Primary Trainee

"There we go."

Aside from just over ten people, the rest of them got together and began to move.

The trainee who had noticed the umbrella's identity first coolly took the lead in creating a barrier magic with her at the centre.

The rest started to move forward at a quick pace as they defended against the bombardment.

To be honest I had considered calling this session off due to a certain pair of lunatics.

No, even if it was only one that jumped in then you could safely assume that they were a lunatic, but the fact that the next one also succeeded created doubt, and because of that you could have all sorts of moths jumping straight into the fire.

Especially those who haven't experienced the Great War and heard only through rumours, and only the brief mentions in primary training, there will be kids who will be wondering if those rumours were true or exaggerated.

If it's the kids who haven't experienced first-hand the numbers that were fucked over by this bombardment then you can literally see as a number.

Hearing of hundreds of casualties is a hell of a lot different to seeing said hundreds of casualties in person.

If it were the ones who were on the front lines they could understand the numbers but it would be foolish to expect the same understanding from these kids.

That is the limits of these kids with no practical experience.

They could understand just how big several hundreds are if they get surrounded by that amount of enemy forces on an assignment, but that sort of training is impossible here.

It's an evil organization, but we don't recklessly kill young kids during training.

As a primary trainee, even at the risk of reeducation safety first is how we do things, and even once they become an advanced trainee, with the exception of practical experience, the core doctrine is to minimize casualties.

No matter that it's been easier to get fresh bodies due to the fact that the Great War has caused the number of orphans have risen greatly in these past few years, in an evil organization where the vast majority of the work we do is illegal, we need to be aware of the risk that we could die at any time.

Because of this, the places called evil organizations are always in a labour shortage.

To solve this, we educate children from a young age and continue to bolster our numbers, but the cost involved in this is no joke either.

Before the Great War brought down the cost to a pittance, on average it cost twenty silver, fifteen lately due to the drop in prices, to bring in a child, but when you multiply that by hundreds, thousands, then it's not a cost you can wave off.

Plus the cost of feeding them, clothing them, training costs and so on, when you put them all together you wonder it might be just more cost-effective to hire an adult, but there are way too many spies from other organizations and countries, so for the most part we can only use young orphans or slaves.

Because of this, I don't kill anyone.

Perhaps even in my employee evaluation I might be appraised as a skilled instructor with no casualties, all the while fostering a high sense of fiscal responsibility!

Since I bring results, it's not that my education in wrong, but the ones who couldn't handle it are too weak! Is the final evaluation!

"Thirty-seven."

It's a respectable result.

The twelve remaining over there will be sent back to primary training with the fifty-one other kids sprawled in their beds, but that's none of my concern.

The kids that failed are already out of my hands, but are in the hands of the primary training instructors instead.

"Time to go back now."

No. 1000 who was on her third strip of jerky, and No. 1 who was staring at her with a feverish gaze.

Did he fall for her? Did he fall?

Oh, a love story rare in this evil organization!

…Yeah, right.

It's been a long time since I discarded those delusions you might find in a rofan(1) novel.

I just have to hope and pray that No. 1 doesn't backstab No. 1000 during a mission out of a jealousy.

No matter where you go, the majority of the beings called No. 1 are the ones that can't stand the presence of someone above them.

When I turned my head, while weak, I could see the resolve of the trainees that were now veterans of the Empire-style magic bombardment.

They all looked tired, but they still had resolve.

Yep, that's how it should be.

If they lost resolve from just this then it would be very hard to educate them.

I prefer comfortable and simple training methods. Of course, not comfortable and simple for the trainees, but comfortable and simple for myself.

"Congratulations for surviving the infamous Empire bombardment."

First raise their spirits a bit, then sign to the communications mage beside me.

"…Are we really doing this?"

"Yes."

Maybe it was just my imagination but the mutterings "Oh, gods, why…" were probably just my imagination.

The training we're going to do from now on is much simpler to dodge than the Empire-style magic bombardment, no?

Plus even if you're hit by it you're not going to die?

Over the heads of the trainees that had their attentions trained on me, a faint magic circle shimmered.

I could have all signs of it removed altogether, but that's for the last day.

Since I am not that much of an evil instructor I will give them time to get used to it.

Didn't they always say humans were animals of adaptability? They can simply adapt to this as well.

"Since you survived that highly-infamous bombardment, a normal one should be easy?"

As a few of them stared horrified at the sky, this time, not silver, but a multicoloured rain began to fall.

"Now, splendid trainees that survived the Empire's magic bombardment, this time it's the organization's favourite magic bombardment. Ah, we are controlling it so you won't die if you get hit, but you could still die if you keep getting hit, so be careful!"

Perhaps they didn't all hear me, they were very busy running away.

Scanning and forgetting, no, in one ear and out the other? As an instructor this saddens me.

"Now, then. Shall we play for just a week?"

For the kids who might have my retirement on the line, I shall feed them experience like a high-end restaurant chef.

To start, the first menu is a premium set of all the magic bombardments they could face on the battlefield