Elicia POV
Chief Anton leaned back in his heavy leather chair, running a hand over his tired face as he stared at the freshly written parchment on his desk.
"Are you absolute certain about this, Commander? Using fewer resources... well, let's list it out. You will not use any artifacts whatsoever. You require exactly ten healers who possess the Mana Regeneration human skill. Ten battle-tested Magic Swordsmen specialized in earth manipulation magic. A whole farmyard's worth of livestock. And lastly, tracking down any other individuals across the continent who possess Divine Regeneration like yourself. Is that truly everything?" Anton asked, his voice sounding like he was reciting a mundane shopping list.
I stood straight, clutching my staff firmly with both hands, my heart burning with unshakeable conviction.
"Yes, Chief! That is everything on the list!" I declared without a single moment of hesitation.
Anton tapped his quill against the mahogany desk, looking up through his spectacles.
"So your improvised strategy is to lure all fifty thousand-plus infected into massive natural craters, trap them beneath stone walls, and personally cleanse them one by one... Are you entirely sure about this?"
"Yes! Please note every detail!" I insisted, stepping closer to the map.
I knew my little sister Eirene viewed the world through a cold, heartless lens. To her, throwing away tens of thousands of souls was as simple as doing basic arithmetic. But I refused to abandon my morality or give up on innocent lives! I *would* do the right thing, no matter how hard the path was!
My plan was brilliant in its simplicity:
First, we would lure the infected into two massive natural formations. The first was the Lament of Autumn Crater, located just north of Town Barona… a six-kilometer-wide crater that could comfortably hold at least twenty thousand thralls. The second was the Crystal Blue Crater in the Lulu Mountains… an eight-kilometer-wide shallow basin surrounded by natural cliff walls. It even had fresh water for the trapped people to drink, making it large enough to safely hold the remaining fifty thousand infected from Lulu City!
Old continent legends claimed those giant craters were created centuries ago when ancient human heroes unleashed apocalyptic strikes that shattered the original supercontinent into three separate landmasses. Whether the myths were true or not, those natural fortress walls were God's gift to us for this exact crisis!
Anton adjusted his papers, his tone remaining strictly business.
"Commander, our scout reports confirm that these infected… or 'Nightwalkers' as we now call them… vary wildly in strength and physical mutations. Once bitten, the virus takes full effect within thirty seconds, rushing straight to the brain and heart. The corruption forces the mind to relive its most horrific, traumatic memories, driving the host into a state of intense, uncontrollable rage. They aren't mindless zombies in the traditional sense; they are living human beings trapped inside their own worst nightmares."
My eyes softened with deep pity. That was why standard holy magic failed, but my Divine Regeneration worked! In ancient texts, the only known primitive cure was to immediately sever the infected limb before the corruption reached the torso… which was exactly how my brave, headstrong little Ren had managed to survive Edrie's vicious attack. Because their core biology remained human, my divine magic could purge the dark corruption straight out of their nervous systems!
Anton continued reading the hazard report:
"The lowest variants show no structural bone changes. Mid-tier variants sprout dangerous blades directly from their humerus bones. High-tier variants form thick calcified bone armor over their torsos. And the peak variants… born from individuals with extreme psychological trauma and guilt… sprout massive, razor-sharp skeletal wings."
"I understand the risks, Chief, that is why we need experienced combatants to herd them safely."
I also remembered Eirene's sharp critique earlier. She had arrogantly pointed out that trapping human beings in a pit would just cause them to starve to death. I hated her cynical attitude, but she wasn't entirely wrong about their biological needs. Since they were still living humans, providing a full yard's worth of live cattle and livestock every week would keep them fed and stable until I could cleanse every last one of them!
I looked Anton dead in the eyes, my voice ringing with absolute passion.
"I will prove to you and Eirene that mercy is not a weakness!"
Anton set down his quill, the soft scratching of metal on parchment fading into the heavy silence of the grand office. He adjusted his spectacles, his tired, perceptive eyes meeting mine with a quiet, measuring look.
