So, by the decrees of the new defensive strategy, Aldo, Comtois, Hano, Onaga, and six other conscripted farmers are assigned to guard the main gates of a town called Rivermouth.
Rivermouth is located near Carravin, serving as a massive agricultural and logistical artery for the region. The town boasts a staggering registered population of 18,000 souls. It is a sprawling, chaotic tapestry of industry and nature colliding.
The town is entirely surrounded by vast, endless orchards of heavy-hanging apple and pear trees, their branches sagging under the weight of the summer harvest. Massive, towering earthen levees hold back the swollen, muddy waters of the great river, acting as artificial mountains protecting the lowlands. Beyond the levees lie endless floodplains, rich with dark, fertile soil, and a labyrinth of colossal wooden warehouses built to store the region's immense wealth.
Yet, despite its population, up to nearly twenty thousand souls, Rivermouth does not feel like a city. It wasn't as crowded and bustling as the glittering streets of Carravin. It feels hollowed out, a giant beast missing its vital organs.
One entire corner of Rivermouth is completely dominated by immense, towering grain storage silos, casting long, dark shadows over the cobblestone streets. Another vast sector, located right along the muddy banks of the rushing river, is dedicated entirely to barge maintenance areas. Here, Carravin's massive State Barges, known locally as the Stabans, come to rest in drydock to repair their heavy wooden hulls. The air here is perpetually thick with the smell of boiling pitch, rotting river weed, and raw sawdust.
Hano stands near the edge of the docks, his arms crossed over his chest, silently watching the repairs. Dozens of workers swarm over the massive wooden hull of a Staban, their heavy mallets striking iron nails in a rhythmic, deafening cacophony.
Nearby, the streets are lined with a specific, hyper-focused economy. There are rope makers pulling long strands of coarse hemp, fish sellers gutting massive river sturgeon on bloody wooden tables, and barrel makers violently hammering iron hoops over curved oak staves. The scent of raw fish, sweat, and wet wood is overpowering.
The ten men of the squad sit huddled together in a dark, shaded corner between a towering grain silo and a fishmonger's stall. The sheer, crushing boredom of guard duty has begun to set in. Occasionally, one of the conscripts gets up, pacing back and forth across the cobblestones, kicking at loose rocks, before sitting back down with a heavy sigh.
Comtois leans against the brick wall of the silo, his massive arms crossed, his head tilted back.
"LMAO," Comtois groans loudly, stretching his legs out. "Being a guard is so incredibly boring! Aldo, I swear to the gods, I'd rather be on duty in a faraway place. Getting shot at is much more interesting than watching old men hammer nails into a boat."
Comtois turns his head, a nostalgic, dreamy look crossing his scarred face. "I miss the Pine Highlands in Pirus. The smell of the evergreen needles, the crisp air. Or the snowy mountains of Erikas! Gods, the snow there was pure white, and the ale..."
Idiot, Aldo's internal monologue flares. He snaps his head toward Comtois, his eyes wide with sudden, urgent warning.
"Do not mention Erikas," Aldo hisses, his voice dropping to a harsh, dangerous whisper.
Comtois blinks, confused. "Why?"
"Mentioning Erikas," Aldo explains, leaning in close so the locals cannot hear, "means mentioning Irina Sokolova. And it seems that merely mentioning her name makes Volkov absolutely furious."
Aldo pauses, his mind rapidly calculating the geopolitical rumors he had absorbed over the years. "It is highly probable that it's because of some old communist comrade affiliation, or perhaps a bitter, tragic love affair from his past. Either way, it is a trigger we do not pull."
Comtois' eyes widen in sheer panic. He throws his massive hands over his mouth, violently shaking his head. He pulls his hands away just enough to shout in a frantic, stage-whisper.
"PLEASE DON'T MENTION VOLKOV!" Comtois shouts, looking around nervously as if the rebel leader might materialize from the fish market. "HE IS SO UNCOOOL!"
