"How long do you think it'll take before they find all of us?" Mya whispered while crouching beside a massive tree, her breathing uneven from exhaustion. Sweat clung to her forehead, and her legs still trembled from the ten-kilometer run they had just finished to run deep enough into the forest. Around them, the forest was quiet, almost unnaturally so, as if the woods themselves were waiting for the hunt to begin. Beneath the shade of the branches, Henning lay flat on the ground without a care in the world, looking more like a corpse than a trainee ranger. After two brutal weeks of training under the Sonneberg family, both of them had long since lost the energy to panic.
"Three hours, maybe less," Henning answered lazily while staring up through the canopy. "Come on, let's climb the tree so we can at least say we tried to hide properly." His tone carried an odd confidence that made Mya narrow her eyes suspiciously. Even so, she followed him up the tree without complaint, dragging herself onto a thick branch before flattening her body against the bark. The branch swayed slightly under their combined weight, but neither of them cared enough to adjust. At this point, surviving the training mattered more than dignity.
"Wait… we're not even going to hide, seriously?" Mya asked in disbelief while turning her head toward him. "You sound way too calm about this." Most of the other recruits had sprinted deep into the forest the moment the signal rang out, desperately trying to bury themselves under leaves, mud, or bushes in hopes of surviving the four-hour challenge. Meanwhile, Henning looked like someone preparing for a picnic nap.
"Nope," Henning replied immediately. "They'll find everyone within three hours anyway, and if they somehow don't, they'll use their secret weapon. I'd rather rest while I still can." He folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes as if he truly intended to sleep. "Besides, we already ran ten kilometers, so we won't be the first people caught. That means they can't yell at us too much for lacking motivation."
Mya blinked twice before sighing heavily. Somehow, his logic made sense. "Alright, now you have to explain what this so-called secret weapon is," she said, suddenly interested despite her exhaustion. "You can't casually mention something like that and stop talking." Gossip was one of the few things still capable of energizing the recruits these days, especially when it involved the mysterious Sonneberg family.
Henning cracked one eye open before lowering his voice dramatically. "Apparently, they have someone with a physique that basically turns him into a human radar while inside the forest. He can ask the trees where people are hiding." The moment he said it, Mya sat upright so quickly she nearly fell off the branch. Her tired expression vanished instantly, replaced with sparkling curiosity.
"That's amazing," she whispered excitedly. "I've never met a physique holder before. People say they can do all kinds of terrifying things." Ever since the System appeared, rumors surrounding physiques had spread across the world like wildfire. Some believed physique holders were humanity's next evolutionary step. Others believed they were monsters wearing human skin. The worst rumors claimed their bodies contained ingredients capable of strengthening other people if consumed. Those particular stories disgusted Mya more than anything else.
"Most physique holders keep themselves hidden now," she continued quietly while shivering slightly. "After those cannibal rumors started spreading, a lot of families began hunting for them in secret. My own relatives believed those stories completely. Honestly, if they'd ever found one, I'm pretty sure they would've served human meat at dinner just to improve their standing." Her voice carried no humor despite how ridiculous the statement sounded.
Henning simply nodded. "The Sonnebergs don't seem scared of it, though. Apparently, the last people who tried something like that ended up dead." He spoke casually, but there was something unsettling beneath his tone. "They're more annoyed about the rumors than anything else." He then smiled faintly, remembering how he learned about the forest physique in the first place. "One of the little girls from the family told me."
"You've met the children?" Mya asked immediately, leaning closer with interest. "Are they cute?" The image she had in her head involved tiny aristocrats running around with bows and cloaks while acting overly serious.
Henning let out a tired laugh. "Cute? Maybe. Terrifying is probably more accurate." He rubbed the back of his neck while remembering the encounter. "The adults suppress their instincts enough to seem normal, but the children haven't learned how yet. Talking to one of them feels strange because your eyes can't fully keep track of them. One second they're standing in front of you, and the next your brain starts wondering if they were ever there at all."
Mya visibly shuddered. "That sounds horrifying." Then, as usual, her attention immediately shifted topics. "Do you know our training is considered boring by the children around our age?" she asked suddenly.
