Not Strong Enough

The ship approaches the shore. The wind blows their cloaks.
"Sorry." Karasu says, to Alex.
"Huh?" A confused Alex expresses.
Karasu sighs, "Sorry, for my comment earlier, I was just overwhelmed by people talking too much."

"Don't worry man, I deserved that one. The fish dies by the mouth, as the saying goes." 

Chapter VI: Not Strong Enough

The headquarters is a fortress sitting atop a hill. Reaching for the heavens, the ramparts, armed with siege weaponry, ever guarded, ever vigilant, the walls strike fear and awe alike.

The way up there is a series of stairways leading down to a village, also fortified by walls. The newcomers are not greeted on shore, nor by the village entrance. They just head straight to the fort. The way is illuminated by an archaic luminescent stone system, collums have the spheres atop them glowing, guiding the way as night falls. 

"Hey, uh, how do this light works?" Leo asks with genuine interest. "Aren't they electric?" Alex tries answering, but expressed doubt as well.

"Magic." Viviane answers, a simple, yet effective answer. 

"Woah, I wonder why cities don't use this illumination system, it seems much more practical." Alex says. 

Adel responds "This used to attract dragons in mainland. Nowadays only this fort still use them. This place has a bunch of slayers as well, so we don't have to worry." 

"I really don't like the idea of everyone relying on sorcery, to be fair." Atila interjects.

Margaretta walks in front of everyone else and from time to time she shouts "Keep it up dearlies!" With a huge smile, as a vain attempt to motivate them to speed up.

Not soon after, they reach the castle gates. Standing since the fifth century, the castle entrance is held by stone knights, as tall as the gateway itself. The crimson banners bearing the order's coat of arms dance against the white stone. 

Inside the castle walls, Janis awaits them. With her tidy hair, and posture. "Welcome!" She says. "Please, let me see all of you, okay?"

The newcomers and veterans form a line in front of her. As she gathers a folder, she starts: "Please, whoever I call, raise your hand, I believe I had yet to meet any of you."

"Let me see... Agenor... Ah he's not here. Carlos Kawata... Alias? Ah yes, Karasu"

Karasu raises his hand.

"Perfect, newcomer is... Alexander Camelot, who's this?" Alex raises his hand and Karasu points his finger to him discreetly.

"Okay, both from Brazil are here... Next one is... Atila! I recognize you. Who's Adelheide Schmidt?" 

"That's me." Adel says as she raises her hand. She later crosses her arms.

"Great! Margaretta is..." 

"Meee!" She says as she eagerly rises her arm. "And this is Leonidas!" She says as she pats an annoyed Leo.

"Alright... Leonidas Orestis... Well, then, you two must be Viviane Millefleur and... Dino." She says as she figures out the final duo. 

She takes a deep breath, "As you may know, newcomers, you are here as part of the exception recruiting, so you can act under a provisory license. Your branches informed us about your arrival, and the time your stay here ends in six months. You will be constantly tested and be sent on missions, the veterans will be in charge of your physical testing, there will also be some theoric tests. Think of this as a sort of internship, or college class, any questions?" 

Alex raises his hand. 

"Alexander." Janis says.

"What if I... Fail... During this period?" he asks.

 "Very well, due to the exceptional conditions of your recruiting, failing in this period will render you unable to ever join us again." She then continues explaining.

However, Alex is deep in thought: "Unable to ever join them again? That's my doom! I failed all physical tests and in the test duel was thrown by Karasu... I have no chance." 

"...at the patio by morning. Without further ado, you are dismissed." she says as she leaves.

 Leo does a little punch on Alexander's arm "Lets have dinner."

🟆🟆🟆

Atila guides them to the dining hall. "Well, I'm heading out, see you in the morning." He waves as he leaves. "Ah, by the way, but the kitchen is open for anyone, if you want to cook something, anything, feel free." 

They soon have dinner and call it a night. each one heading to their assigned room.

🟆🟆🟆

Alex, looks towards the ceiling. "This is my last chance... I'm pretty sure all of them are fantastic fighters..." he thinks.

