chapter 6: Property of the Regiment

The cold mountain air bit at Tatsuo's skin as he stepped out of the inn. It was just past five in the morning, and the sky had only just begun to turn a faint blue.

Just as he was about to leave, the innkeeper, already awake, spotted him from the doorway. The elderly man sweeping away the fallen leaves , "Already up, Tatsuo-kun? Excited for your first day?"

Tatsuo responded with a bright voice, "Very much."

With eager steps, he made his way to the training area that Kenji and Kuroo had shown him on his first day at the mountain.

As he arrived, a large wooden building loomed ahead, its roof dusted with frost. In front of it lay a wide, open training ground. Scattered across the area stood a group of around ten to fifteen people, some stretching, others quietly talking. The official training time was 6 a.m., but even arriving an hour early, Tatsuo found he wasn't the first.

He glanced around curiously. The people varied in age and build—some burly and tall, others lean and compact. As his gaze swept across the field, his eyes landed on two figures who seemed strangely familiar.

He walked closer. One was a boy of average build, about 5'7", with short, slightly unkempt black hair. He had a laid-back expression but alert eyes. Beside him stood a girl a little shorter, with striking red hair tied into two buns. Her expression was sharper, more mischievous. Though their coloring was different, there was a resemblance in their features—subtle yet unmistakable.

They were twins.

The boy stood confidently on an "X" marked on the ground, while the girl lingered just behind him, chatting with him softly.

Tatsuo noticed there were seven such X's drawn in a neat row across the field, and only four were currently occupied. One X, just left of the twins, was still unclaimed.

He walked up and pointed to it. "What's with the X's?"

The boy looked over and replied casually, "Oh, this? It marks the start of a column. We were the first ones to claim this one. First come, first served—if you stand on an X and hold it, you earn an extra merit point."

Tatsuo tilted his head. "Then why are only four taken? There are more people here."

The girl chuckled, her red hair catching the morning light. "I guess no one told you how this works, huh? The others aren't claiming them because they either don't think they can defend it, or they're saving their energy. If they wait for the current holder to get tired, it's easier to steal the spot later."

"Oh! So that's how it works." Tatsuo nodded and stepped onto the empty X beside them.

"But… how do I defend it?"

The girl grinned and twirled something between her fingers—a thin, glinting needle. "How else? You fight off anyone who tries to take it."

"Wait—why are you holding needles? Are weapons allowed?" Tatsuo asked, confused.

The boy looked surprised. "You didn't bring a weapon?"

"No," Tatsuo admitted. "I thought the first month was just theory and light training."

"Well, it is for some parts," the girl said, "but merit battles like this? You better be ready. Since you're standing on an X now, you'll have to defend it—weapon or not."

The boy leaned in, intrigued. "So what do you usually fight with? You look strong."

Tatsuo scratched the back of his head. "I use an axe. The kind for chopping wood."

"Thought so," the boy said, smiling. "You've got the build for it."

As they continued chatting, more trainees filtered in, and soon all seven X's were claimed. The training ground began to buzz with anticipation.

Then suddenly—a heavy hand clamped down on the boy's shoulder.

Tatsuo looked up to see a towering man, easily in his late twenties, with a muscular build and wearing a thick brown uniform. His expression was cold, and his eyes were like chips of stone.

"Step off the spot, child," the man growled. "Or I'll take other measures. Ones you won't like."

Then suddenly, the large man howled in pain, clutching his left arm. A long, metal needle had pierced straight through it, and blood dripped onto the frozen ground below. The morning air was filled with the sharp scent of iron.

In a flash, a long blade slipped from the boy's sleeve—so quick and fluid it was almost unseen. He pressed the edge against the man's throat with a calm, dangerous glint in his eyes.

"Still want to continue?" the boy asked coolly.

The man froze, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold. After a tense pause, he backed away without another word, vanishing into the crowd like a retreating animal.

But that was only the beginning.

In mere moments, the quiet tension of the training grounds snapped. A dozen confrontations erupted all at once. Yells, taunts, the clash of metal, and hurried footsteps turned the snowy field into a chaotic battleground.

Tatsuo was still watching when another figure approached him—this one dressed in silks and fine embroidery, clearly from a wealthy background. His long sleeves were embroidered with gold thread, and he carried himself with arrogant poise.

"You there," the noble-looking man sneered, "you look like a beggar. Step off your spot, and I'll go easy on you."

Tatsuo said nothing. He didn't even look at the man.

The insulted nobleman's face twisted in rage. "Tch! You dare ignore me?!"

He lunged forward, throwing a punch. But Tatsuo shifted slightly, and the blow missed by a hair. At the same time, Tatsuo grabbed the man's wrist and, with a fluid motion, slammed him into the ground.

