Chapter 867: Keeping It in the Family

Doctors keep people alive. In an army, that gives them considerable standing.

Even outside combat, intensive training leaves plenty of men injured.

Sprains and bruises are routine. Headaches and fevers no longer have to be endured untreated either.

Weapons and equipment are a soldier's second life.

They are just as much a matter of survival, and no one can afford to neglect them.

By the time the artisans get out of bed, people are already waiting at their doors.

Everyone wants equipment that suits him. Many soldiers are particularly fond of Peace Haven's wrist crossbows.

They cost less than hand cannons and can catch an enemy by surprise, a useful advantage in a fight.

Even a single bolt, fired at the right moment, can save a man's life.

To keep themselves alive, the soldiers all but pamper the artisans.

But what interests every warband most is the Special Enhancement Department inside its main fort.

It offers Peace Haven's unique means of crossing the threshold into extraordinary power.

After completing an enhancement regimen, a candidate is almost certain to become a professional.

For an ordinary person, that is a chance to change his life in a single leap.

For now, the Special Enhancement Department in each main fort offers only ten enhancement slots a month.

The warband commander nominates candidates for five of them. Group headquarters assigns the other five.

The first arrangement helps prevent abusive struggles to seize slots within the warbands.

The second strengthens the authority of group headquarters.

For now, the warbands that have yet to fight choose candidates from the soldiers' daily evaluations. The three that have seen combat are the exception.

Even commanders who want to favor their own men hesitate to set a precedent so soon.

To ordinary soldiers, the offer is enormously tempting.

In almost every warband, half the soldiers are already professionals. The enhancement slots are reserved for the ordinary men who make up the other half.

The odds are good, especially for capable men who train hard.

There could hardly be a greater reward or incentive.

This, more than anything, keeps the men gritting their teeth through even Morris's harshest training.

Nothing else comes close.

The first candidates complete their enhancement regimens and demonstrate Knight Rank strength before their fellow soldiers.

After that, the eager looks aimed at the Special Enhancement Department's staff become almost unsettling.

The warband commanders even have to station their own guards near the departments.

A perfect record among the selected candidates is enough to drive ordinary people wild.

The enhancement departments have screened every nominee beforehand.

They pick the men most likely to succeed, which is why the success rate looks so astonishing.

Quite a few of those rejected will soon advance through their own efforts.

The departments explain this to the warbands so the available resources can do the most good.

Group headquarters and the warband commanders accept the reasoning. Such a scarce resource cannot be wasted.

The personnel in each fort's enhancement department all come from Peace Haven.

Many are new to the work, which limits how many enhancements they can perform.

Posting staff at each warband is only a temporary measure.

Later, a dedicated base for the enhancement departments will be built at the center of the fortress cluster.

The staff currently assigned to the separate warbands will all move there.

Better facilities and a full staff will let them perform far more enhancements each month.

On hearing this, the warband commanders say they are in no hurry to move into their forts.

The engineering teams can build the Enhancement Center first.

Group headquarters shuts that suggestion down at once.

There is also the question of what will happen once the Enhancement Center is complete and everything is running smoothly.

Plenty of people will eye the Mobile Strike Group, even arranging for their own men to join just to get enhancement slots.

That doesn't bother Senar. His force exists to plug the most dangerous gaps, where men must fight to the death.

Anyone bold enough to seek those benefits must also be prepared to die in battle.

Later, the slots will be awarded on merit, and group headquarters will assign all of them.

Kill more enemies, earn more distinction. If a man can do that, why shouldn't he get an enhancement slot?

But no one gets to take the enhancement and then walk away.

Senar has already made it clear that once someone joins the Mobile Strike Group, an injury or a mishap is no excuse to retire.

Permanent disability or death in battle. Those are the choices.

Those are the only two conditions he'll accept, even for the children of the powerful.

No one has backers powerful enough to intimidate Senar.

So why is Peace Haven giving away so much?

It wants to develop talent and gather data and experience.

That applies to medical care, weapons and equipment, and the enhancement slots alike.

All of them need plenty of data to keep improving.

Behind all that investment, though, lies the real prize: the Mobile Strike Group itself.

Those men are meant to become the core of Henwell's eldest son's followers. Whatever he spends now will be worth it.

Three months pass before Senar finishes recovering.

His earlier fight with the Seahorse King taught him a great deal.

Before he has time to fully absorb those insights, orders arrive from coalition headquarters.

The major counteroffensive on the front facing the bandits' underground stronghold began a few days earlier.

Headquarters now wants Senar at the front to bring his personal strength to bear.

It had considered summoning Henwell as well.

After thinking it through, however, it abandoned that dangerous idea.

Morris will therefore continue managing the group until the end of the year.

Senar had wanted his elder foster brother, Harry, to join the group staff, but Harry refused.

For the first time, he told Senar that staying near Pabos greatly eased the pain in his injured leg.

Senar cared deeply about his brother's health, so he did not press the matter.

After the Harvest Festival, the weather turns cooler. Pabos gets a rare two days off and takes Harry out for a stroll.

There are now nearly a hundred thousand people around the fortress cluster, support personnel included.

Soldiers in every warband receive leave, though Warmflow City is as far as they are allowed to go.

Their spending gives the city's economy a welcome boost. The group's soldiers receive military pay, after all.

The Western Federation foots the bill. An ordinary soldier earns ten gold coins a month.

Most of that money is sent directly to his family or to a recipient he designates.

Even the lowest-paid soldier has two gold coins a month in spending money.

For most of the men, that isn't much money.

Nearly half were already at the Knight Rank before they came. They weren't poor to begin with.

Many of the officers are nobles and have money of their own.

Some even ask their families for large sums to buy better gear.

A single custom-made hand cannon costs close to a thousand gold coins!