The screen displayed a stamina bar that depleted if he walked too fast, and a "misery meter" that filled if he didn't adjust his socks. Rain began to fall in-game, turning the trail into a muddy slurry. Other recruits (NPCs) muttered lines of dialogue that translated to various ways of saying, "I want to go home and eat pea soup."

"Mäkinen!" barked the Sergeant, a man whose voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "Is that a bedsheet or a map of the archipelago? Fix it!"

As he closed the program, Mäkinen realized the game wasn't about war. It was about waiting in the rain, complaining about the food, and somehow finding the pride to keep your locker straight through it all.

The "Combat" phase finally arrived. Mäkinen was handed an RK 62 assault rifle. He felt a surge of excitement—until he realized he had to clean it. For three hours. If he missed a single speck of carbon in the receiver, the Sergeant would reset the timer. Mäkinen sat in the dark of his real-world room, clicking a virtual rag over a virtual bolt carrier, wondering if he was playing a game or undergoing actual psychological conditioning. Then came the Marssi —the long march.

But then, something shifted. The sun began to set behind the pines, casting a deep, amber glow across the marshland. A low, melancholic accordion track began to play in the background. Mäkinen reached the top of a ridge and looked out over a pixelated lake. For a moment, the tediousness of the locker inspections and the rifle cleaning faded. He felt a strange sense of Sisu —the Finnish spirit of stoic perseverance.