The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Imperial Commander Has Returned — Episode 5

“Ugh.”

Delam surveyed the Barracks and shook his head.
From his old memories, it had been shabby enough, yet somehow livable—but now that he’d arrived, he understood the truth anew.
Memory paints only prettier pictures.

The Barracks were genuinely dreadful.
Straw lay thickly piled on the bunks, and from the reek rising up, it was clear no one had bothered replacing it in ages—it reeked of fermentation itself.
Fifty people were supposed to sleep here together?

‘At least it’s not winter. I’ll take that mercy.’

Delam himself was fine enough, thanks to his Mana, but the other Trainees would suffer differently.
Come winter, the Freezing Death might claim lives in conditions like these.
But for now, it was autumn.
Not too hot; perfect for sleep.

The second mercy was the food.
Perhaps because of the grueling training regimen?
His first meal upon reaching the Training Ground had included meat.
Just mystery salted meat drifting sparsely across the top of the soup, but in an age where protein was precious, it was a feast.

The first day ended that way.
They assigned the Barracks, claimed their spots, ate dinner.
Then came a brief rest before lights out.

‘Bastards couldn’t even give us time to wash.’
Click.

Delam grumbled and opened his Socket while lying down.
The night was too dark to see his mother’s portrait inside.
But the fragrance rising from the leaves pierced through the darkness.

“Haaah—”

As he breathed in slowly, the scent rushed into his lungs.
The crisp fragrance made him see a plains before his eyes.
A golden field where the wind blew soft and gentle…

‘Did Mother see this same sight whenever she breathed in the scent?’

He wanted to believe it.
That he and his mother were connected through this Socket.

Soon after, Delam fell into deep sleep for the first time in a while.
Whether it was the plains or somewhere else, he drifted off feeling the wind blow past.

Whoooosh.

* * *

He remembered only closing his eyes for a moment.
Yet when he opened them, morning light was already streaming through the Barracks.

“Rise! Get up!”
“On your feet, you bastards!”

The uninvited guests arrived at the Barracks the moment dawn broke.
They came surging in — the instructors.
Each held a club carved from birch wood, and one shouldn’t mistake it for harmless because of its wooden construction.

Look at those hexagonal facets.
A hit meant bruising at minimum, and if someone was unlucky enough to take a solid blow to the head, that day could be his last.

“Roll call begins! You’re number one. Count off from one to fifty in order. Trainee, what’s your number?”
“…Sir?”

Trainee number one, still half-asleep, stared blankly back.
Farmers and shepherds were indeed industrious professions.
They rose before dawn to tend their flocks and work their fields, so ordinarily he’d already be awake at this hour.

The problem was that until yesterday they’d been marching for over thirty days straight.
No one could possibly be in their right mind.

The instructor, of course, showed no mercy for such circumstances.
Without asking twice, he swung the club.

Thwack, thwack, thwack!
“Argh! Ahhh!”

The roll call continued like this.
Two, three, four, five……
Each number drew screams from the trainees.

Some trainees managed to shout their numbers amid the chaos, but in this bedlam it wasn’t easy to get it right.
And even when they did, the instructors didn’t let it slide.
They’d seize on any excuse and beat them mercilessly.

“You too… huh?”

The instructor, having progressed past the midpoint, raised his club.
It stopped short in mid-swing, hanging suspended in the air.
There was no reason left to strike.

The boy standing before him in attention posture was flawless.
The instructor’s eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, scanned for any fault.
But his faded Military Cloak lay at the head of his bunk with perfect creases, and his worn Leather Shoes below were arranged in meticulous order.
The boy shouted:

“Number forty-one!”
“Is that number correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll get double if you’re wrong. Are you certain?”
“I’ll accept the consequence.”
“Trainee, what’s your name?”
“Delam, sir.”
“Hmph……”

The instructor smacked his lips and lowered the club.
He scanned once more, then moved to the next number.

