Episode-826
Chapter : 1651
The command bunker was buried deep beneath the Ferrum estate. It was a place of cold stone, recycled air, and the low hum of magical lights that flickered just enough to be annoying. The air smelled of stale coffee and ozone. It was not a place for glorious speeches or knighting ceremonies. It was a place where math was done, and usually, the math involved how many people were going to die.
Lloyd sat at the head of a heavy iron table. He looked tired. Not the kind of tired you get from a long run, but the kind of tired that settles in your bones when you realize the world is stupid and you are the only one with the instruction manual. He tapped his finger against a stack of papers.
Opposite him sat Ken Park, his bodyguard and spymaster, looking as stoic as a statue carved from granite. Next to Ken was Rolf, the Head of Security. Rolf was a good man. He was big, he was strong, and he knew how to hit things with other things. He was a traditional soldier who believed in honor, formation, and the idea that having a bigger sword meant you were right.
"So," Lloyd said, his voice flat. "We are going to lose."
Rolf blinked. He shifted in his chair, the leather creaking under his massive frame. "My Lord? We have fortified the borders. The new rifles are being produced. The men are training day and night. Morale is high."
"Morale is great," Lloyd said. "Morale is fantastic. But morale doesn't stop a Devil King from turning you into a fine red mist by looking at you funny."
Lloyd stood up and walked to a blackboard. He picked up a piece of chalk. He drew a stick figure. He wrote 'US' above it. Then he drew a giant, angry circle with teeth. He wrote 'THEM' above it.
"This is the current situation," Lloyd explained. "We are fighting an enemy that defies physics. They have magic that rots souls. They have skin harder than steel. And what do we have? We have knights who spent ten years learning how to swing a sword really elegantly."
"Our Spirit Users are elite," Rolf argued, a bit defensive. "The Ferrum House Guard has some of the best C-Rank and B-Rank users in the North."
"And that is exactly the problem," Lloyd said, turning around. "Spirit Users are arrogant. They are used to being the hammer. They summon their spirit, they blast the enemy, and they go home to drink wine. They rely on their spiritual pressure to protect them. They rely on their shields."
Lloyd leaned forward, his eyes cold. "But the Devils have anti-magic. We saw it with the Lodestone. We saw it with the Soul Catcher. When you strip a Spirit User of their magic, what are they?"
Rolf frowned. "They are... still warriors."
"No," Lloyd corrected. "They are slow, soft targets in fancy armor. They don't know how to dodge because they never had to. They don't know how to run because they were taught to stand their ground. In this war, standing your ground means you die."
Lloyd went back to the table and slammed his hand down on the papers. "I am building a new unit. The Titan Squad."
Rolf sat up straighter. "Titan Squad. It sounds powerful. I will compile a list of our top A-Rank candidates. We can pull veterans from the border legions. Maybe even hire some mercenaries if their cores are strong enough."
"No," Lloyd said.
Rolf paused. "No? Then... B-Rank? We shouldn't go lower than that for an elite unit, My Lord."
"Rolf, listen to me very carefully," Lloyd said, speaking slowly as if explaining quantum physics to a golden retriever. "I do not want A-Ranks. I do not want B-Ranks. I do not want anyone who has ever successfully cast a fireball in their life. I want you to recruit people with a Spirit Core rank of F. Or lower, if that’s even possible. I want the people who have zero magical talent."
Rolf looked at Ken, hoping for support. Ken just stared at the wall, his face unreadable. Rolf looked back at Lloyd. "My Lord, with all due respect, have you hit your head recently? You want to fight Devils... with peasants? F-Rank users can barely light a candle."
Chapter : 1652
"Exactly," Lloyd said, a small, terrifying smile playing on his lips. "Because they can't light a candle, they had to learn other things. They had to learn how to run. How to hide. How to see a punch coming before it’s thrown because if it hits them, they don't have a magical shield to save them. They have to survive on instinct and reflexes."
Lloyd paced the room. "The Aegis system I am building... it doesn't run on the pilot's magic. It runs on the Golem Heart. It provides the power. It provides the armor. I don't need a battery. I need a pilot."
"But surely a trained knight would be a better pilot," Rolf insisted. "They have discipline."
"They have bad habits," Lloyd countered. "A knight sees an attack and thinks, 'I will block this with my honor and my shield.' An Aegis pilot needs to see an attack and think, 'If that touches me, I am dead, so I need to be three meters to the left, now.' I need cowards, Rolf. I need rats. I need the people who survive in the gutters because they are faster and smarter than the people trying to stomp on them."
Rolf looked horrified. "You want to build an elite unit... out of cowards?"
"I want to build a unit out of survivors," Lloyd said. "High-level mages have egos. They think they are gods. They will try to override the system. They will try to use their own power. And they will get killed. I need operators who know they are weak. Because they know they are weak, they will respect the machine. They will use the machine to become strong. They will have a desperate, hungry lack of ego."
Lloyd picked up the chalk again and drew a line through the word 'US'.
"We are rewriting the doctrine of war," Lloyd said. "We aren't looking for heroes. Heroes die gloriously. I am looking for operators. Operators kill the enemy and come home for dinner. Do you understand the difference?"
Rolf rubbed his temples. "I... I think so. But where do we find such people? The army rejects anyone below D-Rank."
"Exactly," Lloyd said. "The army throws them away. The Academy expels them. Society ignores them. They are invisible. And that is why they are perfect."
He turned to Ken. "Ken, you know where to look."
Ken Park finally moved. He nodded once, a sharp, precise motion. "The slums. The underground gambling dens. The lists of squire washouts."
"Precisely," Lloyd said. "I want you to scour the capital and the northern territories. Do not look for muscle. If I see a guy with muscles like a mountain, send him to the infantry. I don't want him. He relies on his strength."
Lloyd began to list the criteria on his fingers. "One: Reflexes. I want the guy who can catch a fly with chopsticks not because he trained in a dojo, but because the fly was annoying him. Two: Perception. I want the girl who knows the guard is coming around the corner before she hears his footsteps. Three: desperation. I don't want patriots. I don't want people fighting for the glory of the King or the flag. I want people who are fighting because they have nothing else. People who are hungry."
Rolf looked at the list Lloyd was writing down. It looked less like a military recruitment form and more like a list of symptoms for a nervous breakdown.
"My Lord," Rolf said, trying one last time. "These people... they will have no discipline. They will be thieves, liars, cheats."
"Good," Lloyd said. "War is lying. War is cheating. If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying to win. A knight fights fair. A survivor fights to live. I want the person who throws sand in the Devil's eyes. I want the person who plays dead and then shoots the enemy in the back. The Aegis is a weapon of mass destruction, Rolf. It doesn't need honor. It needs a target and someone crazy enough to pull the trigger."
Lloyd sat back down, the chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. He looked at his two subordinates. "The Devil Race... they are strong. Individually, they are stronger than us. Their magic is older. Their bodies are tougher. If we play by their rules, we lose. We have been playing by their rules for centuries. 'My spirit against your spirit.' It's a game of numbers, and they have bigger numbers."