[MA] 339. I Failed (Patreon)

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In the end, Shen deemed everyone guilty of treason.

Most lied or tried to use their background to intimidate him, but it was easy to ascertain the truth after being ordered to judge these people. He just needed to make queries to the system, and he got answers.

As much as he wanted not to convict the ones who had tried to stop him, system recordings showed they were involved in other illegal activities that would see them executed. Or rather, there was an unlawful lack of such recordings when they were in places where illegal activities were later discovered to have happened. The mere circumstantial evidence wouldn't be enough to execute them, but the nature of some crimes sealed their fate for him.

It was particularly hard for Shen to execute a woman who sobbed and begged for mercy, but "fortunately," there was no question about the treason she had committed after he asked a few questions. She had caused two colleagues to die by running away during a fight against Void Spawn because she had been scared. It was easy to sympathize with her because she had been conscripted, but she had willingly left her unit to die out of selfishness. Moreover, all evidence suggested that her permanence in the line would ensure no one even got injured.

After three years of Calamity, such cowards were as rare on the front lines as phoenix feathers, but that wasn't to say they never appeared. When they did, it usually came from those who had just ranked up and were unsure of their power. The woman had reached D-rank ours before she faced the first Void Spawn as a Sergeant.

At least executing her without hesitation ensured no one else tried the same thing.

Shen finished passing judgment in less than half an hour. Meanwhile, Hukzun's people constantly brought Guardians to wait for Shen to finish. They were those who wanted to get into the fortress but didn't dare to break in. Their forthrightness wasn't a surprise; locking the fortress down was done officially, though not to the point of activating the fortress' defenses, and everyone received a notification when they tried to enter or leave. It was expected that every Guardian would obey the lockdown.

Rather, the two reports he got of people ignoring the lockdown were the surprising ones. One D-rank died when he was intercepted by Hukzun's people, and a C-rank managed to flee, both fugitives. That said, the latter wasn't much better than the dead D-rank. An attack from Hukzun's people broke whatever means he used to avoid the system, which recognized him and branded him a traitor for ignoring the barricade.

Shen left the tent and met the few hundred people waiting for him. They were more curious than upset. Novelty was often welcome in the front lines, except when it came in the form of a Void assault.

"I'm First Lieutenant Shen, in charge of the 7th Exemplary Brigade," he said. "I'm currently clearing this mobile fortress of fugitives. I'll be done in a few days at the latest. Then, I'll hunt fugitives elsewhere. Military law will be respected in every trial I sit. I was told Samir's regular troops were also ordered to find fugitives. Why are you here?"

It made sense that some troops had to hold the line in multiple places instead of being sent to look for fugitives, but these scattered people didn't match that. Units moved as one, while these people had come alone or in small groups.

Almost all of them watched dumbfounded as two C-ranks suddenly tried to run away, and three others tried to attack Shen.

He held them down with his Aura-Material Suppression and executed them. The ones who tried to flee also became traitors by running away while being questioned. They knew that. They chose to bet their lives on being faster than he could deal with.

Shen hated being used as a mindless cog in the machine. He would rather put them through a trial if it wasn't a terrible tactical decision. Others would see his leniency as something to exploit, and he had to awe these people not to cause trouble at the first opportunity, even if well-intended. Their numbers would only increase.

Shen had also considered questioning his prisoners to understand their causes, but after seeing how much could be done with the system, even with missing records, he decided against it. It would be a waste of time, and he was in a competition. Moreover, if Long Hei wanted to unveil the truth, he could just find someone with some mastery over the Axioms of Time to look at the past and figure things out. If the dragon didn't find it necessary, Shen also wasn't interested.

Or, to put it another way, whatever the Resistance he heard mentioned was about, it was above his pay grade. Shen would kill traitors, and that would be it. He only asked if they knew where other fugitives were, but no one had spilled the beans yet.

Five people had panicked when asked why they were around, but most of the remaining people explained they simply hadn't been deployed, which was a perfectly sensible answer. The military never deployed every troop it had. Some were also doing minor missions that involved getting into the fortress. None had priority over Shen's lockdown.

Shen told them to wait until he was done to get in, and they accepted it—though B-ranks, of course, could enter or leave the fortress at will.

Another half-hour later, Blue Sky returned with a fugitive list. He hadn't asked her to do it, but it was a welcome boon. Shen could get that list through the system but wanted to see which people the Investigation Department would hide, which was likely the reason the Captain had intercepted it before.

He compared both and found about one hundred of the 5,000 fugitives in Samir were missing from the Investigation Department's list. None had been found by him yet. He took note of that.