Aldo lets out a long, tired breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Uh, uh. I know, Comtois. I know. Just keep your voice down."
A few yards away, in the dusty corner of a rope-making stall, Hano squats down. He watches a group of workers methodically twisting long, rough strands of hemp into thick mooring lines. The friction of the hemp fills the air with a fine, golden dust that dances in the sunlight.
Hano's eyes narrow as he studies the workers. He turns to an elderly rope maker, a man whose skin is as cracked and brown as the hemp he works, his back permanently bowed from decades of labor.
"Tell me something, old timer," Hano asks gently, gesturing to the surrounding stalls. "Why are there only middle-aged and older people working here? Where have all the children gone? A town of this size should be swarming with youth."
The old man pauses his spinning wheel. He looks at Hano, his eyes clouded with cataracts and deep, weary sorrow. He coughs, a dry, rattling sound.
"The children," the old man says in a hoarse, grating voice, "have all gone to Carravin to work." He looks down at his gnarled, calloused hands. "They've been doing that for almost twenty years now. The factories there... they hunger for small hands. Children as young as thirteen or fourteen years old pack their bags and go there to find work in the mills and the foundries. They don't stay here. There is nothing left here but the mud and the rope."
Beside the old man, a middle-aged woman supervising the rope braiding pauses her work. She wipes a smear of sweat and hemp dust from her forehead with the back of her wrist and lets out a long, shuddering sigh.
"Rivermouth used to be a proper city," the woman says softly, staring out at the murky river water. "Twenty years ago, we had about forty thousand people living right here in the center, bustling, alive. But now? The core population is less than half of what it was. It's just a big, hollowed-out town that services the barges."
The old rope maker turns his head slowly toward the woman. "Is your boy still in Carravin, Ella?" he asks gently.
The middle-aged woman bites her lower lip, her eyes shining with unshed tears. She nods slowly, confirming it. "Yes. He works the loom in the third district. I haven't seen his face in three harvests."
Onaga, standing nearby and listening to the exchange, crosses his arms. A deep frown settles over his stoic face. He looks at Aldo, his voice low.
"This situation is remarkably similar to our Earth, isn't it, Captain?" Onaga muses, his mind flashing back to the industrial revolutions and rural flight of his home world. "The aggressive urbanization. The hollowing out of the countryside to feed the industrial machine."
"Not at all," Aldo replies instantly, his voice a cold, statistical blade cutting through Onaga's philosophical comparison. Aldo steps forward, his analytical mind dominating the conversation. "This is not a natural economic migration. It is an engineered consolidation of power. It's just that Duke Ferris II aggressively urbanized Carravin through specific tax decrees."
Aldo looks out over the massive levees, his eyes seeing not the landscape, but the geopolitical borders of the duchy.
"Carravin was originally six completely independent towns," Aldo explains, his voice steady and authoritative. "They were situated in a beautiful, highly strategic location along the river bend, and they were already wealthy. Duke Ferris simply merged them together through political force, centralized the infrastructure, and forcefully redirected the labor pool to make it even wealthier at the expense of the surrounding parishes."
The old rope maker stops his wheel completely, staring at Aldo with wide, surprised eyes.
"You know your history, soldier," the old man says, his hoarse voice filled with awe. "Twenty harvest seasons ago, I remember the census clearly. The city of Basbourg had twenty-four thousand souls. And Carravin only had twenty thousand." The old man leans forward, his eyes searching Aldo's face. "Now, they say Basbourg has grown to forty-eight thousand. But... how much does Carravin have now? Truly?"
Aldo looks the old man dead in the eye, his voice devoid of any emotion, delivering the staggering, cold reality of the Duke's engineering.
"About one hundred and forty thousand," Aldo replies precisely. "To be exact, one hundred and forty-four thousand as of the last winter census. And with the recent influx of refugees from the northern borders, today it has reached one hundred and forty-five thousand."
