Commander Fisco (2/3)

'Well...' After Haalfrin thinks about Dakka's question... 'If I never met this man, I'd have never become a mage, then died quietly in my bed as an old man.'

Dakka chortles, 'Ah... then it makes sense you'd meet him later on. You have an extraordinary Fate - one entangled with the gods. If this man made you who you are, then he is definitely written in your Yiir Name.'

As everyone knows, people mentioned in your Yiir Name often find sneaky ways to slip back into your life, even when all logic says that you're strangers now.

'Yes...,' Haalfrin agrees, 'so meeting each other again was only a matter of time for us if he was the pebble that began the avalanche for my Fate.'

Dakka feels more and more interested now, and he asks urgently, 'So... What are you going to do about it? Are you going to get revenge or something? I can help.' Just thinking of starting a fight is making Dakka a little excited.

Haalfrin shakes his head at Dakka's predictable behavior. 'No thank you. Well... we'll see.'

By the time Haalfrin and Dakka are done chatting with each other, the mage they were discussing stands in front of the crowd with a slightly pissed expression on his face.

The man immediately holds up a helm with a plume in it and announces, 'I just got word that the emperor wants one of you to be given the red plume of Might. In case you don't know, it's an official recognition of strength - the highest one.'

'That's probably mine,' Haalfrin thinks. In all honesty, wearing a badge of honor that flashy would be embarrassing for him; that thing looks way too fancy, and he'd hate for everyone to stare at him all the time and expect him to be a hero or something.

The man then unceremoniously rips the plume right out of the helmet and lets it fall to the ground. "Listen up!" he shouts out loudly with a voice amplification spell on, "Crimes, honors, wealth, gender, status... Those things all belong in the native world, so if any of you think those things matter, then you're free to march back through the gate and go back to a place you're important! We don't need people who can't contribute!"

"And you!" The man points over at one of the mages in the front line of the new recruits. "Get up here!"

The recruit looks both ways nervously, then steps up on shaky legs. Judging by the golden laurel on his head, Haalfrin knows this is one of the imperial princes.

The prince tentatively walks out in front of the crowd. The officer up front stares the prince down with his eyes, and the prince looks away first – clearly intimidated.

The officer then turns away dismissively and orders the lesser-ranked officers around him, "Take this little boy back to where he came from. He doesn't belong here."

The prince flares up at this and raises his voice defensively, "You can't do this to me! I... I've drunk dragon blood, so I'm stronger than the typical mage! Plus... Do you even know of any 3rd gate mages younger than me?"

The officer scowls at the prince, and a powerful black aura bursts forth from his body.

The instant the Aura escapes from this man's soul, most of the new recruits immediately stagger to the ground, hyperventilating in fear. Even the prince himself passes out from shock.

…And the only new recruit completely unaffected is Haalfrin himself, who stands with his hands behind his back and stoically staring at the front of the room.

Haalfrin may appear calm and uncaring, but inside, his mind is screaming, "How does this man have Death Aura too!?" He calms down a few seconds later. "Eh... I can just ask him later."

The officer, however, sees that Haalfrin is unflinching, so he ramps up the Death Aura's intensity around himself…, but Haalfrin still doesn't react.

After the officer raises the Aura one more time, things get even more hectic. All of the Threshold guards and 2 of the 100 recruits are clinging to consciousness. The rest are passed out on the floor. Only Haalfrin and the officer in front are perfectly fine.

The officer finally withdraws his Aura and says to the men beside him, "Hanan, those 3 who stayed awake... take them to their quarters. Throw the rest back out of the gate. The Threshold doesn't need them."

Right before the officer with Death Aura leaves, he pauses briefly and said, "Oh. I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Commander Fisco. I run this place."

"!!!" Haalfrin's heart flutters, and he almost slaps his forehead. 'So that's why I thought the name "Fisco" was familiar!' he curses at himself. 'The name of the mage who wiped out was called Fisco by all the townsfolk.'

This WAS so long ago that Haalfrin can't quite remember it clearly anymore.

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After Fisco leaves, we see the commander talking with his bodyguards. "Sir," the guard asks, "why did you come personally? I would have sufficed just fine for the opening interview."

"Yes, yes, I'm very busy," Fisco waves him off. "We both knew the dragon slayer was going to be here today, and I was curious. Now was probably the most convenient time to take a look at him."

"…And? What did you think?"

"Hmm…," Fisco mutters before saying louder, "He was very interesting…" His voice trails off, and he abruptly rounds a corner with a thoughtful expression. His guard can see his commander thinking, so he doesn't speak anymore.

Indeed, after seeing the tall dragon slayer withstand his Death Aura, Fisco seemed to recognize something. That man... seems get more and more comfortable the greater the Death Aura is.

'This just gave me a lot to think about...' Fisco thinks to himself as he goes to the east wing of the castle to his office.

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Meanwhile, Haalfrin and the 2 new recruits are given uniforms to wear. As they're all putting the uniform on, one of the recruits solutes one of the officers standing nearby. "Seniors!" he exclaims, "What was the purpose of that trial the commander gave? He even sent away a powerful and young genius like the prince."

"That's easy, newbie," the oldier soldier answers. "Well, it's technically classified information to anyone outside the Threshold, but you're with us now, so we can tell you."

The soldier then points out the window. "Out there, we got 2 races to worry about. You already know about the dragons from that incident several years ago."

"Yeah, the dragon who got through?" the other recruit interjects excitedly.

"His name was Dakka," Haalfrin mutters from the other side of the room. Everyone pauses for a second after hearing Haalfrin speak. They all remember how he was seemingly unaffected by… whatever Commander Fisco did during their test. Something about him just seems scary, right?

The old soldier coughs, "…Well, technically, the dragon's proper name is Drakin - 'Dra' meaning they're named after their powerful bodies. The other race we got to worry about is the Rehkin. Just like the Drakin have powerful bodies, the Rehkin have powerful spirits."

The guard then looks closely at them and says, "The Rehkin's spirit magic is very subtle, but very dangerous. If you don't have a strong will, they can play with you like a puppet. So, we can't have any weak-willed pansies here. No matter how powerful you are, you'll just get in the way if you're a coward."

Hearing this, Haalfrin briefly thinks of the dark mage he fought long ago. That man was very powerful, but Haalfrin used his spiritual aura of death to bring the man to his knees immediately.

Indeed, cowards would only bring negative value to the fortress.

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Once the 3 recruits finish dressing in their proper uniforms, the officers finally take them to the double doors where the rest of the fortress lies, and here, they're greeted by a rather mystical sight.

The 2 recruits gaze up in awe at the eerie beauty of the blue spirit stones, the glowing fortress walls, and the gargantuan cavern. This is nothing Haalfrin hasn't seen before, but that doesn't make it any less interesting to look at.

Still, now that he's not running for his life, he can take much deeper look at the place.

He sees that the roof of the cavern is so high up that he can't even properly gauge the distance with his well-trained eyes. The towers of the fortress are tall, and the walls thick. Almost every inch of the walls is lined with large manga cannons. Inside the walls are lined with countless storage rooms and sleeping quarters.