Chapter 6

"Don’t stand there with your arms open wide!"

With an unforgiving roar, the wooden sword in my hand was knocked away.

Günter, who was assigned to be my sparring partner, showed no mercy at all. While holding my arm, which was numb from the shock, I thanked him.

It was late summer, and I had grown to the point where Rasivog could leave me alone.

The facility for the domain’s army, built next to the Golden Hill Manor, had just been completed, and Count Teresa had reorganized the domain’s military, which had previously been left to the foreign soldiers he had hired.

I had been thinking that the building was quite impressive as I was looking at it through the window, but that was only for a moment.

As soon as people started to move in and the facility began to operate, I was thrown in there by the count himself to learn martial arts. A three-month course as a trainee soldier to learn the basics of swords and spears, one person (a viscount) was invited.

I am a girl, after all. Sometimes I think Count Teresa might forget my gender.

If I consider this as part of the education for a noble with a title, it’s not at all strange. It’s not strange, but I can sense a threat to my life.

Think about it.

The people who have made this facility their home are the sub-domain army of Cardia. Since it’s a domain army, the members are citizens of the domain.

In other words, they are people whose resentment and bitterness towards those who bear the blood of my father and Cardia are boiling over. I would naturally be included in that group. It’s like hating the monk and the robe as well, isn’t it?

This is my first time stepping outside the manor. If I make even the slightest mistake, I might be torn to pieces. The fact that my first outing is to such a place makes me wonder how deep my karma must be if it really exists.

To make matters worse, most of the domain army are former bandits.

Will I even be alive by the next new moon in three months?

Camille and Rasivog are assigned as my caretakers and pets, but the moment I rely on Camille, I feel like my head will be separated from my body. So, I hastily dragged out the self-sufficiency skills from my past life, which I had almost forgotten since my life changed.

"Don’t collapse after just ten laps of marching!"

"Yes."

"How many times do I have to tell you to project your voice from your diaphragm when you answer?"

"Yes! I’m sorry!!"

The fact that it’s just verbal abuse means it’s still bearable.

If I say that my training, as a pure-cultured sprout raised in the manor, involves being covered in my own vomit, sweat, and sand every night, you can probably imagine the rest.

While the army provides light meals for breakfast and lunch, dinner is on my own. It’s probably part of the training to improve survival skills in the battlefield.

So, after wiping off the vomit, it’s time to secure dinner.

The nights in the Cardia domain are long, as candles don’t even reach the lower ranks.

If I don’t vomit during training, I might not feel the hunger at night, but since it’s due to my own weakness, I have no choice but to gather food desperately. I didn’t know that hunger could be so painful until I came here, having been born and raised in a family that never lacked for food in my past life.

Perhaps the fact that I can borrow Rasivog’s help in exploration is a consideration for a five-year-old. Rasivog, who has grown to the size of a small dog with scales, is enjoying hunting like a ball. The food I gather is checked to see if it’s edible when I return to the barracks, which seems to be a special treatment compared to the actual trainees who have to learn by eating and experiencing the effects on their bodies.

Of course, I was taught from the beginning which things are immediately dangerous.

Still, every night, someone is getting sick or collapsing from foaming at the mouth, and there’s no sign of peace in the barracks.

Despite being in the interior of a large country with no war, the training related to food seems to be drilled into us at an abnormal level. It’s probably a remnant from when they were starving and turned to banditry. It’s amazing that they didn’t go insane. Does civilization make people’s spirits weaker, or did they create this training because they were already insane? I can’t tell which.

I learned early on that mushrooms are often poisonous.

Rabbits and birds are voluntarily contributed to the communal meals for the citizens, so I’ve hunted a few with Rasivog’s help but haven’t eaten them.

The frogs are all small and have no edible parts, and the larger ones are hiding in the mud at the bottom of the water. I’ve heard that frog eggs are edible, but it’s not the breeding season.

Snakes are a big catch if I can find them, and I’ve recently learned that snow snakes are a delicacy. They must be nutritious since they are the main food of wolf dragons.

Many spiders, even if they are poisonous, can be eaten if cooked.

Wild herbs are treated as a last resort because some are extremely poisonous and are very hard to digest.

Nuts can be gathered in large quantities, but they usually cause diarrhea, and the next day’s training doesn’t change even if I have diarrhea, so I quickly gave up on eating them.

The most consistently catchable are lizards.

The tricky part is that they need to be cut up and cooked until they’re almost burnt to avoid parasites, but it’s a good reminder that humans are omnivores.

In the past few days, my hunting hasn’t been very successful. The day before yesterday, I boiled some grass in salt water, and yesterday, I found some out-of-season cicadas and some weeds. Who would have thought that young susuki grass would be relatively edible?

"Tsari doesn’t go to the river. Every day, you’re seriously eating all sorts of bugs, grass, and snakes."

"None of the ten people would believe that this dirty brat is a member of the noble family."

All the trainee soldiers call me Tsari. I don’t know if Camille spread it or if it’s an old word from this area.

I can’t tell if they’re being serious or affectionate. They probably don’t know themselves if they’re venting their feelings on the child of a hated noble or teasing a child they eat with at the same table.

Some days they speak to me in a cold voice, and other days they take care of me as if I were their own child. I finally understand how complex human emotions can be.

"The river... Tsari, you know, if you go anywhere, take Camille with you."

"Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, you’ll get lost and cry because you can’t find your way home!"

The trainee soldiers laugh in agreement with the man who mocks me in baby talk. It’s a fact, so I nod without paying attention, and a few of them say I’m still a brat.

"Hey, isn’t it time for the little kid to go to bed? You’ll be beaten up by Günter early tomorrow morning, right?"

As the laughter dies down, the oldest of the trainee soldiers, who usually doesn’t speak much, calls out. Every morning after breakfast, while everyone is working in the fields, I receive sword training from Günter, but I’m knocked down dozens of times and then moved on to unarmed combat training, where I’m beaten to a tolerable degree. I can sense that the other soldiers are holding back their animosity towards me because I’m beaten up by Günter every day. Seeing the enemy’s child fall to the ground face-first multiple times must be somewhat satisfying.

"You’re right. I’ll go to bed. Good night."

With a brief greeting, I slip into my straw bed with a sheet. I’m getting used to falling asleep almost immediately as soon as I lie down.