find emergency signal disks. Each of you take one and transfer a little mana into it. If you crush it, an instructor, Ranger Team 1 member, or Sentinel will arrive promptly. While we believe that all trainees will uphold high standards, there have been and will continue to be incidents, especially within the first few months of your training.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Please do not sleep with any of the male trainees and—if you do—for the love of every god make sure you don’t get pregnant. Anyone who becomes pregnant will be removed from the program. And we will be annoyed over having sex, even if you avoid becoming pregnant.”

  Ranthia was oh-so-tempted to ask if that meant she could have sex with the other female trainees. None of this mattered to her; she had never felt any sort of attraction towards a man, and she was confident that she could take care of herself if any of the men present tried to refuse to take no for an answer. Still, she had enough wisdom to keep her mouth shut—she didn’t know any of the women in the room and there were prostitutes around.

  Ranthia mostly tuned out the instructor as the woman continued to talk about what-if scenarios. They all boiled down to ‘say no’ and ‘if that doesn’t work break your disk’ (though Ranthia was slightly disappointed to learn that the use of force was discouraged, alas). Instead, Ranthia focused her thoughts on the honey trap. It was a pretty obvious setup. Give people a taste of decadence, then throw them into hardship. Those of weak will would end up more willing to abandon training early to get back to the decadence, which meant that they wasted far less time and fewer resources. It was clever, Ranthia granted.

  Of course, she had recently left a home that was an order of magnitude nicer, even if she did have to pay for food or prostitutes herself. She had already willingly abandoned all of that—and Remus’ most [Sexy] and perfect girlfriend—just to get there, so the honey trap felt pathetic in comparison. Ranthia decided that she could enjoy herself a little, before she focused and did what she did best.

  The trainees mingled once the meeting finished, which suggested the men had gone through a similar one. Ranthia was polite and grazed on the better food—seriously, what kind of honey trap lacked even a single pot of rabbit stew?—while she scoped out the ‘competition.’ Not that they were true competitors—there were limits on how many of them could become Rangers, but they weren’t in direct competition. Still, she had her own pride as an Adventurer. Most of the other prospects were [Warrior] or [Ranger] tagged, unsurprisingly. [Mages] were the next most common group, and they had already started forming little mage cliques based on their elements or specializations. There were still a handful of [Laborers] or [Artisans] that Ranthia could only assume intended to side-grade into a combat class. More surprising though was that there were two people with a [Healer] tag, who—based on their similarities—seemed to be siblings.

  Once Ranthia decided that she had mingled sufficiently (not that she had actually conversed with a single person), she turned her attention from the competition to the distractions. It didn’t take her long to decide which of the women she wanted to approach, but before she reached her…

  “No way, I had my eye on her.” Kaesios interjected, as he tried to cut Ranthia off.

  “Fine, I’ll think of a number between 1 and 1024. If I hear you successfully guess it before I can silently count 256 heartbeats, I’ll back off.” Ranthia offered while she faced the man.

  He nodded and began the contest.

  Ranthia threw an image near the prostitutes and shifted to it after a brief channel, confident that she could conclude negotiations well before her opponent noticed.

  As the sky darkened, Ranthia made her way back outside. Kaesios was probably still mad at her, but whatever, she wanted to scout out the island before things truly kicked off. Except it was impossible to ignore the fact that several older trainees were acting strange. They had started to gather together, so Ranthia grabbed some food before she tried to signal to the other Adventurers in the area to follow.

  There were two hanging metal gongs nearby where the crowd was starting to form. One gong was a massive and ornate bronze-wrought masterpiece, the other was small and silver in color though it was heavily covered in strange glowing inscriptions. One of the instructors arrived and nodded to the trainees in the area, before he walked up to the larger gong and struck it.

  The unmistakable gonging sound that resulted had to be easily heard across the entire island. In fact, Ranthia wouldn’t be surprised if some of the dock workers and fishermen back on the mainland with high vitality could hear it. The damned thing was loud, especially from up close!

  Those already present gathered into boringly orderly rows—there was no real opportunity to ruin the formation this time—while other trainees began to stream out of the complex, some struggling to get dressed. After a bit, the other instructors that weren’t on the platform began to scream at and insult the trainees that showed too late, which unfortunately did include one of the B-Ranked Adventurers.

  Ranthia had no idea what his name was, but she was judging him hard for making their organization look sloppy!

  Eventually, the instructor began his speech.

  “I have had many names over the years, trainees. The name my parents gave me. Several less flattering names my enemies gave me. Artillery Mage C.”

  …There had to be a story behind that one.

  “But to all of you, my name is Sir. Often followed by Yes, Sir. Is that clear?!”

  ““Sir! Yes, sir!”” The bulk of the trainees yelled.

  Except for one idiot that yelled “Okay Artillery Mage C!”

