Chapter 261: Prepping for the Dungeon Runs

Chapter 261: Prepping for the Dungeon Runs

Reivyn leaned back in his chair, sighing to the air. Detailed reports of each individual mercenary laid scattered on his desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he let himself decompress. He had spent several days going over all of the information available on every single mercenary.

As the overall commander, he was in a paradoxical situation. The chain of command existed in a way that he only dealt with the officers and their senior enlisted advisors when applicable. Their mercenary organization was young enough that it wasn’t the case, yet, but it would be one day.DiiScôver new stories on no/v/e()/lbin(.)c/o/m

However, that being said, he was still responsible for everyone under his command. He believed it was his duty to have a full grasp of his people’s capabilities. There wasn’t anyone to cover for him if he miscalculated. That was his job to do for his subordinates.

Thus, he had spent several days familiarizing himself with all of the workings of the mercenary battalion. He didn’t just go over the personnel files, they were just the ones currently on his desk.

The supply situation, finance, intelligence... Everything was given scrutiny.

With his Divine Sense, he could instantly scan all of the words written on paper in all of the reports, but he didn’t feel that was good enough. His Divine Sense put that information in his head, but he still had to make that knowledge his.

Previously, the way the Skill worked, it force-fed that information into his consciousness. It was overwhelming to such a degree, it was necessary for him to go blindfold and limit as much sensory information as possible for months after first attaining the Skill.

Now, with being more proficient in the Skill, it worked in a fundamentally different way. It put the information in his brain, but he had to focus on it and summon it to the forefront of his consciousness to “make it his.”

Considering he used to be able to have all of the information at the tips of his fingers instantly but now needed to search within his own mind for it, he assumed with increased Skill and mental attributes, he would one day return to being able to instantly access all of the information as soon as he acquired it.

Skill evolved over time. It seemed his Divine Sense Skill had devolved in order to protect his psyche, but that was just how things worked.

There was always an opportunity cost, and frankly, Reivyn had attained the Skill way before he was ready. The Skill was pseudo-Divine, so it made perfect sense to him that it would progress in a way that appeared on its face to be a backtrack.

One day...

Until that day, though, he would need to focus on the information to use it properly. The papers strewn about his desk weren’t strictly necessary. He had them there for two reasons:

First, almost nobody knew about his Skill, so he was hiding it. He had no real reason to believe there were spies among his mercenaries or the imperial army, but there was no reason to expose his cards if he didn’t have to. It was a simple thing to put up a facade with the paperwork.

Second, it acted as a focus to keep his mind from wandering. His Divine Sense Skill didn’t just plant information in his brain periodically and then lie dormant. It was on at all times. He constantly had more information passing through his mind. He just let his subconscious handle it like the rest of his sensory input. Most of it was discarded, but sometimes things slipped through to the front of his mind without him being aware of it.

Not only the overload of information from the Skill sometimes leaking, but he was always considering new ways to advance his Skills and Affinities. There was no telling when a stray thought that intrigued him would pop into his brain, but there was a time and place. Once he thought it, he could relegate it to the back of his mind until he was ready to consider it, but without the focus, his mind didn’t always listen and he would find himself daydreaming about some little experiment he could run.

Reivyn surveyed the papers on his desk and checked his internal clock. He sighed once more at the amount of time that had been wasted on this endeavor.

Despite his mind working overtime and providing himself a focus to combat it, Reivyn himself wasn’t the actual reason the task had taken so long and been such a chore. Going over paperwork wasn’t really something that bothered Reivyn too much.

He would prefer to be in the field. He was a man of action and always had been, but the little details involved in the administrative work wasn’t a tall hurdle for him to clear.

That wasn’t true of everyone, though.

“Are you not done, yet?” Kayzor cried for the thirtieth time in the past thirty minutes.

Reivyn sat at his desk, but he wasn’t alone in his office. Kazyor was lying across one of the plush chairs in front of Reivyn’s desk with a total lack of any kind of military bearing.

At first, Kayzor had always been as professional as possible in front of Reivyn, but his true personality slowly bled into his actions as they became closer over time. Not only did Kayzor get closer as a natural consequence of occasionally dining with Reivyn during a family meal with Kefira, but they had become genuine friends on their own through their mutual love of sparring and their positions in the military.

“You know you don’t have to wait for me,” Reivyn rolled his eyes. “I’m sure there’s plenty of things you can find to do all on your own.”

“But it’s so boring,” Kayzor complained. “I don’t know how you can sit behind a desk for hours on end with nothing but paper and ink in front of you. A man needs steel in his hands, not quills.”

“I don’t use a quill, thank you very much,” Reivyn shook his head. “And neither do you, come to think of it.”

“It wouldn’t make any sense to say a man needs steel when the pen we use is also made of steel,” Kayzor admitted. “It was the only thing I could think of to not sound like a complete fool.”