"Thank you, Second Lieutenant," Shen told Blue Sky. "I admit I'm troubled by the lack of people accompanying you." He had asked her to bring key figures with her, not a list of names.

She reported, "Sorry, Commander! Lieutenant Luthdel was last seen going to Samir Subnode 16. Lieutenant Rayna was last seen going to Samir Subnode 3. Second Lieutenant Vinamour and his Battalion are being held prisoner for disregarding Captain Ryul Qira's orders to belay the orders to lock the fortress down."

So, whoever had ensured Blue Sky got a quick compensation after the Captain was deemed a traitor hadn't cared to do Shen's job for him. It was up to him to free his people if they were wrongly accused.

Shen had learned that while the Guardian System could automate many things for the military for a low cost, the powers-that-be forbid it. Although it allowed corruption to more easily seep in, the military didn't want to become overly reliant on the system. It also didn't want the warriors there to lose the ability to interact and socialize with each other to get things done or the skills to deal with bureaucracy. As much as they were treated as weapons, they were supposed to return to civilian society eventually.

That said, Shen was supposed to have received a notification when one of his Battalions was detained, especially for disregarding a Captain who wasn't even in their chain of command. The system hadn't informed Shen, and the Detention Department had accepted the barely legal imprisonment. So, it seemed Ryul Qira had had more power than Shen estimated by how easily he had been executed.

But the Captain was dead. Unless another B-rank took his place, there was no difficulty in righting any wrongings committed by Ryul.

Shen sent a message to the Detention Department informing them that Captain Ryul Qira had been branded a traitor and executed. He also told them that Vinamour's Battalion was acting under his orders, and his Brigade had been deployed by someone higher up in the hierarchy than the late Captain, the Acting General himself.

The reply was almost instantaneous.

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| Samir's Detention Department: We have reviewed your petition and released the prisoners.

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Vinamour appeared in the tent within minutes. He hadn't been injured but was more upset than ever. Shen had never seen anyone that angry.

"Anything to report, Second Lieutenant?"

"I failed to execute your orders, Commander," he replied, shame mixing with his fury.

"Hukzun had better luck locking the fortress down, so he'll keep at it. I want you to empty this mobile fortress of every Guardian. Inform everyone that after they leave, we'll comb through every inch that isn't for B-ranks or above."

Strictly speaking, people's quarters in the fortress weren't theirs. They weren't supposed to keep anything private in the rooms when they weren't using them. The system offered a kind of bank at a high price for those with more than they could bring in their spatial treasures or Inventory.

Still, private property was private property. Shen's people couldn't just break into people's rooms and steal everything inside. It would likely happen, and dealing with it would be a headache, but it was an issue for future-Shen to deal with.

He had long concluded that he couldn't accomplish his mission if he didn't clean his "house" first. After cleaning this mobile fortress, which was linked to Samir-7, he would leave its own people locking it down and do the same to the other fortresses. Only then would he head to the Subnodes.

Then, these fortresses would become a trap for those who did the obvious: hide fugitives inside using their B-rank status. After all, the fortresses had already been declared "clean" and were the safest place for fugitives, even those in the Subnodes. Whether the trap would work would only depend on whether Long Hei would care to spring it.

The military in each Node had around fifteen to thirty million Guardians from C to E-rank divided among three Corps, each with nine Brigades. In other words, there were 27 Brigades overall, and a few fortresses were always lacking people. Also, only very rarely did two Brigades share a fortress. It was mostly trainee E-ranks and F-ranks who filled the fortresses that lacked a stationed Brigade.

Samir-7 had already lost the head of its single Brigade and almost all its C-ranks, so there was only minor trouble forcing everyone else to leave. Vinamour was strong enough to negotiate with any rebel C-rank. His fists were a great argument.

In total, there were a little over one and a half million people on the outside when Shen ordered Vinamour and Blue Sky to comb through the fortress. He only gave his people two warnings, "If the system fails to record any of your actions while you're searching for fugitives, I'll automatically consider you the primary suspect of anything that happens in the meanwhile, be it theft or murder. I'll be the only one to judge any fugitives unless the system flags them as traitors when they are discovered. Go."

Honestly, one of the primary things that made Shen suspicious of the higher-ups in the military was that what he had just said wasn't a rule. Cutting off the system was surprisingly a greater offense in the civilian Alliance than in the military. Entering a place without system coverage against one's will was possible but unlikely, and investigating matters wouldn't be too difficult. Unless it happened too much, of course, but then, there would be a massive issue in the fortress that had to be quickly dealt with.

