The thick, suffocating silence stretches thin within the long, cedar-planked walls of the communal house, heavy as the stagnant air before a summer cloudburst. Aldo stands perfectly unmoving at the head of the long oak table, a monolithic shadow carved against the flickering orange glow of the hearth fire. His face remains a completely blank, stone canvas, registering the high-pitched tension vibrating through his men but offering absolutely no emotional currency in return.
Beside him, Onaga shifts his weight with a fluid, slender grace, his large, dark eyes reflecting the dancing flames as he steps forward to fill the void left by his commander's calculated silence.
"We don't know the full scope of it yet," Onaga says, his voice remarkably soft, melodic, and clear, acting as a calming balm to the volatile energy vibrating through the room. "Only when the actual fracture happens—when the top finally breaks and we systematically gather crucial, real-time intelligence about the active factions—will we truly understand the full geometric parameters of the situation."
He leans his slender, uncalloused hands flat against the scarred grain of the timber, his remarkably narrow shoulders squaring with an unexpected, academic intensity. Shorter than Aldo by half a head, his frame remains slim, noticeably soft, and distinctly femboyish amidst the tense gathering of young conscripts.
"Think of the historical records from Earth. For example, during the chaos of the Meiji Restoration, the entire landscape was a fractured, highly volatile network of competing entities," Onaga explains, his expressive eyes scanning the row of hollowed-out faces before him. "On the Emperor's side, you didn't just have a single army; you had the powerful Satchō Alliance, the influential Four Great Clans, and the radical, highly fanatical Shishi cells working in the shadows. And on the Shogun's side, the defense was mounted by the institutional Bakufu apparatus and the fiercely loyal Northern Alliance, completely independent of the many smaller, opportunistic factions such as the localized Daimyo lords, the ancient Kuge court nobility, and the scheming foreign colonial powers pushing from the coastlines."
Onaga stands straight, his pale, flawless face tightening into a look of profound, calculated conviction.
"Therefore, if a massive civil war breaks out here in the jurisdiction of Heilop, it will unfold in an entirely similar fashion," Onaga concludes, his fingers tracing a line across the wood. "It will not be a simple battle between two clean sides. It will be a chaotic, multi-layered meat grinder of fractured local interests."
A sharp, mocking chuckle cuts through the solemnity of the lecture. Hano pushes himself off the low wall, striding over with a loose, aggressive grace. He slides directly behind Onaga, leaning his broad chest heavily against the smaller man's slender back, his sharp, energetic face splitting into a wide, white-toothed grin that carries the dangerous heat of a wildfire.
"So you think you know exactly how the Heilop Civil War will unfold, do you, Onaga?" Hano jeers mockingly, his voice a raspy whisper that vibrates right against Onaga's ear. "You think a few old scrolls from a dead planet make you a general?"
The sudden movement breaks the tension, and within a single breath, the crowded room erupts. The discussion becomes incredibly lively again, the voices overlapping, shouting, and colliding against the low timber ceiling like trapped birds. The young, teenaged conscripts lean across the benches, their smooth hands gesturing wildly as the shared fear of their impending future transforms into a frantic, chaotic debate. Not a single palm among them bears labor callouses, and their young skin remains entirely unblemished by military scars.
Suddenly, a young conscript near the back stands up on his bench, his face flushed red beneath the grime, his arm thrusting high into the smoke-filled air of the communal house.
"If the system is truly breaking down from within, we shouldn't be waiting for a new master to choose our chains!" the young man declares, his voice cracked with an intense, idealistic fervor. "We should form formal political parties right now! We should elect our own leaders from the bottom up!"
Onaga spins around within Hano's loose grip, his delicate brow furrowing into a sharp line of military discipline as he shoots a glare across the table.
"We are a functional military company, not a sovereign nation," Onaga clips out, his soft tone turning remarkably firm and cold. "We operate under iron parameters and a chain of command, not the whims of a crowd."
"Who cares about the old regulations?!" the young man fires back instantly, stepping higher onto the wooden bench, his chest heaving. "The system is rotting! We must have democracy if we are going to survive what's coming!"
The shouting threatens to tear the room apart again, the noise rising to a deafening, unmanageable pitch as factions form across the table within seconds.
"Everyone stop!" Lei Delun's voice explodes through the chamber like a sudden thunderclap.
The raw power behind the shout is immense; it hits the walls and causes the iron pots hanging by the hearth to rattle sharply. Instantly, the shouting dies. The young man on the bench freezes mid-sentence, dropping his head as an absolute, ringing silence slams down upon the room. Every mouth falls agape, the slave-soldiers turning their wide, terrified eyes toward the corner where Lei Delun stands. Tall, firm, and broad, his massive frame radiates an aura of unyielding authority and the calm, upright, intimidating dignity of a traditional man.
Aldo turns his head slowly, his dull, dead-fish eyes locking onto the large soldier.
