Previously
Kalinin appoints his aide Billy as Henrietta's personal drill instructor, reasoning that Billy is the most idle and least intimidated by her noble status. Henrietta wakes up feeling refreshed, reflecting on how her past poverty and forced marriage led her to choose this difficult but independent path.
The hands of the Duke’s pocket watch showed exactly three minutes and fifty seconds had passed.
That was how long it had taken Henrietta to tie back her hair and change into her training uniform.
“Sir Temperk. Are you certain you issued the proper training uniform?”
The muddy-brown shirt had no collar and dipped low enough to expose the collarbones, designed to keep sweat from plastering the cloth to the neck during drill.
The problem was that the uniform Billy had brought the previous night seemed a bit too large.
Or perhaps Henrietta was excessively thin.
The shirt’s neckline was so wide that it slipped down nearly to her shoulders, accentuating her long, slender neck.
Furthermore, to keep the shirt from billowing, there were ties sewn inside the waist, but Henrietta had cinched them tight as though tying a bow on a dress.
Transformed inadvertently into something resembling a fluttery, pleated miniskirt, the shirt showed off Henrietta’s narrow waist.
‘I knew it!’ muttered Billy before speaking up.
“I’m not the only one seeing a totally different outfit, right? Yes, sir. It was definitely our training uniform.”
“Is something wrong?”
Henrietta felt uncomfortable under the gaze of two men looking her up and down.
She knew they were looking at the clothes and not her body, but staring exclusively at her clothes was hardly better. Showing herself in such disarray before others for the first time in years, she twisted her torso slightly, pretending to clasp her hands behind her back.
It was an innocuous gesture—until both men frowned at the same time.
Confronted with a woman in an already bizarrely altered uniform twisting her body, the immune systems of two men who hadn’t been near a female creature in ages sprang into defensive action.
“This is a very serious problem.”
“It seems to be a sizing issue, Your Grace. I’ll see to it immediately.”
“Whether it is you or the supply officer, how can you receive recruits by the dozen and fail to match a single uniform size?”
“How could I get it right on the first try? Every recruit we’ve ever taken in before was a man!”
Listening to their exchange, Henrietta grumbled.
“I thought it felt unusually big.”
Hearing her listless voice, the Duke was suddenly reminded of why he had come here in the first place.
“Trainee Matyás.”
At the sharp address, Henrietta gasped softly, realizing her posture had slipped.
“Yes, Division Commander, sir!”
“Why do you think I have come here?”
“I am not certain, but it seems I neglected my greeting. Good morning, Division Commander.”
Both men let it pass when Henrietta offered a slight curtsey.
She hadn’t been taught military etiquette yet, after all.
The problem lay elsewhere.
“It is not morning.”
“Pardon?”
“It is afternoon, Trainee Matyás. You have just woken past noon.”
“Oh, my. The barracks were so dark, I had no idea day had broken. Er, I must not have noticed.”
“I am told a soldier and an administrator took turns trying to wake you from outside the barracks, to which Trainee Matyás declared you would sleep longer.”
“Pardon? Me?”
Henrietta tilted her head, then let out a small ‘ah’ as realization dawned.
“I thought it was a dream.”
She had slept so deeply that the voices outside had sounded like a distant reverie.
“Such an excuse will not be tolerated starting tomorrow. When you hear the bugle call, it will be in your best interest to get up immediately.”
“Understood. But, um… did you come to wake me yourself, Duke—er, Division Commander?”
He had.
Because not a soul dared enter the female barracks, Billy had brought the Duke himself.
Yet even the Duke had had no brilliant solution.
He was just about to call out to her before the closed entrance when she had suddenly emerged face-to-face with him.
It was a relief that his momentary freeze had looked like composure.
“Ms. Matyás.”
Henrietta grew even more tense when the Duke abruptly addressed her as a civilian.
“Yes, sir. Please go ahead.”