The reason why there was no rule against it was simple and straightforward: it was in A-ranks and B-ranks' best interests that they could disable the system now and then. C-ranks couldn't block the system it without a domain or B-rank item, which they could only use without triggering an alarm if a B-rank or higher in the military had their back. Instead of blocking investigations about such people, it was much better for no one to ever start asking questions to begin with.

Vinamour and Blue Sky took only one day to check Samir-7. They were told by Major Anhril Farÿn not to investigate seven places and informed the Acting General. Shen also sent Long Hei a message as redundancy to make it more likely for him to get the news. Hindering the investigation didn't necessarily mean Anhril was harboring fugitives, though. He might simply not want them to uncover a secret hidden in an area that they supposedly were free to check.

Elsewhere, they found a whopping 44 fugitives, half of whom became traitors when the system detected them. Shen deemed the other half guilty of treason after their trials.

None survived, and all their items and corpses were collected by him to be later delivered to the Investigation Department. He would just wait to see if he couldn't give them directly to the General first. Even if he couldn't, the latter he gave it to the Investigation Department, the more likely it was for them to have lost a safety network that allowed them to be corrupt with little worry.

"It looks like my people are more efficient than I thought," Shen told the huge mass of people camping outside his tent. "Samir-7 is now as clean of fugitives as I can make it. Two of my Guardians, both Sergeants, disappeared from the system's vigilance while checking the same room. Three Lieutenants later headed them and discovered an anti-system enchantment. We have not taken the enchantment down, but the room was reported. The system worked everywhere else and didn't flag any illegal action, so I declare my Brigade not guilty of any future accusation of wrongdoings. We closed all doors we opened, and if they have an owner, their locks were automatically engaged."

He paused, waiting for complaints or questions, but there were none. Shen had killed a few other C-ranks who tried to force their way into Samir-7 throughout the day. On top of how his trials went, these people understood what kind of person he was. There was no reason to doubt his claims or try to gain any form of political advantage right now.

Shen nodded. Now, he would see how many of them were just pretending not to have anything to hide. Vinamour and Blue Sky's Battalions had already slowly surrounded them.

He said, "Samir-7 will remain in lockdown even after I leave. I'm conscripting everyone's help to denounce any illegal entry or exit. You may form a line and enter now. Everyone will be required to undergo an B-tier system check to—"

Over a hundred people tried to flee as soon as he mentioned the check but were intercepted and killed.

Shen had understood throughout the day that the genuinely powerful C-ranks were all deployed away from Samir-7, including the ones hunting for fugitives. There were over 5,000 fugitives in Samir, with unproven sightings of 4,000 in the Subnodes in the past six months. The involved Brigades had gone there to compete.

The General had mentioned nothing about it, but that had to be his arrangement. He had predicted that the Exemplary Brigade would do the playbook move and secure its retreat before advancing. That was the best strategy for Shen also because even if they hunted down fewer people in the end—which was unlikely—they would have done the arguably more important job of cleaning the house while others sought glory. The Exemplary Brigade would slap the locals in the face one way or the other.

"As I was saying," Shen told the survivors, "form a line. You'll be allowed to enter after a B-tier system check."

Said check was something similar to what the system had done when Shen returned from the Void. It was only B-tier but set up so only A-tier means could block it. It was more powerful than whatever automatic check was made when people got in the fortress, but also considerably more expensive and rarely done.

Well, even if someone blocked Shen from doing it, the threat of being forced had already revealed some moles. He would be satisfied enough. But no one did, and he got no notification about wasting resources.

It took another day for everyone to get in. Thirty others tried to flee when they realized there was no alternative but were killed. The only C-rank who did forced Vinamour to fight for a while and ultimately ask one of his helpers for assistance but was still put down.

All in all, those were two productive days. Now that the Brigade people had gained some experience, they would also be much faster in the other fortresses. He estimated they would be done with all 33 within fifteen to twenty days unless something happened...

...and something did happen five days later.

Samir-1 to 5 were cleared without issue. Shen was in his tent judging a fugitive they had found in Samir-6, the 233rd they had found in all seven fortresses, when two Brigades suddenly teleported around him, surrounding him from all sides.

Luthdel had been captured and beaten by a Brigade Commander, and Rayna stood beside the other. Both Commanders were drow. At last, Shen had found them in Samir.

Sadly, from the way they were treating Luthdel and looking at him, it didn't seem they didn't reciprocate the happiness he felt at seeing them.

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[A/N: Things will pick up the pace after this little episode is resolved. Prepare for some chaos.]

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