"I will wait here."
Faced with Carl's words, broadcast across all of Dogtown, the Barghest soldiers, New America personnel, and Dogtown residents alike were all bewildered and at a loss.
The amount of information in Carl's words was simply too overwhelming, and the time she gave them to process it was far too short.
As if she could not be bothered to say more, Carl simply laid everything openly before them.
Like the sun, she made no attempt to hide it—and had no disdain for hiding it.
There was no concealment, no deceptive phrasing. She merely laid the matter out in plain sight.
For people accustomed to censorship, deception, information shortages, and learning the truth only afterward, it was simply too clear, too bright.
Such transparency, enough for everyone to think clearly, brought a strange calm to the battlefield.
Soldiers, agents, and residents alike began to think over Carl's words.
And that was precisely what should not have been permitted in battle.
Because in war, obedience alone was supposed to be enough.
That had long been the idea instilled in the Barghest soldiers and New America personnel.
But perhaps people would never truly abandon their own thoughts, and the spark of independent thinking could never be wholly extinguished. Just as, near the end of World War I, eighty thousand German sailors rose up after a long period of numbness against the absurd order sending their fleet on a meaningless operation.
Under Carl's words, those caught up in war began to think.
For the Barghest soldiers, the situation was clear.
Colonel Hansen was dead. They had lost the reason they had fought for. Though Chester Bennett and Gago were still commanders, after Colonel Hansen lost contact during the earlier battle, neither had taken over command. Clearly, they had fled in advance,