“Number forty-two!”
“Wrong, you bastard!”
“No, wait — the one in front said number forty-one……”
“Wrong either way! Drop and die!”

Mark, who’d tried to follow Delam’s example, received a thorough beating for his trouble.
The trainees who had already taken their beating and were groaning in pain shot looks at Delam.
Not at the instructor—at Delam.

“We all got hit, but you slipped through clean?”
“Traitor bastard!”

But Delam didn’t particularly mind.
From what he’d seen, hazing at the Training Ground was remarkably rare.
Was it because they developed camaraderie through training together?
Or because the instructors kept watch?
No. Neither.

‘They’re just too damn exhausted.’

Tormenting someone required energy you could spare.
But the Training Ground stripped you down to just enough strength to grip a pencil.
You had to eat, after all.

‘Hang in there, you wretches.’

Delam chuckled softly, offering them silent encouragement.
It would be hard, but this suffering would nourish them.
On the Battlefield, it would be the bedrock of survival.

* * *

Life at the Training Ground was monotonous.
Apart from breakfast and supper, there were only three types of training.
Physical Conditioning, Drill Training, and Ideological Education.

Three didn’t mean easy, of course.
During Physical Conditioning, everyone vomited.
Even those with working backgrounds—farmers, carpenters—were no exception.
The training was that brutal, that merciless in wringing every ounce from you.

And Drill Training? That was another beast entirely.
You had to move in perfect synchronization with the commands, but since most had never done anything like it in their lives, it was brutally difficult.
Make a mistake and you got beaten. A comrade makes a mistake and you get beaten anyway. You’re beaten until you hurt, and when you’re hurting, you make mistakes… it was hell.

‘But the real killer is Ideological Education.’

Ideological Education was simple enough.
Everyone gathered together in the Barracks, sitting side by side.
You just had to listen to the instructor’s lecture.
The material was easy too.

[Our royal house is this magnificent]
[Our kingdom is this extraordinary]
[And the enemy kingdoms that oppose us? They’re garbage]

The same themes stretched out at length.
And it was actually engaging.
Rather than being written by instructors or politicians, they’d commissioned comedians from the Royal Capital to compose it.
The result was that listening to it all, drafted against your will as you were, your chest would swell with loyalty and patriotic fervor.

That is, if you could actually stay awake through it.
[If you could listen at all].

“Ugh…!”
“Can’t sleep… can’t fall asleep…!”

The trainees kept their eyes wide open, absorbing every word of the lecture.
It was Ideological Education, coming right after Physical Conditioning and Drill Training.
But what happened when your body was completely exhausted?
You couldn’t help but nod off.

Perfectly natural.
The problem was that the instructors didn’t seem to understand this obvious fact.

“You dare doze while I speak of the Crown’s dignity?”
Whack!

One trainee got struck immediately.
The others saw it and pinched their own thighs, but it was useless.
If you could simply will yourself awake, you’d already be a perfect soldier.
There would be no need for training at all.

That day, like every other, ended in exhaustion.
Yet the trainees’ spirits were unusually high.
Tomorrow, after all, the training they’d been waiting for would finally begin!

* * *

“So they’re adding a new training tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we’re supposed to learn Weapon Technique.”
“Ha! At last—time to show them what I’m made of.”

In the Barracks after training had ended.
After more than a week of grinding away, perhaps it was no wonder that
the trainees’ stamina had improved noticeably.
They had enough energy left before sleep to chat a little.

The ones chattering away now were the volunteers.
That’s what everyone called the ones who’d enlisted by choice.
Those who’d come here on their own two feet seeking a chance to turn their lives around.

And they all carried the same unshakeable conviction.
A talent no one could match!
The absolute certainty that such genius slumbered within them.

But what use was Drill Training and Ideological Education for such a purpose?
Those were mere grunt work—they couldn’t possibly display their brilliance.
Weapon Technique training, beginning tomorrow, was different.

