I didn’t have time to train soldiers to become skilled fighters. That meant that we had to hire those that were already skilled at fighting and had significant levels in some kind of battle orientated job. A level 50 farmer couldn’t become a competent swordsman in only a week. Even if I enslaved them and used every trick I knew to multiply their experience and power level, it would be difficult to manage with a handful of people, let alone an army of them.
The most obvious answer would be the adventurer. These were talented people used to fighting bandits, monsters, and anything else that made it to the surface from a dungeon. There were also dungeon divers, and there was a fair amount of overlap between dungeon divers and adventurers, especially since there wasn’t a dungeon diver guild.
I couldn’t hire adventurers to fight in a war for me. That was strictly against the rules. Even if I tried to hire them outside of the bounds of the guild, they could potentially lose their jobs. There were only two ways to get around that. One was to get them to join the army, and the other was to hire them separately as mercenaries. The mercenary option held the problem of being expensive. Furthermore, they would have to break up their party to join a mercenary group. Breaking up a party penalized you a rank letter, so even if they reformed after, it’d be a costly event.
This meant that recruiting them into the army was the best choice, but while it would be nice to recruit adventurers into the army, very few were willing to take on that kind of commitment. The temptation of a Knight token was great, but adventurers were free spirits. They didn’t like the rigidness of militaries and the do-or-die nature of war, or they would have chosen to be mercenaries. Thus, there was little chance to recruit them over.
That left only one other group of skilled fighters that might be open to the temptation of being a given the Knight job. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Knight token wasn’t just a noble title and access to perks associated with being a noble, but it was also a powerful third-class job. Most of these people had only ever reached a 2nd class proficiency, so even if they only cared about their strength, having the Knight job would allow them to increase their strength over normal commoners. Trading a few years of life could be considered a small trade such a benefit.
“I understand all of that…” I muttered. “But why are we here?”
The crowds burst into cheers as one man slugged another. He fell back, hitting the edge and catching on the ropes before stepping forward and flying at his opponent. He started hitting his opponent rapidly, pushing him across the stage. It seemed like was overturning the entire match. One last punch, and the man who should have won collapsed to the ground. The other man raised his bloody palms, causing the crowds to burst into cheers.
“This is what gladiators do on the offseason,” Bernice explained. “Welcome to the world of underground fighting!”
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