During the second month after the meeting in the hall, the hideout we lived in began to feel emptier.
At first, it was difficult to notice, because training still filled most of the day, but little by little, people started leaving.
One by one.
Some left in small groups, others alone. They carried light packs and spoke quietly with the Master before disappearing down the forest road. Most of them did not say goodbye loudly. They simply nodded to the rest of us and walked away.
Their assigned circles were beginning their work.
Information gathering.
Recruitment.
Assassination.
Hunting.
Archiving.
The Master's plan was moving forward, and the hideout was no longer meant to hold everyone forever.
What had once been a crowded place full of voices, clattering equipment, and constant footsteps slowly became quieter.
More space appeared in the dining room.
Fewer beds were filled in the dormitory.
Even the training yard felt larger.
The silence should have been peaceful.
Instead, it sometimes made my shoulders tense.
Empty space meant fewer witnesses.
Fewer witnesses meant fewer people who might notice if something went wrong.
I caught myself counting the remaining people several times a day without meaning to.
Margaretha noticed once.
"You're doing it again," she said while we cleaned the training yard.
"Doing what?"
"Counting people."
I hadn't realized she was watching.
"It's just a habit," I said.
She studied me for a moment, then shrugged.
Theo, who was sweeping nearby, suddenly spoke.
"Rick just wants to make sure none of us were secretly replaced by spies."
Margaretha blinked.
"Spies?"
Theo nodded seriously.
"Yes. Imagine it. One morning, you wake up, and Robert is actually an imperial infiltrator."
Robert, who was carrying a bucket of water nearby, looked at him.
"I would be a very large infiltrator."
Theo adjusted his gaze to the ceiling.
"That's what would make it the perfect disguise."
Pritha snorted.
Margaretha laughed.
Even I felt a small smile appear.
Theo's jokes were usually terrible.
But sometimes they made the quiet feel less heavy.
The problem was that Spiro also noticed something else.
We were becoming comfortable.
And Spiro did not like comfort.
When carrying water and cleaning the hideout started to feel normal, he made us carry extra stones in our packs while doing it.
When running to the village became manageable, he turned the run into sudden sprints.
Without warning.
And he added a time limit.
"Thirty minutes," he said calmly.
"If you fail, ten hits."
The first time it happened, two of us failed.
Spiro punched them in the face exactly ten times each.
Not hard enough to break bones.
But hard enough that their lips split open.
After that, everyone ran faster.
Every time we adapted to a routine, Spiro altered it.
If something became predictable, he removed the predictability.
If something became easy, he added weight.
If something became stable, he disrupted it.
Comfort was treated like a flaw that needed correction.
The routine changed often enough that I stopped expecting stability entirely.
In some ways, that made things easier.
If nothing could be trusted to remain the same, there was nothing to rely on.
My body simply waited for the next difficulty to appear.
The only small mercy was our study lessons.
Reading and writing were still just as dull as before.
Even though the subjects were becoming more complicated, like maps, trade records, and coded messages, at least those lessons did not hurt my body.
My writing was still slow as ever.
But I kept practicing.
On top of that, new forms of combat training were added.
We stopped using wooden weapons.
From that point onward, we trained with the same weapons we used during bounty missions.
Real blades.
Real knives.
Real magic.
Real injuries.
The training methods were still different for each of us, shaped around our bloodlines and abilities, but now every session ended the same way.
Someone bleeding.
Someone exhausted.
Sometimes someone is barely able to stand.
Even Pritha was not spared.
Every evening, while cleaning my sword and washing fresh blood from the blade, I began to understand something clearly.
This was no longer preparation.
This was already the road we were walking.
There was no separate "future" where training ended, and real life began.
This was real life.
And none of us were turning back.
My own training changed the most.
At the beginning, months ago, my exercise was simple.
Dodging stones thrown at me.
Learning to move before my mind finished processing danger.
But that phase ended long ago.
Now, arrows were fired at me without warning.
Sometimes from behind trees.
Sometimes from rooftops.