“After tonight, I’m done with barracks life. With my skill, they’ll assign me a private quarters from tomorrow onward.”
“I’ve trained in Sword Technique under a Mercenary Commander. He was so amazed by my talent he begged me to become his disciple—it was hard to refuse.”

Boundless confidence—though utterly baseless.
Of course, it didn’t match reality at all.

“Thrust that spear straight, you dimwits!”
“No, are your arms crooked? Why are you extending it sideways? I said thrust forward—why are you stabbing your fellow to the diagonal!”
Screeeech!
“S-sorry…….”

The first lesson had arrived.
The trainees realized it the moment they began.
They possessed not a shred of talent.
Of course, some still couldn’t accept reality.

“Aren’t the instructors just not teaching us properly?”
“This bastard!?”

At one trainee’s objection, the instructors’ eyes went wild.
What the trainees were holding now were real spears.
No matter how much the instructors prided themselves, they hadn’t learned to channel Mana—they were just veterans who’d seen combat a handful of times.
Which meant that if the trainees decided to rebel in earnest, the instructors could easily end up dead.

“Beat this bastard!”
“We need to nip this in the bud!”

The instructors, seized by murderous intent, rushed forward with cudgels in hand.
At the sight of them, the trainee let out a startled cry and dropped his spear.
The cudgels came down with lethal force—nothing like before.

“P-please… mercy… ack!”

In the midst of the beating.
The trainee who took a direct hit to the back of his head let out a final, strangled cry.
His body convulsed on the ground in a way that didn’t look good.
Delam shook his head as he watched.

‘It’s over.’

How many deaths had Delam witnessed on the Battlefield?
When a Knight grows accustomed to death, it means he understands it.
Where to thrust to kill. Where a blow will be fatal.
That trainee, unfortunately, had been struck in the wrong place.

“Damn it… clean this up.”
“Yes, sir.”

Though a man had died, the Senior Instructor’s response was simple.
The trainee’s corpse was dragged away and disappeared somewhere unknown.

The other trainees stood stunned at the sight.
It was understandable.
The Training Ground had been brutal, but no one had died until now.
To see someone in the same situation as them end like that, right before their eyes.

Shiver-shiver-shiver.

Among them, the one who looked the most terrified was someone Delam knew.
A thug from his hometown, Mark.
It seemed he’d finally grasped the reality of their situation—his face had gone pale.

“Hey.”
“W-what…….”
“Didn’t you hear the instructor? If you grip the spear like that, you’ll lose your fingers when you thrust. And why are you holding the bottom end instead of the middle? You trying to stab the person in front of you too?”
“I’m not!”
“Then grip it properly. Look, now you’re getting the real picture, aren’t you? How stupid what you did was. Honestly, swapping the lot you got by chance—I never would’ve imagined that kind of stupidity.”
“Ah…….”
“Listen carefully to what the instructors tell you and train hard. That’s the only way you’ll live when you get to war. You want to never see your parents again?”

Trickle-trickle.

Tears streamed down Mark’s face without his realizing it.
Contrary to his expectations, he had no talent whatsoever for spear work.
Despite already taking hits from the instructor countless times, he wasn’t improving.
In the midst of it all, he kept thinking to himself.

—A Knight is a sword, after all.
—A sword will be different…….

But in truth, he knew better.
It was all nonsense.

“Are you Trainee Delam?”

At that moment, someone approached Delam from the front.
The uniform was similar to the ordinary instructors’ but noticeably more refined.
A Senior Instructor.

When the superior arrived, the nearby instructors saluted.
Their faces showed surprise at the sudden visit.
But Delam answered without hesitation.

“Yes, sir. I am Delam.”
“Follow me. Bring your spear with you.”
“Understood, sir.”

The trainees had been eager to demonstrate their talents.
Delam knew better than anyone how absurd it all sounded, yet he did not mock them for it.
Because, in fact, he harbored the same thought.

‘Well then. Let me show them what I can truly do.’

Let them see what real talent looks like.
Then let them cheer.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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