"Your strategy is undeniably high-minded, Commander, to willingly risk and expend precious resources simply to preserve the lives of sixty thousand corrupted souls... that is a profound display of genuine mercy. It is precisely that unwavering moral compass that makes you fit to bear the title of Commander."
His words hung in the air, stirring a quiet echo within my chest.
Being a leader had never been about taking the easiest path; it was about bearing the crushing weight of making the right decisions when every alternative threatened to collapse into ruin. My mind drifted back to the days after I left Town Allure. Years ago, I had stepped into leadership as the captain of a modest seven-man adventuring party. Together, we bled, fought, and against all odds, slayed a terrorizing dragon… a feat that earned us the title of regional heroes. From those battlefields, my path ascended rapidly. I moved from party leader to field commander, and eventually, to the Principal of Sisiphon Magic Academy.
During those four months at Sisiphon, I poured everything into nurturing young minds, guiding gifted students to harness their innate mana for the greater good. But in the span of a single year, as the realm buckled under war, corruption, and political rot, my perspective on what it meant to protect people had to expand. Leadership wasn't just a mantle of authority; it was a sanctuary I had to build for those who couldn't protect themselves.
And yet... as I stood here striving to save thousands, my thoughts turned to my little sister. To little Ren.
"As for Eirene… your sister possesses an extraordinary, terrifying talent for leadership. In the span of a mere six months, her record has become nothing short of legendary within our archives. She single-handedly dismantled four high-rank, continent-level bounties. She stopped the horrific slime purge in the Caria deep mines before it could collapse our raw metal trade. She personally stabilized the kingdom's economy by halting a calculated currency deflation plot, hunted down and wiped out an entire rogue order of immoral knights, and at the southern border, she tracked down and slaughtered a purebred vampire… the very demon responsible for annihilating the entirety of Branch 2."
I swallowed hard, listening to the sheer scale of blood and terror my younger sister had walked through alone.
"However, the downside to Eirene is her sheer, unyielding tenacity. She is fiercely, single-mindedly goal-oriented. She is extraordinarily cunning. To complete an objective, she will deceive, lie, manipulate, and cut down anyone who stands as an obstacle in her way. She has rendered herself completely unsentimental and coldly rational. She despises unnecessary socializing, preferring to operate strictly as an absolute lone wolf." Anton added, his tone softening with an analytical pity.
He paused, looking directly into my eyes as if reading the sudden ache forming behind them.
"Do not mistake her, Commander. She is not an expressionless monster devoid of a heart. She possesses an abundance of emotion… her soul is far from empty or inherently evil. Rather, she operates with a single, unshakable focus: completing her goal by the most absolute, efficient means possible. Beyond that barrier, she is simply a human being who is profoundly exhausted, battered, and drained to her very core. At the end of the day, she just wants to rest. Do not misunderstand your sister, Elicia. She isn't evil. She's just broken."
Anton leaned back, taking a slow, steady breath.
"I only came to fully realize this after she gave birth to her son. Her fundamental behavior shifted subtly, yet distinctly. Now, she constantly seeks excuses to step back from Bureau duties, preferring to remain isolated. But when she is forced to act, she does so with terrifying speed and absolute lethality… just like her proposition earlier to simply cull the infected. Why? Because her sole, unwavering purpose in this world is to secure a safe environment for her child."
As Anton's words washed over me, the scattered, painful pieces of the past suddenly locked together in my mind, forming a horrific, crystal-clear picture.
My mind raced back to last year, to that tearful night when we were finally reunited after months of separation. I remembered how Eirene had collapsed in my arms, weeping bitterly as she poured out the harrowing details of what she had endured… the dark nightmare that had shattered her once-gentle soul.
When I left Town Allure all those years ago, driven by my lofty ideals to wander the bleak, hopeless world of Andromeda and save strangers, I had left her behind. In my absence, her innocent, bright smile had slowly crumbled. She was forced to face a cruel, indifferent world alone. She lost the people she cared about, watching her surroundings burn while I was miles away playing the noble hero. She was forced to see the reality of this world with brutal clarity. She was captured, subjected to six unbearable days of horrific, sadistic torture, and eventually left fused with the blood of a monster.
