The recruits and trainees looked around. In front, left, right, and even behind, they were surrounded by confident looking knights who were holding their heads high.
"You have friends and family all around you… You are not alone. If the fear is something that you cannot overcome alone, it's alright to use the aid of your friends and seniors. Now that you have joined the order of the Temple of Light, you do not fight alone but instead as a group"...
"Humans are inherently weaker than demons, but that does not mean that we are inferior. To make up for the gap, we learn skills, level up our stats and our class. We learned strategies and how to fight in formation, and only after that, we became capable of defeating the demons"...
"I want all of you to overcome your fear of the demon during this mission and learn how to coordinate with other knights".
Reinhardt paused here before continuing, "That said, you all won't be fighting the demons anytime soon"…
"?"
The recruits wore a confused expression. Why did the Commander say that after just giving a great speech to increase their morale?
"You all will continue with your training just like usual, starting tomorrow. Think of this mission as an expedition to train outside"…
EHHH?! They were still training? The recruits and even some of the old knights had the heart to complain, but in front of Reinhardt's overwhelming presence and prestige, all they could do was swallow it down.
"That's right, starting tomorrow, I will be teaching you swordsmanship and basics on knight formations and strategy," Reinhardt grinned.
.
.
The next day, the citizens of the Toto village were forcibly awakened by a loud roaring noise that came from not too far away.
"What's going on?"
Elmond, one of the chiefs of Toto village, woke up from his bed and headed out. There, he could see his son who was returning from his night watch duty, wearing an annoyed expression.
"What's wrong Eldrin?"…
Eldrin who was called out, looked at his father and pointed outside the village.
"It's those outsiders. They are making quite a ruckus from early morning"…
"What do you mean?" Elmond tilted his head.
"I don't know, but it seems like they are training"…
"What?!!"
Unable to believe what he heard, Elmond headed for the outskirts of the village, only to see the same sight the people of the Arckight mansion are used to seeing every single day.
Knights running around the field, carrying huge rocks on their backs. Some swinging their swords while others practicing their skills.
The scene in front of him was exactly as described; the Knights were training.
"Hmph, no matter what you do, the gates of this village will forever be closed for you." Saying that, Elmond headed back.
.
Days passed by just like this… about a week later, Elmond found himself standing at the same place again.
What is going on? Why was this knight order not going back? Usually, whenever he dismissed the knight orders, they would be grumpy and enraged; nonetheless, they would all return back without any exception.
Some tried to stick around for a few days, trying to see if they could get a chance to enter the village or talk with the inhabitants here. However, when given a cold shoulder, even they would return back.
So what was going on with this knight order? Not only did they stick around for more than a week, but they also didn't even make any attempt to try to get inside the village or initiate any conversation with the villagers.
It was as if the commander of the knight order meant what he said when he talked about camping near the village.
To stay for this long, what was their objective? Don't they have anything else to do?
'This is bad, I need to report this back' Elmond thought to himself as he narrowed his eyes.
At the camp, Reinhardt was supervising the training of the knights when his eyes shifted towards the place where Elmond was spying on them just a second ago. A brilliant light shone in his heterochromatic eyes.
"Soon!" It was unknown what he meant, but a smile crept on his face.
"Commander, why are you smiling?" A knight asked, huffing and puffing from the nightmarish training.
"Because things are looking good?"…
"Good? But we haven't even done anything other than train"…
"Precisely… you will understand soon. Now, focus on the movement of your sword".
Today, or rather for the past few days, Reinhardt had been training all the knights, even the high ranking holy knights of his order, in new sword and combat arts that was different from the standard and the extremely famous [Blade of Light] that the knights of the Temple of Light were renowned for.
So when their Commander suddenly announced that he would be changing the sword arts and techniques of their temple of light, even the holy knights couldn't help but get surprised.
However, when they felt the profundity and extraordinariness of Reinhardt's sword art that surpassed the Tempe of Light's sword art and any other sword techniques they knew by far, they were immediately convinced and all their doubts disappeared.
Right now, all of them were busy diligently learning the sword art, an opportunity that one would not even get in their entire lifetime.
"Huff… Huff… Commander's training his quite harsh. I can't believe he changed the official sword art of the order"…
"Yeah, Commander can be quite bold sometimes. Dammit, I regret learning the previous sword art, now I have to learn this new one all over again"...
During the afternoon, some of the old recruits stopped for rest and grumbled. Not far from them, were Kevin and Gwen, the new recruits of this year.
"Do you also feel the same as them?" The latter asked the former.
Kevin blinked in surprise at the sudden initiation in conversation before speaking out his thoughts.
"Not at all" he shook his head, "I once had the opportunity to learn the way of the sword from a demi human who was a master swordsman. From him, I understood that all sword arts are connected to each other".