Onaga looks at him as if he has lost his mind. He reaches down, snatches his discarded shovel, and throws it back into the dirt with a loud, hollow thud.
"Why didn't you idiots just buy a map?!" Onaga yells in a furious, hushed whisper, throwing his arms up in the air. "This isn't the dry plains of the March where you can just walk in a straight line! This is the Duchy! A highly complex, riverine area with marshes, shifting deltas, and hidden canals! We need an extremely accurate geographical map, not three boys digging holes in the dark!"
Hano rubs the back of his neck, his arrogant smile returning as he glances down into the pit at Comtois.
"I guess even if we did buy one of those fancy noble maps," Hano chuckles softly, "Aldo would still make us go out and remeasure every single foot of it by hand anyway, just to make absolutely sure the parameters are accurate. You know how his mind works. He trusts nothing but his own eyes."
Onaga lets out a long, defeated breath, his anger draining away into pure exhaustion. He looks at his smooth, blister-free palms and sighs.
"Let's just do that for now," Onaga mutters, his shoulders dropping. "Let's see what the commander actually wrote."
Comtois, whose initial burst of energetic digging has quickly faded into his natural state of sheer laziness, immediately seizes on Onaga's suggestion. He drops his shovel with a heavy grin, nodding his head up and down with frantic, exaggerated speed like a hungry woodpecker hammering a tree trunk.
"Yes! Excellent idea, scholar!" Comtois agrees enthusiastically, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his clean sleeve. "Mapping can wait! Let's read the instructions!"
Hano laughs quietly at Comtois's transparent laziness, shaking his head as he follows suit. All three boys throw down their iron shovels, the metal clattering against the stones at the bottom of the pit, and climb up the loose earth walls to the grassy surface of the ditch.
Comtois reaches deep into his inner coat pocket, his fingers searching past various hidden tools until he pulls out a crumpled, folded piece of thick parchment. The paper is completely dark at first, but as Comtois unfolds it beneath the shadow of his coat, a pale, eerie green light begins to emanate from the surface. The ink glows with a steady, supernatural radiance, illuminating the three young faces with a ghostly visage.
Comtois mutters beneath his breath, his eyes wide as he stares at the glowing text.
"Damn it, this guy actually bought premium glow-in-the-dark alchemical ink just so we could read his orders at night without using a torch," Comtois whispers, his voice filled with a rare tinge of genuine awe. "He's so well-prepared it's terrifying. Is he a god? Does he literally know how to read the future before it happens?"
Onaga scoffs, though his eyes remain glued to the luminous green script, his sharp mind analyzing the neat, precise handwriting.
"Just in case we operate at night, that's just being thoughtful," Onaga murmurs, though his voice carries a hint of respect for their dead-eyed leader. "Aldo doesn't leave variables to chance."
Onaga glances closer at the glowing piece of paper, his eyes scanning the dense blocks of text as he reads the commander's words aloud in a low, steady murmur:
"You can buy a basic roadmap at the grand church or the local monasteries, where they don't use maps of ports and harbors, and it will be incredibly expensive," Onaga reads, his brow furrowing as the complexity of the message sinks in. "Or you can buy a crude copy at the Royal University, where it will be even more expensive and highly restricted. Or you can attempt to infiltrate the Royal Courts and Military Archives, which aren't accessible for slave-soldiers like us; they usually rely on basic Itineraries—written roadmaps with no visual data—or expensive Local Guides who can be bribed by the enemy. NO MAP IN THIS LAND HAS THE COMPLETE, MODERN, AND EASY-TO-READ ALTITUDE, TOPOGRAPHIC, ECOLOGICAL, AND INFRASTRUCTURE ATLAS THAT WE ARE ACCUSTOMED TO SEEING ON EARTH. GET A COMPREHENSIVE MAP NOW!"
The three boys finish reading, the pale green light reflecting off their wide, stunned eyes. They stand in absolute silence for several long seconds, the weight of the task crashing down upon them.
Hano is the first to speak, his sharp voice filled with a mixture of confusion and financial envy.
"This alchemical ink alone costs a fortune," Hano says, his fingers tracing the edge of the luminous paper. "How can Aldo even afford to buy stuff like this? He's a teenager just like us!"
Comtois snorts, crossing his massive arms as he leans against the stone wall.
"He gets a massive share of the campaign rewards from the high command, and his official salary as Central Commander is literally a hundred times higher than ours," Comtois grumbles, though there is no real malice in his voice. "Meanwhile, our entire company treasury is managed jointly by the group, and we can barely afford fresh meat every day."
Comtois suddenly loses his structural posture, letting his large, muscular body fall backward onto the grass. He lies sprawled out on the ground like a fallen log, staring up at the stars with a lazy, content grin.
"Why bother with all this digging and sneaking around tonight anyway?" Comtois sighs, locking his hands behind his head. "Let's just go buy a basic map from some poor scribe tomorrow, and then we can go map our territory with Aldo later when the sun is actually up. My back is killing me."
Onaga's face brightens instantly at the prospect of escaping the muddy ditch. He nods rapidly, his delicate features shifting into a rare smile.
"That's actually a good idea," Onaga agrees, dusting the dry grass from his fine trousers. "We can pool our funds and buy a University copy under a fake name."
Comtois jumps up from the ground with a sudden, explosive burst of energy, cheering excitedly as he slaps Hano on the back.
"Okay! Perfect!" Comtois bellows in a harsh whisper. "Let's buy the damn map tomorrow and go home to sleep right now!"
