Chapter 61
After enlisting, Carissa and her friends were immediately thrown into training. The five of them, along with a group of new recruits, were sent to the training grounds. Basic drills, such as sword practice and wood cutting, were incredibly easy for them. They completed ten training exercises in no time, leaving the new recruits in awe. However, when it came to learning battlefield strategies, they settled down and listened attentively. Aside from Carissa, who was familiar with warfare, the other four had no prior battle experience.
Since Carissa had a tent, albeit a small one, they all squeezed in comfortably. That evening, they eagerly asked Carissa about her marriage.
Carissa hugged her knees and said with a smile, “Yes, I got married, then divorced. I’m single now.”
“That’s great!” Cynthia clapped her hands excitedly. “Jasper was so upset when he heard you got married. Now that you’re divorced, you can marry him.”
Carissa tapped her forehead with a finger. “I don’t want to. Jasper’s too fierce.”
“Fierce? Is he fiercer than your master? When your master gets angry, even the leaders of neighboring guilds are scared,” Cynthia said, leaning closer. “But what’s it like to be married? I heard you have to sleep together. Did you sleep with him?”
Carissa replied, “No, nothing like that happened. We didn’t touch a single hair on each other. He left for battle the day we married, and we divorced shortly after he returned. He’s married someone else now.”
Carissa spoke about her marriage in a very straightforward manner.
“So fast?!” Violet spat in disdain. “Men are really no good! In the future, if I get married, it’ll be to a pig or a dog, but never to a man.”
“Hey, that’s not fair. If you’re talking about a bad man, that’s one thing, but you shouldn’t generalize. Both Bun and I are good men,” Travis said. He turned to look at Bun. “Don’t you agree?”
Bun was rummaging through the tent. As he searched, he sniffed and said, “I smell meat. Are you hiding some food?”
“You only think about eating, you glutton,” Travis said, giving Bun a light kick.
Bun was unfazed. “If we don’t eat enough, how can we have the strength to fight? Carissa, do you have any food hidden away?”
“There’s no food,” Carissa said. “The conditions at the front lines are tough. I haven’t had a decent meal in days.”
Carissa rubbed her belly. On the night she arrived, she had eaten two sticks of dried meat and a flatbread. After that, she had been eating nothing but dry biscuits. Now, there was barely any left. The number of soldiers had increased, but the food supply was clearly running low.
Bun’s face fell. “Are we going to starve? How can the court let the soldiers go hungry?”
Carissa, sitting on the dirty bedding, clasped her hands together. “They’re definitely working on gathering more supplies. Don’t worry, we’ll get enough to eat.”
She still smiled, but her friends exchanged glances, sensing a trace of sadness in her eyes—a sadness they had never seen before.
In the capital, reports from the Southern Frontier arrived swiftly. Salvador’s face turned pale when he saw the news. He called an emergency meeting with the Minister of Defense and the capital’s military commanders, including Barrett and Aurora.
The Defense Minister, Davis Lloyd, broke into a cold sweat after seeing the report. “Westhaven has allied with Sandoria to invade the Southern Frontier? But how is that possible? Westhaven just signed a non-aggression peace treaty with us!”
The Deputy Defense Minister, Troy Hudson, was equally alarmed. “How can we withstand a combined force of three hundred thousand Westhaven troops and two hundred thousand Sandoria soldiers?”
“The Hell Monarch has already recovered twenty-three cities. He still has Illyrian and Simonton remaining. He’s suffered heavy losses. We’re down to maybe just over one hundred thousand soldiers, and our food supplies are running out. The Southern Frontier is vast, and there’s no way to stockpile enough supplies after taking twenty-three cities!”