Henning raised an eyebrow. "No way. Aren't they almost done with their training already?"
"Apparently, yes," Mya replied while nodding enthusiastically. "Their training is actually even worse than ours, but they get free time too. And during that free time, they play games their family has apparently passed down for hundreds of years." The fascination in her voice was impossible to hide. To Mya, the Sonnebergs sometimes felt less like a modern family and more like survivors from another era.
"What kind of games?" Henning asked, finally sitting up properly on the branch.
"Well, hide-and-seek obviously," Mya answered immediately. "But they also have this battle royale game using rubber arrows. The arrows hurt like hell apparently, but they're safe enough to use repeatedly." Her eyes lit up as she explained it. "And they have to use all the skills they learn during training. Ambushes, stealth, traps, teamwork—everything."
"That actually sounds fun," Henning admitted reluctantly.
"Exactly!" Mya pointed at him triumphantly. "They said it'll probably take us at least five years before we're skilled enough to create our own leagues and make the games truly useful for refining skills." She leaned back against the trunk while imagining it. "Honestly, it makes sense. It's probably why their family managed to preserve their traditions for so long."
Henning nodded thoughtfully while chewing on a random piece of straw he had found earlier. "Most ancient crafts disappeared because people stopped enjoying them. Once something only becomes work, eventually nobody wants to continue it." His voice carried an odd calmness despite the miserable circumstances around them. "But if children grow up treating those skills like games, they naturally carry them into adulthood."
"That's true," Mya said softly. "I really want to learn more about their history someday. Did you know they supposedly have records covering nearly seven hundred years?" Her fascination with the old clans had only grown since joining the guild. The more she learned, the stranger the modern world felt by comparison.
While the two of them rested lazily in the tree, chaos unfolded throughout the rest of the forest. Recruits were constantly being discovered and dragged back toward the archery range where another six thousand candidates continued training without mercy. The instructors moved through the woods like ghosts, appearing silently beside hidden trainees before casually informing them they had failed. Some recruits had become so exhausted that even the blisters on their feet now had blisters of their own.
Far away from the exercise grounds, Karl Sonneberg sat inside the family villa with a troubled expression while looking over several financial reports spread across the table. "How much money do we have left?" he asked his wife quietly. Even for a family as wealthy as theirs, maintaining a faction this large was becoming frighteningly expensive.
"We still have around ten thousand gold coins," Annemiek answered after reviewing the documents again. "That's enough for regular expenses for quite a while." Despite saying that, uncertainty filled her voice. "But I'm worried about government taxation. If they impose faction taxes too aggressively, we could go bankrupt within two years." She sighed deeply before leaning back in her chair. "We used to survive because we stayed small. Now we've invested enormous amounts of money into these recruits, and we won't see proper returns for twenty years."
Karl shook his head calmly. "It won't be that bad." His confidence contrasted sharply with her anxiety. "First of all, nobody knows what the Earth's expansion will actually change. Second, the twenty-year estimate is simply the standard we set for ourselves." He folded his hands together thoughtfully. "I guarantee most of these recruits will become useful within two years."
Annemiek frowned immediately. "Then why tell them twenty years?"
"Because they need perspective," Karl answered with a faint smile. "There's a difference between being useful and being complete." His eyes drifted toward the forest outside the villa windows. "Within two years, they'll have the technical skills we require. But instincts are different." His expression sharpened slightly. "Our ability to hide isn't something we actively think about anymore. It's our natural state. These recruits still need to consciously remember every movement they make."
Realization slowly appeared on Annemiek's face.
"The remaining eighteen years," Karl continued calmly, "are for beating those instincts into them until they become automatic. Otherwise, mistakes happen. And mistakes get people killed." Despite the coldness of his words, there was genuine confidence behind them. The recruits may have looked hopeless now, but Karl truly believed they would eventually grow into something terrifying.
Annemiek stared at him for a moment before finally smiling again. "Alright, I believe you." Then her eyes sparkled greedily as she rubbed her hands together. "Still, I can't wait until we can finally start sending them on missions to earn money for the guild."
Karl burst out laughing. Somewhere deep inside the forest, thousands of exhausted recruits unknowingly shivered at the exact same moment.