Before turning to leave the shadow of the wall, Comtois's mischievous eyes light up with a sudden, wicked inspiration. He spots a pile of long, flat pieces of discarded firewood stacked near a maintenance shed against the masonry. With a silent, broad grin, he walks over and gathers several heavy planks.
He carries them over to the dark path where the night guards perform their hourly rounds. Comtois meticulously stacks the flat pieces of wood on top of each other right over a slick patch of mud, covering the trap with a very thin, deceptive layer of loose earth until it looks perfectly identical to the surrounding path.
With a silent chuckle, Comtois signals the others, and the three of them run off into the darkness, disappearing into the shadows of the lower district.
A few minutes pass in absolute stillness. Then, the heavy, rhythmic thud of armored boots echoes down the stone path. A solitary city guard walks past, his torch flickering wildly in the wind as he yawns loudly. He takes a long, heavy stride forward, his iron-shod boot planting firmly on the hidden stack of loose firewood.
Whoosh—Thud!
The planks shift violently beneath his weight, sliding across the slick mud. The guard's legs fly straight out into the air, his torch spinning wildly into the grass as his heavy body slams into the earth with a massive, metallic crash.
"Son of a bitch!" the guard screams, his voice echoing across the empty ditch as he clutches his bruised hip, writhing in the dirt. "Curse them! Curse whoever played this foul trick! May the gods rot your bones!"
Far away in the dark streets, the faint sound of Comtois's distant, muffled laughter is swallowed by the summer wind.
Inside the grand, roaring ballroom of the Thromium estate, the atmosphere remains thick with the scent of roasted meats and high-society pretense. The crystal chandeliers burn bright, casting a warm, golden glow over the long banquet tables that groan under the weight of silver platters.
Aldo sits quietly at the head of a secondary table, his apple-red suit perfectly clean, though his expression remains entirely locked in its signature dead-fish stare. His fair skin is smooth, his rosy lips moving with slow, mechanical precision as he cuts into a small piece of roasted bird. Directly next to him sits Officer Watkins, who is comfortably nursing another glass of fine vintage, his sharp eyes idly scanning the crowd.
Aldo lowers his knife, his voice flat and devoid of any emotional cadence as he turns his head slightly toward the senior officer.
"How many days until the grand Gala officially concludes?" Aldo asks, his dead-fish eyes reflecting the distant candlelight.
Watkins takes a slow, measured sip of his wine, swallowing before he answers, his voice calm and entirely relaxed.
"It is exactly nine days away." Watkins replies, glancing down at the boy's rigid posture.
Aldo lets out a short, barely audible sigh, his shoulders sagging by a fraction of an inch as his eyes drift toward the high windows. Nine more days of politics, whispers, and suffocating crowds.
Seeing the boy's subtle distress, Watkins offers a rare, small nod of reassurance, gesturing with his glass toward the dark hills visible outside.
"Do not worry yourself so much, Aldo," Watkins says, his tone softening slightly. "You don't have to sit in this stuffy hall the entire time. You can easily go hunting or travel around Carravin, the capital of Thromium, in the coming days if you want. Duke Ferris has already organized everything for the foreign officers. The stables are at your disposal."
Aldo's vacant eyes blink once, a sudden, sharp calculation occurring behind those dead lenses.
"That's great," Aldo says, his voice remaining level but carrying a distinct firmness. "I want to go explore... the geography must be verified."
Across the center of the massive ballroom, a sudden roar of applause erupts from the noble crowd. The guests have formed a wide, circular ring around a raised wooden platform where a high-stakes fencing match is currently underway. The sharp, metallic clink-clink-clink of rapiers echoes loudly through the hall, accompanied by the swift, elegant movements of two young lords darting back and forth in white silk shirts, their blades flashing like lightning beneath the crystal lights.
Aldo watches the flashing steel for a brief moment before sliding his chair back from the table. He stands up, his well-proportioned frame straight and rigid as he turns to Watkins.
"I ask permission to rest first," Aldo says, bowing his head by a polite, precise angle.
Watkins doesn't look up from his wine, merely waving a careless hand in dismissal.
"Go on, Commander. Get some air."
Aldo turns away from the roaring crowd and the clashing steel, walking with silent, measured steps through the heavy velvet curtains and out into the quiet courtyard of the estate.
The transition is instantaneous. The suffocating heat and the roar of high society fade away, replaced by the profound, chilly stillness of the summer night. The yard is completely empty, the stone tiles cool beneath his boots.
Aldo stops in the center of the lawn. He tilts his head back, his dead-fish eyes opening wide as he looks up at the vast, unblemished starry sky stretching out above the towers of Thromium. He stands frozen, staring at the glittering patterns of white light.
[I forgot... I constantly forget that this is Terre, not Earth, Aldo thinks, his internal monologue a cold, isolated whisper within his own mind. The positions of the celestial bodies are completely wrong. The constellations are misshapen. Nothing aligns with the old charts.]
Suddenly, a brilliant, burning streak of silver light flashes across the apex of the dark sky. It cuts through the unfamiliar constellations with terrifying speed, a silent comet tearing through the atmosphere before vanishing entirely behind the distant, jagged mountain peaks.
Aldo gazes intently at the empty space where the light had passed, the cold, dead look in his eyes suddenly melting away. A small, genuine smile touches his rosy lips—a brief, quiet expression of pure peace in the darkness of an alien world. It is a blessing.