After the brief run-in with the spider, the soldiers continued.
On the way, they found one other beast, but this one was at the Middle General Stage.
The officer and two Bootlickers took care of the beast, and the officer gave those two some praise before continuing. The two Bootlickers haven't shown amazing power, but they were good enough to survive and gain some attention from the beast, which allowed the officer to kill it.
One hour later, the group finally arrived at their goal.
It was a newly built town with over twenty-meter high, dark blue walls.
Shang, disguised as one of the Numbers, looked at the walls and was surprised how quickly the Mages of this world managed to build such gigantic walls.
"Wait here," the officer said, and he walked towards the town on his own.
The soldiers on the wall were careful and only let the officer in after they exchanged some words.
The officer remained inside the town for a couple of minutes.
When he returned, he was accompanied by two other people.
One of them wore the same armor as the officer, but the third person wore a set of armor that vastly outshone the other's set of armor.
Shang felt a feeling of severe threat come from that person, which told him that he had to be at the Commander Stage.
The Commander Stage warrior looked over the gathered soldiers and nodded.
"Bring them to their new home," he ordered the officer.
"Yes, sir!" the officer shouted with a salute.
The Commander Stage warrior nodded and entered the town again, followed by the second officer.
"You heard it, boys!" the officer shouted to his group. "It's time to get to your new home!"
The Bootlickers and Rookies saluted while the others remained silent.
After that, the officer led everyone towards the northeast.
In the next hour, some of the Scumbags and a couple of Rookies began to fall behind.
They had been running all day, and they just couldn't run anymore.
The Rookies helped their comrades, but the Scumbags left their comrades behind, not caring if they survived or died.
Luckily, the Scumbags that lagged behind could still see the group in the distance. They were in luck that there was basically no flora in the former battlefield.
Eventually, the officer stopped and waited until everyone arrived, which took a couple of minutes.
The tired group looked around and gritted their teeth in frustration when they saw nothing around.
That meant more walking.
Right now, everyone was on top of a smaller hill. By now, there was not much ice left on the ground, but it was still snowing lightly. However, the snow quickly melted as soon as it hit the ground.
The ground on the hill was warmer than the air, which told everyone that they were close to the Volcano Wyrm Zone.
At the moment, it was evening, but due to the thick cloud cover, it seemed like it was night.
"This is our new home!" the officer announced.
The soldiers looked around in confusion.
This hill?
The officer only smirked. "We will build an outpost at this exact location!" he announced.
The group of soldiers wasn't very enthusiastic about that.
"Now, I will distribute tasks based on what I have seen of you so far!"
After that, the officer called one person after the other to the front.
"You will build the wall," the officer said to one of the Scumbags.
The Scumbag gritted his teeth.
He had been one of the ones that had lagged behind, and he was sure that this was the reason why the officer gave him the most thankless job out of all of them.
Building a wall was boring, tedious, took long, and exhausting.
It was the worst job.
The frustration of the Scumbag turned into rage, but he didn't dare to complain.
Even though the officer talked very casually with everyone, the Scumbag had seen what the officer had done to one of the Scumbags when they talked without permission.
In the end, the Scumbag left with three other Scumbags to build the wall.
The officer drew a deep line in the ground to symbolize where the wall was supposed to be built while the others waited for their assignments.
Based on the line, the wall would end up with a circumference of about a hundred meters.
"I want it ten meters tall, and I want two gates," the officer said, pointing to where the gates were supposed to be.
"Sir, what are we supposed to use as material?" one of the Scumbags asked in a polite and careful tone.
The officer only smirked.
"You three at least managed to get to this hill with your own strength," the officer said.
Then, the officer looked at the five students that had lagged behind, who had been helped by their comrades.
"They didn't," the officer said.
At that moment, the students knew what was going to happen.
The students that had lagged behind turned white, while the other students felt shocked and guilty for helping them.
From the side, Shang watched all of his with a raised eyebrow, which couldn't be seen through his mask.
'This officer definitely doesn't foster unity,' he thought. 'It seems like he cares more about individual strength.'
