Piece 18 (part 1)

The trip to the location began right away, without much dilly dally from the teachers.

On the carriage, I was accompanied by Nile and six other of my classmates. There's eight students who can fit in a single carriage, and it's probably because we're quite small that eight of us can fit. For the teachers, only six can fit because adults are much larger than us children.

The trip lasted for about an hour. It's heading towards the northern direction, so we're heading to a direction I've never gone to before.

Not long before we arrived, we were able to see the destination. It's a giant fortress that is in the middle of a large field, and I realized this fortress must be like a bastion for a line of defense. It's for knights of the Ardjestyn kingdom to stay, rest, and prepare for any battles if it were to come, and I can tell it's quite an important base because of how big it is.

"Woah… this place is huge!" One of the students in our carriage muttered as soon as we entered the front gate of the fort. The gate itself is already over ten meters tall, which already becomes a scale as to how tall the walls are.

The castle at the center is almost as big as the castle back in the city. It's over thirty meters tall, perhaps even forty. The diameter of it ranged about a hundred meters, which is incredibly large for one singular building in the middle of nowhere like this.

"Welcome, children of the Cytus elementary public school!" From the entrance of the big castle inside the walls, a knight seemed to be talking using a speaker. His voice echoed loudly through the speaking device, and I can tell he must be our guide for today.

"I'm the captain of one of the knight platoons that is stationed in this fort. Now, can anyone tell me what is the name of this fort?" The knight captain asked the children, expecting us to know it. 

I definitely did not know about the name of the fort, but it must be a rather famous one because a lot of students are yelling the name.

"""Julius!!""" The students shouted almost at the same time, and the knight captain grinned widely from hearing that answer.

"That's correct! This fort is known as the Julius Fort, or the Fort of General Julius! 

He is the legendary war general of the Ardjestyn kingdom from hundreds of years ago, and his achievements is what brought our kingdom into such a known state that it is today!" 

The knight captain yelled through the microphone, and I realized that the things he's saying is something that we have to take note of. I looked around and noticed a lot of the students are writing stuff on their books that they brought, and it must be something that they have to take note of for later.

An exam is going to be held once all of this is over. The score of the exam will directly add to our already existing history subject score, which can be really good if your history subject score is lacking.

Mine is… quite lacking. However, I just don't feel like I want to take note of anything.

"Hey. Can I just look at your notes later?" I said to Nile next to me, and she turned her really annoyed gaze.

"Fine. I want iced tea."

"You're taxing me??"

From the entrance to the castle that is slightly elevated, the knight captain continued telling us more about the castle. I realized that the very goal of this trip was to basically know all the events that happened almost a hundred years ago, regarding the battles of this war general known as Julius. 

I became completely uninterested, so I decided to look for anything that can be fun. Sadly, for a big castle such as this, there's really not that many things to be seen. There's a shooting range, training area, and a climbing practice spot on the walls of the castle.

Actually, that last one might be nice.

"Now, children of Cytus Elementary! This whole castle is yours to explore! Feel free to look around and ask some knights if you wish to learn things! At nine o'clock, about an hour from now, we'll host a short sword show between the elites of elite knights of the Ardjestyn kingdom! You may even recognize them from the newspapers!" 

The knight captain's announcement turned the entire atmosphere rowdy as the children screamed, and everyone began swarming all over the place.

"W-Where do we even…?" I asked out of genuine confusion, but a hand suddenly grabbed my shoulder.

I turned to the right and found Roy's big grin worn on his face.

"Let's go check some stuff out!" He invited me, and I realized he's been wanting to explore this place with me.

Oh? This must be where his surprise comes.

Roy then pulled me to the side where a group of knights seemed to be stationed at. Aside from us, a bunch of other students from the years below us are also watching the knights do some stuff.

"Welcome to archery class! I heard from your teachers that you guys do have archery in your curriculum, right?" One of the older knights said as he greeted us, and all the younger students in front of us turned excited.

For a short while, the older knight taught us how to use the bow properly. He is just telling us the basic stuff like how to place the arrow on the bow string properly and how to aim it. Archery is indeed in our curriculum, and we've already learned about all of this in our second year of school, so he is just repeating what we already know.

Still, it's better to be reminded than to have an incident happen. After telling us how to do it, the old knight began studying the crowd of students in front of him to select anyone who could give this bow a try.

"You there, tall guy on the back!" The old knight suddenly landed his eyes onto Roy, who is really standing out because he's tall.

"M-Me?" Roy pointed at himself out of confusion, but I only chuckled while lifting both thumbs up.

"You got this, Roy!" I encouraged him, and Roy let out a sigh before stepping forward.

Roy entered the gate that separates us students from the knights, and he carefully grabbed the bow from the hands of the old knight.

"Oh!? You're already well aware of how to use it? Are you an archer trainee, perhaps?" The old knight complimented so smoothly, but Roy doesn't really look that excited.

"I'm not an archer trainee, sir…"

"Then, you have the knack to be one! Go ahead and try shooting the target!" The old knight patted Roy's back really hard, which made the tall guy hurt slightly. He turned his annoyed gaze to me, and I just chuckled while giving him the thumbs up.

Roy then lifted both his hands and aimed the arrow towards the target. The target is a training dummy that is over ten meters away from him, and for newbies, that much distance can be really hard. But for Roy, that much is nothing.

FWOOSSHH!!!

Roy's arrow flew quickly after he released the string, and it stabbed the dummy right on the face. It's also really dead center as well, which really shocked everyone by how accurate that is.

"""Woooaaahhh!!!!!""" The younger students loved seeing it, and the knights who were watching were also amazed.

"No way!! You really are an archer trainee!!" The old archer muttered from excitement, and Roy only returned the bow.

"I'm just the son of a well known archery family… I'm not an official archer just yet."

"Oh!? No way. The Russels?? Then, that definitely makes a lot of sense, haha!" The old man once more slapped Roy's back a couple times really hard, which I'm sure has broken Roy's spine.

"You show off. You just wanted to show me how good your archery skills are by bringing me here." I pointed out to him while laughing, and Roy only walked back to me while holding his painful back.

"Yeah… and now I'm regretting it."

"Let's go somewhere else, then. It's my turn to show you what I got." I said excitedly while looking around, and Roy looked quite surprised.