She hid everything from us.
Eirene had painstakingly concealed her true, darkened reality from Elias and me for so many overlapping, agonizing reasons. The full truth of what she had become… and the hell she had survived… was simply too horrifying to speak aloud:
The brutal, irreversible physical mutilation she endured.
Her cursed transformation into a blood-sucking, winged creature of the night.
The endless trail of violence, body counts, and merciless assassinations that defined her life as a high-level killer in the underworld.
She had hidden it all because she believed that revealing the monster she had been forced to become would shatter Elias and me. She wanted, above all else, to spare me from the crushing, suffocating guilt of knowing that while I was off playing the righteous savior to the continent, I had utterly failed to protect my own little sister.
Furthermore, her existence as a dark entity carried an astronomical bounty. Her head was a high-priority target for the Bureau, the Holy Church, and countless underground syndicates. If Elias or I were publicly linked to her true identity, we would instantly become targets, bargaining chips, or collateral damage in her endless web of enemies.
And deeper than that... it was shame. Eirene saw herself as an irredeemable monster. She couldn't bear the thought of replacing the warm memory of "Little Ren" in our hearts with the terrifying image of a blood-winged demon standing over a pile of corpses. Hiding her double life was her desperate way of preserving the fragile, pure version of herself that still lived in our childhood memories. By keeping us in the dark, she kept her freedom to bleed in the shadows, taking on the realm's filth so we could walk in the light without trying to pull her out "for her own good."
It was a tragic, heartbreaking sacrifice born out of a twisted mixture of profound love, protective instinct, shame, and deep cynical despair. She truly believed that the lie protected us more than the truth ever could, and that keeping her distance was the only way to shield us while she fought the darkness entirely alone.
And it's all my fault...
If I hadn't left Town Allure... if I hadn't chased abstract notions of righteousness and abandoned my family under the guise of giving her freedom... none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have been left vulnerable. She wouldn't have been tortured. She wouldn't have had to sacrifice her humanity just to stay alive. My self-righteous desire to save the world had indirectly condemned my own sister to hell.
"Commander...? Are you alright?"
Anton's quiet voice broke through the suffocating silence. He was watching me closely, noticing the pale shock on my face and the light tremor in my shoulders.
I closed my eyes for a long, slow moment, taking a deep breath to force the rising tears back down. I tightened my grip on my staff, feeling the smooth, solid wood anchor me back to the present.
"I am fine, Chief, Let us continue."
Anton tapped his pen against the wooden desk, looking back up from his notes.
"Well, the two craters are now fully restricted and officially placed under your direct command. But..."
He paused, resting his elbows on the desk as his practical, matter-of-fact nature took over.
"A yard of livestock every week is technically possible, Commander, but it will severely drain our central food supplies. You must remember that hundreds of thousands of refugees are currently pouring into Caria City. Feeding the living takes priority over feeding the trapped."
My chest tightened slightly. He was right. Feeding sixty thousand infected over several months using domestic livestock would bleed Caria's agricultural reserves dry before the first month even ended.
"Is there any alternative? We cannot let the infected starve while they await purification." I asked, leaning forward over the map.
"There is another option, we ration half of our standard livestock reserves for the craters. For the remaining half, since wild monsters are currently roaming out of control across the Andromeda continent, we send hunting squads to harvest them for meat instead." Anton replied, his voice calm and calculating.
True to Anton's realistic and practical mindset, he had instantly found a way to bridge the gap. Monsters like low-tier goblins, heavy ogres, and giant human-sized insects were dangerous, but they were everywhere along the outer borders. Harvesting their flesh to feed the trapped thralls would solve our food shortage while simultaneously thinning out the wild monster population around the perimeters.
"That is acceptable, Let's hunt these monsters. Draining our domestic resources dry is far too risky for Caria's civilian population. Hunting wild beasts to use as feed and bait is far more practical." I agreed, nodding firmly as I grasped my staff.
Anton shuffled through the personnel folders on his desk, pulling out a handful of detailed records.
