The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

"There is an address behind the papers I gave you, you can meet me there from tomorrow onwards and until we stay in the capital," Zaos said. "Let's know each other better while we strengthen ourselves and wait for our first assignment."

            The Bloody Knights nodded and then began to leave the arena. The selection has been tiring, so they want to spend the rest of the day resting because their duties will start from tomorrow onward. Before leaving, Nyana waved her hands toward Zaos, and some of Cohnal and Melisse's friends also greeted them.

"The selection was a success, huh, Captain," Cohnal said. "I guess we are a proper unit now. We just need to train the group to work together, and then we will be able to complete some missions."

"We are supposed to leave for the West side of the country in six weeks, so we need to make some progress until then," Zaos said. "I will be counting on your help for that."

"Roger that, still, six weeks…" Cohnal said.

"We can only achieve so much with regular training," Melisse said. "I would bet that the people that passed the tests have some training with drills, aside from the kids of the magic school, but only a real battle will make them improve their teamwork."

            Zaos nodded since that made sense. While those people were members of his unit, they won't become real allies until they endure some hard times together. Unfortunately, it wasn't like Zaos could find something to substitute that in those six weeks.

"Well, see you guys tomorrow at our headquarters," Zaos said.

            In the end, Zaos bought a warehouse and transformed it to become a more relaxing place for five hundred people in the last ten days. While he used his own money for that, he was sure that eventually, the investment would pay itself.

            The next day, Zaos headed to the headquarters early in the morning and found Cohnal and Melisse there. After a couple of hours, the members of his unit started to show up and delivered the documents with their registration. Much sooner than he had expected, everyone showed up, and then he noticed that the unit was split into two groups. 150 soldiers trained by the kingdom, 338 mercenaries, and the twelve kids who just graduated from the magic school.

            To make everyone a little more motivated, Zaos paid everyone for the next month of work, and after that, he decided to talk with all groups and with as many members as possible. Although Zaos tried to be as friendly as possible, few of the members could relax around him, even though he was just asked their opinion on how he should lead the unit between missions. It wasn't like he had no idea how to do that. He was just trying to show that he was open to improvements.

            Things stayed like that for a while, and since he concluded that the members wouldn't get comfortable around him for a while, he decided to do things in his way. In the morning, he made the members of the frontline train for two hours outside the capital. He also made the archers train in the nearest forest. For the same amount of time, Zaos made the kids from the magic school meditate. He told them that would be their homework. They had to do that every day while they stayed in the capital. Although they could train for longer periods of time, it wasn't good to exaggerate while they were waiting for their next mission. After all, they will have to work much harder once they leave the capital. After two weeks, Zaos decided to talk with his officials about the group as a whole.

"So, any changes so far?" Zaos asked.

"Nope, everything is the same as usual," Cohnal said. "Those who were trained by the kingdom can't relax around the mercenaries. The mercenaries are just waiting for the trained soldiers to pick up a fight with them. At the same time both groups, are ignoring the kids from the magic school."

"As I told you, we won't achieve much by ordinary training alone," Melisse said.

            Zaos crossed his arms and then faced the ceiling of his headquarters. It seemed he would need to do something harsh to make everyone think of each other as an ally. They are now divided into groups, in the same groups that they stayed in the last years. While the situation wasn't bad, it wasn't improving either.

            After thinking for a while, Zaos found a way to make the members of his unit work with each other more. However, he would need to make some more investments. 

            The next day, the members of the unit found out that they had been divided into several groups, and each group had received some jobs from people all around the capital. Zaos didn't have an extensive network of acquaintances, but the people he knew had many friends, so they gladly helped him find some tasks for his unit. While that wasn't proper work for a militaristic group, it was another chance for them to gain some extra coins. By working for people like Merkin and Halamar for a day or two, the members of his unit would receive a payment and also a discount on their merchandise. 

            On the first days, Zaos didn't notice any changes since they only could work in the afternoon. In the mornings, they had to do their homework which was their daily training. However, after a few weeks, the members of his squad began to relax more around Zaos. After all, they had plenty of free time even in their working days, and they received some excellent discounts in the capital's best shops. Zaos didn't make them directly cooperate with each other in order to build some trust, but he made their loyalty toward the unit increase, and now they will try harder to fit in, all in order to stay in the group and enjoy those benefits for as long as possible.