Comtois let out a soft, amused chuckle, his massive hand resting carelessly on his hip as he looked down at her rugged frame.
"Well, that's your primary problem right there, Lourdes," Comtois said with a smirk, his voice dripping with mischievous confidence. "Since you've never been a trained slave-soldier under the central command, of course you couldn't have succeeded. It takes real military steel to crack a system like this, not just a bunch of angry farmers with pitchforks."
Lourdes Renaud's eyes flashed with a sudden, violent fire. She lunged forward against her restraints, her chest heaving as she screamed directly into Comtois's goofy face, her words pouring out like a torrential flood of pride and pain.
"I led a coordinated, midnight uprising across the entire eastern estate!" she shouted, her voice shaking with a manic, defiant intensity. "We didn't just run away like cowards into the night! We burned the massive grain storehouses to the ground! We sabotaged every single piece of advanced agricultural machinery in the district! We liberated over one hundred Earthling laborers in a single hour! For two long, bloody years, my organization ran a highly effective, flawless guerrilla campaign throughout the entire northern borderlands! We hijacked the Federation's armed supply caravans! We became a permanent, bleeding thorn in the side of the Mikhland Federation! I was a hardened rebel commander while you boys were still playing in the dirt!"
Aldo let out a short, quiet sigh, his rosy lips moving as he turned his head away slightly.
"There were only a hundred," Aldo muttered flatly, his voice carrying the cold weight of a casualty report. "The numerical variable is too insignificant to alter the macroeconomic structure of the region."
Lourdes Renaud spit on the gravel near his boot, her jaw clenches until her high cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut wood. "It was much better than anything you've ever accomplished, you heartless butcher!" she retorted, her dark eyes drilling into his dead-fish gaze.
Onaga instantly stepped between them, his small frame pushing Aldo's well-proportioned body back by two full paces. He turned a stern, warning look toward the commander before looking back at Lourdes, his delicate face filled with a mixture of worry and exhaustion.
"Aldo, go over there and check the perimeter records," Onaga commanded firmly, his voice sharp. "Do not talk to her anymore. Seriously. Your diplomatic capability is practically non-existent, but your automatic provocation index is unmatched. Let me handle the communication."
Comtois plopped down onto a wooden ore crate, leaning his broad back against the stone wall as he grinned widely at the drama. "Go on, Lourdes," Comtois chuckled, waving his hand for her to continue. "Don't mind the commander. This is getting incredibly interesting. Tell us how the whole thing went down."
Lourdes Renaud turned her face away from them, her short-cut hair falling over her charcoal-smeared cheeks as her eyes fixated on the dark, empty void of the forest outside the cave mouth. Her muscular shoulders dropped, her voice slowing down into a quiet, heavy rhythm as the memory took hold of her mind.
"It happened during the third winter," Lourdes whispered, her voice raspy and devoid of its previous fury. "The Crushing of La Meute... that was the name of our cell. I had just reached the age of twenty-one. The Federation lords... they were growing desperate. The Earthling labor economy was on the absolute verge of total collapse because of our caravan raids. The High Council placed a massive, life-changing gold bounty on my head."
She paused, her chest rising and falling in a slow, painful motion. The wind outside the cave seemed to drop, the leaves of the giant oaks falling still as if the forest itself were listening to her words.
"The true tragedy..." she continued, her dark brown eyes turning completely glassy as she stared into the distance, "wasn't that the Federation outsmarted us on the battlefield. It wasn't their strategy that broke La Meute. It was human nature. Human nature broke us from the inside out. Two of the highest-ranking members of my own inner cell... men I had bled with in the trenches... they broke under the winter hunger. Tempted by the promises of full Federation citizenship and unlimited wealth, they sold out the exact coordinates of our primary cavern hideout."
She slowly raised her hands, turning her wrists upward into the thin shafts of sunlight cutting through the cave mouth.
Seeing her offer no resistance, Hano and Onaga slowly slackened their grip, stepping back. But as their eyes fell on her flesh, Onaga's eyes widened in absolute, horrified shock. Hano instantly raised his hand, covering his mouth as a rare look of pure surprise broke through his hyperactive mask. Even Comtois's goofy face went entirely blank, his broad shoulders tensing as a wave of deep unease settled over his solid frame.
Wrapped completely around her wrists, her ankles, and climbing up toward her neck were deep, horrific, surgical-like white scars—puckered and thick, showing the exact pattern of heavy, painfully tight iron ropes that had been torqued into her flesh until it tore down to the bone. It was a permanent, brutal reminder of the endless days of her interrogation at age twenty-one.
Aldo stepped closer, his dead-fish eyes dropping down to trace the deep scars on her wrists and neck with a steady, clinical intensity. He didn't flinch; his face remains a mask of smooth neutrality.
"The Mikhland army," Aldo stated plainly, his tone level, "which I am forced to assume is the primary military force of the Palantine Heilop, since my geographic data indicates you only rebelled within this specific river basin sector..."
Lourdes Renaud gave a short, tight nod, her teeth gritted as she lowered her hands. "They have mages," she says, her voice trembling with a deep, systemic anger. "Dozens of them. They burn the sky before the infantry even advances."
"I am aware of that capability," Aldo replied smoothly, his rosy lips closing for a brief second. "Did your cell ever directly encounter the PCA during those border operations?"
Lourdes Renaud's brow wrinkled into a deep, confused frown as she stared at the red-suited youth. "The... the what?" she questioned, her voice sharp with suspicion.
"You do not know?" Aldo asked, his vacant gaze unwavering.
"I met the brutal Federal Soldiers and the heavy Royal Heilop army," Lourdes snapped, her jaw tightening. "That is all that exists in these lands."
