The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 55 (Patreon)

Chapter 55 – Boot Camp

It was a cloudy day, as I stood on the training field at Stirling Lines, home of the United Kingdom’s Special Air Service. The SAS was playing host to the training camp I had agreed to. Because of that, one third of the troops being trained were SAS, equivalent to five full teams. The other members of this initial training cadre were split relatively evenly between other special operations forces, the Royal Army, Royal Marines, the King’s Guard, and even some members of the Royal Air Force.

That last one was probably surprising to some people, especially those who looked at the Air Force and thought of them as… lacking compared to the physical fitness that other branches required as a matter of course. While it was true that fighter pilots didn’t exactly go on long marches, anyone who said they didn’t keep in shape was lying to themselves. For one thing, cockpits weren’t spacious, so anyone who got too wide was going to get grounded, permanently.

More importantly, though, was the idea of high-speed maneuvering. In other words, dogfighting. While materials science could handle the forces of maneuvers at supersonic speeds, the human body struggled with that. Pilots had to be in great shape to take the G forces without knocking themselves out.

And the Warrior’s Way would help with that. When the overall body was stronger, then it could resist more and more force. It was possible that the maximum turn speeds would be determined by the plane’s structure, rather than the pilot’s body, that they could actually fly the plane apart before they blacked out. And then, they could design the next generation of fighters around that standard.

At any rate, I was here to make the introductions, not do the full training camp. I couldn’t take that much time away from my own business, and my own disciples, after all. On that thought, I smiled as I looked out at the men and women standing before me, all dressed in their standard uniforms with full battle kit, just as I and my trainers were dressed in our full armor, and armed as if for war.

“Greetings, men and women of the British Armed Forces. You have all been called here by your King, in order to receive an education in an entirely new way of training. In this boot camp, my soldiers will break you down to your lowest point, and build you back up into something stronger than human limits, and give you the ability to give this training to others.

“This is the Warrior’s Way of magic. You will learn to strengthen your bodies, allowing you to hit harder, run faster, endure longer. You will learn to quicken your minds, allowing you to lessen reaction times, process information more quickly, and solve problems faster while under pressure. You will learn to enhance your senses, allowing you to see further, pick out a human heartbeat from meters away, and identify scents even a dog would have trouble picking up. You will learn control your very organs, allowing you to release chemicals on demand, actively fight off disease, and shrug off poisons that would kill you as you are now.

“And, when this training is done, all of you will be expected to be able to run a marathon in under three hours, in full gear, and be ready to fight at the other end. Yes, even the Air Force boys and girls will be able to do this. And, when you have accomplished that much, you Elites will have risen to the level of the standard of professional soldiers in the other world.”

I saw some people who were looking at me like I was crazy. Some of them looked offended, since I was basically calling elite fighting men and women little better than new recruits. But I didn’t see anyone who was looking like they were going to quit.

“I will now turn over this training camp to one who is preeminently better qualified to run it. Sergeant Major Laeroth Aesys has been a soldier longer than any of you have been alive! You will show him respect, or you will find out why he is one of the few people on this planet that can beat me in the sparring circle!” I turned to the vampire waiting beside me, and said, “Sergeant Major! You may begin training.”

As I said that, I stepped aside, and allowed Aesys to step forward. He was tall for a human, though an average height for an elf, like he had been before he became a vampire. His mithril breastplate, and other armor did not gleam, for it actively forsook the sunlight. While the sun was only an occasional inconvenience for vampires in a cloudy land like England, the gear he wore ensured that he could not only withstand the noonday sun in a desert, but that he would be able to move in absolute silence, when he wanted to.

“RECRUITS! I AM SERGEANT MAJOR LAEROTH AESYS! YOU WILL ADDRESS ME EITHER AS SERGEANT MAJOR, OR AS SERGEANT MAJOR AESYS! IF I SO MUCH AS HEAR A WHISPER OF YOU DOING OTHERWISE, YOU WILL BE RUNNING UNTIL I GET TIRED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“SIR! YES, SIR!”

I smiled as the troops gave an ingrained response, and just the one that the Sergeant Major had assumed they would make. I was not lying when I said that Aesys had been a soldier for longer than they had been alive, after all. He had been a drill instructor in the elven kingdom’s army for over two centuries, before he was turned to a vampire. He had another fifty years of service after that, in different militaries, before he came to be in my service. Aesys had never wanted to be promoted out of the enlisted ranks, where he would be forced to do something other than inducting new recruits into the life of a soldier.

“ARE YOU RECRUITS HARD OF HEARING? I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER TELLING YOU THAT YOU WERE TO ONLY ADDRESS ME AS SERGEANT MAJOR, OR SERGEANT MAJOR AESYS! YOU FUCKING MAGGOTS GET THIS ONE CHANCE! YOU DO NOT SAY SIR TO ME! I AM NOT SOME NOBLE, OR OFFICER! I WORK FOR A LIVING! NOW, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, MAGGOTS?”

“YES, SERGEANT MAJOR!”

“Well, all right then,” Aesys smiled, as the trainees got the message quickly enough. “YOU MAY HAVE BEEN ELITE SOLDIERS IN THIS LITTLE COUNTRY THAT HAS NEVER SEEN A WAR WITH MAGIC, BUT NOW, YOU ARE MAGGOTS, NOT EVEN WORTH THE FLIES BUZZING AROUND MASTER SERGEANT ARTUR OVER THERE! YOU WILL TRAIN UNTIL YOU EARN THE RIGHT TO BE CALLED RECRUITS AGAIN, AND THEN YOU WILL TRAIN UNTIL YOU ARE ACTUALLY WORTH THE TITLE OF SOLDIER!”

