Deal

Ares woke up the other day in the morning. He was still feeling a bit sick because of his worn-out body, but nothing was helping it. He knew that his recovery wouldn't be completed after just some days of rest.

'I just wanted to be able to start working out and training with weapons again, but with my joints and muscles so exhausted like this, I can't bring myself even to walk for more than ten minutes around this small room,' he thought, frustrated.

Ares began to make some stretch exercises to lose the tension on his muscles and joints. That was the most that he could do while in that state.

'I wonder how many weeks I will need to wait until I can recover completely... or is it months? I hope that this isn't the case...'

Ares knew that they were in the middle of the year, hence two months after his birthday of fourteen years old. He could apply to the military academy after he reached fifteen years old, and the only requirement that he knew was that he needed to have basic military skills and body constitution, also as his Awakening.

'I am pretty sure that I don't need to worry about the first two, but my Awakening is something that I can't be sure of at all. I can have my Awakening right after I turn fifteen, but it can also last until my nineteen years old...'

According to his father, someone's Awakening period would be from their fifteen years old until their nineteens. Some anomalies Awakened before that. The person that Awakened at the younger age in their nation was someone that Ares forgot the name of, but he remembered that his Awakening was at six years old.

'It would be awesome if I have had Awakened at the same age as my grandfather, at least... It would be enough to call me a genius. This way, I wouldn't even need to go to the military academy. Instead, they would personally come to wag their tail to me...'

What frustrated Ares the most was that he needed to struggle two times more than anyone else to reach his goals, like when he was training with his father, or then learning how to survive in the wild. He wasn't a talented person.

'I hoped that, with magic, I will find my real vocation, but in the end, I may not be the genius that I thought I was...', he gritted his teeth in anger while stretching.

Because of his stress, he ended up snapping one of his joints while stretching them exaggeratedly.

He shrieked in pain and began to rub the place that snapped, feeling a momentarily but sharp pain.

As he cursed even the gods for his own idiocy, the door of the break room opened and both Giovani and Donovan entered.

"Hi, Ares!" As loud as ever, Donovan greeted him, crossing the room and lazily sitting on the bed.

"It's nice to see you again, brat. Did you sleep well?" Giovani, way calmer than his brother, asked.

"Yes. I slept well," he simply answered, not willing to get into further details or initiate a long conversation about trivial things.

Just by the look in Ares' eyes, they knew what he really wanted to talk about.

Giovani was carrying some bags with food again and sighed once he realized that. He put all those things on the center table and gave a side-long glance to Ares.

"If you wanna talk about something, you can do it, you know?"

The boy crossed his arms and his eyes showed a determined gleam within them.

"I want to participate in the defensive lines of this fortress. I want to become a Guardian for the time being."

'Exactly what I thought. He completely ignored our talk from before... This brat gives me a headache, for real,' Giovani sighed.

"Why would you want to enter our forces? Don't you remember what I said yesterday?"

"I said that I would hear you, but not that I would agree with everything that you said. And, although you two had many arguments and points that were true, I don't care about them. I am not going to be a Beast Hunter because it is easy, but rather because I ought to do it."

Giovani was getting a bit annoyed by Ares' stubbornness. He couldn't understand why a teenager that should be playing around and doing idiot things was trying to act like an adult and volunteering for that kind of job.

'Well, there is no way to stop someone that can't hear us. We talked to the Colonel yesterday precisely because we knew that Ares would act this way. I've known this boy for a day, only, but it's easy to read him. Also, judging him based on what the Colonel said and what happened in his past, his mind is entirely focused on vengeance. There is no way to stop him instead of showing him the truth behind the military services nowadays.'

Giovani turned to him after organizing the goods on the table.

"Ok, then. I have an offer."

"What is it?"

"You will need to go through an exam to enter our forces. It won't be an easy exam at all, and you will have only two weeks, more or less, to prepare yourself from now on until this exam. We won't take into consideration whether you are still recovering or not, ok? Also, you will be competing against people who are training for this specific test since their childhood. But, even so, if you fail in your first try, we will send you home and you will never come back again."

Giovani wasn't pranking at all. He looked at Ares with serious eyes and straightened his back.

Donovan kept quiet while hearing those conditions. He just kept nodding his head.

Ares looked at both of them. He wasn't excited at all.

'Due to the circumstances that they presented to me, this deal has only disadvantages, but they don't seem to be willing to negotiate. Also, there is nothing to negotiate. Even if I take more days to rest and recover, I won't have time to train and it doesn't change the fact that I will compete against other people...'

Ares thought a lot about that matter but concluded faster than they thought...