The rope maker, the middle-aged woman, and the surrounding fish sellers freeze. They stare at Aldo, utterly surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer, terrifying scale of the demographic shift. A city that had multiplied its population by seven times in two decades, sucking the lifeblood out of the entire region.
Suddenly, Comtois breaks the heavy atmosphere. He reaches out, grabbing Aldo's armored arm and physically pulling him away from the locals.
"Captain of the 204th Company," Comtois whines, his massive frame slumping in exaggerated agony, completely ignoring the socioeconomic tragedy they had just discussed. "I'm bored. I am so incredibly bored."
Aldo rips his arm out of Comtois' grip, glaring at the giant. "Captain of the 205th Company," Aldo fires back, using their formal, albeit mocking, ranks. "Think of something to play. Find a rock to kick. Or," Aldo pauses, his mind shifting to their unfinished logistical tasks, "let's finish the remaining days of surveying with Isabetta."
Aldo crosses his arms, looking at the distant river. "We intended to complete her seven-day contract to formally survey the topography of Thromium by July 12th. But after just a few days, she got dragged away to do various other things for the high command. And now, look at the calendar. It's July 25th."
Comtois shrugs his massive shoulders. "Oh well," he says dismissively, reaching into a heavy leather satchel slung across his back. "She's still doing it herself anyway."
Comtois pulls out a large, rolled parchment. He unties the leather thong and unrolls it across a wooden barrel, revealing a highly detailed, meticulously drawn topographical map of the region, complete with elevation lines, river depths, and forest density.
"She gave it to us already," Comtois says, tapping the map with a thick finger. He looks up at Aldo. "And you paid her when you hired her, right?"
Aldo nods once. "In full. With silver."
Comtois rolls the map back up. "Well, there you go. Now that she's finished her contract, she's packed up and returned to the Republic of Ofliran. She's out of this mess."
Aldo's mind immediately jumps to their other intelligence assets scattered across the continent. "Has Lourdes Renauld reached central Heilop yet?"
Comtois reaches into a different pocket of his satchel, pulling out a small, crumpled piece of parchment sealed with blue wax. He hands it to Aldo.
"Your soldier, Ryong Min Ki, has formally confirmed it via raven," Comtois says, a hint of respect in his voice for the vast intelligence network Aldo manages. "Here's the letter."
Aldo takes the letter, cracking the wax and scanning the ciphered text rapidly. He nods, satisfied.
"And Koch too," Aldo murmurs, folding the letter and slipping it into his coat. "She's still embedded at Duke Ferris's mansion, diligently gathering information from the nobles for us. The aristocracy talks when they think the servants don't understand the language."
Comtois throws his hands up in the air, his face contorting in frustration. "Wait, wait! Calm down, Aldo! I need something to do right now. Stop talking about spies and geography. Don't change the subject from my profound boredom!"
Aldo looks at the massive, petulant warrior. He lets out a long, heavy sigh, realizing that confining Comtois to a corner is like trying to keep a thunderstorm in a jar.
"Fine," Aldo says, his tone softening slightly. He points a finger at Comtois' chest. "You can go wherever you want in this town, and do whatever you want."
Comtois's eyes instantly light up like a child on a festival day. A massive, beaming grin splits his scarred face. "Really?!" he asks, bouncing slightly on his heels.
Aldo narrows his eyes, pointing his finger downward at the cobblestones. "Yes. Just do not leave the perimeter of Rivermouth. Stay within the town walls."
Comtois doesn't wait for another word. He spins on his heel and literally runs off down the cobblestone street, his heavy armor clanking loudly, scattering a flock of pigeons into the air. Hano, Onaga, and the six conscripts, eager for any distraction, immediately abandon their post and follow him, jogging down the street toward the taverns and the fish markets.
Aldo watches them go, shaking his head. He turns back toward the river, intending to study the barge traffic, when he feels a sudden, intense vibration against his hip.
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the Communication Orb that Officer Watkins had given him. The crystal sphere is glowing violently, a bright, pulsating crimson light that indicates a maximum-level emergency.