"Karasu himself have a cursed sword that can cut through most things like paper..." He remembers the the moment he decapitated the dragon, he also thinks about their duel in the pocket dimension.

"Viviane carries six swords, I think I have seen about her somewhere, a slayer who wields multiple swords who looks too perfect to be human..." He thinks about how she looks, both in the café and on the boat. "...I can only imagine what she's capable of." he imagines her slicing through multiple dragons.

"Margaretta, she's huge... and that hammer she carries on her belt. She might be the new Thor's hammer..." He imagine her engulfed by lightning facing off a sea serpent "But that personality doesn't seem to be from someone as fierce as they have always been." He remembers her smiling and being friendly to anyone.

"Atila... He is definitively THE Atila." He remembers news about a lone warrior facing a horde of vishaps, semi-aquatic dragons from the near east. News about wyverns being slain in single strikes from a lone spearman and  a Picture of a man sitting atop a tarasque's head, smirking, the tarasque had a face like that of a ceratopsian dinosaur and a spiky carapace, like a mix between a turtle and an ankylosaur.

"Out of the newcomers, Dino seems to be the most mysterious... Adel and Leo are too sure about their own strength... but Dino... he barely even talk at all" Recollecting their break time in Sicily, he soon resumes to doubting himself.

"What do I have? I can't even land a hit without breaking my own sword." he remembers the moment his sword was destroyed. "...All I ever did was take hits." he remembers all his brawls from his childhood. "I was too afraid to save him." he reminisces of his first dragon slain. "I was also responsible for her death." He remembers the time he was rescued.

He wakes up with the sun on his pale face. He scratches his eyes as he yawns. He reaches for his phone to check the time. "FUCK!" 

He runs on the castle's corridors as he dresses up, he reaches the training grounds, all the newcomers are there, besides them, Margaretta.

She looks at him and says: "Hello! Alex hellooo! It seems you are a weeny bit late, but don't worry, it's your first day dear." she extends her hands, showing weights of all sorts: "This is our training for the day, I will teach you all how to lift weights while taking care of your back! Leo, could you please take, let's start lightly, Two hundred kilos?" She says.

"two... hundred?" Alex thinks.

Leo heads towards the weights, still with the bandagers on his body, he easily sorts the weight wheels and easily lift them. "easy." he says

Alex thinks to himself, "HE LIFTED IT!?, with one hand... WHILE INJURED!" his body movements and facial expressions betrays him. 

Karasu pats his shoulder, "Don't be late anymore. I won't be living again if someone that defeated me fails to join the order." 

"What.. What are you doing here?" Alex asks

"Training." He says as Margaretta asks for another volunteer. "I still have too much to improve." he says as he heads to the weights. 

The training was exhausting, Alex barely feels his body moving, it's as if he was just spectating someone else's day while his actual body is being pierced by a thousand needles. Soon they go for lunch and head inside for theoric training.

🟆🟆🟆

Atila lectures them, a hall, not different from the one he was interviewed in, but much smaller, is inside the castle. "Does anyone knows the dragon categories?" Their new professor asks.

Alex raises his hand and confidently says. "wingless drakes, wyverns, amphipteres, western dragons, eastern dragons, sea serpents, wyrms..."

"I enjoy your enthusiasm, but, that's wrong, those are morphological categories, dragons are dragons, so this semantics of dragon that, wyvern this, doesn't matter. We will study them later, but the categories I'm talking about is a ranking system of power."

Atila goes in detail about the five dragon ranks:

"5th Rank: Feral. Not much different from a wild animal, but with some limited powers, some breath fire, some conducts electricity, others have acid blood... they are the easiest to deal.

4th Rank:  Mystical. They are the equivalent of a sorcerer for dragons, some have domain over curses, others control the elements aside from their breath weapon, there are also illusionists and they display a higher level of intelligence. however it's impossible to communicate with them.

3rd Rank: Sentient. One is able to communicate with it, but not necessarily reason with them. This is enough danger for our existence by itself.

2nd Rank: Disasters, they are able to level entire cities and perhaps, even entire nations. This is the highest we were able to deal with, but not without a huge loss in our numbers.

