Arrival

More time went by and several more cadets woke up. Their cabin was now livelier, and the cadets conversed with each other to no end. They left Mospria and were now making their way towards the military base that was near the canal. Cestane was a large country by landmass, but they did not occupy or utilise more than a measly twenty percent of their own land.

Most of it was teeming with abominations while the rest was simply too large and spreading their population too thin was a recipe for disaster in case a rift broke down. Even though they were not common occurrences, rift breakdowns still occurred enough for them to be considered when planning settlements. Even more dangerous than rift breakdowns were rift guardians that had not been slain when a rift appeared. If they had not been killed then that meant when the rift finally closed and dimensional fabric stabilised the abyssal creatures that would have made it through would find land to make their own within their own land. It didn't help that some abyssal creatures who were gate guardians were fiends and in the rarest cases archfiends.

Dreadful as they may be, however, they rarely made their way towards any establishments or fortresses scattered within the 20% of occupied land. The behaviour was strange and mysterious, given when they left their respective rifts their seemingly sole purpose was to destroy and to harvest life. Almost as if when a rift stabilised they regained some form of sanity albeit twisted in nature.

Of course, some abyssal creatures still tried to siege their fortified cities however they were either too weak or their forces too insignificant to pose any threats. They we're usually dealt with by hired forces from security companies or by the military during several campaigns such as this one. Another thing they didn't usually worry about was being attacked by abyssal creatures while in transit. It was uncommon, but it did happen and fortunately for them they would usually be prepared for such.

The vehicles that they travelled in were galvanised and layered with several protective armaments, both magical and mechanical. Usually, these weapons would deal with small fry and if there was anything that they couldn't handle then it was something that needed the attention of a tier 3. And in the most severe cases a centinal.

Casimir was disturbed by a gentle pat on his shoulder. He looked to his left and found Oscar looking at him with a sheepish smile.

"I'm not disturbing anything am I."

Oscar knew he was disturbing Casimir, but he was just being polite by saying that. Casimir found these kinds of social cues unbearable and tiresome. He often wondered why someone would apologise when they hurt you yet they had meant to hurt you. It defeated the purpose of apologising, at least in his mind. You would do something knowingly only to apologise later as if you hadn't meant it.

"Yes you're disturbing Oscar what is the matter?"

Casimir ensured that his irritation was as audible as the low hum of the vehicle's engine.

"Nothing really I just thought we should talk to pass the time."

"And what makes you think I want to talk."

" Never really considered that anyways what do you want to talk about?"

A frown crept onto his lips, clearly upset and unimpressed by his squad mate's antics.

"Well Oscar if you've got nothing to talk about then let me be, Michelle is next to you can talk to her."

"Well, she's being her as usual."

"I can hear you you know."

"See what I mean."

"No one sees what you mean when all that comes out of your mouth is crap"

"See now here's why I don't want to sit next to you…"

And the bickering began. The two inseparable squad mates would be found fighting for more than half the time they spend together. This time Casimir didn't have the energy to deal with it and shifted his weight away from the centre of his seat onto the right. Next to him was a blonde-haired young lady. Casimir knew what Matilda looked like. Her group was assigned as the rear guard.

Much like him she was silent for most of the journey and was awake as well when they had left the military campus. He didn't talk much with others since he was an orphan, And Matilda seemed like the quiet type so he silently thanked her for preferring to mind her own business.

Another announcement rang throughout the cabin. This time it was Officer Margaret's voice.

"We are now approaching area 22, we will take a short break and load up some supplies you will be allowed to exit the vehicle for a short amount of time to stretch and breathe in some fresh air then we shall resume our journey. Make sure not to go far from our vehicle, boarding will be no more than a minute and we expect you all to be here. Should we need to find you we'll leave you here in Area 22 where you will be subject to punishment and we will collect you when we return from the blood savannah."

Shortly after the announcement conversation began once again within their cabin. The instructions given to them were clear and there wasn't any complex task assigned to any of the cadets.

Casimir would have preferred to have seen the outside world during their journey, he had never been outside of the capital walls and even the ones in Vinth for that matter so having the opportunity to see what the geography closest to where he was currently resided was would have been much preferred.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at Area 22 and after a routine check, they were let into the facility.