On the training ground, a hundred Ranger recruits stood in formation. Before them stood the endlessly blathering clown and idiot, Lin Yu-oh, right, he was called Yu Lin Bloodhawk now.
Why was he spouting so much nonsense? Because he finally had a chance to be in charge and get a taste of leadership. Completely ignoring the sleepy Rangers below him, with their tilted heads, slumped shoulders, and sagging postures, he kept boasting away, spittle flying.
Of course, he had a reason for doing this, a lofty and impressive one. He called it political and ideological education.
Sylvanas and Lor'themar had arrived nearby quite some time ago and had been standing there for ages.
"How much longer is this idiot going to keep babbling? Until dark?" Sylvanas asked, rubbing her temples.
"No idea! Maybe! His 'couple of words' take far too long," Lor'themar said.
"All right, I won't waste any more words," Lin Yu said with a grand wave of his hand. The elven Rangers immediately perked up. "Let me just emphasize two final points..."
The Ranger recruits immediately sagged again.
"Here we go again!" Sylvanas sighed. "This is his eighth 'couple of words,' isn't it?"
"If we put him on the battlefield and let him teach the Trolls that political and ideological education thing of his, we wouldn't have to fight anymore. The Trolls would definitely kill themselves," Lor'themar said in wholehearted agreement.
"Hey! Hey! What's wrong with you lot? Look alive! All of you!" Lin Yu shouted. "I'm really almost finished this time."
Really almost finished? The Ranger recruits perked up.
"Just look at yourselves! Here I am, working hard to give you this speech, and you all look half dead. But the moment I say I'm almost finished, every one of you springs to life!" Lin Yu said indignantly, only to draw a round of muffled laughter from the recruits.
"Let me tell you, ignore your elders' advice and you'll pay for it right away," Lin Yu said.
"Captain, you don't look all that old yourself!" one recruit called out.
"You! Yes, you, you little girl who's barely out of diapers! Tell me, how old are you? How did you get into the army? What are those recruiters doing? Are they blind? How dare they shove underage girls into the army?
"That's dereliction of duty! They ought to be dragged out and shot. High Elf lives aren't so plentiful that those stupid, stubborn nobles in Silvermoon City can squander them however they please!" At last, Lin Yu had an opportunity to strike a grand, imposing pose of righteous indignation.
Lor'themar turned to Sylvanas in astonishment.
Sylvanas's face darkened with exasperation.
Lor'themar rubbed the muscles around his mouth with both hands. He really didn't want to laugh; he had laughed so much today that the muscles on either side of his mouth were already sore. He didn't want to laugh, but he couldn't help it. He kept rubbing his cheeks and laughing at the same time.
For the first time, he discovered that being too happy could sometimes be painful. Was he suffering while enjoying himself, or enjoying himself while suffering? He couldn't tell anymore.
"Captain, I'm thirty. I'm not underage. I'm allowed to enlist through the recruitment office," the recruit said.
"What?" Lin Yu could scarcely believe his ears. "Say that again!" he demanded.
"I... I'm thirty. I'm not underage. I... I'm allowed to enlist through the recruitment office," the recruit said, a little frightened.
How could that be? Some basic knowledge about High Elves suddenly flashed through Lin Yu's mind. There seemed to be a great deal of it, too much to sort out all at once, but the way High Elves divided their ages stood out very clearly.
High Elves generally lived for about three hundred years. They reached adulthood at thirty, roughly equivalent to an eighteen-year-old human. Most High Elves did not begin to show signs of old age until they reached two hundred and fifty.
However, their gift of longevity also came with the curse of low fertility, and thirty really was the minimum age for joining the army. Lin Yu felt rather embarrassed, but he had always been thick-skinned, and his expression changed faster than the turn of a page!
"Thirty. Hmm, good. Thirty is indeed the minimum age for joining the army. But you, you, you, and you lot over there definitely aren't thirty yet. Don't think I can't tell," Lin Yu said, casually pointing out several of the youngest-looking elves.
The elves wanted to argue.
As if Lin Yu would give them a chance! He knew perfectly well that his random selections were bound to be wrong, but who could blame him when these elves really did look like fifteen- or sixteen-year-old humans?