"Thank you, Lei." Aldo says, his voice flat, rhythmic, and entirely devoid of any theatrical emphasis.
Lei Delun doesn't smile. He offers a cold, minimal nod of his head, his face a hard mask of absolute military professionalism as he steps back into the deep shadows of the cedar pillar.
Hano lets out a low, whistling breath through his teeth, his amber eyes shifting from Lei Delun back to the monolithic form of his commander. He crosses his arms over his chest, a cynical, amused tilt shaping his mouth.
"I rarely see you praise anyone, Commander," Hano says, his tone dripping with a quiet, dangerous amusement. "That's practically a medal coming from you."
"Yeah," Aldo replies simply, his expression entirely deadpan.
Hano steps closer, his boots making a heavy, deliberate sound against the floorboards, his brow furrowed as he studies Aldo's completely emotionless features.
"You're reacting so lifelessly to everything today, Aldo," Hano says, a faint note of genuine frustration breaking through his mockery. "Look around you. We're standing here debating the end of the world, and you look like a corpse. We're not even eighteen years old yet, and you carry yourself like an old man waiting for a spade to hit his coffin."
"Yeah," Aldo says again, his voice an unmoving wall.
He reaches down, his unrough, fair hand picking up the heavy vellum letter bearing the deep blue wax seal of the "River and Cornucopia" coat of arms. He holds it up into the pale light of the window, his eyes scanning the elegant gold thread.
"I am being sent to participate in the Gala in Thromium, north of Heilop," Aldo states cleanly, the administrative reality dropping like an iron block into the center of the room.
Hano's eyes narrow instantly, and he interrupts with a sharp, aggressive shake of his head. "It's cold up north, Aldo. The permafrost up there doesn't just bite your fingers; it cracks your bones wide open. It's a barren, frozen wasteland of stone and misery."
"If central Heilop is the primary wheat granary of the federation," Aldo immediately retorts, his voice snapping back with a sudden, precise velocity that catches Hano completely off guard, his unusually rosy lips moving with clinical efficiency, "then the northern territory possesses a dense, incredibly complex network of rivers, making it perfectly suitable for both intensive wheat cultivation and grand commerce. The regional climate might even be significantly milder than the central region due to the low-altitude water systems acting as a thermal buffer."
Hano falls utterly silent. His mouth opens slightly, but no sound comes out; he glares at Aldo, completely defeated by the sudden, overwhelming barrage of geographical and economic data.
Aldo does not give him room to recover. He rolls the vellum document closed with a sharp crackle.
"I will be completely absent from the Farmland during this operation," Aldo continues, his gaze sweeping across his core leadership team. "So I will be taking Onaga and Hano north with me to Thromium, while Ryong and Lei Delun will remain behind here to continue managing the day-to-day expansion of the Farmland."
Instantly, Onaga's pale face loses what little color it had left. He steps back, his soft hands rising in a frantic, immediate gesture of protest. "Wait, Commander—no! You can't take me into a nest of high nobles! I belong in the records office, not a ballroom!"
Hano roars simultaneously, his anger boiling over as he slams his smooth fist onto the table. "I am not putting on a velvet collar to go play pet soldier for some fat Duke! I stay here with the dirt!"
Aldo moves with a sudden, terrifyingly explosive burst of physical speed that defies his monolithic, well-proportioned frame.
Before either young man can even register the shift in the air, Aldo's hands shoot forward like two iron vices. His left hand clamps onto the back of Hano's neck, while his right hand secures Onaga's shoulder, twisting them both around with immense, unyielding strength. He forces their heads down, holding their faces close to the fine vellum of the letter, his knuckles white as he points a single unrough finger toward the flowing, golden ink at the bottom of the page.
"Your names are in it," Aldo says, his voice a low, terrifying growl that vibrates through their skulls. "The document is sealed by the Duke. You are properties of the state, and your parameters have been drawn."
Both Onaga and Hano fall into an absolute, breathless silence. They look at the stark, unyielding gold letters spelling out their identities on the official court summons, their bodies freezing under the crushing weight of Aldo's physical grip.
Aldo releases them as quickly as he had seized them, stepping back without a single sign of exertion. He turns his body completely around, his dead-fish eyes locking onto Ryong, who is still hovering over his water-damaged ledgers.
"To avoid paying the exorbitant PCA quota when the tax collectors arrive next season," Aldo says, his tone returning to its flat, clinical cadence, "try spending more money. Spend every single copper we bring in."
Ryong looks up, his face a complete map of intellectual bewilderment. He lets out a short, stressed laugh, sticking his tongue out slightly in a gesture of pure, hopeless frustration as he shakes his head violently.
"How exactly do you plan to spend that volume of money, Aldo?!" Ryong shouts, his charcoal pencil tapping frantically against the desk. "Are you out of your mind? When this Farmland is operating at full, optimized capacity, the structural productivity will be incredibly high, and the grain will sell for an absolute premium on the open market! How can you possibly hide that kind of massive capital influx from the central auditors? What are we supposed to do, bury thousands of gold coins in the ground like common thieves?"
