"If this dispatch ever resurfaces in the world, then I must have already been eliminated from this realm by your hands, correct? To the enemies of Reunion who read these words..."
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Zach Ivan, the supreme commander of this frontier deployment. Congratulations to you all; you have successfully slain the highest guiding authority of this military force."
"Though these sentences may serve very little purpose now, I must still tell you: there is no need to feel any sorrow regarding my passing, for I was never a good man to begin with..."
If you knew you weren't a good person, why on earth did you bother writing that line? Both Jeanne and Talulah thought simultaneously, a shared urge to criticize the text rising within them, though neither voiced the sentiment aloud.
The two friends simply exchanged a complex glance. They couldn't fathom what kind of inner conflict had driven this commander to compose such a final testament before the opening clash.
"I am not jesting. I consider myself someone who has lost the right to be called human. The innocent Ursus citizens who perished under my direction, and the countless outcasts we forcibly infected with Oripathy over the years... I have long since lost count of the victims. We do not deserve forgiveness."
"Arriving at this final hour, I no longer wish to contemplate how I degenerated into such a monster. But I intend to leave a record of everything I have experienced within these pages. I have preserved the full log of the atrocities we executed on behalf of those high nobles here. If your scouts manage to uncover this container, I hope these items prove useful to your cause..."
"Hurry, help me search! Where did he hide the evidence he mentioned? The gale is fierce out here; don't let a stray gust blow those records away!"
Reading up to this point, Talulah hurriedly began sorting through the scattered items inside the lockbox, eager to see what sort of dark evidence had been preserved. She wanted to know just how depraved those aristocratic patrons truly were.
Yet, aside from the thick leather ledger that resembled a standard accounting book, the Draco leader could find nothing else that could be classified as a record of criminal behavior. Had the crucial evidence already vanished?
"Look at you, always acting so rashly when there is work to be done. Moving with such impatience, how do you expect to lead our people properly?"
Jeanne sat calmly on a nearby crate, offering a soft sigh as she reached out to pat Talulah's head. She reached into the pile of valuable valuables, selected a few heavy bullion bars, and snapped them in half with a sudden exertion of brute strength.
Sure enough, nestled within the hollow centers of the bars were a few rolls of miniature microfilm, accompanied by a compact data storage drive. It appeared the commander had secretly recorded his private audiences with the high nobles.
"To think that a scoundrel like him... actually managed to execute a single decent deed before his demise," Talulah remarked, staring at the hidden drives. If these files could be delivered to someone intent on tearing down those aristocratic factions, they would possess immense strategic value.
And as it happened, they knew a certain prominent figure who dreamed of acquiring exactly this kind of leverage. That great individual would be overjoyed to receive these files.
"No, he wasn't trying to perform a good deed. He was simply seeking retribution," Jeanne countered directly, shattering Talulah's naive hope that the fallen commander possessed a microscopic shred of human conscience. "He couldn't accept the reality of his own inevitable demise. Even if he had to perish, he wanted to drag his employers down to the grave alongside him. That is his true motive."
It was a classic manifestation of a bitter mindset: even if I am destroyed, I shall ensure your lives become a living hell.
Jeanne quickly gathered the microfilms and the drive, intending to return to the mobile city first to examine the contents of the evidence. It would also satisfy her curiosity regarding just how deeply the aristocracy of Ursus had fallen into depravity.
"Hey, wait for me! I want to see what is on those drives too!" Talulah called out, hurrying to keep pace as Jeanne turned to head back toward the transport sector.
Along the way, they crossed paths with FrostNova and Patriot. Upon learning of the discovery, the two veterans quickly dispatched their personnel to finalize the salvage operation before joining the inner circle back at the mobile city, eager to witness the secrets preserved within the storage device.
And what was the consensus after reviewing the data? Jeanne's immediate reaction was a profound regret for ever opening the files. The images and recordings left her with zero appetite for the next three days; the mere sight of rations made her stomach turn with intense nausea.
Beside her, the leaders of the movement stood in absolute silence, the atmosphere within the command chamber turning incredibly heavy as a complex storm of emotions stirred within their hearts. Yet, as those varied feelings clashed, they ultimately coalesced into a single, dominant sentiment.
That sentiment was pure, unadulterated fury.