Punishing a soldier for helping another soldier was very abnormal. Usually, the military transformed a group of soldiers into one entity.
This was obviously not what the officer had in mind.
The officer called the five Rookies that had lagged behind to the front.
SHING!
Five pickaxes appeared before the officer.
The five students looked at the pickaxes in dread.
Then, the officer pointed at a different hill, nearly a full kilometer away.
"I want the good stuff," he said. "The stuff that's at least ten meters deep in the ground!"
"Your job is to get the good stone and bring it to the builders. You don't have to cut the stones into uniform sizes. That is part of the builders' job."
Everyone looked at the hill in the distance.
From this position, they could see the surrounding kilometers rather well, and they could see several General Stage beasts from here.
It was a dangerous task.
"Sir, with all due respect, we-"
BANG!
The officer slapped the student so hard that several of his teeth fell out.
"Who told you to have no willpower?!" the officer shouted with an enraged voice. "Your body is just as powerful as everyone else's, but you lagged behind!"
"Well, since you slacked off on the journey, you obviously need more training! A few days of mining and carrying heavy stones should bring some discipline into your lazy head!"
The other Rookies were horrified while the Scumbags snickered.
There were no more complaints.
After that, the officer called forward the bootlickers and gave them the task of building several houses, each one serving a different purpose.
Materials?
They would have to also get the stone with pickaxes.
However, this group of soldiers had two things that made it easier for them.
First of all, the stones didn't need to be the hardest materials. As long as the building didn't fall over when a General Stage warrior accidentally fell on it, it would be fine.
Second, they were allowed to manage themselves, which meant that not everyone had to do the hard task of mining stone the entire time. They could just do rotations.
After that, the officer called forward the remaining Rookies.
"You guys seem like you need some training. So, you will be responsible for dealing with all the weaker beasts in the surroundings and the ones that threaten the mining path especially. I don't care how you kill the beasts, but I don't want to see any beast from up here! If there is a Middle General Stage beast or stronger, you will report that to me!" the officer ordered.
The reactions were mixed.
Some of the Rookies were happy that they didn't have to do boring manual labor, but others felt nervous and a bit scared.
Then, the officer called the remaining Scumbags forward.
"You seem like a bunch that's amazing at saving your own asses," the officer said.
The Scumbags didn't like what the officer was saying, but they didn't dare to raise their voices.
"Because of that, your responsibility will be scouting! You will scout up to ten kilometers to the north, which is where the Volcano Wyrm Zone starts, and 50 kilometers into every other direction! I want to know what beasts you see, where you see them, their power, and I especially want to know if you see any humans!" the officer ordered.
The Scumbags grimaced.
This was an extremely dangerous job.
Now, only the Numbers were left.
The officer looked at One and Two for a bit and then focused on Zero with a frown.
One guessed what the officer was thinking and walked over to Zero. "He and I have an agreement. I trust his strength."
The officer looked at Zero for a bit more.
One and Two had proven their strength, but he hadn't seen Zero fight yet.
However, since One had vouched for Zero, the officer didn't mind.
"You will stay on standby here," the officer said.
"Your responsibility is to deal with any Middle General Stage beasts. Do you have the power to do that?" the officer asked.
The officer hadn't asked if the others were able to deal with their tasks since it was expected of them to have the power to do their tasks.
But killing a Middle General Stage beast was beyond the normal scope.
One and Two seemed to have been rather comfortable in their fight with the Hardfire Spider, which was why he thought about letting them have this job.
The three Numbers looked at each other.
"I want extra payment."
The officer looked at Zero with furrowed brows.
One and Two also looked at him.
"I can assure you that, if you manage to kill a couple in a group, your bonus will be, at least, above average, even if the performance for the remainder of your stay is mediocre," the officer said.
"Fine with me," Zero said.
One and Two looked at each other and nodded. "We agree," One said to the officer.
The officer smirked and nodded. "Good!"
Then, he turned to everyone else.
"Now, do your job!"
