Wolf and Zenji ascended together.
The spiral stair sealed behind them with a soft metallic sigh, folds reversing themselves.
The heat of the underground forge peeled away as they stepped back into the upper hall—cooler air, heavier with oil, leather, and the faint tang of ozone drifting through the blacksmith complex.
And then—
They were there.
Thirty-eight figures stood in disciplined formation across the open floor, arranged with surgical precision.
No chatter. No wasted movement. Boots aligned. Spines straight. Eyes forward.
The faint clink of metal and cloth settling was the only sound as they straightened at Zenji's presence.
Wolf halted half a step behind Zenji.
Zenji's voice cut cleanly through the space.
"I don't have many people," Zenji began, his voice dropping into a low, firm register that vibrated with a strange mix of pride and determination.
He didn't look at Wolf; his eyes were fixed on the men and women before him.
"But each one is meticulously trained, without a single flaw. They are the cogs that will help you complete your tasks."
Wolf's lips curved faintly—not a smile yet, but approval forming beneath the surface.
Zenji continued, voice steady.
"I have divided them into three squads. In each squad, there are three leaders, each supervising three subordinates—a total of four people per unit, including themselves."
He lifted a finger, pointing at the first squad on the left, whose hands were calloused and stained with the soot of the forge.
"The first squad consists of master blacksmiths trained by me the longest. They are personally in charge of weapons exports and all connections with external blacksmith circles."
His finger shifted.
His gaze shifted to the center group, a collection of individuals with restless eyes and unassuming faces.
"The second squad is a mix—young and old."
"Sharp minds. Sharper tongues."
Those individuals stood looser—not undisciplined, but adaptable. Their eyes tracking Wolf without staring, memorizing without revealing.
"They handle intelligence gathering, information collection and infiltration.v
Then the last.
"The third squad consists mostly of older members, they handle negotiation, fundraising and resource management."
Wolf's gaze lingered here.
These were the most dangerous ones—not because of strength, but because of experience.
Men and women who had survived decades without being crushed by larger powers.
Zenji lowered his hand.
"As for these last two... they act as my messengers, they ensure seamless coordination between all three."
He gave a subtle wave, beckoning two figures from the front line.
The first moved like tension given form.
"This is Lirico, he monitors operational speed and relays commands that cannot be written down."
The young man inclined his head—not deeply, but precisely. He was tall and slender, built like a drawn wire, every line of his body suggesting speed rather than strength. His face was sharp, almost angular, and his eyes never stayed still—flicking, measuring, predicting.
Wolf's vision shifted.
A translucent window bloomed into existence, unseen by all but him.
Name: Lirico Vanet
Gender: Male
Race: ???
Age: 21
Height: 182 cm
Level: 38
Stats:
STR: 40 (+10) | SPD: ??? | AGI: ??? | STA: 32 | END: ??? | POW: ??? | LUCK: 46
Mental Stats:
INT: ??? | CHA: 20 | FORTITUDE: 38 | GOODNESS: 50
Alignment: Good
Active Skills: Blink Fold, Echo Messaging
Passive Skills: Forge Network
Wolf's smile surfaced fully now—slow, deliberate.
This much luck…?
His eyes lifted.
"Good man," Wolf said lightly.
Lirico stiffened for half a heartbeat, then relaxed—recognition flickering across his face.
Beside him, She stood solidly, feet planted as if the ground itself answered to her weight. A stiff leather vest layered thickly over her torso gave her the silhouette of a plated wall, while her trousers were heavy-duty, sharply creased—functional, not decorative.
She didn't look at Wolf with curiosity, but with a clinical, evaluative stare, as if she were searching for a crack in his armor.
Zenji continued.
"And This is Riko. She is the auditor of quality. She refines the process, finding the friction in the gears and grinding it away."
Another window unfolded.
Name: Riko Deveron
Gender: ???
Race: ???
Age: 21
Height: 182 cm
Titles: The Fault Finder Forgotten Beauty
Level: 39
Stats:
STR: 28 | SPD: ??? | AGI: 30 | STA: 40 | END: ??? | POW: ??? | LUCK: ???
Mental Stats:
INT: 30 (+5) | CHA: ??? | FORTITUDE: 33 | GOODNESS: 60
Alignment: Good
Active Skills: ???
Passive Skills: Hardened Crease, Truth Vibrations
Wolf exhaled softly through his nose.
Truth Vibrations…What's that?
He stepped forward then, hands relaxed at his sides.
"I'm Wolf," He said simply.
Lirico responded first, bowing cleanly.
"Honored."
Riko followed, nodding once—no flourish, no hesitation.
"Understood."
Wolf's gaze widened—not at them individually, but at the formation as a whole.
He memorized faces. Heights. Stances. Breathing rhythms.
The subtle differences in how weight was distributed from heel to toe.
