The sun rises not with a gentle dawning, but like a heavy, golden blade cutting through the stubborn mist of the early morning. Its rays are long, shimmering threads of raw silk, weaving through the high, arched apertures of the cold, stone Rotunda. The dust motes in the air dance within these geometric beams of light, swirling in a slow, hypnotic rhythm that contradicts the sharp, mechanical scratching of ink on parchment echoes through the vast chamber.
Aldo stands before the massive wooden counter, his boots caked with the dry, gray dust of his completed trial. The silence he carries with him is thick, a physical weight born from the long stretches of isolation on the road. Without a word, his fingers dip into the leather pouch at his waist. He produces the evidence of his kill, placing the items onto the scarred wood one by one with a deliberate, rhythmic finality.
First comes the yellow liquid, contained within a small, thick-walled glass vial; it sloshes heavily, viscous and unnatural, catching the golden dawn light and turning it into a sickly, jaundiced amber. Next, he lays down the scales—three large, overlapping plates of a deep, iridescent midnight blue, rough at the edges and smelling faintly of stagnant mountain water and old rot. Finally, he sets down the piece of bone. It is a jagged, splintered fragment of an ancient vertebrae, white as chalk and heavy enough to crack against the timber with a sharp, hollow thud.
Clark Yolan does not look up immediately. His expression is a carved mask of bureaucratic indifference, a face that has seen a thousand men bring in a thousand pieces of death. His fingers, deeply stained with a permanent, dark purple ink that looks suspiciously like dried blood around the cuticles, move with a practiced, mechanical efficiency. He reaches out, scooping the vial, the scales, and the brittle bone into a small, wire-woven basket sitting at his elbow. The metal basket rattles under the weight.
With his right hand, Yolan dips a heavy iron quill into a deep well of black ink. The nib scratches violently against a long roll of coarse parchment, writing out a standard confirmation of receipt in a tight, angular script. He doesn't read the words aloud. He doesn't congratulate the survivor. He simply blows on the wet ink, tears the small slip of paper from the roll with a sharp rip, and shoves it toward Aldo's chest without making eye contact.
"Continue!" Yolan shouts, his voice a dry, rasping bark that echoes off the vaulted stone ceiling.
The command is directed at the vast space of the Rotunda, an impersonal signal to the invisible gears of the state. Aldo takes the paper, his fingers brushing against Yolan's ink-stained skin, and turns away. He walks toward the perimeter of the great hall, his footsteps echoing in the vastness. He paces along the cold stone walls, his hands buried deep in his pockets, his mind drifting into a strange, unsettling vacuum. The mission is over. The beast is dead. Yet, the momentum of the kill still thrums in his veins, leaving him restless, untethered, and entirely unsure of what he is supposed to do with the remaining hours of the day.
He stops beside a massive, fluted pillar, leaning his shoulder against the cold stone, his eyes scanning the grand architecture. The Rotunda is beautiful, but it is an oppressive, functional beauty.
[The Professional Central Army is supposed to be a centralized agency, the iron fist of the state. Yet, the palantine Heilop has toll booths at every crossing, every bridge, every mountain pass. It functions like a broken, archaic feudal network. So why does this place exist? Why does this seemingly civilian Rotunda, with its clerks and baskets and neat slips of paper, belong entirely to the PCA?]
Aldo scratches his head, his rough fingernails scraping against his scalp with a dry sound. He watches the endless movement within the chamber. Clerks move in parallel lines; messengers dart through the side arches; ledgers are slammed shut with the force of small explosions. It is a terrifyingly smooth operation. It is the invisible machine. It is the exact same terrifying apparatus that every single country on Earth possesses—a professional, completely invisible "machine" that glues an entire nation and everything within its borders together into one cohesive, unyielding mass. It is the bureaucracy of violence, organized and filed away in neat leather binders.
"An impressive sight, isn't it?" a voice calls out from the shadow of the adjacent archway.
Aldo turns his head slightly. Emerging from the gloom into a shaft of golden sunlight is a high-ranking Freeman Soldier. He wears the polished brass-trimmed pauldrons of a company commander, his posture straight and unyielding, though his uniform bears the faint, lingering scent of old campfires and starch. Aldo knows the rank immediately, but the name eludes him. In his mind, and in the few formal interactions they have had, this man is simply the Lieutenant.
"Lieutenant !" Aldo says, giving a curt, functional nod of his head.
"Congratulations are in order, Aldo," the Lieutenant says, his boots clicking smartly against the stone as he approaches. "You completed the mission. Cleanly. More cleanly than the high table anticipated, to be quite frank with you."
The Lieutenant doesn't waste time with pleasantries. His eyes, sharp and gray under his heavy brow, narrow slightly as he gets straight to the point.
"I have good news, and I have bad news," the Lieutenant says, leaning back against the wooden railing of the clerk's partition."Which one do you want to hear first?"
"Go ahead," Aldo replies, his voice flat. "Doesn't matter to me. Give me the terrain as it lies."