He immediately swept his hand through the air. "No need to argue. You should know that you really shouldn't be on the battlefield. But that isn't your fault. It's the fault of those bastards in the Military Department and those old fossils in the Council. What kind of bullshit laws have they made?"
Every Ranger's jaw dropped, including Sylvanas's, Lor'themar's, and those of everyone else present.
For a moment, a pin dropping could have been heard on the training ground.
"Does he think his title of baron is too grand, or that the idiotic head on his shoulders is attached too securely?" Sylvanas stared at him in disbelief.
It wasn't that no elves criticized the Military Department or the Council, but they only did so in private. Even Sylvanas only let such words slip when she was furious. No one had ever dared speak like this in public, much less brazenly spread such views through the army as he was doing.
"What? Am I wrong?" Lin Yu asked with a frown. "Do you think thirty is very old? By human standards, you're only about fifteen or sixteen.
"So the proper age for you to enlist should be thirty-seven to forty. Only then would you be old enough for military service. Understand?
"As far as I'm concerned, you greenhorns-what are you staring at? This goes for every last one of you. Yes, all one hundred of you! You should all get your asses back home. Study if you should be studying, play if you should be playing, and come back in a few years. Understand?"
"Captain, how old are you?" a recruit suddenly asked.
"Me?" Lin Yu hadn't looked in a mirror and really had no idea what he looked like. All he knew was that his hair was black. Yes, it was worn in one of those high-tied ronin topknots. He was briefly at a loss for words, but he knew this elven body's age perfectly well. "Thirty-five!"
He stretched out his big hand, making a show of how large the difference was. "Five years! I'm at least five whole years older than you!"
"Captain, by your own reasoning, you don't seem old enough to join the army either!" the recruit said.
"Pfft!" Sylvanas couldn't hold back her laughter.
Lor'themar chuckled. "Let's see how he talks his way out of this one."
The words Lin Yu had been about to say caught in his throat. Damn it! I've shot myself in the foot. I need to find a way to turn this around.
"I'm different from you. Why else would I be the captain? I may only be thirty-five, but mentally, I'm at least twenty years older than you. Understand?" Lin Yu shouted.
...You can explain it like that? Once again, all the elves looked utterly exasperated.
"Does that explanation actually work?" Lor'themar asked, turning to Sylvanas in astonishment.
"Don't ask me! I don't know either! Go ask those recruits." Sylvanas was utterly speechless.
"All right! There's no need to get hung up on age anymore. I'm only a lowly company commander in charge of you hundred-odd little brats. There's nothing I can do about it. Now, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear?" Lin Yu felt he had to change the subject immediately.
"The bad news first. Save the good news for last, so everyone can be happy. If you leave the bad news until last, we might be miserable all day," a recruit said with a laugh.
"Good! Then let's start with the bad news. The bad news is that your handsome, dashing, charming, brilliant, and mighty company commander-namely, me-has been looked down on..."
"Hooray!" Before Lin Yu could finish, the hundred-odd Ranger recruits began clapping and cheering.
"Hey, hey! Do you really have to make it that obvious?" Lin Yu shouted.
"Captain, should we be showing righteous indignation instead?" a Ranger recruit asked with a laugh.
"Yes, yes! Now there's a youngster worth teaching!" Lin Yu gave him a thumbs-up.
"Hooray!" The recruits all gave him thumbs-ups, only to turn every thumb toward the ground a moment later.
What's going on? Lin Yu looked completely bewildered. These NPCs are way too intelligent. They're not easy to fool.
Not far away, Sylvanas was already laughing so hard she couldn't straighten up. She had seen shameless people before, but never anyone this shameless. He had actually praised himself to the heavens in public, only to earn everyone's unanimous disdain.
Still, the recruits seemed to get along fairly well with him, so commanding them probably wouldn't be much of a problem. If they could stand there listening to his nonsense for half the day, they could certainly obey his order to run thirty laps around the camp.
She guessed that if the recruits were allowed to choose between those two options, most would choose to run thirty laps around the camp. After all, thirty laps would eventually end, whereas no one knew when his nonsense would stop.
"He certainly knows how to praise himself," Lor'themar remarked. He felt that anyone capable of such extreme narcissism was a talent in his own right.
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