The synergy was terrifyingly clear in his mind.
Squads one and three with procure rare earth minerals, forge them into top-tier equipment, and then manipulate the market to inflate prices or buy political loyalty.
But Squads one and two... that's the real venom. two identifies the enemy's equipment type and its structural weaknesses, feeds that data to one, and one produces a custom-forged counter-equipment before the enemy even knows they're in a war.
A quiet breath left him.
Zenji Armani…
Wolf's smile sharpened.
He really did it. He lived up to the legacy of Armani.
Wolf stepped forward, his hand extending in a gesture of greeting.
"It's an honor to meet all of you,v he said, his voice smooth but carrying a weight that matched Zenji's."
Zenji stepped forward once more, the subtle whir of his hydraulic arm cutting through the quiet like a restrained beast clearing its throat.
His presence alone straightened spines.
"From this moment on, Wolf will be in command of you."
A ripple passed through the formation—not doubt, not resistance, but recalibration. Thirty-eight minds adjusting their internal hierarchies in real time.
"You will follow his orders as you follow mine, his objectives are now your objectives."
He turned his head slightly, glancing at Wolf—not as a superior nor subordinate, but as a man handing over a sharpened blade.
"They are yours."
Wolf met his gaze.
A single nod.
Nothing theatrical.
That alone carried more weight than a speech.
Zenji stepped back.
The space—authority itself—shifted.
Wolf took one step forward. He didn't raise his voice when he spoke, his voice smooth but carrying an edge like a silk-wrapped blade.
"Your brain is a miser. It wants to save energy. It moves you in predictable patterns—telegraphed, rigid, and slow." He paced a small circle, his feet barely seemly to touch the ground."
"This is Frictionless Flow."
He came to a halt, his body perfectly still. "In a standard punch, your shoulder rotates, your hips shift, your weight settles. You're shouting your intentions to the enemy's nervous system before your fist even moves. We are going to break that kinetic chain."
Wolf raised a hand, his fingers loose.
"Movement must begin with the smallest joints first—the knuckles, the wrist, the elbow. You must become like a drop of water on a jagged stone: it doesn't stop to think about the cracks; it simply flows over them, maintaining momentum at all costs."
To demonstrate, Wolf didn't take a step; he simply... fell. His body leaned forward at an impossible angle, but instead of crashing, the momentum transformed into a blur of motion that ended with him standing five feet to the left.
"Controlled stumbling," he murmured, his eyes tracking their confused expressions.
"You aren't walking; you are allowing gravity to claim you, then redirecting that debt into impact or evasion. We are here to delete your instinct to grip the earth."
Wolf spent the next hour meticulously breaking down the levels, his hands gesturing with fluid, hypnotic precision.
First: Articular Dissociation.
He rotated his wrist while keeping his elbow perfectly still.
"Each joint must move alone."
"No dragging the rest of your body with it."
Several tried to imitate him immediately—and failed.
Wolf noticed.
"Good, failing means you're honest."
"Second: Center of Gravity Manipulation."
He stood before a larger student.
"To move forward, you usually push off. Your calf tenses."
Wolf poked the student's leg.
"If I see that tension, I will kill you. Learn to drop your weight internally. Move without leaving a trace of effort on the surface."
"Third: Non-Cognitive Responses."
Wolf's voice dropped.
"Battlefields lie."
He swept his arm.
"Dust, light, feints, darkness."
He closed his eyes.
"If you rely on your sights, you can be too late. Switch to touch. Switch to the pressure of the air."
"Stop thinking and start reacting."
Some swallowed.
"Fourth: Non-Linear Pathing."
Wolf looked straight ahead.
"The brain connects dots."
He pointed forward.
"Fist to nose equals a straight line. You break that line. Disrupt their thought. Make their brain miss the target because you aren't where they think you should be."
He tilted his head slightly.
The room felt tighter now.Denser.
Wolf clapped his hands once.
"Now—try."
The next two hours were a grueling symphony of heavy breathing, the scuff of boots.
He moved among them like a ghost, his voice a constant, calm pressure, guiding their limbs into unnatural, fluid arcs until their movements began to lose their jagged, human edges.
"Too stiff."
"Let your body fall."
"You hesitated."
"Again."
They're not sloppy, he admitted inwardly.
But still—
Not enough.
To make this instinctive—to make it survive real combat—would take months. Time he could not compress.
No shortcut existed here.
Nothing I can do about that.
He shrugged once, lightly, as if shedding the thought. His expression softened again, returning to ease.
Talent had never been a guarantee.
The world had always been uneven—some born with edges already sharpened, others grinding themselves down just to approximate the same result.
But that was never a reason to stop.
No one was born to be a favorite dish forever.
And no one was born to be leftovers.
Talent was only a variable.
And variables—
could be worked with.
Wolf left the forge without ceremony.
