Oath Of Iron And Fire

Chapter 11: Job assignment after graduation, is there such a good thing? (Part 1)

After taking over the post, Winters and Bud patrolled along the wall of the military academy carrying halberds. They did not carry muskets because muskets were much heavier than halberds.

And the gate had no gunpowder or bullets, so the musket was just a decoration. If Winters had his way of thinking, he wouldn't even want to take the halberd.

Military academies are not treasure troves, and the Army Officer Academy is poor. The Army's philosophy of running schools has always been to save as much as possible, and use the saved money to build more schools.

Such a poor place, where even a rat would cry when it entered, is filled with strong and vigorous young men.

Not to mention thieves, even ghosts would have to avoid it.

For the school, the main purpose of night patrols is to prevent individual students from sneaking out of the school at night. But there is no need to use weapons to catch two students who want to escape from the dormitory. At the same time, it is also unreliable to let students catch their classmates. Winters himself has sneaked out to play many times while his classmates were on night duty and came back in the middle of the night. And he always went out from the main gate, without having to climb over the wall.

The two of them strolled for a while, and it was already completely dark, and the lights were turned off. The military academy at night had completely bid farewell to the noise of the day. The silent school in the dark was like a beast lurking in the shadows. Winters often had this feeling when patrolling at night: the military academy at night was not a dead thing, it was breathing rhythmically every moment.

The nearby streets had also fallen asleep, just like the military academy. Only the port area in the distance had not yet fallen asleep. The two of them could vaguely see the twinkling lights. That was the territory of the drinkers and service providers who were looking for fun.

There are some simple stone tables outside the military academy wall near the residential area. The stone tables are shaded by several broad-leaved trees, providing shade on sunny days and shelter from rain on rainy days. These stone tables were built by residents nearby, and these small businessmen usually set up stalls on the tables to do business with the military cadets.

Winters saw the stone tables and wanted to take a break, so he pointed at them and suggested to Bud: "Go sit there for a while."

"Okay, sit down for a while. I want to smoke a cigarette too." Bud saw that Winters didn't want to move.

The wind was a bit strong tonight, and it was blowing from the sea to the land. The wind brought a lot of moisture, and the sky above Guitu City was covered by clouds. The moonlight became very weak after passing through the clouds, and the road was only slightly better than on a moonless night.

Winters recalled what he had learned in geography class and frowned as he said, "Looking at the wind direction and the clouds, it might rain tomorrow."

Rain is not good news for someone who is about to embark on a journey back home.

The two of them sat on the stone table, and the wind blowing from the sea dried up the sweat on their bodies and took away a lot of heat from their body surfaces. The heat of the day was gone, and now it was a cool night.

Bud took out an old pipe from his small bag. He first filled the bowl with some chopped tobacco leaves and then pressed them tightly. He then repeated the "filling tobacco leaves-pressing" process twice.

Winters saw that Bard had finished refilling his cigarettes, so he kept his thumb on his index finger with his left hand, and used the fire spell to light the tobacco in Bard's bowl. This was a small benefit of being a good friend of a spellcaster. As long as Winters was there, Bard never had to worry about where to find fire to light his cigarette.

"Ike said he envied me during the day. If he found out that the biggest advantage of being a spellcaster is that it is very convenient to light a cigarette, I wonder if he would still say so." Winters thought self-deprecatingly.

In this era, a considerable number of men are either smokers or drinkers, and many of them are both. In this era of lack of entertainment, many people who do not smoke or drink do so not because they do not want to, but because they cannot afford it.

But Winters doesn't smoke or drink, and he refuses to try any addictive stimulants. Because Antoine Laurent believes that these addictive "poisons" will corrode the caster's will, paralyze the caster's perception, and destroy the caster's spell ability. Winters regards General Antoine Laurent as a god, and he always regards Antoine Laurent's words as a criterion, so he is determined not to touch such things.

Seeing Bud taking a comfortable puff of his cigarette and then exhaling it full, Winters finally decided to ask the question that concerned him very much. He asked Bud with concern: "Have you found out where you will be assigned?"

In the dim firelight, Bud's expression remained calm, unmoved by Winters' questions.

"I didn't ask." Bud took a puff of his cigarette and answered slowly, "But I can guess without asking. He was just sent overseas."

After saying this, Bud continued to concentrate on smoking, a leisure activity that was damaging to his health. He looked contented and did not seem to be sad at all about being sent overseas by the military.

"It's not easy to be assigned overseas." Bud's tone was normal, but Winters became anxious when he heard it.

But Bud smiled at Winters, as if to say "It's nothing", and continued smoking.

Winters looked at Bud, then at Guido Castle at night, and finally at the sleeping school, and finally sighed helplessly. Although Bud himself did not seem to be pitying himself, Winters felt bad for Bud's situation.

Strictly speaking, overseas dispatch means that military academy graduates are assigned to nodes along the maritime trade routes. The two places close to the mainland are the Holy Roman Empire and the Fremen Empire. The capitals of these two empires are world-famous prosperous cities, and the alliance has consulates. Being a military attaché in a consulate in the colorful world is a good job that everyone is vying for.

But the "overseas assignment" that Winters and Bud were talking about was obviously not this kind of good job. They were talking about being assigned to a farther and more dangerous place.

Tomorrow Winters will start his journey home. He will serve as an intern in his hometown, the Ocean Blue Republic, for a year. At this time next year, Winters will have to go back to school. Technically speaking, he has not really graduated yet. This year he is just an intern in the army as a warrant officer.

As for the students who were sent overseas, once they boarded the ship to go overseas, they could not even think about going home. They could not even think about attending the graduation ceremony next year, because the round trip would take more than a year.

In name, the officers sent to various trading points were there to protect the alliance's overseas interests, but in many cases they were just commanders without troops or power, so naturally they had no chance to make meritorious contributions. If they wanted to go home, they would either be put in a coffin or wait until they retired.

To understand why Bud was sent overseas and Winters was not, we need to understand the graduate assignment system of the Army Academy. To understand the graduate assignment system of the Army Academy, we need to start from the beginning of the school.

One of the purposes of the old marshal in establishing this military academy was to bridge the rifts between the various member states of the Allied Powers, especially to bridge the differences between the armies of the various member states.

Because the Confederation is not a "country" to be exact, but an "alliance". Its full name is the Union of Senas Republics. The political ecology of the Union can be described by quoting the classic words of former Union Secretary of State Humphrey: "Country? Are we a (expletive) country? Aren't we five primitive tribes that hate each other?"