"Well, lastly, we need to talk about your soldiers."
I listened intently. To safely trap the thralls without killing them, I had requested mages with element and force manipulation powers to neutralize their movements on the field.
"Based on our official personnel records… and as you are likely aware from your position as a Branch 1 Commander… you have fifteen mages under your command who possess the Mana Regeneration skill,"
Anton explained, tapping his fingers on the parchment.
"That is more than enough for your mana pool requirements. However, we only have eight earth manipulation magic users available. You are two short of your target of ten. That said... your sister Eirene is a powerful manipulation user herself. She possesses Blood Manipulation, allowing her to solidify her own blood into dense crystal. She could easily trap and neutralize the infected on the battlefield."
Hearing Eirene's name made my chest ache. She had endured so much horror, lost an arm thrice, and had a baby waiting for her at home. She deserved peace, not another warzone.
"No, do not include Eirene. She needs rest." I insisted softly, shaking my head.
My mind immediately shifted to my other younger sister, Evelyn. She possessed Slime Manipulation, capable of creating dense, sticky slime barriers that could bind and trap entire groups of thralls without causing them physical harm.
"I would recommend Evelyn instead, My younger sister is a powerful slime manipulator and an exceptional combatant." I suggested eagerly.
"Ah, Evelyn, she has been remarkable on the battlefield, securing multiple major achievements over the past few months. However, she is currently out on an official evacuation mission, clearing civilians from the outer towns. She won't return to the city for a few days." Anton acknowledged, nodding slowly.
"I want to recruit her into this operational unit!" I said firmly.
"That is technically possible, but Evelyn is officially assigned to Branch 3. Bureau regulations state that you cannot unilaterally draft members from a separate branch. To recruit her… and any other manipulators under her division… you must seek direct permission from the Branch 3 Commander himself." Anton replied,
I knew the Branch 3 Commander well: Roman Calico, Chief of the CKBA. He was a stern but reasonable leader. If I approached him directly and presented the scale of the outbreak, I was confident he would grant authorization to transfer Evelyn and the additional earth manipulators to my squad.
"I will speak to Roman," I said confidently. "If I can recruit more than ten manipulators, I will gladly accept them."
"Very well, Lastly, regarding your request for individuals possessing the innate skill of Divine Regeneration... As you know, it is an exceptionally rare gift across the Andromeda continent. My initial thought was to request aid from neighboring landmasses, but the Milky Way continent flatly refused. Since it is a demi-human continent, their leaders harbor deep resentment toward humans and refuse to intervene in our crisis. However, according to our latest continental census data, there are three recorded individuals who possess Divine Regeneration besides yourself." Anton said, setting down the branch files and picking up a red-marked folder.
He opened the folder, allowing me to read the three highlighted names written in dark ink:
Cherry Rootvale – Town Allure
Noah Silkworm – Sisiphon City
Lara Meyer – Dodorant Citadel
"Here is the breakdown of these three individuals, first, Cherry Rootvale resides back in Town Allure. However, the obvious downside is that she is a newborn… only seven months old. We obviously cannot draft an infant into field purifications. Second is Noah Silkworm, a fourth-year senior student at Sisiphon Magic Academy who lives in Sisiphon City. And third is Lara Meyer, a high-security inmate originally held at Dodorant Citadel. She was once the right-hand commander of the immoral knights order." Anton explained, pointing to each name in turn.
I raised an eyebrow at Lara's name, but Anton quickly continued before I could speak.
"After the outbreak began, we evacuated high-priority inmates from Dodorant Citadel into secure facilities here in Caria City. Because of the massive influx of prisoners, the inmate population is split between two locations: one deep in the Caria Mountains, and the main facility in the 8th District. Fortunately, Lara Meyer was transferred directly to the 8th District prison right here in the city. Since she has no formal ties to the Bureau or outside political factions, acquiring temporary custody of her for this medical operation will be straightforward."
I took a deep, steady breath, feeling the heavy pieces of my strategy finally falling into place.
"Thank you, Chief Anton, I will take my leave and begin preparations."