While everyone present had always understood that the imperial officers of the frontier were corrupt, none had anticipated the nobles would be even worse. Calling those entities 'human' felt like a direct insult to the species.
Just how disgusting were these high nobles? To put it plainly, when contrasted with the deeds recorded on these files, the old serpent Kashchey appeared as a saint radiating pure mercy. The Duke was practically the most moral individual within the entire aristocracy!
Among the atrocities the border army had executed under the explicit direction of their patrons, actions like capturing innocent civilians to falsely label them as infected, or seizing young women from the villages, could only be categorized as minor mischief compared to the deeper horrors.
These aristocrats took pleasure in treating human lives as disposable toys within their territories. They viewed the citizens residing outside the safety of the mobile cities as a lower tier of biological specimens, and a few individuals had even developed a twisted appetite for cannibalism!
This behavior bore absolutely no relation to the sacred traditions of the Wendigos. As for Patriot, he rebelled against traditional Wendigo customs and despised the cannibalistic rituals associated with his race. He never engaged in them, having forsaken Kazdel's court to distance his tribe from those practices.
Yet these high nobles indulged in cannibalism and bathed in the fresh blood of young children purely out of distorted, psychopathic desires. The revelation was so severe that even Jeanne felt a sudden, powerful impulse to summon Fafnir and burn their estates to ash.
"These monsters... they no longer possess the right to call themselves the nobility of Ursus! They are nothing more than malevolent ghouls feeding upon the corpse of this empire!"
The individual experiencing the greatest fury among them was Patriot. Witnessing the absolute decay of the nation he had spent centuries defending, the veteran warrior wished nothing more than to march straight into the capital of Deity Grypherburg, point his great halberd at the Emperor's brow, and unleash a torrent of curses.
Are you an absolute fool? the old soldier thought. As the reigning sovereign, how could you permit your domain to rot to this extent? A common hound seated upon that throne would perform a more admirable job than you.
If Patriot's previous departure from the imperial army had been driven by a profound disappointment in the crown, his current state had descended into absolute despair. Were it not for the fact that his people had nowhere else to turn and his hope for Reunion, he would have severed his ties with Ursus entirely.
"I believe we can still coordinate our movements with the Emperor, but we must maintain a strict distance," Talulah observed, her eyes turning cold as she stared at the display. Her impression of the young sovereign dropped significantly, and she began to question if the crown even possessed the strength to challenge the aristocratic factions.
This went far beyond a simple dispersion of central authority; the Emperor had been entirely reduced to a minor puppet in the eyes of the nobility. Could he truly claim he hadn't been completely stripped of his power?
Meanwhile, far away in the capital, the current Emperor of Ursus had naturally received word of these developments. Since Talulah hadn't demanded that Kashchey conceal the details of the engagement, the old serpent had delivered the full summary directly to the palace.
Upon reviewing the reports, Emperor Fyodor unleashed his fury, shattering his heavy mahogany desk with a single, powerful strike of his palm. He had certainly encountered rumors regarding the cruel tendencies of the border lords, but entities who indulged in such depravity had zero right to be counted among humankind!
In the years following his father's passing—no, even while the old Emperor was still drawing breath—just how many foul monsters had the empire nurtured within its borders?
He understood that this crisis was the direct result of a fractured central authority. In the past, Ursus had granted immense privileges to the aristocracy to fuel its territorial expansion, but in the modern era, those very privileges had transformed into a terminal disease threatening the empire's survival.
"Kashchey, convey my instructions to Talulah. If their vanguard intends to publicize these documents, I can assist them in locating a trustworthy... No, let them select their own channel. I believe the Messengers of the Laterano Curia would serve as an excellent choice."
Fyodor's gaze turned incredibly sharp. Even if Reunion lacked the desire to expose the scandal, he would demand a copy of the files from Talulah to present to those foreign envoys himself.
He was fully prepared to endure the international condemnation that the nations of Terra would level against the reputation of Ursus, all for the sake of tearing away the masks of these corrupt factions. The rot has gotten so severe that he has no choice but inflict harm upon himself to get rid of it.
The empire required a grand purge—a cleansing far more terrifying than anything executed during his father's reign. And this time, regardless of who attempted to block his path, he would utilize every resource at his disposal to crush them into dust.
Even if he had to seek external alliances, and even if the empire's military strength retrograded by five or ten years as a consequence, Ursus would welcome a bloody, necessary reformation.