Chapter 1 - Ithax

"The summer heat had started to get to my head by the time I woke up. The drill sergeant had yet to sound the horns, so I couldn't exactly tell what time it was. Nonetheless, I got off my 'bed,' if you could call it that. All that was there was a block of wood with a couple of layers of cloth to make it less difficult to sleep.

I looked at my squad members, who were still sound asleep. As usual, unfortunately, I had gotten up far earlier than what was asked of us, all thanks to the same nightmare that had started to haunt me about a month ago.

"Haaaaaah," I let out a slight sigh and left the tent, heading straight for the training area to clear up my head a little. It had been five months now that I had enlisted in the imperial army and would be dispatched out onto the field in about another month. If I were to be perfectly honest, I had absolutely no desire to join the military. Unfortunately, I had no real choice. Being the youngest son of a peasant family, my elder brother would get to inherit most of my father's little wealth, and what would be left would go to my second brother. So, as one would naturally to earn a living if they had a somewhat decent physique, I decided to join the military. Day in, day out, training to go out there to kill our fellow human beings due to the petty squabbles of our royal overlords.

And if you were especially lucky and showed some talent in terms of aether control, you would get to go fight the demons, where you would act as nothing but cannon fodder, standing stupidly before the hordes of demons waiting to devour you.

Truly the most ideal job, is it not, for earning honor? You get to kill people of your own species over petty disputes and fight monsters invading your home, jumping straight into your death.

Well, not that any of that matters anymore, and it's not like my thoughts will change any of the things that are happening at this point. I am a soldier, and as a soldier should, I must follow orders, nothing else.

I thought to myself in consolation and picked up my spear and axe that I had been polishing for the past five minutes while I had been ranting to myself. An odd combination, it is, I am aware, but they are the weapons I am most comfortable with, at least that is what I realized after training with several different weapons over the past five months.

As I attached my axe to my back and started to swing my spear at the training dummy, the drill commander blew his whistle, meaning it was already 5 a.m., and it was time for everyone to wake up.

***

That day, too, I woke up as usual at the loud and annoying whistle of the drill commander. God, how I would pay to see him be eaten by those damned demons he is preparing us to fight.

Anyway, I got up, ruffled my hair a bit to wake myself up, and made my bed. As I did, I noticed that crazy bastard had, as usual, already gotten up and made his bed, and left for training long before any of us had gotten up.

"Ugh," I groaned at the thought of Mr. Perfect over there training hard only to be sent to the front lines as cannon fodder. Shaking off my thoughts, I left the tent with the rest of my squad members. As I did, I saw him with his dead, diamond-like eyes and short black hair, striking that straw doll as if it was his lifelong enemy.

"Oye, Ithax, come on, stop beating up the poor straw doll, and come take a shower. We don't want the drill sergeant to beat us up because we were late," said Andrew, a brown-haired young man about the same age and height as me and Ithax, around 18 years old and about 6 feet in height.

"Yeah, I'm on my way," Mr. Perfect said as he put his spear back on the rack, took off his axe, and started jogging towards us, covered in sweat from his daily morning training.

"Morning, Jason," Ithax said as he walked up to me and grabbed onto my shoulder. Yeah, I hate to admit it, but this jerk and I have been best friends for the past 17 years. But god, do I hate his guts. Man, he infuriates me. He didn't used to be like this, you know? He was just as stupid as the rest of us. Wait, he is still stupid, but he didn't act... how do I say this, quite as obnoxiously. Yeah, that is the word. He only got like this a few months ago. Apparently, he has been having the same nightmare over and over again. I don't know, to me, it just sounds like an excuse for him to try and act cool.

***

After my morning routine, my squad of five members, including me, went to take a shower to prepare for our morning training. We had until 5:30 for all of us to assemble at the drill grounds.

After we quickly freshened up, we ran toward the other side of the training camp where the drill sergeant had been waiting for all of us to gather with a somewhat unusual serious look on his face. Let me be frank; he always had a serious look on his face, but this was too serious a look, even for him.

It took me a minute to settle down after we arrived at the training ground. Once we did, I looked at my best friend, Jason, a blond-haired, yellow-eyed young man, with a serious look. "I think we are about to be dispatched," I said as he nodded his head.

"Yeah, I kind of had that feeling as well when I saw that weird frown on his bald head," Jason replied, which prompted Andre to whisper with a scared look on his face, "Oye, you can't be serious, right? Our training hasn't finished yet. Why would they send partially trained soldiers onto the battlefield?"

"Why else? They want more meat shields," I said with a deadpan look on my face.

"He could have worded it better, but yeah, there is a non-zero chance that they just want us to join the battlefield at this point to increase their numbers," Jason spoke with a light sigh.

"ATTENTION!" the drill commander shouted as we all got into our positions, with me at the front of the group as the squad leader.

"As some of you have already started to assume at this point," the drill commander started to speak as his attention momentarily drifted to our squad before he started to once more focus on the rest of the 100 soldiers present before him, "all of you are being dispatched to the western front, where the defense effort against the demons is taking a turn for the worst."

"As I had expected," I said with a slight sigh. Of course, we had to go fight the demons. There was no way we would have been trained here for the past five months just to fight humans. Every soldier here had been trained to fight demons, and the day had come for us to show our worth.