Emperors War 104 Did I Move Out Of Turn?

"Let me give it a try!"

"Me too, slap some on my plate as well"

Everyone at the table started piling on Aker's creation curious as to what the fuss was as the other tables watched on in slight disbelief. Indubitably every single person who tried a bite smiled brightly and began stuffing their face as fast as they could.

Everyone was so preoccupied with the table full of men that was devouring the drum full of food that no one noticed Aker had left. Only when they heard the "thud" of another drum hitting a table did they come back to their senses.

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Aker walked out drum after drum, enough to feed three hundred drunk and starving men, the earlier chants for meat were now replaced with the calls of satisfaction.

"Have you ever eaten anything so good before?"

"Never....it's amazing, every bite I take is so d.a.m.n amazing. I can't describe how good this is."

"Do you think this brat can make other food this good? If so, can you imagine how jealous the other Companies will be when they find out? I can already picture the look on their faces when they hear about the heavenly food that our errand boy can cook up."

"Hahahahahaha..." The three hundred men were enjoying the thought of finally getting one over on all the Company's that were constantly putting them down. The other Company's might have better living arrangements, they might have a better living environment, they might have better equipment and they may have more people to take care of them but as of now it looked like the Frail Fighters had the best cook....

After Aker finished feeding the three hundred fighters and cleaning up all of the pots, pans, drums, plates and utensils he proceeded to get tomorrow's breakfast ready. He had already finished up the prep work and had it all pre-staged meaning it should only take him about an hour to have it on the table.

After Aker finished up in the kitchen, he proceeded to hunt down Leland to find out if he needed any help. Not only did Leland not need help, but Leland had already found rooms for each of them and had them cleaned up and ready. It turns out that despite Leland's unkept appearance he was fantastic and excelled at menial ch.o.r.es.

Leland was a much smarter person than Aker had at first given him credit for, perhaps smarter is not the proper way of thinking about it, he was more observant. Due to Aker's training and some of his secrets he preferred to be away from others. Leland either must of felt the same way or picked up on this sentiment from Aker as he put Aker on one side of the building and himself on the other with fifteen rooms between them. In this way they could go about their business as neighbors but they wouldn't be infringing on each other.

As both Aker and Leland were tired neither bothered to chat and both headed to their rooms after a long first day. Aker broke out his gravity stone and was looking for a place to put it so that he could train and absorb nature particles. Currently the gravity stone was set to zero or normal gravity which is why Aker could move it around without anyone noticing it.

After looking over the room Aker made the decision that he would need to wait until he had an opportunity to check the room next door before deciding where and how to put the stone out.

The current room was roughly four meters by four meters which made it a decent size room. The problem was that Aker had become accustomed to the larger size room for practice while traveling aboard the garbage can and as such, he wanted more s.p.a.ce here if he could. As far as Aker could tell this entire building was dedicated for the errand boys with only Aker and Leland currently residing in it. If that was the case shouldn't he be able to knock down a wall or two and extend the size of his room? He would check it out tomorrow and start making plans if that was the case.

Since Aker wasn't sure what he was going to do with his room he decided to wait on unpacking and getting setup so he pulled out a blanket and tossed it on the floor, sat down and began absorbing nature particles.

Immediately Aker felt a flood of nature particles bombard him, he had already been on this planet for a few days and each day he still forgot to regulate and control the flow into his body. After having to fight so hard for each nature particle while traveling in s.p.a.ce absorbing nature particles on a planet was simple and didn't require him to put in any effort. In fact, it was almost more consuming and work to prevent his body from sucking down the nature particles while sitting in this room.

What Aker had discovered in his few days on this planet was that his control over nature particles had grown exponentially since his time in The Pit. When Aker had first noticed this, he pondered on it and came to the conclusion that it was due to having to work so hard while absorbing in s.p.a.ce. While traveling through s.p.a.ce he had to completely focus and concentrate on the absorbing and controlling of nature particles that he was bound to improve his efficiency with it. It wasn't just his ability to control nature particles but his Venas and body seemed to circulate and absorb them faster as well.

As Aker was sitting and absorbing, his mind was focused on his Venas and his body. As Aker had never read or heard about anyone at the Body Conditioning level going through what he was, he didn't have a point of reference for how long it should take to absorb into his deep skin, muscles, organs and bone. However, just based on his body and how he felt, he was guessing that he would be able to break through to Source Core in the next month or two if he continued at this pace, which was significantly faster than it would have been traveling through s.p.a.ce.

After a night of absorbing nature particles and resting Aker felt fantastic and he was looking forward to his morning workout when he woke up.

As he walked behind his building his face dropped as he found that it was run over with weeds and dilapidated equipment. As he looked it over, he found there was no way to run though his sets and do his normal practice with the weeds up to his waist that was covering the mounds and piles of garbage and debris that littered the ground.

Aker found a sickle in a shed just outside of their building and proceeded to start cutting down the weeds. After just more than an hour the weeds and trash that had seemed impossible to clean up was now neatly in the trash and Aker had a clean work out area. As Aker was cleaning, he couldn't help but wonder how the entire area where Company D was could be a pile of dirt except for the back of their building. As Aker and Leland had walked in there wasn't a weed, gra.s.s or living plant to be spotted in the Frail Fighters compound except for behind their building.

Aker had taken a few minutes and set up a wood board for dart throwing practice and had found some broken stick dummy's in the shed that housed the sickle. Hidden under the pile of trash and weeds were post holders so apparently those stick dummies were meant to be used in Aker's practice area so he went ahead and set them up.