The nobleman's world flipped—sky and earth switching places—until he landed with a thud. Dust and dirt clung to his pristine white robes, staining them beyond repair.

"Y-You dare throw me to the ground? You'll regret this!" he shouted, trembling with humiliation. "YAAHHH!"

He drew a short sword from his hip and charged, eyes wild.

But before the blade even came close, Tatsuo's foot had already moved. With a clean, powerful kick to the chest, the man was sent flying backward, landing hard and skidding across the dirt. He groaned, trying to rise—but the pain left him grounded, gasping.

The chaos died down at once as three figures stepped onto the field.

Silence fell.

The first figure was entirely shrouded in black—head to toe—only his sharp, watchful eyes visible through a slit in his mask. He stood motionless, his presence alone enough to command discipline.

Beside him was a towering man with fiery red hair and eyes to match. His sheer size and aura made him seem less like a human and more like a lion standing on two legs.

Between them stood an elderly man, hunched with age, leaning heavily on a carved wooden cane. His bald head gleamed in the morning light, and his back was bent with a pronounced hump. Despite his frailty, there was an unsettling sharpness in his gaze. He looked like someone who had seen countless battles and lost none.

The trainees all stood still, sweat evaporating into the cold air, as the real training was about to begin.

As the three figures stood before the trainees, silence gripped the crowd—at first. Then a few hushed whispers began at the back, gradually growing into a steady hum of chatter as awe and speculation spread across the training ground.

Even the girl beside Tatsuo leaned toward her brother and whispered with sparkling eyes, "Atsushi-nii, aren't those two on the sides from the Phantom Unit?"

Atsushi-kun nodded, lowering his voice. "Not only are they from the Phantom Unit, but the man in the middle is a Reap—"

Tak.

The sharp crack of wood striking earth cut through the air like a whip.

Atsushi's mouth froze mid-sentence. The entire training field fell into instant, suffocating silence.

It was the old man—he had merely tapped his cane against the ground, yet the pressure that radiated from him was suffocating. Like an unseen weight pressing against their chests, commanding their bodies to stillness and their mouths to silence.

All eyes turned to him as he took a step forward.

Then his voice thundered across the mountain air—deep, coarse, and resonant like a war drum.

"Listen well, trainees!" he bellowed.

"From this moment on, you are no longer sons of your village, nor daughters of your clans. You are no longer citizens of the Empire. You are the property of the Regiment."

His cane thudded again, sharp and final.

"This training will carve you into something useful. You are potential weapons against the Fleshbound. But potential means nothing without strength— and strength is meaningless without control."

The weight of his words hung in the frozen air.

"Look to your left. Now look to your right. One in five of you won't even last the week. If we're fortunate—blessed—we might see thirty Fleshcutters born from this class of eighty-one. But that is wishful thinking."

He paused. The cold wind whistled between their bodies.

"Some of you will leave. Some of you will break. And some of you… will die."

A chill, deeper than the mountain air, swept through the trainees. Tatsuo could feel the girl beside him tense.

"We are Fleshcutters. We do not seek survival," the old man continued, voice now low but cutting like a blade. "We demand victory. If you cannot accept that—leave now."

No one moved. No one even breathed.

The old man gave a single, sharp nod. "Good. Let the training begin."

Then, as if he had never existed, the old man turned and vanished—so quickly, so silently, that it felt unreal.

The two remaining instructors exchanged a glance.

The red-haired man sighed heavily and spoke with a deep, slightly gravelly voice. "Alright. Everyone, follow me inside."

He led them into a massive wooden hall—worn, utilitarian, yet solid. The walls were lined with racks and diagrams, though most of the space was open.

Tatsuo's eyes widening at the sheer scale and spotless structure of the building. Before he could take it all in, the trainer's voice echoed sharply.

"You can all sit on the ground. Listen carefully and remember everything I say—it might save your life in future."

The trainees obeyed, settling into neat rows. Tatsuo sat cross-legged, eyes forward.

"Good," the man said. "Let me introduce myself. I am Harada Ryota. I'll be your instructor for theory. And our first topic—Fleshbound. Specifically, their origin and infection rules."

He turned to the blackboard and, with a screech of chalk, wrote:

The Plague of Thirteen Veins

"I assume all of you have heard this name before," Ryota said, glancing over the room.

Heads nodded across the hall.

"Good. Then you know that this plague appeared roughly forty-five years ago. It lasted a single year… then vanished, as suddenly as it came. No source was ever confirmed and no cure was discovered."

He paused, letting the weight of history settle over them.

"But what it left behind... was monstrous."