  Other instructors descended on the idiot, and he was swiftly removed. Ranthia admired the spirit, but there was a place for everything. Snark here and now wasn’t even going to accomplish minor chaos, it just resulted in bad things happening swiftly to you, specifically.

  “I hope each of you enjoyed all of this decadence because in a week and a half you’ll be cut off! Then for the next two years you will live in the mud on this island, you will learn on the grounds of this island, and you will strive to be reforged as Rangers on the scorching sands of this island! But know this! At any point in time, starting now, if it is too much for you to keep going, you can come back to this spot and ring that little silver gong! You’re free once you do! You can return to this villa and enjoy food and every other comfort the gods have graced Remus with! No more mud or pain! You’ll even get paid for sparing us from your floundering, with more money paid out the sooner you ring that gong!”

  First up would be ten days of what Ranthia immediately labeled a crash course in military nonsense. Marching, saluting, and the other idiotic synchronized frills that got people killed but looked impressive to the clueless.

  Following that would be the hell months, as the instructors eagerly called them. Training from before dawn until well after dark. Sleep was optional. Food was allegedly earned, though Ranthia suspected food quality was all that had a shot at being earned; they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to leave their trainees malnourished. All in all, mysticism aside, the description kind of reminded Ranthia of her journey from Sardonia to Ariminum… which was probably a dangerous assumption. Surely the lauded Ranger Academy could do worse.

  Two trainees left the lineup during the needlessly detailed description of the hell months and struck the silver gong. And seriously, how pathetic was that? They hadn’t even waited for the so-called hell!

  Next up they were split and lined up to speak to an instructor.

  “Trainee Ranthia!” She reported once she got in front of the man. She had ended up in front of the short one that had led them through town.

  She was asked a long series of questions. She could swim, she had passable reading, she had passable writing, she had never marched, she had never saluted, she could dig a latrine, she could build a basic fortification though was unsure if it matched the military’s standards, she couldn’t sail, she could tie multiple practical knots, she was well experienced with wilderness survival, she could do basic first aid, she had no aura skills. She did earn an incredulous look when she described herself as a close-in melee fighter, despite her [Mage] tag. No, she did not have offensive magic abilities nor barriers. Yes, she was aware that was unusual (in hindsight that question had probably been rhetorical). Yes, she had a binding skill in the form of a covenant with her patron deity.

  He actually made her recite the full covenant. It pissed her off to share something so divinely private and the words it contained made him frown unhappily. She didn’t give a damn; it wasn’t his business!

  “Yeah, we’re going to need you to talk to Night at some point. Maybe even a priest. We’ll get that scheduled. Now get out of my line, maggot!” The man ordered.

  It took surprising effort to not flip him off.

  Soon after, they were in formation again.

  “One last order of business! As of right now you are all Ranger Trainees! You have all just been offered the skill [Ranger’s Lore]! Take it, no excuses! It is an upgrade to [Soldier’s Solidarity] and I’m certain it’s also an upgrade to [Adventurer’s Prowess]!”

  A few Adventurers failed to hold in their snickers. [Adventurer’s Prowess] wasn’t a real skill, it was an inside joke. Something the Guild made up to explain how they were ‘real’ Adventurers as opposed to any mercenaries that weren’t affiliated with the Guild. It was actually pretty legitimately hilarious that a piece of half-assed offhand misinformation had made it into the Rangers’ upper leadership.

  Ranthia had a much larger problem though. Sure, she got the skill offered, but she hadn’t expected to get any new skills before she classed up and maybe, hopefully, finally got at least [Dodging] to merge into her [Warrior] class!

  Fortunately, they were dismissed to their rooms again at that point, which meant that Ranthia could spend a bit of time trying to figure out what to do. Or, as was almost certain to be the outcome, go through the nausea—and sheer regret—of losing [Soups & Stews] in private. She could always relearn it at a later date, though losing 186 levels in such a beloved skill felt like such a waste! The damned Ranger skill had better be worth it.

  [Ranger’s Lore]: An elite soldier of Remus, the pride of the nation of humanity. This skill helps with fighting, exploring, wilderness survival, and the other skills that a Ranger needs, both military and extraordinary. This skill persists for as long as you are a Ranger. -480 Mana Regen Rate.

  Ranthia was oh so tempted to class up, but finally decided that saving 186 levels of [Soups & Stews] at the risk of her future growth as a [Warrior] was idiotic. The Ranger Academy would almost definitely help the quality of her class up options and while every class up she had ever done had been remarkably quick… there was always a risk that this one would take forever, make her miss the first day of training, and get her kicked out.

  It was just all around a terrible idea. She had to drop her beloved non-combat skill.

  “I’ll still be able to make rabbit stews, they just won’t be quite as tasty…” Ranthia promised herself and, with a deep breath to steel herself, she selected the skill replacement.

  …She would clean that up herself and not force the servants to handle it, she promised herself after an entirely too long of a period spent retching. The damned nausea from skill loss hit harder and harder the higher level the skill was.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.