1st Rank: Divine. Some were worshipped as gods, others gave the divine reputation to kings... They are, as far as we know, unkillable. Luckily, their pride and rivalry can be easily exploited, deals can be made, and some are even benevolent somehow."

As he speaks, he draws and writes in the board, some names below second and first rank. Among them Albion, Fafnir, Vritra, Anzu, Zhu Long and the final one, Iserkunic.

🟆🟆🟆

Soon, the first day ends. The following days are the same, but switching who's responsible for the physical training each morning, with the exception of Karasu who was having the same experience as the four squires, they also alternated between the lectures in the afternoon.

Physics equations are written down in Leo's notebook in one of Viviane's lectures. Who expresses dissatisfaction: "Why? Why do we have math here!?" 

They alternate, weight lifting, battle posture and endurance training. While in the afternoons, anatomy, ethics, physics and mythology are the subjects.

two weeks passes by, they have their routine of training in the morning and lecture in the afternoon every day. Alex struggles with the weights, Leo struggles with mathematics. they finally have a break day. 

🟆🟆🟆

Karasu sits in the dinning hall, he's having  a cup of coffee, and a ham sandwich. with some cheese slices. Adelheide says "Hey handsome" as she sits besides him. 

Her breakfast consists of mostly protein, having eggs, mushrooms, sausages and a glass of almond milk. "Well, aren't you supposed to be giving us classes as well? If you let me ask."

"Yes, but to be honest, I'm as a newcomer as you are. I barely gained the title of knight. even then, my grade is way bellow theirs." He answers with no hesitation. "I really don't fit in with them."

She munches on her food.  "To be honest..." she says "fitting in is overrated anyway" while her mouth is full. She takes a sip of her drink. "Well, if you hang out with us newcomers we may have an excuse to go slack around in town, how about it?"

"Well, I needed a reason to take some air as well." he says. "What are you planning? We have 3 days of weekend."

🟆🟆🟆

Meanwhile in the battlegrounds, Alex does shorter versions of the routine drills they had during the week, he skipped breakfast again, to avoid getting sick while training. His limits being pushed by the thought of "I need to do more than just take hits." He finishes the routine he set for himself. 

He heads inside, he feels lighter with each step, the floor feels like it ripples with each step. The vision gets blurry... the walls turn upside down.

An angelic figure in a dark void, a woman, an elf, a warrior? Could be any, could be all, could be none, she wears an armor, or a dress, her tiara looks like a helmet visor, instead of ears, she have wings that extends outwards. she looks austeros, yet comfortable to be around.

The figure, with closed eyes, starts talking to him.

『...』

"What?"

『...』

"I don't understand."

『...』

"Alex..."

"Alex, wake up"

『...』

『Now it's time to wake up, your friends wait for you』

"thank you, goodbye for now!"

"ALEX!"

Adel and Karasu watches Alex waking up.

"Are you okay dude?" Adel asks, while blowing wind into his face with a piece of paper she had in her pocket. She puts her hand over his forehead.

Alex responds: "No, I'm fine... I just didn't eat today."

Adel helps him to get up. "Let's go to kitchen, we'll make something for you. Just don't do this anymore, it's important to eat." She says, out of her usual careless attitude.

Karasu looks through one of the windows, he notices the training grounds gear being scattered. He takes a deep breath and says: "You were training."

Adel helps Alex to get up. "C'mon, let's get something for you to munch on." she says.

Karasu follows behind.

🟆🟆🟆

As Alex eats his sandwiches, prepared by Adel, he reminisces about his brief passing out, trying to remember what he saw, but only having a vague feeling of floating in a void.

Karasu, sitting besides him, questions: "Why are you pushing yourself so hard today?"

Alex stops eating, he briefly says: "Because I'm..." He pauses for a moment, as he takes a deep breath Adel appears with another plate of sandwiches. The two of them eat the sandwiches with little to no regard for etiquette. 

Adel comes up with the idea of leaving for sightseeing around the island again, both nod in agreement. On the other side of the dining hall, frustrated grunts can be heard. Leo studies while eating a gyro. "No, this is too hard. Damn you Isaac Newton!"