The drill instructor looked over the assembled trainees, and said, “AS OF THIS MOMENT, YOU ARE ALL EQUALLY WORTHLESS! HOWEVER, BY THE GRACE OF HER MAJESTY, THE QUEEN OF RISEN ATHELIA, AND THE LEAVE OF YOUR KING, MY TEAM AND I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO TURN YOU INTO A FORCE THAT THIS WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE! BY THE TIME MY PEOPLE ARE DONE WITH YOU, YOU WILL BE THE SINGLE MOST DANGEROUS FIGHTING FORCE OF MORTALS ON THIS PLANET! YOU MAGGOTS HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE HONOR OF ESTABLISHING A NEW TRADITION FOR YOUR PEOPLE, AND I WILL NOT ALLOW ANY OF YOU TO BESMIRCH THIS HONOR WITH EXCUSES OR FAILURE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“YES, SERGEANT MAJOR!”

“YOU WILL TRAIN, AND LEARN HOW TO MANAGE AND GROW YOUR MANA. YOU WILL TRAIN UNTIL YOU ARE ABLE TO GROW YOUR MANA IN YOUR SLEEP, IN THE MIDDLE OF BATTLE, OR EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE SOME BACK ALLEY WHORE BENT OVER PRETENDING YOU ARE ABLE TO SATISFY ANYONE WITH THAT INSIGNIFICANT MASS YOU CALL YOUR GENITALIA! IT WILL BE AS NATURAL TO YOU AS BREATHING, OR YOU WILL LEARN BRAND NEW DEFINITIONS OF WHAT HELL IS LIKE, AS I BREAK MY FOOT OFF IN YOUR BACKSIDE, AND THEN GO IN WITH A PIKE TO GET IT OUT AGAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“YES, SERGEANT MAJOR!”

“DRILL INSTRUCTORS, FALL OUT WITH YOUR ASSIGNED COMPANIES! I STILL HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN HOW THEY NEEDED REMINDING OF BASIC MATERIAL. TAKE THEM ON A TEN K RUN AROUND THE PERIMETER, SO THAT THEY ARE PROPERLY MOTIVATED TO LEARN WHEN THEY ARRIVE AT THE CLASSROOM! FALL OUT!”

“YES, SERGEANT MAJOR!”

As the five ghouls and seven death knights chosen for this training camp moved out to the groups they’d been assigned, they started yelling as well, administering the time-honored trick of drill instructors everywhere, shock and awe. Even for those who had already gone through the process, it was effective. Actually, for some of them, it was likely to be more effective. They knew the power of the knife-hand well.

I smiled, and looked at the Sergeant Major. “Well done as always, Sergeant Major. Just remember that we are dealing with mortals, instead of the usual fare. Their King asked me to assure that they would be getting them all back alive.”

“Yes, your Majesty. You don’t need to worry about me or my team. We may be undead, but I’ve already had words with their ‘Combat Medical Technicians’. A CMT will be following every platoon while they are in training, separate from those actually undergoing the training. Their job will be to ensure the safety of the troops, and I’ve instructed my team to follow their orders on medical matters.”

“Excellent. And you remember the second part of your mission?”

“Yes, your Majesty. Ascertain weapons and tactics of the British Army, and see what changes to our own doctrine might need to be addressed. In particular, finding a way to try and make the automatic weapons the army uses into effective combat weapons.”

“That is correct. I expect you and your team to familiarize yourselves with the weapons of your trainees. I spoke with the base commander, and you will be able to draw weapons and ammunition from the base armory when you are at the range. They have arranged for a range officer to be stationed after hours, so that you can get some shooting in while your trainees are sleeping.”

“Thank you, your Majesty. That will certainly help with our full familiarization with these new weapons. However, I can already see some problems that will need to be addressed, before they can be used in any real capacity by our people.”

“The attack power, right?”

“Yes, your Majesty. It is the old problem with weapons that consume ammunition, and the speed with which that ammunition is used. The faster the shooting rate, the less time for imbuing or enchanting that can be done, either by the weapon or beforehand, as the ammunition is being made. A bow can apply an enchantment on an arrow as it is loosed, and some skilled archers are able to do that for dozens of arrows a minute, but they are the true masters of their craft. Or you can imbue each round beforehand, but that becomes impossible with the rate of fire and number of rounds their weapons can use.

“The ‘machine guns’ and ‘assault rifles’ are fine for dealing with peasants who have no training, but against a trained warrior or mage they would only be of any use against newly formed units. Any of the soldiers in your army could simply wade through one of the fire of one of their standard issue rifles, and just feel a tickle. The heavy machine gun rounds would carry enough force to actually knock them around a bit, but our veterans would be able to march through it without suffering casualties.

“I do think that the ‘shotguns’, ‘pistols’, and ‘sniper rifles’ that we’ve seen, however, would be quite effective, even against our troops, if the weapons were properly enchanted. The rate of fire on those weapons is low enough that individual imbuement or using a weapon enchantment are both possible. And their grenades and other explosive weapons certainly could be made to be a threat to us. But then that gets into the last major problem I see with their weaponry, the lack of dedicated melee options.”

He waved his hand in the direction the troops had started running off in. “Oh, they have knives, and even shovels, which could be used as melee weapons, and hitting someone with your gun as a club can be useful, in some situations, but they need to have more dedicated melee weapons, especially since, once an enemy gets within melee range it is difficult to used disciplined fire and explosives to deal with the threat, unless you are willing to sacrifice your own comrades in the process.”

“Yes, without magic, the direction of warfare went to favor ranged battles, instead of getting into melee range, since their assault rifles and machine guns are quite deadly, especially when used on charging troops. This is something that they will have to address internally. Once you and your team have finished familiarizing yourself with the weapons, write up a brief, and I will ensure that it makes it into the proper hands, so that it will get due consideration.”

“Yes, your Majesty!”