Ryota turned back to the trainees.

"Every infected person began with the same symptoms—extreme fatigue, pale skin, and vein discoloration. Days later, the infection would overtake the bloodstream. Veins would glow dark red—like molten iron—visible under the skin, branching outward from the heart."

"This stage earned it the name: The Plague of Thirteen Veins. Thirteen distinct veins would glow and converge around the heart. The skin in that area would blacken, just before the transformation began."

The room was silent.

Harada-san's voice darkened.

"Some infected died horribly—bodies bursting, organs failing, flesh either melting or hardening like stone. But those were the lucky ones."

He let that linger.

"Most didn't die. Their bodies mutated. Skin split apart. Muscles tore and reknit themselves. Their flesh absorbed anything around them—wood, metal, bone, even animal—until they were no longer human."

He stepped aside and pointed to a crude sketch of a grotesque creature on the wall—hulking, bloated, warped.

"And thus… the Fleshbound were born. Beasts of agony and instinct. Driven by pain, hunger, and rage."

He turned back to the room.

"So, does everyone understand so far?" he asked. "Any questions?"

Among the trainees, a boy raised his hand and asked, "Harada-sensei, if the plague vanished… how come people are still turning into Fleshbound?"

Ryota nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. "Good question. That leads us to our second topic for today—Infection Rules."

He turned back to the blackboard and wrote the new heading in bold strokes: Infection Rules

"While the original plague has indeed disappeared, the virus itself didn't simply die off. Instead, it was absorbed by nature. Trees, herbs, soil, even water sources—ponds and lakes in affected regions—all became tainted. These areas are now known as Infected Wilds, and they're crawling with hidden Fleshbound, lurking in the shadows."

He turned to face the trainees, eyes sharp.

"But that's not the full story. If it were just those areas, we'd know how to avoid them. The real threat is transference. Anything a Fleshbound touches becomes a carrier. If one submerges in a pond—the entire pond becomes infectious. Drink from it... and you're as good as dead."

A few trainees swallowed hard. Tatsuo could feel the tension building in the room.

"The plague can enter the body through exposed wounds—scratches, burns, broken nails, even the eyes. You can be infected just by breathing near a tainted plant, or smelling a flower touched by a Fleshbound."

He paused, letting the weight of that settle.

"Once infected, the transformation takes between three to seven days, depending on the person's willpower and immune strength."

His tone dropped lower.

"Initial symptoms include: numbness in the limbs, strange dreams, and what we call Echoes or imaginary voices, memories that aren't your own. Then, the glowing veins begin to spread, though in some rare cases, they may not appear at all."

He pointed to the diagram behind him—an illustration of a glowing red web beneath pale skin.

"Eventually, the body begins to twist. Bones break and reform. The skin splits open. And in that state, the body enters a process we call Fusion—absorbing whatever matter is nearby: wood, iron, bone, animals everything just as I mentioned previously."

He looked across the rows of silent trainees.

"Any questions so far?"

Tatsuo raised a hand. "Harada-sensei, can the Fusion really happen with anything?"

Ryota chuckled. "That's a good one. Yes, theoretically it can. But during the unconscious state of transformation, the body still retains a part of itself. It instinctively avoids fusing with objects that pose no threat."

He paused, pacing slowly.

"Say a person is transforming, and in front of them are five objects—a comb, a wooden spoon, a sword, a dagger, and a sickle. The comb and spoon will be ignored. Among the weapons, the body will be moved toward what it is most familiar with. If the person was a farmer... it will choose the sickle."

Tatsuo nodded in understanding. So did the others.

Then a voice from the back called out, "Then… is there no cure? No way to reverse it?"

Ryota laughed, but there was no humor in it. "If there was a cure, this Regiment wouldn't exist. Once the virus enters, it's permanent. The best herbalists and alchemists can only delay the transformation only by amputating the infected limb. But even that usually fails."

Tatsuo looked up again, his voice firm. "Then... is there no way to prevent it?"

Ryota turned and pointed directly at him.

Tatsuo blinked. "Me?"

"Yes," Ryota said with a grin. "And not just you—but every Fleshcutter. Every single trainee here. The only way to prevent the Fleshbound... is to cut them down."

His voice rose, echoing off the stone walls.

"We, the Fleshcutters, are the final line. We do not wait for them to spread and increase . We find them, and we eliminate them."

A heavy silence followed. Then, like fire spreading through dry grass, the tension broke—and was replaced by a surge of energy.

Every trainee sat taller. The fear in their eyes had turned into resolve.

Tatsuo could feel it in his chest too—the weight of responsibility.

He was no longer just Tatsuo from the Kuroki village but he is now a blade waiting to be forged.