The Lieutenant nods, a small, grim twitch of his lips. "The good news is that you completed the mission to kill Drakolimne. The high command is thoroughly impressed by the efficiency of the elimination. In fact, they are already looking through the restricted archives for a more dangerous mission with a significantly bigger reward for you."
Aldo's brow furrows into a deep, heavy line.
"What kind of good news is that? That sounds like an invitation to a wealthier grave."
The Lieutenant lets out a short, dry chuckle, nodding in agreement. "Fair point. But here is the rest of it: your company won't have to undertake any new operational missions in the near future. The administrative wheels are turning elsewhere for now."
A small, genuine smile breaks through Aldo's guarded expression. He nods, the tension in his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. "Now that... that actually sounds like a reprieve."
The Lieutenant's smile vanishes, replaced by a heavy, world-weary sigh that seems to drain the color from his face. He looks out over the bustling floor of the Rotunda, his hand dropping to the pommel of his sword. "And...We're back to the old rank system, Aldo. The high council signed the decree yesterday morning."
Aldo shakes his head, a low grunt of frustration escaping his throat. "We just switched back and forth between the modern numbering and the old titles three months ago. What is going on up there? Who is holding the reins?"
"I guess it's to cut administrative costs and use that extra capital to pay off the foreign debts," the Lieutenant says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as a clerk passes by with a stack of heavy ledgers. "The treasury is bleeding from the southern campaigns. Every copper counts now."
The officer straightens his tunic, pointing down at the small, square insignia pinned to his own collar. "As of midnight, I am no longer your Lieutenant in the ledger. I am F-6 'Castella'. And you..." He taps Aldo's shoulder lightly. "...you are officially V-3 'Lead'. The bureaucratic reorganization is complete."
"So the chain of command has new names,"Aldo says, his voice dripping with mild sarcasm.
"You don't need to call me Lieutenant anymore, Lead," the officer says, his demeanor softening slightly. "Just call me Officer Watkins. The old titles are dead for the season."
Officer Watkins reaches into the leather satchel slung across his hip and pulls out three thick, leather-bound volumes. The covers are made of aged calfskin, stained a deep crimson, with elaborate gold lettering pressed into the spines. The edges of the pages are gilded, catching the morning light like small bars of solid gold. He extends them toward Aldo.
"I got these from the Royal Library of Palanton for you to read," Watkins says, his eyes searching Aldo's face. "Take them. Read them well when the camp goes quiet at night."
Aldo looks at the heavy books, his fingers tracing the cold, smooth leather of the topmost spine. "Thank you, Officer. But why the literature?"
"A talented person like you deserves further training, Aldo," Watkins says, his voice earnest, almost paternal. "You have a tactical mind that doesn't belong in the mud of a basic infantry line. You see the battlefield differently. You understand logistics in a way these feudal lords can't even comprehend."
Aldo looks down at the books, a bitter, secret irony twisting in his chest.
[Further training. A talented person. It's not talent, Watkins. It's just that I'm from modern Earth. I spent my youth reading history books, watching documentaries on mechanized warfare, and understanding the concept of total state mobilization while your people were still arguing over who owns which patch of grass based on a heraldic banner.]
"I'll read them..." Aldo says simply, tucking the heavy volumes under his arm.
Officer Watkins shifts his weight, his eyes dropping to the long, leather-wrapped hilt of the sword hanging at Aldo's hip. The air between them suddenly grows heavy, a strange, static-like tension rising from the floorboards.
"Tell me, Lead," Watkins asks, his voice dropping an octave, becoming intense and focused. "How is the Morito sword doing? The one you used to defeat Drakolimne?"
Aldo's hand instinctively rises, his palm resting against the cold pommel of the blade. "I've put it back in its proper place. It's secured. But... how did you know I used the Morito to bring the beast down? I didn't include that detail in the initial raven report."
Officer Watkins doesn't answer with words immediately. He takes a step closer, his eyes scanning the air around Aldo's shoulders, his nostrils flaring slightly as if catching a scent on the wind.
"You are emitting the aura of someone who has just used a Morito blade, Aldo," Watkins says, his face deadpan. "It is a very specific, very different kind of corruption aura. It's not the standard rot of the shadow lands. It's something older. Something synthetic and malicious. It sends a distinct shiver down my spine just standing within three paces of you."
Aldo blinks, a rare flash of genuine surprise breaking through his clinical exterior. He looks down at his own hands, then back at the officer. "I didn't realize you reacted to magic, Officer. I thought you were purely a tactical commander."
Watkins breaks into a loud, booming laugh, the sound cutting through the quiet bureaucracy of the Rotunda and causing several clerks to look up from their inkwells.
"Almost all PCA high-ranking officers have received considerable training in magic, Aldo," Watkins says, his laughter dying down into a grim grin. "Or rather, to be more precise, anti-magic. We are trained to detect the rot before it takes hold of a unit. We are trained to smell the corruption before the soldier starts hearing the voices."
...