Aldo grips the orb, channeling a sliver of mana to open the connection.
"Aldo!" Watkins' voice crackles through the orb, distorted by static but thick with raw panic. "We have trouble! The rebel vanguard has broken through the northern lines. I need your squad to head to the main camp immediately!"
Aldo's posture instantly snaps from relaxed to rigid combat readiness. His eyes scan the horizon, looking for smoke.
"Boss," Aldo speaks into the orb, his voice calm, cutting through Watkins' panic. "You haven't told me where the new main camp is. It used to be located in Formasia, but our scouts confirmed it's not there anymore."
"Carravin!" Watkins shouts over the orb, the sound of distant musket fire echoing in the background. "Get to Carravin immediately!"
Aldo turns, his eyes locking onto the massive river that flows directly toward the capital. He raises two fingers to his mouth and lets out a piercing, shrill whistle that cuts through the noise of the entire market.
Down the street, Comtois, Hano, and the others freeze. They turn, see Aldo frantically waving them back, and let out a collective, miserable groan. The sighs and groans of the other nine men are audible even from fifty yards away as they grudgingly jog back to the docks, their brief moment of freedom shattered.
As they arrive, Aldo doesn't waste time explaining. He throws a heavy pouch of silver coins at a terrified local fisherman, commandeering a sleek, narrow wooden boat tied to the dock.
"Get in!" Aldo barks, leaping into the bow of the boat.
The entire squad scrambles aboard, their heavy armor making the small wooden vessel rock violently in the muddy water. Aldo grabs the rudder, untying the mooring line. They are going to sail straight upstream from Rivermouth directly to Carravin.
"Watkins," Aldo speaks back into the orb as the boat pushes away from the dock. "Where exactly in Carravin?"
"It's in District Edmundia of Carravin!" Watkins yells, his voice fading. "Just get here!"
"Understood," Aldo replies, crushing the connection and shoving the orb back into his pocket. He turns to the squad, his face a mask of absolute lethal focus.
"Hold your weapons steady," Aldo commands, his eyes locking onto the rushing river ahead. "We'll follow the main current. We'll go to Aldoria, a lower district of Carravin, and then push straight through to Edmundia."
Comtois, sitting in the center of the boat, gripping the wooden thwarts with white knuckles, looks up. The wind whips his hair across his face.
"Aldoria?" Comtois asks, his brow furrowing. "When the hell did you found a district, Aldo?"
Aldo doesn't even blink. He keeps his eyes fixed on the treacherous river currents ahead. "Someone named Aldo the Shipwright founded Aldoria in the year 1135. He was a master carpenter. It was one of the original six towns that eventually made up the Carravin district. It has absolutely nothing to do with me."
Comtois stares at Aldo for a second, processing the history lesson in the middle of a military crisis, before throwing his hands up.
"ROAD!" the entire squad explains in unison, a chaotic, collective shout of adrenaline and frustration, demanding speed.
Comtois reaches into his heavy leather satchel once more, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. From the depths of the bag, he pulls out a bizarre, heavy iron contraption—a magical jetpack, purchased from a black-market artificer, retrofitted with heavy leather straps and glowing blue mana-thrusters.
"Hold on to your asses!" Comtois roars.
He slams the magical jetpack down onto the rear wooden transom of the boat, ignoring Aldo's shout of warning, and violently pulls the ignition lever.
BOOM!
A blinding, roaring torrent of blue magical fire erupts from the thrusters. The sheer kinetic force of the blast hits the water, instantly vaporizing the river into a massive cloud of hissing white steam.
The small wooden boat lurches forward with terrifying, neck-snapping velocity. It doesn't just sail upstream; it practically flies across the surface of the water, skipping violently over the waves like a skipped stone. The violent acceleration nearly sends the entire heavily armored crew tumbling backward over the wooden gunwales into the raging, foaming river, as the boat streaks like a comet toward the looming, smoke-filled skyline of Carravin.