Sometimes, from people I thought were standing still.
Ambushes happened constantly.
Even in the forest, when I thought training was over.
My Avenir Eyes helped me sense mana movement, but the others had become far more cunning.
They masked their intent.
They layered their movements.
One attack would distract me while another came from a blind spot.
Sometimes I sensed danger but still could not react in time.
Margaretha was usually the one organizing them.
I could tell because she was always smiling when someone hit me.
Robert's training was no kinder.
We were still allowed and encouraged to attack him with everything we had.
And he is still forbidden from striking back.
The difference was that now we used real weapons.
Real blades.
Real maces.
Real fire.
Real killing intent.
Robert wore heavy armor and carried a massive shield.
Even so, the punishment was relentless.
I searched constantly for openings in the armor joints.
Agni and Pritha burned him without hesitation.
But the most frightening attacker was Margaretha.
Using her wind magic, she lifted a heavy iron mace that should have been impossible for her size.
The big mace crashed into Robert's shield again and again.
Through all of it, Robert endured silently.
He never complained.
He accepted every strike as if pain was simply part of his role.
Margaretha's training resembled mine in some ways.
She still can't attack us back.
Instead, the rest of us attacked her while she could only defend or evade.
At first, she blocked everything easily.
Her windshield was extremely strong.
But we adapted.
Theo helped coordinate attacks.
Agni and Pritha distracted her with a wide flame attack.
I timed my strikes between movements of Theo and Robert.
Eventually, we began landing hits.
Small ones at first.
Then the larger ones.
Each time she was struck, she glared at me.
But a moment later, she would smile again.
After training, she always whispered the same thing.
"You won't get me next time."
But I always did hit her.
And she always hit me back during my training.
It felt like a rivalry where both sides lost constantly.
Strangely, I did not dislike it.
Theo's training remained a strange version of hide-and-seek.
Except now the goal was not just finding him.
The goal was to ambush him before he could escape.
Theo was becoming frighteningly good at hiding.
His shadow control deepened.
His footsteps became quieter.
Sometimes he disappeared for nearly an hour.
But my eyes were also improving.
At first, I hunted him alone.
Now I work with the others.
We set traps.
Closed escape routes.
Forced him toward places with less shadow.
Gradually, we cornered him more often.
Theo became extremely grumpy about it.
"Rick, you are abusing teamwork," he complained once.
I ignored him like usual.
Agni and Pritha's training also evolved.
Originally, they simply exchanged fireballs while we hit each other in the face.
Now we are divided into two teams.
Team Agni.
Team Pritha.
Each team could only attack the opposite sibling and.
Agni and Pritha could only attack each other.
That forced them to dodge multiple attacks while focusing on a single opponent.
Watching it was exhausting.
Participating in it was worse.
Time moved quickly during this month.
We were no longer just children trying to survive.
We were being shaped into something else.
Something sharper.
Our bounty job that month was simpler in description but dangerous in reality.
A six-meter ogre had been discovered in the forest near Entree Village.
The creature had already destroyed livestock and frightened several travelers.
The strategy we used was based on our battle with the Wrock Brothers.
Robert stood at the front.
He carried a massive tree branch we had carved into a crude spear.
Agni and Pritha prepared their fire.
Spiro and Theo circled wide.
Margaretha and I waited behind Robert.
When the ogre appeared, the ground shook with each step.
It charged almost immediately.
Everything happened at once.
Robert braced the branch.
Margaretha and I kicked it forward with all our strength.
The sharpened trunk pierced deep into the ogre's stomach.
Fire from Agni and Pritha followed instantly, burning along the wood and into the wound.
Spiro and Theo attacked from the sides, striking the monster's neck and joints.
The ogre roared.
Then it collapsed.
Its massive body crashed to the ground so heavily the earth trembled.
For a moment, we all stood still.
Then Spiro checked the body.
"Dead," he said emotionlessly.
We survived with only scratches.
Our coordination had improved.
And something else had changed, too.
For the first time, none of us looked surprised that we had won.