Aldo shook his head slightly, his tone remaining entirely plain and informative. "PCA stands for Professional Standing Army," Aldo explained, his voice sounding like a text registry. "It is a highly centralized, modern military institution currently operating within the borders of Heilop. It functions independently of standard feudal levies."
Lourdes Renaud's eyes squinted into tiny, dangerous slits as she looked at him, her high cheekbones hardening. "This feudal realm?" she scoffed, her voice filled with deep, intellectual disbelief. "A fully centralized, modern standing army in a world that hasn't even invented the printing press? The crown would go completely broke within a single season trying to maintain the logistics for an institution like that. The tax base cannot support it."
A tiny, nearly imperceptible flicker of light entered Aldo's dull, dead-fish eyes. His rosy lips tilted upward at the corners into a rare, sharp smile, his fair face briefly illuminating with a cold, intellectual satisfaction.
"You think exactly like I do," Aldo complimented her flatly, his voice carrying a genuine spark of professional appreciation. "The fiscal parameters are indeed highly unstable under the current feudal distribution model."
Aldo took a slow step forward, his well-proportioned body leaning slightly toward her as he narrowed his vacant gaze. "Tell me," Aldo asked, his voice dropping into a low, pressing cadence, "during your two years of active guerrilla operations, did your organization ever successfully develop any effective anti-magic counter-measures?"
Comtois instantly leaped up from his ore crate, his massive hand shooting out to grab Aldo's shoulder, dragging the commander back with an assertive grunt. "Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, Aldo!" Comtois warned loudly, his goofy face filled with sudden panic. "Don't go messing things up by digging into tactical field data right now! She's already wound up tighter than a crossbow string! Let the woman breathe!"
Aldo didn't move his eyes from Lourdes's face, his well-proportioned body resisting Comtois's grip with a stubborn, quiet strength. "I think this specific counter-intelligence variable will be highly important for our future operations," Aldo continued, ignoring the large youth completely.
Lourdes Renaud looked at Aldo's frozen features for a long moment, the sheer weight of his pragmatic focus catching her off guard. She let out a long, heavy breath, her matted hair shifting as she turned her head to look deeper into the cave, stepping into the center of the mouth where her rugged frame was silhouetted against the bright daylight.
"They didn't just use standard elemental spells," Lourdes said, her voice hollow. "When our hideouts were buried deep underground, the Heilop commanders used Subterranean and Arial Monsters to flush us out into the open trenches. Giant burrowing centipedes and iron-beaked griffins. You couldn't build a trench line deep enough to hide from them."
"But mages cannot create biological mass out of thin air," Aldo stated instantly, his mind analyzing the statement. "The energy expenditure would violate basic conservation laws."
Lourdes Renaud gave a sharp, sudden nod. "They don't create them. They use Summoning magic. Normally, the beasts are kept in massive, fortified breeding pens back at their primary military base, and there is a permanent, stone-carved summoning circle constructed underneath the pens. When the vanguard engages us on the battlefield, the mages immediately cast a synchronized spatial relocation spell right on our flanks. The monsters appear in a cloud of black smoke within seconds."
Comtois turned around, his goofy look returning as he rubbed his chin with his thick fingers. "Huh... spatial relocation," Comtois muttered, his voice deep and thoughtful. "So it's a logistics exploit. But what about the less conventional threats? Like... what about Necromancers? Did you ever have to fight a bunch of skeletons rising out of the dirt, or is that just a myth?"
Lourdes Renaud turned her gaze to Comtois, her expression grim. "I encountered a rogue Necromancer cell in the western marshes when I was twenty years old," she answered, her teeth gritted. "It looks terrifying when the dead start crawling out of the mud, but the tactical solution is actually incredibly simple. To completely subdue an entire Undead army, you don't waste your arrows on the bones. You just need to take down the primary Necromancer with a single, fatal blow. The moment his heart stops, the magic collapses, and the bones turn to dust."
Hano jumped forward, his restless energy returning. His hyperactive eyes darted across her scarred wrists as he tapped his chin with a relentless finger. "If they can exploit biological mass and spatial relocation, what about psychological warfare?" Hano asked rapidly, his voice sharp and full of energetic curiosity. "Shapeshifting? Mental charms? Did the Federation ever use infiltration spies that could blend right into your cell by changing their faces?"
Lourdes Renaud nodded firmly, her short hair whipping against her chin. "Yes," she said seriously. "That is exactly why your cell must set up a strict, multi-tiered password system for physical verification at every single outpost. If a man cannot give the morning phrase and the secondary gesture, you blade him instantly. No exceptions."
Aldo stepped forward again, his well-proportioned arm moving with mechanical grace as he extended his smooth, uncalloused hand directly toward her chest.
"We have exchanged a significant amount of tactical data," Aldo said, his voice flat and level. "Let me officially introduce myself. My name is—"
"I know exactly who you are," Lourdes Renaud interrupted, her voice sharp as she refused to take his hand.
She raised a rugged finger, pointing it directly at Comtois's massive chest, then swung it toward Hano. "That massive guy there, and the Heilop conscript here... everyone in this entire valley knows the names of the 204th. I am frankly astonished that you have come all the way to this dark corner to cooperate in a mine rebellion, acting as if you are some kind of pure beneficiaries within the system."
Her eyes narrowed to tiny points as she stared at Aldo's fair face, her lip curling with deep systemic bitterness.
"Slave-soldiers are paid well by the Federation," she spit, her voice dropping into a harsh rasp. "You are respected by the local populace. You are well-fed, your skin is clean, and you are never beaten with iron rods in the storehouses. Do you honestly think you are trustworthy and honest enough to lead a real revolution after what you did to Irina Sokolova and her northern cell?"