The heat thinned as he stepped into the outer streets, replaced by the cooler breath of stone corridors and narrow lanes where light struggled to settle.
Buildings pressed close together here.
Footsteps echoed strangely, multiplied, as if the city itself were listening.
He walked without haste.
With every step, his shadow stretched and folded along the walls beside him—elongating across corners, slipping through cracks where light failed to follow.
It moved when he moved. It paused when he paused.
Too clean. Too attentive.
Wolf did not look back.
According to Hyung-woo's memories…
there hadn't been a war in ten years.
Not in the way this world defined one.
No banners clashing across open plains. No armies grinding against each other in prolonged siege.
But there had been unrest—quiet, surgical violence. Urban warfare. Uprisings buried beneath civic language.
Axion Kingdom had recorded it as "containment incidents."
Civil disruption. Security operations.
Names designed to erase blood.
From Solina's archives, the picture sharpened.
Rebels. Terrorists. Infiltrators.
Groups that appeared suddenly, struck precisely, then dissolved back into the population like dye in water.
Most were local. Some were desperate. A few were ideological.
And one—
One stood apart.
Valgard.
Wolf's steps slowed as he passed beneath a stone archway where moss crawled like veins across old mortar. His fingers brushed lightly against the wall, feeling the texture without thinking.
Solina's records had been sparse. Intentional, perhaps. But consistent in one detail: the methods.
Coordination without hierarchy. Loyalty without visible leadership.
Then there was Lamentia.
Her voice surfaced unbidden in his memory—not words, but presence.
She had mentioned her loyalists once. Only once. Casually. As if speaking of weather that might return.
And that—
That had been the missing piece.
Before Lamentia.
Before her rise.
Valgard had been revolutionary only in cruelty.
Its doctrine was simple: Weakness is a crime. Disorderly freedom is death.
Women, in that era, had been accounted for the same way land or livestock was—resources to be seized, traded, broken, or displayed. In desperate times, they were burdens. In conquest, trophies. Never soldiers.
Until Valgard the Great.
Wolf exhaled slowly as he turned down another street, narrower now, the soundscape dampened by hanging cloths and overhanging balconies.
"You lock half the tribe away," Valgard had declared, "and then wonder why we don't have enough numbers to fight?"
"You leave the women behind for the enemy and still expect us to be the great empire?"
Wolf could almost hear the cadence—brutal, pragmatic, unromantic.
"From this moment on… anyone with hands, feet, and a beating heart is a soldier of mine!"
It had not been equality.
Not truly.
Women were still seen as lesser. Still treated as objects. And even Valgard himself had failed to unite the empire fully under that creed.
That was—
Until Lamentia.
Wolf's pace slowed further.
According to the histories Solina had allowed him to read, it had been Day 9, Year 1290 when her name first appeared not as footnote, but as disruption.
Sixteen years old.
Challenging an Iron Marshal.
Open field. No ambush. No poison. No trick hidden behind legality.
If she won, she would take his place.
If she lost—
She would die.
Wolf's lips pressed together, something like reluctant admiration flickering across his expression.
The challenge had not violated Valgard's law. Combat was permitted. Challenge was permitted.
She had acted entirely within the empire's definition of freedom.
Weakness is a crime.
She had simply tested who was weak.
When she won—
Everything shifted.
Women who had spoken of freedom their entire lives without ever touching it finally saw proof that it could be seized. Not begged for nor granted by mercy.
Taken.
The emperor at the time had yielded—not out of kindness, but necessity. To deny them now would have fractured Valgard beyond repair.
Freedom was granted.
And Lamentia—
Lamentia became more than a commander.
She became an idol.
Wolf's steps came to a brief halt.
His expression tightened, then—unexpectedly—tilted toward something close to embarrassment.
"…That was," he murmured under his breath, voice barely audible to the street, "before she led them into endless war."
The records went thin there.
Suspiciously thin.
Solina's books named her as the cause—but gave no explanation. No campaigns. No strategies. Only the outcome: endless war.
After that—
Silence.
Those who continued to idolize Lamentia refused to believe she had been responsible. Their faith twisted inward, fermented into hatred—toward every kingdom, every empire that had stood against Valgard.
And then—
They vanished from the records.
No executions. No dissolutions. No treaties.
Wolf resumed walking.
If my deduction is correct…
They didn't disappear instead they scattered.
Different regions. Different names. Different faces. Infiltrating. Corrupting quietly. Waiting.
Waiting for the Iron Marshal who never returned.
Because Lamentia hadn't died.
She had simply—
Disappeared in their eyes.
Wolf turned into a narrow alleyway where light failed entirely.
The walls here were close enough to touch both sides if he spread his arms. Trash lay undisturbed. No footsteps followed.
He stopped.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
His shadow stretched forward—
Then froze perfectly still.