“Just an incomplete one, then?” Reivyn chuckled.

“Hah! Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you.” Kayzor sighed dramatically once more. “But come on. Are you not done, yet?”

“I’ve been done for ten minutes,” Reivyn said, sitting straight in his chair and looking intently at his future brother-in-law.

Kayzor’s body froze for a moment before he slowly sat up and glared at Reivyn.

“You mean to tell me, you’ve just been sitting there doing nothing for ten minutes, while I’ve been asking you every minute whether you’re finished or not?”

“I haven’t been doing nothing,” Reivyn shrugged. “I’ve been enjoying watching you squirm. You’ve made me suffer for days, so what’s an extra ten minutes for you?”

“But, but... we could have been doing something for the past ten minutes. Like sparring in the training yard.”

“It’s lunch time,” Reivyn pointed out. “The yard will be full of people streaming in and out of the mess hall with a lot of foot traffic in the yard.”

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“Alright, but then we could have been eating for the past ten minutes,” Kayzor argued.

“Are you going to have me test out potential members of the ‘morale office?’” Teilon asked, tucking into his food.

“Not this time,” Reivyn shook his head. “I’ll let you come up with the tests for that. This is just going to be a regular inspection. Even though your forte is infiltration and intelligence, you have the necessary background and experience to judge the fledglings.”

“Sure, sure. Do you have a squad in mind, or can I choose my own?”

“Up to you,” Reivyn shrugged. “I can randomly assign you one, or you can pick your own. I don’t mind either way.”

“Alright, I have a squad in mind already,” Teilon replied.

Reivyn was taken aback a bit. He quirked an eyebrow at his friend.

“I thought you were staying away from the battalion this entire time,” Reivyn said. “Have you been secretly keeping abreast of the mercenaries?”

Teilon shook his head with his fork still in his mouth.

“Nah, nothing as responsible as that,” He replied after swallowing his bite. “I just met some people a while back who helped me out at the cost of a recommendation to getting into the mercenary training. I heard he made squad leader as a newbie, so I wanted to see for myself if he’s the real deal or not.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that you’d done something like that,” Reivyn said.

“You did?” Teilon glanced at Reivyn in surprise. “From who?”

“Kefira told me.”

Teilon rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“And how did she know?”

“Kimberly.”

“Ahh, of course. You’re not mad, are you?” Teilon asked.

“Nah, it’s fine. We still conducted a background check on every applicant regardless of where they came from or who they were recommended by. It just goes to show that this guy was lucky and resourceful to get what he wanted. I doubt there are any nefarious actors within our organization.”

“You don’t think some of these empires have sent out people with fake stories to infiltrate the ranks of the various militaries they’ll be facing across the Realm?” Kayzor chimed in.

“That’s not what I said,” Reivyn shook his head. “I said I doubt there are any ‘nefarious’ actors. I don’t doubt there are people from some of the enemy Regions, or even the empire in charge where Aeriella’s from, amongst us. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily here to sabotage us or feed information to our enemies.”

“What other possible reason could they have?” Kayzor asked.

“I don’t know,” Reivyn shrugged.

“You don’t really seem to be taking the potential threat too seriously,” Kayzor pointed at Reivyn accusingly with his fork.

Reivyn shrugged.

“We’ve done what we can upfront. We’ll just have to keep an eye on anyone and everyone to make sure while moving forward. Plus, we have some advantages against them, like Teilon and his ‘morale office’ among other things.”

“Alright, if you say so,” Kayzor returned his focus to his meal.

“Wait a minute,” Teilon said, placing his own fork down. His plate had already been cleared. “Am I missing something? Who’s Aeriella?”

Kayzor gave Teilon a serious look.

“A crazy person,” he replied. “One who’s apparently from a Tier 6 Empire and obsessed with our boy, Reivyn, here.”

“Obsessed with Reivyn? Like, she has it out for him or something? Wait, why? Where could you have possibly run into someone from the empire in charge, and how did you manage to piss her off?”

Kayzor threw his head back and laughed. Reivyn gave Teilon an incredulous look.

“We’ve explained this to you,” Reivyn shook his head. “Have you not been paying attention? Am I making a mistake in placing you in charge of intelligence?”

Teilon looked back and forth between Reivyn and Kayzor. Kayzor finally stopped laughing and addressed Teilon again.

“She’s not trying to kill Reivyn,” he said. “She wants to force him into marriage or something.”

“Ooohhh, are you talking about that girl Kefira calls Jezebel?” Teilon’s expression brightened as he finally put it together. “Sorry, sorry. Kefira always interrupts and calls her Jezebel whenever she’s mentioned. In my head, they weren’t the same person. It didn’t... click... right away...

“I’ll go ahead figure out which squad this Gulley character was assigned to and let you know,” Teilon scooped up his tray and made a beeline to the exit.

Reivyn just rolled his eyes and chuckled.