“This is the last time I will address you as Ms. Matyás. I am extending this courtesy because you do not yet appear ready to be a soldier. Does it make sense if I say my coming here in person was for the very same reason?”
“I understand what you mean. In the future, I do not wish to receive such consideration. If I ever oversleep like this again, please assign me the same penalty as any other soldier.”
“Normally, one wakes before any penalty is necessary. Someone simply walks in and kicks them in the behind.”
Henrietta finally understood why no one had dared wake her and had let her sleep so late.
They could hardly break into a sleeping noblewoman’s quarters to kick her in the behind.
“Thank you for your consideration. I will never be late again starting tomorrow.”
Henrietta was genuinely grateful for the Duke’s leniency.
***
Shortly after, Henrietta headed to the administrative quarters alongside Billy to receive a new uniform.
Along the way, she was given a tour of the Krakow Division’s grounds. Beyond the enlisted facilities like the mess hall, bathhouse, recreation room, and latrines, she was led past the training grounds, drill square, armory, and the senior officers’ quarters, covering a considerable amount of ground.
Thanks to that, by the time Henrietta arrived at the administrative building, she felt as though she had lost even more weight than she had had that morning.
The administrative supply officer attempted to swap Henrietta’s training uniform for the smallest size, but the length was entirely wrong.
“Isn’t it too short? You’ll have to wear one size up.”
“That’s the one she was already wearing,” the supply officer replied.
Henrietta grabbed the hem of the short shirt and tugged it down as far as she could, only to learn the hard lesson that military shirts had no elasticity.
Seeing this, the supply officer cracked a dry joke to Billy.
“Better too big than too short, don’t you think? True military spirit means fitting your body to the uniform. She just needs to put on some weight.”
Billy laughed heartily, as if he found that remarkably amusing.
In any case, they left after securing a promise that her formal military uniform would be tailored and taken in to fit her frame.
It was only after Henrietta followed Billy to the training grounds that she realized the truth.
Billy was the assistant instructor assigned to her recruit training.
What was more, it was one-on-one instruction.
She was quite satisfied with this arrangement.
One-on-one instruction would be far more effective than training among a crowd of other recruits.
She had never attended a proper academy, and while living off her aunt and uncle, she had had to eavesdrop on her cousins’ private tutors. Whenever she was caught, the entire household had been thrown into an uproar.
For the first time in her life, Henrietta felt as though she were receiving proper lessons.
How should she put it? It made her feel… a bit more valued.
Wanting to satisfy Billy just as much as she felt valued, Henrietta diligently followed his instruction.
Fortunately, being able to read and write, coupled with having read plenty of books in her spare time while acting the part of a trophy wife, allowed her to breeze through the theoretical lessons.
Military organization, structure, chain of command—it was all simply a matter of sitting, listening, and memorizing.
And when they moved on to practical close order drill, Henrietta took Billy by surprise.
“Oh, you’re quick on your feet.”
“Am I?”
Billy marveled at how she grasped the commands immediately and moved her body without hesitation, despite it being her first time receiving drill instruction.
Billy did not know.
To noblewomen who had drilled intricate social dance steps since childhood for the sake of party etiquette, something like ‘left face’ or ‘right face’ was laughably simple.
And then, Billy was surprised once more.
Close order drill was the process of engraving discipline and structure into muscle memory, fostering the collective uniformity most vital to a soldier.
In hand-to-hand combat, drill aimed for the flawless harmony of a well-ordered formation.
Particularly here in the Monster Forest, moving in unison as a tight-knit unit was critical. No matter how massive a monster might be, it could never overpower a united mass and volume.
Should even a single soldier break formation during battle, it would lead to the annihilation of the entire unit.
For that reason, every action—sitting, standing, walking, and running—had to be remade into the automatic response of a soldier obeying commands.
No tricks were needed, nor a sharp intellect. Only relentless repetition held the answer. The sole requirement was physical stamina. After all, repeating the exact same motion hundreds of times was grueling work.
And on precisely the fiftieth repetition, Henrietta collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.