Hano jumps up from his seat, his anger instantly evaporating, replaced by a sudden, chaotic spike of manic energy. He leaps across the open floor space like a wild kangaroo, landing directly beside Ryong's writing desk with a loud thud, his hands gripping the edge of the wood as he leans in, his sharp face bright with a dangerous excitement.
"I know how to throw the money away!" Hano suggests loudly, his words tumbling out in a rapid-fire, ecstatic rush. "Try investing heavily in roads and dikes, Ryong! Once the core Farmland infrastructure is completely finished, we could just throw the excess capital directly to the surrounding peasant villages! After the roads are paved, we could donate the remaining money to massive local charities! We could ensure an endless, daily supply of hot porridge and fresh bread for every single starving mouth in the surrounding districts! We could build a brand-new, centralized water supply system and literally rebuild every single broken-down house in those miserable villages from the foundation up!"
Lei Delun steps out from the shadow of the cedar pillar, his arms crossed over his solid chest as his analytical mind calculates the projected costs of Hano's wild infrastructural plan.
"Even with all that construction, it still won't be nearly enough to spend it all," Lei Delun says heavily, his voice deep, solemn, and composed. "The agricultural yield from this soil will outpace standard local development within two seasons. The treasury will still show a massive surplus."
Onaga chimes in from the far side of the room, his voice rising with a sudden, brilliant flash of inspiration as he straightens his tunic.
"Then let's throw the remaining money into comprehensive healthcare and premium insurance for every single slave-soldier in the 204th Company!" Onaga declares, his large, dark eyes shining. "We can buy the finest medical salves from the southern markets, hire private chirurgeons, and create an ironclad safety net for every man who breaks a bone in these fields!"
Aldo raises his hand, his large palm cutting through the air to bring the brainstorming session to a final, definitive conclusion.
"Well, let's throw in more R&D money," Aldo concludes, his voice dropping into a cold, practical register. "I'm not entirely sure about the exact procedural development process for technology here, so let's just say we're throwing it in for the ledger's sake."
He walks toward the sliding door, his posture straight, his well-proportioned shadow engulfing the room one last time.
"Ryong, your job—and the primary job of the remaining 204th Company—is basically to rack your brains day and night coming up with a complicated, highly technical project name," Aldo instructs clearly. "Once you have the name, actually invest in it. Buy heavy, expensive equipment from the capital, donate massive sums of gold directly to the Catholic Church to secure their administrative goodwill, or provide high bail for local criminals and immediately force them to work for us as indentured laborers on our borders."
Before anyone can process the radical nature of the directive, Aldo reaches out, his strong hands grabbing Hano by the collar and Onaga by the arm. With a single, unyielding motion, he begins dragging both of them bodily out of the communal house.
"Hey! Let go of me!" Onaga yells, his boots sliding wildly across the dirt floor as he is pulled toward the threshold. He looks up at Aldo's toned shoulders in sheer, bewildered shock. "You completely tricked me! On Earth, you explicitly said you didn't go to the gym at all! How the hell did you suddenly become so terrifyingly strong?!"
His protests are completely useless. Aldo slides the door open with his foot and drags both young men out into the chill afternoon air, the wooden panel sliding shut behind them with a sharp clack.
Inside, Ryong and Lei Delun remain standing in the absolute quiet of the room, looking at the closed door with expressions of complete, stunned bewilderment. The fire crackles quietly in the hearth, throwing long, trembling shadows across the empty benches.
Ryong slowly turns his head toward the larger soldier, his hand holding his charcoal pencil stub between his fingers.
"So now..." Ryong asks, his voice low, hollow, and entirely unsure of his reality. "...what the hell are we actually researching?"
Lei Delun raises his hand, rubbing his chin slowly as his eyes drift toward the stack of blank parchment on the table. A slow, thoughtful expression shapes his firm, composed features.
"Ballpoint pen tips!" Lei Delun replies firmly, his voice deadpan.
Ryong's mouth drops open, and he lets out a loud, stressed groan, throwing his arms up in the air. "That's too much, Lei! This is a not-the-Earth world caught in the Middle Ages! They are literally using goose quills and inkwells downstairs! What do you think about developing an advanced irrigation system based on medieval China, or primitive printing technology, or maybe basic graphite pencils and early ballpoint pens?"
Lei Delun looks at the parchment, nodding slowly as the logistical parameters click into place within his mind.
"That sounds fitting," Lei says softly, a small, grim smile finally touching his lips.
Without another word, he pulls a fresh ledger toward himself, dips a quill into the black ink, and begins the systematic, chaotic "spend as much as you make" process, his hand writing out the first fictional project name as the shadows of the night fully conquer the Farmland outside.