Her soldiers were influenced by her enthusiasm as well and synchronized shouting was heard a moment later declaring that they were all ready to take on the next challenge with all their strength.
Diana was too conscious of the two women who had come out of nowhere and had advanced beyond her despite the fact that she had a head start over the two. As such, she wasn't willing to admit defeat either.
Clara had already found her opportunity to get close to Zach and was already clinging to him which irritated Diana but she couldn't just send her away. Zach's safety was important to her as well.
Her other rival, Christina, had made some achievements by helping Zach with the Windsor family's problem before. She had proved her worth to him too by fighting off the powerful A rank mage called Jack who was supposedly quite powerful.
Diana on the other hand had failed to make any achievement in the fight with the Hunter family earlier. It wasn't that she didn't want to help but that Zach hadn't even told her about it considering that she was busy with the reclamation and development of Greenland.
As such Diana was the happiest she had been in a long while.
…
Diana was the leader of the troops and was obviously at the forefront in the training being conducted by Zach. She was not only the most tech savvy but also the most motivated and the most willing to undergo the new training regimen.
Zach was stricter than he had been with them before. The new equipment was not only more sophisticated but was also harder to master than the relatively primitive weaponry that the soldiers were trained in previously due to the lack of previous options.
The more sophisticated equipment and the heavy artillery required a new set of strategies that would allow the soldiers to change their tactics from guerilla to more frontal warfare.
With a bulwark like defense and heavier firepower on their side, the soldiers were gradually turning into a mighty force capable of razing entire battlefields to ashes in the blink of an eye.
Unlike the previous times, the emphasis of this training wasn't on improving individual capability but on group warfare. Zach would finally be able to call his group of guerillas an army after the successful completion of the training. They would be increasingly skilled at taking on large groups of clustered enemies with relatively smaller numbers.
Being a small force with advanced knowledge, the Smith family was bound to become a target of the other forces in the near future. Therefore, Zach was preparing his soldiers to take on entire armies on their own.
With the help of technology, this wasn't a far-fetched hope at all.
The training routine was so tough that even Zach sometimes felt bad for the soldiers who were already putting in their best efforts to push through the training. They had to wake up in the wee hours of dawn when even the first rays of sun weren't out yet and had to keep training until the depths of the night. The training included both hand to hand combat to increase physical endurance and lessons on the normal and wartime operations of the high-tech machinery such as battle tanks and combat drones.
The advanced lessons he had planned would also include the usage of the equipment in their traditional roles. For example, he planned to teach the scouts about the usage of drones for reconnaissance and combat at the same time. This would not only improve the quality of information collected but would also increase the efficiency of the scouts and the variability of their combat methods; Thus, ensuring their safety despite the lack of defensive measures.
Diana understood his intentions and motivated each and every one of her subordinates with her words during training.
Soon she found that all her efforts combined weren't as effective as when she mentioned anything about their enemies trying to destroy their newly built home.
The new home they built with their own hands became the bottom line and the reverse scale of these soldiers.
Their blood boiled every time she mentioned enemies attacking their home in groups and armies.
Even the completely spent soldiers stood up at the mention of their home and struggled to put in their last bit of energy to improve.
Except for the time dedicated to meals and compulsory sleep, the soldiers were not interested in anything else as they devoted themselves to the training. Their strength improved and their coordination with each other, as they followed their commander's instructions without blinking, improved at a rapid pace as a result.
Zach was very satisfied with the level of learning ability of these soldiers. He wasn't sure if it was because these people had long since gotten used to adopting new technologies but it didn't take them as long as he had expected to learn their important aspects.
While the soldiers could barely notice the passing of days, it was extremely difficult for Zach to withstand the slow passage of time. From his perspective, time was barely trickling down drop by drop as if someone had turned off the faucet of time and it was only barely leaking one drop at a time.
Training wasn't as easy a job as it had been in the beginning. He had barely taught them the basics and had left them to their own designs to improve with the help of the capable commander Diana.
But he couldn't do the same because of the sophisticated equipment that was capable of blowing off a chunk of the island due to misusage. He didn't want any accidents until he could be sure that every soldier was proficient in the role they had been given in large scale battles.
The toll on his mind had been far greater than that of Diana who was the actual leader of the troops on the field. After two weeks of constantly training the soldiers, Zach had become sick and tired of it and needed a rest.
If the soldiers heard of this, they would surely condemn the dictator Zach for his tyrannical methods. While they were the ones suffering and sweating blood and tears in the field, their top commander who only had to order them around at his whim was acting tired as if he had done all the training and was too exhausted to continue.
After two weeks of continuous torture Zach decided to give everyone a day off to rest and make merry. None of the soldiers knew the reason behind the sudden happiness but Diana felt like she had grasped a part of it. Both Zach and Diana had noticed the waning spirits of the soldiers as they immersed themselves fully into training. While their enthusiasm hadn't drained, their endurance was reaching a critical point already.
Even Diana's encouraging words couldn't bring back the spark in their lifeless looking eyes.
Zach didn't want to break their spirits before the training reached its conclusion. Therefore, a break at this point was absolutely necessary so that the soldiers could gather their scattered spirit and motivation before engaging in their training with renewed vigor and passion.
Zach ordered a special feast to be prepared for the soldiers on their day off. Soldiers loved nothing more than good food and a good sleep. Both of these things together were enough to rejuvenate them for another long bout of harsh and back breaking training.
The occasion was also marked by another huge event that excited the entire Smith family. Zach was also going to narrate the climax of the Harry Potter story after the feast as a treat. The story that brought hope to the migrating Luther family during their worst moments had long since become the greatest delight in their lives. It had brought them excitement when there was none, happiness when they were bored out of their minds and a sense of unity as if they had experienced and witnessed the growth of the kid called Harry Potter as he overcame all the hurdles in his path and battled against the greatest dark mage of all times on countless occasions and survived to tell the tale.
The dinner didn't last long as the whole family was far too anxious to hear the true ending of the story. They wanted to know if Harry's plans to take down Voldemort with the help of the three artifacts was a success or not very badly.
Visit freewe𝑏no(v)el.𝘤𝑜𝓂 for the best novel reading experience