Aker also took the time to set up a rack with all of his different weapons to include the halberd, staff, spear, sword and saber. He had also brought with him a bow; however, he had never had an opportunity to learn how to use it so he was excited about trying it out. Unfortunately, he would need a bigger board to practice on as the one he had for his throwing darts was fairly small and he wouldn't be accurate enough with the bow when first learning to make it a viable target.

After confirming that he was happy with his area Aker walked over and picked up his sword, he began visualizing one of his battles with Vance and just as he was getting ready to move someone called out "Hey kid what the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?"

The voice that yelled out caused Aker to stop his practice and look out. Quickly Aker was able to find the source of that voice. It turned out it was the fighter who had been the one to try his food first yesterday when he first brought out the drum.

'What does fake muscles want with me that he is calling out to me so early in the morning?' As Aker didn't know the man's name he came up with his own.

"Hey little buddy this guy here is Shawn Bernard, but everyone here calls me Muscles, so I'll allow you to call me by that name as well." Still wearing his tight clothes, he flexed his small arms as he spoke.

'Hahahahahahahahaha.....turns out fake muscles wasn't too far off from the name he prefers to go by' seeing the man brag about being called muscles made Aker laugh to himself. Coming from The Pit and being surrounded by truly muscular and giant men the fact that this guy could call himself muscles with a straight face was the equivalent of calling a chihuahua dog Mammoth.

"Is it fine if I just call you Shawn? You can call me Aker." As Aker spoke, he focused on keeping a straight face and watched the influx of his voice, while he thought the name was funny, he didn't have any reason to offend the guy in front of him by mocking his nickname either.

"Shawn's fine...anyway I wanted to tell you that everyone loved your cooking. It must have been awhile since I had a home cooked meal since I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed and more energized than I can remember ever in my life. It wasn't just me, everyone was talking about how vibrant, strong and alert they were feeling...Since I'm feeling so good I wanted to come over and tell you thanks for the meal but since I saw you picking up that sword I thought I might go ahead and teach you some stuff with it as a reward for doing such a good job."

While Shawn might have sounded arrogant as he spoke, offering to train Aker on how to use the sword on account of him doing such a good job, this was actually the purpose and goal of puer nuntius. The puer nuntius would do the menial task and errands and as a reward the fighters would teach and train them. After two years of being a puer nuntius and learning from the fighters, not only would they already be well integrated into the squad, but they would be trained up fighters ready to earn honors and get rich. One of the most motivating aspects of joining the military outside of gaining experience was the concept of Praeda Tenenda Est or "Keep What You Kill".

As fighters earned merits and honors, trained, and honed their fighting skills they also had the right to the wealth of every person that they killed. Each soldier had to give up thirty percent of that wealth to their commanders of which five percent would go to their squad leader and the remaining twenty five percent would go to the Company Commander and their deputy, but that was still seventy percent that they would pocket.

Aker was beside himself when he heard Shawn's words. Aker was prepared to practice using visualization and the wood dummy but having a real combat partner, especially one that was a real fighter in the war would be incredible. Since he found out he was going to be an errand boy he gave up the idea of training with the actual combat fighters and had begun making plans to practice by himself for the next two years.

"That would be much appreciated, what weapon do you want to use?" Aker pointed to the rack hinting that it didn't matter to him which one Shawn chose, he liked to learn and practice with all of them.

"How about I show you how to use the sword since that's what you have in hand, I won't pick up a weapon yet, I'll just have you attack and I'll point out your weaknesses. If I was to pick up a weapon you wouldn't be able to learn anything as I would move to fast for you to keep up." Shawn had thought it out and since Aker needed to learn how to use a sword it would be him bullying a kid if he was to also have a weapon. Besides if he didn't have a weapon, he could better focus on critiquing the kid instead of attacking and defending with the weapon. In the future when this kid actually learned how to use a sword, he would begin showing him how to fight with it when facing a real person.

"Are you sure, I've practiced and used the sword before, I think you should probably have a weapon too" as Aker asked, he was wondering 'Is it rude to question him and suggest he picks up a weapon too? Perhaps he is an expert and he can tell that I still have a lot to learn. Compared to Vance I can barely be called a sword user.'

"Hahahaha...don't worry about it, whatever small tricks you've learned with a sword couldn't possibly help you, just go ahead and attack whenever you're ready, I'm ready for you." Shawn's voice continued to have a hint of laughter in it even after he stopped laughing. He found it funny that this small kid could really tell him with a straight face that he should probably pick up a sword.

As Shawn was still chuckling in his head at Aker's laughable comment and waiting for Aker to make his move he was startled as he felt the sensation of cold metal being rubbed against his neck.

Shawn who had fought in battles hadn't quite developed that sense that one gets after enough life and death fights that warns them to make a move. Additionally, he had never really been that close to dying so he had no sense of pressure or feeling as to what true danger felt like. Yet, at this moment he finally felt that cold sensation that could only be described as freighting and numbing. When a person feels their life and death is completely out of their control for the first time and they are at the mercy of another it's almost as if you lose the ability to feel your own body, it's an indescribable feeling and one he would now be able to understand.

"I'm sorry I thought you were ready; did I move out of turn?" The voice was calm and smooth, hearing it you would understand that this person had held too many swords to too many necks in his life.

'How can this be the same person who was in the kitchen cooking who made that heavenly meal last night? How can his voice be that calm and cold sounding while talking normally? I never even saw him move and suddenly he was behind me with a sword to my throat. One small mistake and I would be pus.h.i.+ng daisies, exactly how strong is he?' Shawn was left questioning how a normal phrased question could cause his knees to feel weak and he was left wondering what it takes for a kid to become that way.