Chapter 333: Brandon, The Newbie

"Brandon. Hey, Brandon."

A young eighteen year old guy heard his name being called from the side. He turned around and saw his neighbor standing just a few meters away in the dirt.

He looked up at the older man. "What’s up?"

"If you have all your armor on, pick up your weapons and come stand in formation," the man replied grumpily. "They’re calling for us."

Brandon nodded. He leaned down and grabbed his small, circular wooden shield which had been issued to him by his town’s Baron. It was a cheap shield which had a crack on it and looked pretty worn out. Then he grabbed his sword before walking over to the designated marker.

The sword was slightly rusty in certain areas near the hilt, and there were multiple deep chips on the edge of the blade. It was clearly a worn-out sword. But this was all he had been given since he was just a peasant who was drafted a month ago.

He was the only able-bodied man left in his family. His dad was already dead, killed in a war incredibly similar to this one a decade ago.

But this was a common sight in the Empire, and he was already used to the harsh reality of it. He had already lost his two elder brothers to monster subjugations over the years. Right now, getting drafted was seen as more of an economic opportunity than a deadly curse for poor families because the military pay was actually pretty decent. Being a soldier paid almost double, if not triple of what he made working at a local inn or working on the noble’s farm.

But of course, that money would only be useful if he actually came back alive to spend it.

He walked behind his neighbor. This older man was not a new person here. He had already been drafted into four or five different wars over his lifetime and had somehow survived every single one of them. He was almost fifteen years older than Brandon and walked with a permanent limp.

Brandon looked at the man’s back as they fell into line.

’He already has three wives back home,’ Brandon thought to himself. ’I want three wives too. But to do that I need to be strong and I need to earn good money. If I can’t even take care of myself out here, how am I supposed to even think about taking care of them?’

He had other massive responsibilities as well.

’I also need to get my sisters married. And to do that, I need money for the dowry.’

The concept of dowry was incredibly common in this world, or at least on this specific continent. For a guy to marry a woman from a decent family, there was a strict societal procedure. The family of the female had to give a huge sum of money directly to the groom to ensure that he would take good care of their daughter or sister. In return, the groom’s family usually gave the bride a lot of expensive gifts such as jewelry, gems, and fine clothes.

It was basically a system of both families pooling their resources together so that their sons and daughters could properly start a new life separately. Though, over time it had become a weapon that groom’s side used in the recent times, and Brandon had no choice but to gather up money for his sisters’ marriage.

And Brandon had three sisters.

They were all right around his own age. One was a year younger, and the other two were slightly older than him. He had to somehow get them married soon, or it would be too late. They were fast approaching the age where people would start calling them too old to wed. If they didn’t get married, they would just end up working as low-paid tavern maids or farmhands for the rest of their lives while being taken advantage of everywhere.

He let out a soft sigh and just followed quietly behind his neighbor.

He stood in the tight, uncomfortable formation for a long time. After a while, the loud war horns blew and the massive, combined army began to slowly march forward toward the fortress.

He looked around as they marched over the plain lands and he could see that the different noble armies were completely segregated, and they all had vastly different qualities of weapons. In fact, even the worst looking army block that he laid his eyes on at least had perfectly clean new swords and shields. The men in that block looked just as terrified and inexperienced as he was, but at least their Lord had bothered to give them good weapons.

Brandon turned his head to look at his neighbor walking right beside him.

The older man had a brand new reinforced wooden shield and a freshly sharpened iron sword. But that wasn’t because their Baron provided it. The man had literally bought the gear himself using his savings from the previous wars.

Brandon knew this because this man would never let go of the chance to boast about maintaining his gear just in case he’d need to fight another war.

Most of the other newbies standing in Brandon’s block were exactly like him. They were all given rusty, old, chipped swords and deeply cracked wooden shields. Some of the shields the guys were holding actually had patches of green mold growing on the leather straps and some parts of the shields were rotten too.

Brandon marched with the army for quite a long time.

The fortress walls finally came into view in the distance, looking massive and imposing.

They kept walking until they finally stopped.

It wasn’t a coordinated stop. Brandon didn’t hear any sort of command horn or see a flag signal to halt. What actually happened was the person marching directly in front of him just suddenly stopped, and Brandon accidentally bumped hard into his back.

But there wasn’t any reaction from the guy.